***-->The Official Dell Adamo Thread<--***

Mmmmkay..thanks for your injection of reality..it's always appreciated.

I had forgotten to add any applicable discount on top of that, which would always be nice & bring the price down further for those interested in purchasing! I won't even go into that, cuz I know you would knock that down to..so.....

To each his/her own.

Cin.

 

Whistles... Nothing to see here... $800 off a well-optioned model, yeah, that seems about right... Wouldn't count on that for a stripper model though.

 

1200 bucks is not rediculous for a laptop. I agree the adamo is overpriced, but you are paying extra for the looks. I think even a price drop of a few hundred and it would sell pretty well, or even if they upped the specs to make it comparable with the air and kept the price the same.

 

I certainly agree with that.

What caught my eye was just your untenable assertion that "most people" would be happy to blow more than a grand on this kind of a device. You know, when it comes right down to it, then in fact most people in this country will be quite content with being able to pay their mortgage and grocery bills each month. That you and I are living a different life does not change the fact that most people in this country will have to stick to a standard of living that will not include any Dell Adamos, ever, at any discount.

 

You're completely missing my point. What I am saying is that, in this country, most people cannot afford to spend that kind of money on a computer, least of all on one of such limited utility. See my other post.

 

Tell that to Apple who has such a difficult time selling notebooks that are that price for entry level... oh wait they sell them as fast as hotcakes.

 

Yep, I guess that's why most people already own one or several Apple Macbook Pros, at least, right?

 

Yep, Apple is doing something right as they continue to increase their notebook sales while others are having a rough time.

 

looks good, but terrible graphics card. they could have at least matched the MBA. Anyone think they will be offering another gcard option later?

 

Possibly with the first refresh later this year. Just don't get your hopes up given the nature of the Adamo line. Anyway, I wouldn't call it "terrible" unless you're a gamer, in which case you should be looking at the Studio XPS 1340 for casual light gaming.

 

Well,apple has few things that Dell does not

1)Brand name
2)Mac OS
3)VERY "STRONG fanbase"

 

Cnet has an editorial on the uphill battle Dell faces with the Adamo. It doesn't paint a pretty picture.

 

It's a good article...thank you for linking it here!


Cin

 

The engadget review has now been finished. It can be found here:

http://www.engadget.com/2009/04/13/dell-adamo-review/

 

Thanks, Tubby....A very good review..and alot alike comments of other reviews...to be expected.

I really like this comment from the review..:

^^lulz. *cough* lulz.

Cin

 

Dell should have offered an HDD (=cheaper) version of this thing. That's why the baseline MBA is cheaper. Even the 1st gen MBA which can be had for significantly less now is a better buy than the Adamo. By far the nicest PC Dell has ever designed, but this will have a hard time competing with the Air.

 

It certainly is the prettiest thing to come out of Dell's doors, but I don't see it going too far at that price. If Dell offers the kind of deals they usually do, it could gather a small audience. They need to pack a bit more power in it first though. An NVIDIA 9400M chipset would certainly help. For those interested, there's a metareview on my site. (It's a combination of Engadget, Gizmodo, CNET, and PC Mag's reviews).

 

Ouch. Looks like they've uncovered some build quality issues that are totally unacceptable on a $2k laptop.

 

Thanks for the link. What a failure Dell has produced here. 4 lbs and 2.5 hours battery life is just unacceptable.

 

I wouldn't call it a failure. The laptop is more than fine, the problem is the price.

 

I'm pretty certain it will drop in price in a month or 2. Dell always seems to do that with their new laptops
Im just not sure how low they will drop...

 

Thanks for the link to the review. That battery life is ugly!

 

Let's face it, most of us have trouble saying expensive, luxury, stylish and Dell in the same sentence. Even if the specs were better, a lot of people would still complain about the price. Even if Dell reduced the price by $200-300, people would complain.

 

Those people that would still complain would never buy this type of laptop in the first place, unless it became a bargain laptop. A lot of us, myself included, like to get the most bang for your buck which is why we buy sub-1000dollar laptops that blow the adamo away, but are mostly plastic, and look okay, but not gorgeous. This laptop is different.

The bigger problem is that it seemed like a lot of people on this forum were very excited about the adamo before its release, even with the knowlege that it would be rather pricey. But once it was released, the price to performance ratio was just too overboard for most people to bite the bullet and buy this machine. They basically outpriced the people that were willing to pay more for better aesthetics, and who were willing to sacrifice some power.

 

Apple made the same mistake the first time around too. When the Macbook Air was first released it was an overpriced, woefully inadequate excuse for a computer. About the only thing it had going for it was the design and if you look at early reviews, it got ripped apart by the press too.

