Hip-e computer wants to catch teen eye
By Brian Bergstein and May Wong
Associated Press
This isn't your typical, humdrum-looking computer. The screen and keyboard of the hip-e PC are framed in fuzzy pink fur. Or a leopard skin design. Or a graffiti-themed pattern.
Associated Press
The creators of the $1,699 hip-e tout it as the first PC specifically for teenagers.
A hip-e computer is demonstrated to teens at a mall in North Attleboro, Mass. The flashy start-up graphics and detachable speakers are design elements intended to appeal to teens.
Of course, teens are infamously fickle, and today's media-savvy kids are skilled at sniffing out and rejecting things that seem contrived. Today's teens grew up with computers and have sophisticated demands.
But the company behind the hip-e, Digital Lifestyles Group Inc. of Austin, Texas, believes it's got what teenage computer users want.
Why such confidence? Because the company asked.
Last year, Digital Lifestyles' CEO Kent Savage got his son Cameron, 16, and seven of the boy's friends together and polled them about how they interact with computers and the Internet.
One brand name that resonated was Apple Computer Inc., which has struck gold with its iPod music players and iTunes download service. But the teens said their parents resisted buying Apple computers because they don't run Windows, the platform most people are familiar with.
So Savage decided to "Apple-ize the PC industry."
Cameron and his friends were asked to draw up designs for their ideal PC. Two weeks later, the company came back with 20 product concepts, and the teens honed in on one.
Later the prototype went to focus groups nationwide, and now the hip-e is ready for release in November. Orders are being taken now, including at displays in malls where pop star Ashlee Simpson is performing.
"Computers were originally made for adults, for work purposes," said one member of the original design group, Nevin Watkins, 16. "I kind of really want a computer for me."
The hip-e is designed as a hub for all of a teen's digital interactions. (For an extra $100 it will also come with an MP3 player/keychain data-storage drive, or a cell phone that runs on Sprint's network and can be synched with data on the computer. Or both for $200.)
The computer has a 120-gigabyte hard drive — good for storing a huge digital music library — plus Wi-Fi accessibility, a TV tuner and connections for video game consoles. Speakers attached to the bottom of the hip-e's display stand can be removed and turned into a portable beatbox.
The computer has standard elements: a 1.5-gigahertz Pentium processor, Windows XP, antivirus software, spyware and pop-up blockers and parental controls. But it's been retooled to speak to teens in everyday terms.
For instance, users can click on "paper" to launch Microsoft Word, or "create a presentation" to launch PowerPoint.
The 17-inch desktop display — which boots up to screaming black and white swirls and squiggles against a lime-green backdrop — has a "hangout tuner," an on-screen dial that lets users jump to categories of desktop applications: music, movies, games, photos, news, communications, shopping and homework.
Savage said teens generally don't like doing separate searches for various programs, so "it made sense to organize it for them and serve it up to them."
Bigger computing companies have had mixed success in reaching teens. Last year, Microsoft Corp. released its free 3 Degrees software designed to give groups of young people a centralized way of sharing pictures, songs and instant messages. Microsoft says it still considers 3 Degrees a pilot test and won't comment on how much use it gets.
Leading PC seller Dell Inc. has avoided age-group-specific marketing, opting instead to highlight ways anyone might use Dell's machines, spokesman Venancio Figueroa said. For example, Dell advertises its portable music player in music magazines and touts portable computers in back-to-school circulars, but neither device is retooled differently for younger users.
That's why Savage figures the teen-focused hip-e has a niche. He cites market research that says teens are considered the tech gurus in today's families and dictate electronics purchases.
