Out with the beige and boxy. Bring on the bling, leather and funky. Fancy a diamond-studded Ego Otazu notebook with a 100 per cent ostrich leather cover? The Dutch-made dazzler is yours for US$350,000 (S$536,620).

Or if fake glitter is more your style (and budget), consider MSI's Crystal notebook for US$1,799. It is set with 120 Swarovski crystals sitting in a ring around the brand's logo.

MSI's Crystal is set with 120 Swarovski crystals.

Today's PCs come in - almost all - shapes and small sizes because consumers have about had it (or should) with the tower casings that have dominated the scene for what feels like aeons.

Computer makers are turning out desktops as slim and tall as two cans of soda (the Acer L310), as round as a sphere (the Sony Vaio TP1), and with touches of leather luxury that would make any fashionista proud (the Asus S6F leather series).

The Sony Vaio TP1, for instance, packs plenty of power in its diminutive 10.6-inch diameter and 4-inch high roundness of being. And the Asus S6F's genuine leather exterior replaces cold metal with luxurious hand-embossed leather - there is the yellow Asus Lamborghini and blazing red Acer Ferrari. Both notebook PCs exude the spirit of auto-racing, sporting mirror-painting finish and carbon fibre enclosures.

Add to that switchable skins: HP's mini PC can also be personalised with skins of funky designs.

Consumers have Apple to thank for the design evolutions. The brand departed from from the plain, bland beige PC tower of the 1980s and 1990s when the original Apple iMac made its debut in 1998.

The egg-shaped, translucent 'Bondi Blue' iMac was self-contained with a 15-inch CRT and CPU innards. Funky colours like lime, grape and tangerine followed. That product line expanded to 13 different 'flavours'.

Then, along came the white revolution in 2001 with the iPod, and dual-USB iBook, and in 2002 the iMac, installing Apple as a brand icon.

And more recently, the Mac mini came to computer town. Just all of 6.5 by 6.5 by 2 inches - only slightly wider than a stack of audio CDs - it is easily carried in one hand.

Certainly, 'adding pleasure may be more important than adding performance attributes', said Ms Virginia Postrel, an American political and cultural writer, in a 2003 interview with Box And Arrows, a design magazine.

'To a programmer, additional computer speed may be a legitimate improvement while a pretty case isn't. But to many customers, the case adds value while the speed doesn't. That's not because speed is unimportant. It's because personal computers are already so fast that they can do what most people want them to do,' said Ms Postrel, who is also the author of the seminal book, The Substance Of Style.

Certainly, visual appeal was one of the key buying-decision factors for people like librarian Haslinda Md Yusof. 'What attracted me first about the Mac mini was that it's slick, portable and does not occupy much space,' said Ms Haslinda, who switched from a Wintel laptop which she felt was too traditional.

Ms Haslinda adds: 'I think, as part of human nature, we are always looking for something different, something new, that agrees with our individual personality...things that would 'spice up' or brighten...our lives.'