I was really hoping that Dell would learn from that mistake, but they didn't seem to learn from history and thus were doomed to repeat it.

 

Well, if that's the case, then all Dell has to do is upgrade the graphics card.The release of Windows 7 should help as well.

 

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Intel 4500 GPU. What people don't seem to understand here is that this is NOT a gaming system. You do not need a discrete GPU or even an IGP from nVidia.

 

Yeah the 4500 should be fine. I doubt that many Adamo users are buying that machine for the graphics performance anyway. Things like the weight, battery life, and cost are more important considerations that Dell should think about adjusting in the future.

 

But you were saying that Dell didn't learn from Apple's mistake with the MBA. The biggest update to the MBA was the 9400 so you were hinting that the Adamo should have had a better graphics card than the 4500.

Maybe I misread your post.

 

Yeah I probably wasn't clear. The original Air had an even worse graphics card, the Intel X3100. The Adamo has the X4500 at least which is good enough for hooking up to high resolution monitors and for pumping out 1080p video to an HDTV. The X3100 on the other hand was just inadequate for the same tasks and is the big reason why Apple had to upgrade it to something, anything, that was better the second time around.

These days if you're not gaming a lot the Intel X4500 or the Nvidia 9400 are both capable graphics chips.

Apple and Adamo's mistake the first time around was too much focus on the design above all else. There's gotta be something other than the design that makes it compelling in order for it to be attractive.

 

So duffyanneal & litkaj, are you both satisfied with your Adamo 13?

 

I think duffyanneal returned his (after taking it apart). I'm happy with mine though (as are the two VPs in my company that got them).

I can't seem to get mine taken apart though. I've got no problem sliding the locks, as I mentioned, I noticed those right off, but something seems to be keeping my system held together... Feels like it's in the middle of the system on both sides.

 

Is the 128GB SSD from Samsung? Does it have the new controller (like on the 256GB SSD offered for the Studio XPS 1640)? How's the performance?

 

Yes, it's a Samsung (I posted the BIOS ID a few pages back when I uploaded those pictures) but I don't know what controller it has and I can't seem to get mine apart in order to get an actual part number from the drive.

I haven't run and disk tests on it but it feels just as snappy as the 64GB SLC I've got in the E4200.

EDIT: Drive is "SAMSUNG SSD Thin uSATA-(S1)"

 

I think its the old controller 90/70 read write IIRCC

 

I'll run Atto on mine in an hour or two and let you know.

 

Yup, 90/70 seems about right. ATTO peaked at 87/76.

 

Well there is the market called the ultraportables...the Sony TT, Dell E4200, Lenovo X200s, etc all fit into this market of sub 4 pound sub 1" notebooks. These notebooks are business class, but there are also other ultraportables that the Macbook air started, the Luxury ultraportables which may or may not cost as much as the regular ones. These ones include the aforementioned MBA, Voodoo Envy 133, Dell Adamo, which go for good looks in addition to being an ultraportable. This is a new and developing market that is in direct contrast to the cheap netbooks being offered.

 

Didn't Dell say there would be more Adamo models? I know the Adamo 9 was mentioned a few weeks ago. Actually that doesn't make sense with most companies phasing out 8.9" screens in favor of 10" screens. Anyway, I was wondering if there will be an Adamo 16 model that looks just like the 13" Adamo, with a faster processor, more powerful discrete GPU & internal slot-loaded Blu-ray optical drive? It could be an alternative to the Studio XPS 16.

 

It is my feeling they will. They will emulate what they have now and make them better with bigger and smaller screens.

 

In terms of what you'd be looking for from a system like that I think an NVidia IGP is a mistake - you want something that maximises runtime while being able to handle general office applications, and as my runtime tests for the Crapbook Air Rev.B and my fleet of unibody Crapbooks shows, under extreme ekeing usage the Intel IGP fares a tad better in terms of general application usage + runtime. The 9400M does make a notebook more versatile for a greater range of users, but the fact is that even people like me aren't looking for anything more than a 4500MHD on an ultraportable.

I'd have been mightily interested in the Adamo if it weren't for one thing - 4lbs is grossly overweight for a machine which purports to be in terms of form factor at least as an ultraportable. But perhaps it needs to weigh that much to actually have a rigid aluminium structure when open or closed, unlike the Crapbook Air. In which case, the question begs itself - why use aluminium?

Also, a question for owners because I'm curious: What's the fit & finish like? Dell has always struck me as a company which engineers their products very well to be built by mediocre QC - i.e. they engineer their products to tolerate a certain degree of assembly deviation.

What's the build quality like when it comes to a premium product?

 

I wonder if they could make the E4200 2.2 lbs why can't they make the Adamo that light too? Maybe it is the materials like the brushed metal? Also the Adamo is actually, contrary to what they say, thicker than the Macbook air because the thinnest point on the Macbook air is 0.16", whereas the Adamo stays 0.65" throughout.

