Makers of electronics begin to emphasize style.(The Dallas Morning News)

Listen closely and you'll hear the technology industry changing its faster, bigger, cheaper drumbeat to a nuanced jazz rhythm that cuts a much classier figure.

A slate of new computers, cellular phones and other electronica is defying the industry's pocket-protector philosophy of design that has emphasized substance over style for decades.

Once the domain of geeks who lusted after faster chips and bigger hard disks, technology is improving its standing with the fashionably hip with liquid-crystal, flat-panel screens and titanium-plated cellular phones.

Devices are experiencing a renaissance in design, in part, because the technology that powers them has become so commonplace it can easily be wrapped in more alluring forms, experts say.

"As the more mechanical functions become more similar across products, people look to products to fulfill the softer functions, the emotional function, the `Gee, I think that's really cool' function," said Mike Nuttall, co-founder of IDEO, a San Francisco design firm.

Apple's new iMac computer and iPod music player, Sony Ericsson's svelte, color-screen T68 phone and Samsung's YP-30S music players that can be worn like necklaces represent the first wave in a seismic shift.

In what experts call a constant tug-and-pull struggle between engineers and designers, ...