Dell makes a new computer — the “Della” — for us lady-folk. And it doesn’t just do boy-stuff like let you create documents and surf the internet and play games; it does girl-stuff, too, like helping you count calories and plan recipes!
According to the site the Della can change a woman’s life “Once you get beyond how cute they are, you’ll find that netbooks can do a lot more than check your e-mail.” Yes you can “find recipes online” and you can use them to”to track calories, carbs and protein with ease, watch online fitness videos, map your running routes and more.”
And they’re pastel-colored! Yay!
Thanks to Ryan for the link.
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Wow. I was going to buy a Dell netbook. Not gonna happen now.
I’d actually find a pastel computer kind of cute. It’s our own ideas of certain colors as “girly” or “gay” that’s the problem with that one.
It’s the “find recipes online” stuff that is crap.
Personally, I want my next comptuer to be a Toughbook. Be cool if it came in pastel or something non-industrial looking, though.
chava: exactly! I want a laptop that’s lavender AND rubberized!
Oh, dear God, tell me this is a joke. These people think women buy computers to help them keep track of recipes and calories?
I imagine some poor schmuck of a copywriter got stuck with an assignment to “market computers to women.” Even so, you think they’d do better than that.
Oh my god, Della? I wanted a purple or pink computer, but… I also kind of wanted dignity…
Well, I can’t even find a link to Della from the main part of their site. I wanted to know if they were specifically shuffling women there as opposed to one of their generic categories (“Laptops”, “Minis”). Maybe the outrage made them take the link down, or at least make it impossible to find. The site itself is definitely…well, Sarah Haskins would have a field day with it. The women pictured are right out of the Yogurt edition. (All thin women wearing grey hoodies and yoga pants.)
Yes, ladies, even YOU, with your tiny brains, can use a computer for things besides email! Because, ya know, you don’t make up a HUGE portion of the data entry/data processing industries where computer knowledge and familiarity is a must. You couldn’t even count or download media as of now, either. And we all know all you care about is what color your laptop is, and whether or not you can monitor your calories and watch fitness videos with it, you fatties.
OMG THIS IS FREAKING RIDICULOUS.
The headline of this commentary on the Della, “Let’s market PCs like it’s 1959,” reminded me of another computer that was marketed to women in 1969: the Honeywell Kitchen Computer.
It’s as though marketing departments haven’t learned anything in 30 years.
This serves as a decent compare/contrast to the launch of Double X.
*sigh* You’d think marketers would learn…
chava: Toughbooks are WICKED! The software my company makes is designed to be installed in Toughbooks, so some of our staff have them and they always look so freakin’ NEAT.
How hard is it to find recipes online, anyway?
@Scribe: I don’t think this is one lone copywriter, I suspect it was done with focus groups and everything. It’s too monumentally stupid for one person.
The old iMacs used to have silly colour schemes, although as far I know certain colour schemes were never targeted specifically to women.
And no, this isn’t a joke. I wonder when Target Women: Della comes out.
I don’t think this is one lone copywriter, I suspect it was done with focus groups and everything.
I didn’t realize there were enough people stuck in sensory deprivation chambers since 1959 to make a focus group.
re: the Toughbook, I really wanted one of these to replace my laptop that got stolen while I was doing fieldwork. Unfortunately I could not afford one at the time, but it would have been awesome to have a tough computer that I wouldn’t have to worry about when I was basically living out of my car and camping in the desert for 3 months. The fact that the visible-in-sunlight screen was an available option sealed the deal for me. I will just have to pine for a toughbook until I have the money for one.
New Panasonic Toughbooks are outrageously expensive – you can buy both an ordinary Windows laptop and a Macbook for less. They’re worth it, though, if you need to use a computer on a construction site or a comparably rough environment. I got a Toughbook when they came out with a new model with a faster processor, and they remaindered off the previous model for 20% of the list price. I use it for land surveying field work. You actually can read the screen in the sun, and it is weather-sealed well enough that it didn’t get destroyed when I left it on the hood of the truck and it started pouring down rain. In fact, it was still running; all I had to do was turn it upside-down and pour the rain water out of the keyboard recess.
This kind of crap makes me throw up a little in my mouth. First, its obviously a bunch of sexist tripe to think only wimminz want good looking computers, or that for wimminz, looks are all that count. But secondly, it rankles my ass that someone out there thinks I am so goddamed stupid that I wouldn’t think to use my non-feminized notebook to access one of the gazillion recipe or calorie counter sites ALL READY ON THE FREAKIN’ WEB! And the name. The name. need I say more.
looks like they changed it already… i couldn’t find any tripe about recipes and other things that the hormones my ovaries excrete make me love. eyeroll
I am glad that I got a Toshiba. I don’t like Dell and I don’t like Mac — primarily because of Apple’s anti-competitive shenanigans (such as blocking Windows-related material from Mac computers).
My old roommate uses toughbooks for her department at the UN–she assures me that you CAN, in fact, spill a gallon on OJ on them, but you have to clean each key in the keyboard individually afterwards.
And I’d totally run Ubuntu on it. Linux has finally gotten to where it doesn’t intimidate the crap out of me/you don’t need a shadow system running Windows to do anything with non-geeks.
Eh. I’m glad I’ve got an HP. I had a Mac, and it (and my iPod) died after three years. And they freeze just as much as PC’s do, if not more, smarmy ads notwithstanding.
