Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has recently announced the release of some new laptop designs. The thing is, though, that these appear to be just painted/designed laptop covers on existing laptop PCs, and not new systems with some new art. In other words, is Dell just pushing out boring models with new paint jobs?

Ed Boyd, the newer design lab head who was hired in 2007 to try and transform the boring commodity boxes Dell has cranked out by the millions into something that is really a competitive advantage among a sea of PC designs. I doubt that's what Dell execs were expecting, but within just over a week, Dell will release these new designs with abstract paint jobs and funky colors -- not just different laptop lid colors -- to the market. Customers will pay an extra $75 for the newer designs. That's in addition to the current $699 starting price for Dell's entry-level consumer laptop systems.

So far, this is just another attempt to spice up the rather boring PC by adding a literal splash of color. Next year, Boyd plans on all kinds of artsy combinations by letting customers design their own PC art. That will be an effort to watch, as it will be a first from a mainstream PC maker. It's be hard to see customers flocking to Dell PCs from the competition just to be able and design their own color scheme, but consumers are fickle and unpredictable -- so who knows.

Dell, Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has done an admirable job of taking back control of its sales in recent quarters. After getting stomped by Hewlett-Packard Corp. (NYSE: HPQ) in the last 18 months, the Round Rock, Texas company has installed itself in over 10,000 retail locations across the U.S. and in other countries and has started growing its marketshare back. Gone are the days of the direct-only business; in are the days of a multi-channel selling model. Nowhere is this more evident than in Dell's laptop PC sales.

The company has taken back the number two spot in global laptop PC sales from Taiwan's Acer by growing its marketshare for such products to 15.1% of all global laptop PC sales as of its last quarter. In addition, that figures includes a whopping 45% growth in its year-over-year laptop PC shipments. It's amazing what a few quarters and retail availability can do to one's laptop PC sales, yes?

Dell is making steady process to see if it can inch back into leading quarterly PC sales on a global basis with HP, but it won't be easy. The Palo-Alto competitor just announced more than 50 new products this week (its biggest launch ever within that segment), and many of the newly-announced products are new consumer laptop PC designs. HP, the current king of the laptop PC hill with over 35% of the market, won't give up that spot -- or even a single marketshare point -- easily. But then again, Dell's efforts so far have shown great results. the race to the top of the laptop sales world is on.