Holland’s Ego looks to change laptop perceptions

Ego Lifestyle BV thinks notebook computer design is boring.

“The notebook hasn’t changed in 20 years,” said Jeroen de Punder, managing director of the Dutch company, in an interview at this week’s Cebit IT show in Germany. “Look at the cars we had 20 years ago compared with those we have today. They look completely different but notebooks are all specs and techs. But notebooks work fine these days so people don’t care about the speed of the processor anymore.”

In response Ego Lifestyle set about trying to come up with a new design for a notebook PC and ended up with a machine reminiscent of Apple Computer Inc.’s clamshell iBook circa 1999, with large rounded edges and a carrying handle built into the area around the computer’s hinge. Ego’s machine, though, has interchangeable skins so its look can be switched with minimal effort between at least nine different designs already offered.

This design brought with it some problems. The circuit boards used in notebook PCs are square and won’t fit easily into the new machine, so Ego Lifestyle designed its own board to make the most of the space available. Fitting four speakers and a subwoofer into the machine for a rich sound meant putting them behind the screen.

Ego has also added a line of 15 dedicated keys along the top of the keyboard to activate certain functions. Included here is a back-up function that stores user data to a dedicated portion of the hard-disk drive so that it’s always available should the system need to be re-installed. There’s also an e-mail hotkey that provides quick access to Outlook data through an embedded Linux system so Windows doesn’t have to be started up.

The computer went on sale this week as the Cebit show began, said De Punder. The company plans to sell it in top-end PC retailers and places more usually associated with fashion, such as department stores and airport boutiques, he said. It’s also available through the company’s Web site, at www.ego-lifestyle.com.

Users get one skin for the machine when they buy it, and are directed online to order a second skin at no cost.

The target market is definitely not your average laptop buyer. De Punder is aiming for users he described as “technofashionistas,” which he said is someone who is interested in fashion, design and technology. The notebooks have a price to match this glamorous market: they will cost €3,340 (US$3975). For those who just have to know, that buys an AMD Turion 64-bit microprocessor with 1G byte of memory, an 80G-byte hard disk drive, a DVD+/-RW drive and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless interfaces.

Right now the company is focused on launching the new machines and getting production under way. It only has the capacity to make 250 machines in the first month and 500 machines in the second month, said De Punder. Further ahead the company, which is part of the Tulip Computers International BV group, is planning additional machines including a desktop.

The company is also looking at getting the computers into the U.S. market, probably through Nieman Marcus department stores and The Sharper Image, said De Punder.