Laptops Look Like Racecars — and Not in a Good Way

At a meeting with Advanced Micro Devices the other day, representatives talked to me about chip sets and clock speeds, of discrete graphics and die sizes. But in passing, they mentioned an additional company initiative that really perked me up: laptop stickers.

When you buy a new Windows PC, as you probably know, it comes festooned with little (or not so little) stickers on the palm rests. There’s one for Windows, one for Skype, one for Intel, one for the laptop company, maybe an Energy Star sticker and so on.

The bizarre thing is that computer companies are trying to make their laptops beautiful these days. A.M.D. reps showed me, for example, a gorgeous new Hewlett-Packard ultralight laptop. Sleek. Shiny. Elegant. Yet grubbed up with a fruit salad of tasteless, competing stickers.

As A.M.D. points out, it’s like buying a new, luxury car — and discovering that it comes with nonremovable bumper stickers that promote the motor oil, the floor mat maker, the windshield-fluid company and the pine tree air freshener you have no intention of ever using.

Never mind that all of this promotional garbage already appears on the box. Do you really need it physically affixed to the actual computer?

Physically — and semi-permanently? I tried to fingernail some of the stickers off that H.P. laptop, and it was a disaster. You can peel them up, but they shred, and they leave adhesive crud behind. When you’ve just spent big bucks on a laptop, should you really be obligated to spend the first 20 minutes trying to dissolve away the sticker goop with WD40? (There’s a missed promotional opportunity for H.P.)

A.M.D.’s research shows that consumers hate the stickers (duh). But they’re not going away, for one simple reason: There’s big money involved. Intel, Microsoft, Skype and whoever else is represented by the stickers actually pay the computer companies for the billboard space. That’s why H.P., for example, would tolerate gumming up its laptops’ good looks with crass ads. (Apple refuses to put Intel stickers on its computers, even though there’s Intel inside. In doing so, it leaves millions of dollars a year on the table.)

I’m not even sure it’s money well spent. If you buy a Windows laptop, it’s pretty obvious you’re going to get Windows on it. If the computer box says “Intel inside,” you pretty much already know that when you open the box.

(One industry argument is that the stickers help salespeople tell one laptop from another when they help out customers. But the box has the same information, and so do the store placards — and besides, how does “Windows 7” and “Intel Inside” and “Skype ready” really help you guide a customer?)

In 2011, A.M.D. will switch to new stickers that peel off easily, leaving no residue; after that, it’s considering eliminating the sticker program altogether. In the meanwhile, it’s going to make affixing its stickers optional. If a computer company chooses not to use the A.M.D. stickers, A.M.D. will still pay it the same marketing dollars to use in other ways.

Look: If we want to adopt the racecar model, where sponsors pay the driving team directly for the right to festoon the  car with logos, fine. Let the component makers pay you directly for the right to advertise on your new computer. And you get to choose which ones appear, and negotiate how much you’re paid.

In the meantime, let’s applaud A.M.D. for taking the lead in trying to change this pointless, tacky practice. And let’s boo Microsoft, Intel, Skype and the computer makers for marching on to the same old profit-driven beat — at your expense.