The $350,000 Diamond notebook

Assuming that price is no object, you might be hard-pressed to pass up the Tulip Ego, from noted expensive gadget producer Ego, a Dutch company.

The computer is somewhat impressive, with its 12.1-inch WXGA widescreen and Radeo Xpress chipset. The novelty about the front-loading CD/DVD player/burner is that it can play movies without requiring the notebook to be powered up.

The real fun comes in, however, in covering the Tulip with “skins,” coverings that come in various layers of expense. The base model, the one that some people will have just to say they have one, will run you US$5,000. But check out the Diamond and Platinum versions, which add real jewelry to the skin. The top of the line is the Otazu Ego Diamond, which has 470 flawless diamonds in tulip, heart, and Otazu logos in various places on the skin. You can have your own phrase engraved therein as well, and the whole thing is just US$350,000. (And no, that’s not an extra zero.)