Thursday, April 16th, 2009
Hot on the heels of Gizmodo, Engadget has put up their hands-on review of the Adamo and things don’t look any better for Dell. Questionable build quality for a $2,000+ machine, re-confirmed short battery life, and lackluster performance all tarnish the slick Adamo namesake. At least with a $2,000 ThinkPad X301, you aren’t coming to expect a fine piece of jewelry, but a do-it-all-with-almost-no-compromises experience that doesn’t compromise function for form. Oh did I mention the X301 is now on sale for $1,599? Take that Dell. Source Tags: adamo, dell, review
Posted in Tech News | No Comments » Monday, April 13th, 2009
We aren’t trying to bury you with Dell news today, but it just so happens that Gizmodo got their hands on a production-level machine and put it through its paces. Being technophiles, they are less than impressed with the performance of its guts, but they at least appreciate the svelte design. They even run it through some benchmarks, which tell the tale of the chugging 1.2GHz ULV processor and Intel GMA graphics. Most surprising was the battery life, or lackthereof. Read on for all the gorey details. Source Tags: adamo, dell, review
Posted in Tech News | 1 Comment » Monday, April 13th, 2009
Renowned DIY website iFixIt and TechRepublic have gotten their hands on a Dell Adamo to do what they do best. It is disassembled in all of its luxurious glory for you to gawk at its private parts. They also include a number of comparison shots with the MacBook Air. No ThinkPad X301 love? Looking at the pictures, the design that went into this machine is impressive. While not a tool-less design, it doesn’t have any external screws. This also means you need a fairly specialized tool to crack it open, essentially a very fine tipped flat blade; see image 24. Since the machine was designed around SSD with no mechanical drive consideration, it lacks the traditional pocket for a 1.8 or 2.5-inch drive and thus just has the slim circuit board loaded with solid state memory chips. The size of the wireless modules used is also impressive, about a thumb’s width it appears; check out image 38 to see what I mean. It’s interesting to note that in order to maximize placement of different components, they have very few components actually directly connected to the motherboard. Components like the SSD and wireless cards are placed “remotely” and connected to the motherboard via a ribbon cable. The wireless cards are actually on their own “data card” of sorts, which runs to the motherboard via a ribbon cable. The hard drive cable actually merges with the wireless cable to run back to the motherboard in one ribbon cable. Due to this, the motherboard itself is rather tiny. Other interesting tid bits: - The Windows COA is hidden under the hinge cover (image 65)
- RAM is soldered onto the motherboard – no upgrading for you! (image 55)
- The display hinge doesn’t look all that impressive (image 74)
Source Tags: adamo, dell, macbook air
Posted in Tech News | No Comments » Thursday, April 2nd, 2009
Engadget has the scoop on a couple new models coming from Dell. We last talked about Dell’s strategy in bringing out the Adamo in this economic climate and how the Adamo 13′s battery is not user-replaceable. Now it appears that Dell definitely has a 9-inch version in the works, courtesy of device driver files listing the yet un-released, svelte ultraportable. A 22-inch version of their all-in-one Studio desktop is unearthed here as well. I’ll be interested to see how they price the Adamo 9. Is this Dell’s response to the Sony VAIO P? Source Tags: adamo, dell
Posted in Tech News | No Comments » Thursday, March 26th, 2009
I’ll admit, I had hopes for Adamo. Sure, it wasn’t going to have the utility of a ThinkPad X300 series, but it could stand to open a new product segment for Dell. I was just hoping it wouldn’t be entirely Apple-esque. Something as critical to a notebook as the battery should never be locked behind poor design. Shame on you Dell. Like many recent Apple offerings, the ultra-thin Dell laptop will have a non-user-replaceable battery Pocket-lint has learnt. This means that Adamo owners will not be able to hot swap batteries on the go – and will have to get their laptops sent back to Dell when their factory issued battery conks out.
Source Tags: adamo, battery, dell
Posted in Tech News | 4 Comments » Monday, March 23rd, 2009
A blogger over at UK mag PC Advisor has a bone to pick with Dell over its new Adamo product. And I can’t blame him too much. The timing of Adamo – from the Latin “to fall in love with” says Dell – could not be worse. The marketing campaign is the height of pretension when people the world over are yearning for the unembellished and a return to prosperity.
