Acer should have known better

I realise that in many people's eye, Dubai and style go hand in hand. As a guy who has spent a large amount of his life working with computers, I've never been terribly interested in style, but would it kill anyone to include just a bit of substance to go with said style?

Is it really necessary to try to impose style on a laptop at all? In the last year I've seen leather-covered and luxury-car labelled laptops. I've even seen a Las Vegas showgirl carry one like it was a piece of artwork.

There's nothing wrong with having a stylish laptop. Alienware's been putting out a styling line for year (well, before Dell bought them out), but the difference is that they don't let form rule over function. That can't be said for some of the other monstrosities out there.

Now, I've written about this before, but what really set me off last week was a release sent out by Acer about their new Ferrari 1100 laptop. The statement says that "tech-savvy customers across the Middle East region will appreciate the precision-driven supremacy and the power design elements the 1100 represents".

That's rubbish, and this is coming from a guy who usually defends Acer. The Ferrari 1100 is just a laptop that someone slapped a Ferrari logo onto. Ferrari technicians didn't build the thing, and if they did, then I certainly don't want to buy it. The release does say the computer has a dual-core chip and it is relatively light, although 1.95 kilos isn't exactly state of the art.

The problem is, if people in Dubai buy into this idea of a car-logoed laptop as the pinnacle in computing, it's just going to show the rest of the world that we place no value on real technology.

Inner beauty

The style in real technology comes from what's inside the computer, and the exclusivity - an overused term in Dubai - comes from having the latest hardware. Listen to those who really know technology. They almost speak another language, which includes words like over-clocked, open bios and RAM. Their idea of styling is a system that can connect wirelessly through concrete walls.

The problem with making laptops stylish, in a pre-Dell, Alienware sort of way, is that most computers are all made by two or three companies that you've never heard of. Whether you own a Viao, Dell, Acer or any of the other brands, odds are that the chassis, ie the main body of your computer, rolled off an assembly line owned by Quanta, Compal or Wistron, just to name the big three. All the laptop companies do is insert the components, again often made by third parties such as Intel, ATI or Hitachi. Then they slap a few stickers on it and send it on its way. In a system like that, there is really no chance for anything as creative as style.

But that doesn't excuse Acer from the Ferrari labeling. Acer should know better. It has built its reputation on solid computers at reasonable prices. Save the Ferrari decals for the car nuts.