MOT Motorola Solutions

By Rex Crum

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) -- Is it possible that Dell Inc. could become cool?

Aside from a brief ad campaign centered around the Dell Dude a few years back, the words "Dell" and "cool" would rarely be found together. That was partly because the Round Rock, Texas-based PC maker stuck to a build-to-order business model, which while profitable, also contributed to an image of Dell being like a stodgy old car company. Buying a PC from Dell recalled Henry Ford's old saying about being able to buy a Ford in any color you want, "as long as it's black."

Now, Dell (DELL) is lifting the wraps on a new line of products -- including a family of fashionable, high-end laptops -- designed to inject some sizzle into the company's brand as it competes more with rivals in the retail market.

The company also faces the challenge of getting consumers to pay up for high-end devices in the middle of an economic slump that has crimped the company's business.

Last month, Dell reported earnings had plunged 48% for the fourth fiscal quarter as overall PC sales dried up, along with demand for other forms of high-tech gear. Sales in the company's "mobility" unit, which include notebooks and have been a relatively strong performer in the past, fell 17% from the prior year.

Two years ago, Dell hired Ron Garriques, a former Motorola Inc. (MOT) executive brought in to head up the company's entire consumer-products business, as well as an expansion into retail markets in the U.S. and abroad. The company then started out on a controversial path to become more consumer friendly and establish itself in a market already dominated by the likes of Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ), with it presence in more than 80,000 retail outlets and Apple Inc. (AAPL) and its more than 200 Apple stores around the world.

"We had the handcuffs taken off," said John New, director of consumer marketing for Dell, in reference to the company's emphasis on design and aesthetics. "We said that we had to do consumer products for consumers."

Although the market for consumer PCs is shaky due to the economic downturn, that hasn't stopped Dell from pursuing its new strategy. And the results are such that Dell's latest consumer offerings are quite distinguishable from their products of a couple of years ago.

Probably few things illustrate the lengths Dell has come than the release -- announced Tuesday morning -- of the Adamo line of high-end notebook PCs. Dell unashamedly calls Adamo "a luxury brand notebook design for the luxury conscious consumer," and set a starting price of $1,999 for what it says is the thinnest notebook on the market. And unlike its other PCs, where it promotes its technical specifications, the Adamo is all about image, design and style.

"We're focusing on the fashion instead of the IT [information technology]," New said. "We want the user to be presented with this and feel special about what they're getting."

As part of that philosophy, Dell has also done away with traditional colors for the Adamo, saying the notebook comes in the colors "pearl" and "onyx." The Adamo is billed as the thinnest notebook on the market, measuring 0.65 inches thick, and is machine-processed from a single piece of aluminum.

New added that instead of making the notebook "look like a Nascar" race car, with stickers advertising the processors and operating system inside of Adamo, there will be no names on the notebook's exterior other than small Dell and Adamo logos.

Dell has also signed up the fashion line Tumi to design bags specifically for carrying the Adamo notebook.

The launch of the Adamo line is seen by Dell as the pinnacle of its latest round of design efforts, which include the additions of its Inspiron Mini 9 and Mini 10 netbooks and its new Studio One 19 touch-screen desktop PC.

The company has also launched its Dell Design Studio, where notebook buyers can choose from more than 100 design options from designers such as Tristan Eaton, Mike Ming and Joseph Amedokpo.

"It's taken them a while, but they seem to have gotten the point that design does matter," said Rob Enderle, director of research firm the Enderle Group. "They view the Adamo, in particular, as a piece of art."

Enderle said it's no secret who Dell is going after, as he contrasts the Adamo with Apple's MacBook Air. The Adamo comes with a 13.4-inch screen, runs on Intel Corp.'s Core 2 Duo processor, comes with 2-gigabytes of DDR memory and a 128GB solid state drive, and weighs less than four pounds.

The MacBook Air is almost similar in its technical specifications to the Adamo, and Apple even claims that the MacBook Air is the world's thinnest notebook, as it starts at 0.76 inches thick and tapers to 0.16 inches, and weighs three pounds. The MacBook Air comes in two versions, starting at $1,799 and $2,499.

But Enderle says one major difference between the two notebooks is how they each feel to the users. "The Adamo just feels more substantial."

And while notebook makers often tout how light they can make their products, Dell's New doesn't shy away from saying that the company wasn't about to completely sacrifice its notebooks' strength.

"We are definitely trying to shift the perception of Dell to one of fashion and style," New said. "But we're not going to do a piece of jewelry just to do one."