Personally, I've been very impressed with Dell's IdeaStorm project: so far, the PC maker has shown a willingness to listen to customers and implement their ideas, rather than dictate to them. In part, this is good business, and there's definitely an element of "oh @&$%, we're not number one any more" as well.

The latest IdeaStorm request to become reality is a request that product manuals be shown during the online sales process, so that consumers have a better idea of what's in the box. Currently, the product manuals in PDF form are hidden on Dell's product support site.

Unfortunately, companies like Dell often build in so-called "OEM" components into their PCs, that can have features removed compared to their retail counterparts. But Dell also needs to improve their manuals, not just display them.

According to Dell, the company will "try a couple short-term ways to make this happen, although they won't be very elegant executions," the company said of its plans to show manuals. "We're also currently evaluating options for a better long-term solution, but this will take us some time."

Personally, the one facet of this I'd like to see improved would be better motherboard diagrams and descriptions. With such components as a hard drive or even a video card, a list of technical specifications (the example given is for a Dell XPS system) does just fine. However, this motherboard diagram could be improved significantly, with the addition of at least a picture of the board, as well as an overlay showing where each component resides. (Although the support files listed above are in PDF format, they're also available in HTML, hence the link.)

Frankly, I'd also like to see the end to "OEM components" altogether. But if Dell is going to do this (and here's hoping they will) they also should call this out specifically to the consumer, to regain some of the trust the company has lost over the years.

I think there's a significant portion of consumers who wouldn't mind Dell building their PC for them, using the parts they could find (theoretically) find themselves at their favorite components e-tailer (for a higher price). There seems to be a missing price/performance/feature point between what Dell offers and the premium, turbocharged PCs that Alienware sells.