The bloke’s got a point. Dell is trying to sell a Rolex, when people are buying Timex. Their advertising oozes affluency in a time of poverty, or at least frugality. Frankly the advertising reminds me a lot of the ThinkPad Reserve Edition. However, maybe Dell isn’t planning Adamo for today’s masses. Sure, people are going to be aiming for the less expensive PC’s these days. But what about when economies rebound and people want to celebrate their re-found wealth? If you have built a reputation around high end machines that are desired by many and afforded by few, then that is a good place to be in when more and more people have disposable income in their hands. Just so long as you’re not only slapping a leather cover on one of your bread & butter machines. Oops. Source Tags: adamo, dell
Posted in Tech News | 5 Comments » Friday, March 20th, 2009
12.1″ display, 3.3 pounds, 160GB drive, 1GB RAM, VIA NANO CPU, and connectivity galore. Sounds like a low cost ultraportable, maybe with a price just south of $1000? How does $599 sound instead? Samsung’s petite, but punchy NC20 ultraportable seems to take the best parts of netbooks and “full power” notebooks. With a larger screen and chassis (thus a more usable keyboard), the NC20 doesn’t compromise as much in day to day use. The VIA CPU should be more powerful than Intel’s Atom and the price isn’t far above a netbook. ChannelInsider has some more details on this welterweight bargain, but I have to question their nagging on the Dell Adamo. Maybe they were just trying to hit the Adamo keyword so the article would show up in Adamo buzz (who would do that…), but this machine has nothing on the Adamo. Most mainstream notebooks out there, from netbooks to the ThinkPad X200, have a value edge on Dell’s expensive piece of sleek technology. The Adamo isn’t competing on value, it’s competing on quality, design, and status. After all, it’s not often we hear of a Mustang being compared to a Ferrari. How does this combo of features, performance, and price sound to our dear readers? If you needed a new budget machine, would you opt for a “best of both worlds” box like this, stick with the lower end netbook, or maybe get something a bit more “full size” in a used machine? Source Tags: adamo, dell, Netbook, samsung nc20
Posted in Tech News | 6 Comments » Wednesday, March 18th, 2009
While not quite a shock to the world, Dell just officially announced their high end Adamo 13 notebook. The unique bits of this uber-thin machine are comprised off a solid aluminum chassis (like the new MacBook), an edge-to-edge glass 720p display (like the new MacBook), and a thickness of only 0.65 inches (compared to the MacBook Air’s 0.76 inch thickness). Unfortunately for Dell, the Adamo weighs a hefty 4 pounds. The $1,999 “base” model will get you the following tech goodies: - Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 (1.2GHz/800MHz FSB/2MB L2 Cache)
- Chipset: Intel Mobile 965 Express
- Memory: 2GB DDR3 800MHz
- Graphics: Intel GMX4500
- Storage: 128GB SSD
- Display: 13.4″, 16:9, 720p, Edge to Edge Glass Display
- Ports: 2 USB, 1 USB/eSATA, RJ-45, Headphone, Display Port
- Wireless: 802.11b/g/ Draft-N, Bluetooth 2.0
- OS: Windows Vista Home Premium Edition SP1, 64-bit
- Dimensions: 13.03 x 9.5 x .65 inches
- Weight: 4.0 Pounds
For those looking for a bit more horsepower, for $2,699 you should be able to move up to a 1.4GHz CPU, 4GB RAM, and built-in 3G. Dell estimates battery life at around five hours. Just comparing base system to base system, it looks like the Adamo 13 has a bit of an edge of Lenovo’s ThinkPad X301. The Adamo leads with double the memory, double the hard drive, longer base battery life, and possibly a better display. Of course, the Adamo doesn’t come with an integrated optical drive and we know from long experience that a ThinkPad is meant for heavy-duty business. Heck, the X301 is a semi-rugged PC. So, what’s your take dear readers? Are you enticed at all by Dell’s new direction? Let us know in the comments. Dell blog post Configure via LogicBUY Tags: adamo, dell, luxury pc, macbook air, thinkpad x301
Posted in Tech News | 1 Comment » | |
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