gadget GYAN

Stylish Laptops

Written by Ujjawal Singh Friday, 28 December 2007 06:57

The world's no. two PC maker went colour in June 2007. The company introduced a range of laptops and desktops in eight bold colours -- flamingo pink, sunshine yellow, spring green, alpine white, ruby red, jet black, midnight blue and espresso -- with a satin-like finish on the lid.

The new Inspiron products are designed to look and feel sleeker, thinner and lighter than the existing lineup. Specs-wise too, the machines come with high-end features including fingerprint recognition and built-in modems compatible with wireless Internet.

Analysts view the business PC maker's move to go colour as an attempt to push up sales following a depressing downturn in its marketshare. The company advertised the new range with message, "Yours is Here," written in alternating colors that match the machines.

However, Dell's colour launch went a bit awry, with the company's much-touted range of colourful laptops getting hit by a paint problem. Dell is now offering colour kits to spruce up the `defective' laptops.

Taiwanese hardware manufacturer added dash of colour to his laptops in 2003. Amongst the glitz of the Grand Prix, Acer and Ferrari unveiled its Ferrari series. Crafted with a thin and light carbon fiber casing, the notebook came wrapped in black and Ferrari red colours.

In the entire range, Ferrari 3000 was the only notebook to sport Ferrari Red colour. The hottest thing about the Acer Ferrari 3000 was its four-coat paint and the gold Ferrari logo. The company has been an official IT products supplier to Ferrari globally since 2003.

In July this year, Acer launched a range of notebooks based on Intel Centrino Duo processor technology. Leading the pack is Aspire Gemstone targetted at the fashion-conscious buyer. The company worked with the design subsidiary of BMW AG for the revamp of Aspire, its mass market consumer notebook PC.

The curvy design of the sleek black casing is reminiscent of the curves automobiles have taken on in recent years. The distinctively-designed notebook offers Dolby home theatre for virtual surround sound effect, 'empowering key' for enhanced security and touch-sensitive media keys, 15.4 inch TFT screen, eight-cell battery and a camera.

Sony -- known for its lifestyle laptops -- went colour in 2005 with its F-series line, which introduced Sony Vaios in white, pink, green and blue colours. The slimline F series Vaios came in F20, F30, F50, and F70 flavours.

The company which leads the laptop-as-fashion-accessory movement launched its C-series and FJ-series models in varied hues when other manufacturers were just starting to experiment with colours beyond black and grey.

This June, the company introduced a new line of notebooks featuring eye-popping colours and a chic design -- Vaio CR series.

Trimmed in silver, the CR notebooks come in what Sony calls five "fashion-forward" colours: sangria, cosmopolitan, dove, indigo and black (matte finish). The notebooks will also have an LED light that pulsates when the machine is booting, shutting down or hibernating.

The CR series is no different, featuring a case that is brimming with colour, right down to the touch pad. Completing the look, each CR notebook comes with its own funky VAIO branded wallpaper and optional colour-coordinated carrying bag and mouse.

Apple is the company who first added zing to its computer in 1998 when it launched egg-shaped iMac enclosed in coloured, translucent plastic. The candy-coloured line of iMac computers were described by Forbes as being an "industry-altering success." Thanks in part to the iMac, the year 1998 turned out to be Apple's first profitable year since 1993.

While rival PC manufacturers struggled to duplicate the appeal of the bondi blue iMac in their own products, Apple lead its coloured iMac revolution through seven revisions and thirteen colour variations.

Apple followed its inaugural bondi blue iMac with models dressed in flavorful hues called Strawberry, Lime, Grape, Blueberry and Tangerine. It also unveiled iBooks in the latter two flavors and subsequently followed it with a graphite coloured iMac special edition.

After introducing refreshed iMac models in 2000 bearing Ruby, Snow and Indigo-coloured translucent plastics, the company came out with two additional models wrapped in Flower Power and Blue Dalmation patterns.

However, by 2001 Apple's design team progressively abandoned the flashy colours and dropped the patterned and coloured iMacs altogether. This began with the 2001 release of the titanium PowerBook and was followed by the 2001 white iBook, the 2002 flat-panel iMac, the 2003 Power Mac G5, and the 2004 Apple Cinema Displays.

It has been several years since the company rolled a flamboyant Mac off its assembly lines. However, with the recent success of its black-coloured iPods and multi-coloured iPod minis, there have been rumours that the company may once again be "thinking differently" about the appearance of its upcoming MacBook consumer notebooks.