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BBC MUNDO RADIO
Despite its gorgeous design, the Adamo's appeal is limited by ho-hum hardware and a hefty sticker price
Dell Adamo
- The Good: Gorgeous lines and materials. Solid construction. Shockingly silent. At just 1.7 cm, it's the skinniest laptop on the planet.
- The Bad: Internal hardware is ho-hum. No optical drive. Meagre jack pack. Battery cannot be replaced by consumers.
- The Verdict: Functional limitations aside, Dell's blue-blooded notebook is a work of art and a triumph of industrial design.
Though just one letter away from the name of the character who commands the ragtag remnants of humanity in television's sci-fi melodrama Battlestar Galactica, the Adamo is anything but geeky.
Indeed, this new high-style luxury notebook is riding a marketing campaign spearheaded by the slick photography of award-winning British portrait artist Nadav Kander that aims to place it in the select company of products bearing such prestigious brands as BMW, Dolce & Gabbana, and TAG Heuer.
You'd be forgiven at this point for scrolling back up to the top of this review to double check that the Adamo is indeed a product from Dell, the Round Rock, Texas-based computer manufacturer with a well-established reputation for purveying inexpensive and practical machines geared for offices and families.
And no, you did not make a mistake: The Adamo, one of the sexiest pieces of portable PC hardware yet fabricated, has indeed sprung from this most unlikely of wells.
One luxe laptop
Pictures don't do the Adamo justice. This is a machine that must be touched and handled to be fully appreciated.
Its chassis, made mostly of brushed, anodized aluminum, and completely free of visible screws, feels cool and firm to the touch. Combined with the smooth glass accents atop the lid and above the keyboard, the Adamo's materials feel opulent, as though they were meant to be touched only be the wealthy and debonair (and, given the machine's steep price—which I'll get to in a bit—this probably isn't far from the truth).
The atmosphere of luxury is enhanced via the Adamo's lack of gaudiness and clutter. Very few holes break the machine's beautiful lines. There's a single headphone jack on the right side and a pleasantly geometric sextet of ports on the back. A handful of touch-sensitive media controls rest under the display, and the keyboard's gently scalloped backlit keys glow with restrained elegance.
The bottom of the notebook is a simple sheet of metal with a plate containing faint etchings of logos belonging to Dell, Intel, and Microsoft (the latter two in order to eliminate those tacky stickers that typically appear just under your keyboard to show proof of license).
Most impressive, however, is this sleek device's surprising sturdiness. Tipping the scale at a dense 1.8 kilograms, the Adamo weighs considerably more than its ultra-thin competitors but feels as though it might be a little more stout. And as it makes no real noise (the solid-state drive and low-voltage processor operate without audible fans), that this solid slab of beautiful materials functions as a working computer seems at times almost magical.
The fact that it is also the sveltest laptop yet made—it out-thins both the MacBook Air and HP's Envy, measuring just 1.7 centimetres at its portliest point—is almost a secondary selling point next to its sophisticated and alluring design.
World's most expensive netbook?
There is no denying the Adamo has earned a place among the computer industry's great achievements in industrial design. But is it practical?
Not at all.
Depending on whether you opt for the basic $2,499 edition or the slightly more robust $3,399 model, the Adamo ships with either a 1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 2 GB of 800 MHz DDR3 memory, or a 1.4 GHz processor and 4 GB or RAM. A 128 GB solid-state drive and Intel 4 Series Express graphics chipsets are found on both. Far more powerful machines are available for a fraction of the price.
And with no optical drive and a limited connectivity suite consisting of just two USB ports, a USB/eSATA hybrid jack, DisplayPort, and Ethernet jack (plus Wireless-N and BlueTooth 2.1), users with needs more eclectic than simply surfing the Web, checking e-mail, and editing documents will likely find themselves frustrated by the Adamo's hardware limitations.
Indeed, take away its clear and spacious 13.4-inch LED screen and full-size keyboard and the Adamo is essentially just a ludicrously luxurious netbook (though it's worth noting that it outperformed any netbook I've ever tested, easily handling not only the simultaneous operation of multiple productivity and media apps, but also the 64-bit version of Microsoft's ravenous Windows Vista Home Premium OS).
And to add insult to injury (at least for those simply looking for a functional and affordable notebook), the only way to replace the Adamo's battery is to send the whole kit and caboodle back to Dell—a sad consequence of that beautiful, seamless unibody chassis.
Not made with pragmatists in mind
In assessing a notebook like the Adamo, one must take into account its makers' intent. Does Dell intend to sell millions of these sleek, über-chic machines? Of course not. The Adamo will never be more than a second computer — perhaps no more than a second laptop — for high-power corporate types and wealthy, well-groomed gadgeteers.
Rather, the Adamo is Dell's attempt to prove to the world — and particularly to its investors — that it's got just as much artsy wherewithal as the competition, that going forward we can expect to see new Dell hardware that is every bit as desirable as anything coming out of Palo Alto or Cupertino.
I'm not sure the Adamo will manage this feat for Dell all by itself, but it's definitely a good start.
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