X
Business

Dell shows early signs of some design chops

When Michael Dell took the reins of his namesake company back better product designs were high on his to-do list. Now there are a few are early signs that Dell is making progress.
Written by Larry Dignan, Contributor

When Michael Dell took the reins of his namesake company back better

product designs were high on his to-do list. Now there are a few are early signs that Dell is making progress.

First the caveat: Dell isn't Apple. Its PCs aren't a work of art. But there is improvement that could result in market share momentum.

Today Dell officially announced the XPS 420 (Dell blog, press release), a multimedia PC that starts at $1,499 carries some interesting features. Among them:

  • A small LCD screen on the top of the XPS that shows Microsoft's SideShow and other third party gadgets. Think a stock ticker or RSS feed on top of your PC.

  • The XPS 420 also has top panels that mesh well with home theatre systems. And there's also storage for cables and places to dock your various gadgets.
  • On the software side of the equation, the XPS comes bundled with Adobe Elements Studio for better video and photo editing.

The XPS 420, which is evidence that the XPS line is moving away from being a gaming brand to a premium PC brand, is just the latest data point that Dell gets this design thing--at least a little (it even announced a new LCD with built-in Web cam).

But when you couple the XPS 420 with its colorful laptops (we'll overlook the previous shipment issues for now) you get some early data points that Dell can be a contender. Is Dell going to suddenly transform into Apple? No. But it has more of a design clue than the company did a year ago. For now, that counts as progress.

Editorial standards