Company Claims Add-On Will Make Beige PC Monitor "Look Like An Apple iMac"

by , 9:00 AM EST, December 12th, 2002

Are you a PC owner who really would rather fight than 'switch' but don't want to feel left out? Does your PC lack style, color, cuteness? Do you desperately want a G3 iMac but just can't find the $799 to buy one?

Fear not, you poor fashion-deprived soul: Tiggon, a Houston, Texas based company may have what you need. Check out ScreenArena, a plastic faceplate for your tired looking PC monitor. ScreenArena adds color and a bit of the egg-like iMac style to your otherwise pedestrian desktop. At least that's what the company would have you think. The press release announcing the ScreenArena is full of iMac comparisons, and other invocations of iMac styling. That press release:

Tiggon Corporation, a Dallas-based designer of cool computer accessories, has introduced ScreenArena, an innovative product that brightens up the boring old PC by making it look like an Apple iMac¨. Kids and teens are crazy about it!

ScreenArena is a colorful, stylishly designed monitor attachment that instantly transforms any ordinary computer into a funky place to spend time. ScreenArena is unique because it enables the user to have the best of both computer worlds by adding iMac good looks to the PC.

ScreenArena allows kids to personalize their computers with just about anything imaginable. Tiggon has seen ScreenArena personalized with a variety of items ranging from skateboarding art to pictures of friends. Additionally, the ScreenArena also has a colorful storage tray for holding cellular phones, keys and other items.

The ScreenArena is priced at US$19.99 for the holidays. You can get more information on the product at the company's Web site. As of this writing, the site was only available intermittently.

The Mac Observer Spin:

A plastic faceplate that sticks to your PC monitor and, in doing so, adds style to your otherwise boring PC? OK. We think of it as a way to recycle computers and a way to fool your slow-witted, myopic friends or relatives into thinking you actually bought them a new computer. It might work.

As for the claim that ScreenArena will make a PC look like an iMac, we think that might just be stretching things a wee bit. ScreenArena adds color and rounds out the squarish PC monitor, but a heckahav lot more it needed to make a monitor Mac-like.

It's truly bizarre that this company chose to position its product as some sort of faux-iMac. Why not push it for what it is, a monitor attachment that adds rounded corners and a couple of trays to your monitor? Oh, right. Because it wouldn't sell. You be the judge. Stop by Tiggon.com and then let us know what you think.

ScreenArena