Here is what the Dell Adamo specs should read for $2000:

CPU: 1.6-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SP7500 or 1.8-Ghz SP7700

Operating System: Windows Vista

RAM/Expandable To: 2GB/4GB

Hard Drive Size/Speed: 64GB/128GB SSD (optional 80GB/4,200 rpm)

Optical Drive: external 8X or 6X dvd+/-RW

Display/Resolution: 13.4 inches

Graphics/Video Memory: NVidia 9400M

Wireless Networking: 802.11g/n, Bluetooth 2.1

Ports: two usb, esata/usb, hdmi, vga, firewire, headphone/mic, expresscard/34, SD card

Size: 12.7 x 9.0 x 0.7 inches

Weight: 3.4 pounds

Hey, its basically the specs for the Voodoo Envy 133 with more SSD space and a better graphics card =) but this is what I want an ultraportable to look like!

 

I just read the review posted earlier (also, sorry for missing the first billion pages of this thread), and I gotta say, it's rather silly that they're saying the Adamo is not powerful enough because it can't play Quake 4.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree with the notion that the Adamo is overpriced for what it offers, but on a machine of this caliber, it's just not fair to judge performance on intense 3D games.

 

It's built like a brick, open or closed. Use of thinner materials would have made it lighter but could have made it feel flimsy (like the E4200).

Outstanding, at least for the three I ordered. Some might say that the keys on the keyboard (not the keyboard itself) have a little flex to them but, in reviewing the design, with the slightly larger-than-normal keys, that was probably intentional to make it easier to type if you have small hands.

 

Yeah, possibly true if you look at the average thickness, but that's a stupid way to look at things. Thickness is measured at the thickest point because that's what you need to know if you're going to try and cram a notebook in a case. No one cares that it's 0.16" at the edge because it's closer to the maximum of 0.76" for 90% of the system.

EDIT: Put another way, if you're driving a truck and coming up to a tunnel that says "low clearance, 12ft 6in", do you measure the height of your vehicle at the bumper or the top of the cab?

I'll agree on the weight, but that's my only complaint about the system.

Sticking an 80GB 4200RPM drive in a system like this would be blasphemy, as would use of a 7xxx CPU. As to your port list, the system has displayport so you don't need HDMI or VGA, not may people use FireWire, and I've yet to see a useful ExpressCard. I'll give you the SD card slot though.

Finally, as to the complaints about the Intel graphics and the SU-series processor, I'm getting tired of these because you all obviously don't understand the point of this system.

All I can say is that anything more would have been completely unnecessary. For the work this system was designed to do, you do not need anything more than a 1.4GHz processor and the 4500 GPU. This is not a gaming system. You do not need the increased power consumption and decreased battery life that comes from high-power components. If you want a system like that, go buy a 17" desktop-replacement. If you want a 13" system with the same specs, keep dreaming because, even under the assumption that it was possible to build something like that, the cost would be tremendous, well beyond what is charged for the Adamo.

 

Thanks. The Adamo interests me a lot but the weight is just the deal-killer and I keep coming back to that. I only carry the 4.5lb unibody Crapbook on the OS X side as the Air was completely useless to me, and I have more realistic options available under Windows...

... but it is pretty droolworthy in a sort of good 80's Sony way I must admit. Must... Not... Curiosity... Buy!

What of this oft-discussed-especially-by-Apple-fanboys issue of the open slot for maintenance access? How visually obtrusive is it really and what are the possibilities of debris ingress? All I've seen are zoom shots of the slot.

 

Like I said, its just the Voodoo Envy 133 (another laptop in the same market and price range) with the same SSD as the Adamo and the Nvidia graphics as the MBA. There's no specs there that reference any 17" desktop replacement (Do you see any mention of quad core processor or dedicated graphics?). So yes, I think that a system like that should have about the same power consumption as the MBA and charged roughly the same.

 

I wish they'd a) update the Envy to Centrino2 and b) sell it over here.

 

Hey litkaj, how is 720p/1080p media playback? Any stuttering? Did you try AVCHD files?

 

If we're talking about [email protected] files, see the list below.

CoreAVC:
720p + 640 AC3 = OK
720p + 1.5 DTS = Close to the edge, occasional dropped frames in high-bitrate scenes
1080p = Bad

MPC-HC w/ DXVA:
720p = OK
1080p + 640 AC3 = OK
1080p + 1.5 DTS = Close to the edge, occasional dropped frames in high-bitrate scenes

What it comes down to is that with hardware acceleration this system is JUST capable of keeping up with the Blu-Ray drive Dell sells as an accessory.