But yeah–counting calories and finding recipies on a pink computer as a way to attract the chicks? Ummm. . .not so much, boyz. Thank you for playing. Please take a ticket to board the clue train on your way out.
Can’t you, like, do that with all computers with internet access? Do they really believe women are so dumb they don’t realize it doesn’t take a “special” computer to find things online?
Oh, I’m not saying they listened to the focus group. At least, not without projecting their own biases and preconceptons.
Wow crappy, I love the dell I am currently typing this on much more than I love dell right now. Yay for making the computers in more than gray/black/brown but for the love of god people, I want my pretty deep red laptop for code and math, really it isn’t that hard.
I’m sorry, but I think the Fudzilla article is a hoax. There’s no reference to a “Della” product on Dell’s website, nor can I find an affiliate website named “Della”.
I think they must have changed things up pretty quickly because of the backlash. Though there’s no title on the page signifying it as Della, there is still a “exclusive della offer” link under the products tab and under the tips tab there’s still reference to using your computer to plan running routes.
Here’s a blog entry where they talk about making changes to the offering based on critiques. I still don’t think that they “get” it, mind you.
The thing that kills me is that all these things (counting calories, meditation stuff) is that they are all done ON THE INTERNET, there is absolutely nothing about these computers that does those things. You can do it on ANY computer with the Internet. And yet they market it as a reason to buy these awesome girly computers, as though we’re all too stupid to figure that one out.
Though for the record, a lot of the laptops do have neat designs, but I can still resent how they’re marketed!!
You know, I’m no expert in marketing products to certain demographics, but I’m pretty damn sure that women do NOT get computers to count calories and get new recipes.
I’m thinking they get them for the same reason I did, such as checking email, talking online to friends, reading random sites and blogs, etc. AND if they’re college students, using it for research and writing papers. I think Dell needs to understand that men and women generally use computers for the same exact reasons.
Perhaps they should design an ipod that gives me advice on “How To Flirt With My Man” or gives me new makeup tips everyday! Yaaaayy GIRL STUFF!
I bought one of Acer’s netbooks for school, and many of my fellow students followed suit, once they found out it ran Sibelius. Good times.
Here’s the thing. My wife and I are moving overseas, and I wanted a pink model for myself, and I’d give my blue (at the time, the only option available) to my wife. Bastards stopped selling it.
Glad they changed their marketing campaign, but if the specs are good I might just buy one of theirs so I can get a pink laptop. Because dammit, I want a pink laptop.
Dell at least has somebody tapped into the blogs somewhere, if nowhere else. The “Tech Tips” section where we once found the info on organizing recipes now begins, “Editors Note: Some of you have read this article over the last several days and will notice a few modifications. You spoke; we listened. Thank you for your ongoing feedback.” Dell has now granted us the capacity to organize our home office and plan vacations. This is/was the offending site: http://content.dell.com/us/en/home/della.aspx. Maybe marketers now figure that if they release an idea in a semi-obscure part of the internet, bloggers will take care of it before it becomes too messy of a public relations problem anyway.
That aside, I assume I’m already feminized because I own a Toshib-a.
Oh, bother!
I bought a pink Acer notebook computer, though, when they became available. I’m a computer scientist (cought, actually a student) by trade, so the colour choice is also a conscious “in your face” -kind of statement. I’m not one of the guys.
But if I want a calorie-counting program, I’ll program one myself. But that’s not gonna happen. I’ve got better things to code.
Oh, dear God, tell me this is a joke. These people think women buy computers to help them keep track of recipes and calories?
No, no – they think we use them just to check e-mail. Now we can use them to count calories & plan meals & stuff! Totes awesome!
And it’s not a hoax:
http://content.dell.com/us/en/home/della.aspx?&dgc=CJ&cid=29429&lid=1140359&acd=10600550-302390-
You know, as a systems admin for a very large company who has been in IT for over a decade, thank god I can finally find a computer to help me count calories and print out recipes. For years I’ve wanted something like this, but was too embarrassed to ask my male coworkers.
You know how it is, girls! You’re busy writing technical best practice policies, project managing a global software push, and coaching teams of technicians, but what you really want is a system that could help you slim down so you can catch the eye of Mr. Right and get away from all this!
Barf.
I wonder if Dell will begin to reach out to other “special interest” marketing groups, like porn addicts (the Dell Wanka, perhaps?), or people who forward chain emails (Dell Forwardon Laptops)?
But are they any good for fragging noobs?
Well, I’m not counting calories or looking up any recipes on MY computer in case that turns it gay again.
Of course not, Cat. Everyone knows women don’t play games on computers….
So when do we get to see this ad?:
According to the site the DelDude can change a man’s life. “Once you get beyond how cool they are, you’ll find that netbooks can do a lot more than play World of Warcraft.” Yes you can “live chat with girls” and you can use them to “to track player stats, history and and games played with ease, watch sports videos, map your weightlifting routine and more.”
Michelle: Dell changed their site, deftly making Jill and others who noted this look hysterical.
ROFL!! Oh, no someone says y’all look ‘hysterical’! Never heard that before. /s
But are they any good for fragging noobs?
I used one to camp a Starbucks one time but I didn’t get any good hot guy drops… So I ended up just grinding my homework for a few hours and leveled in Biology instead.
I said “look hysterical.” That is, people like Michelle can say “silly women, falling for an obvious hoax” while Dell sits there and looks innocent.