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

Thanks for this share

 

I am a new owner of a White version Dell Adamo which I got for $1000 from FutureShop. Just a little con for this laptop for those looking into buying it.

I am in the IT field and use the laptop almost 24/7 hours a day or at least its on 24/7. My only disappointment for this laptop as of right now is the multimedia keys for the easy setting of lowering and increasing the sound and also play/fast forward/rewind. These are located on the top right corner of the Adamo from the keyboard view.

These LED/buttons WON'T I repeat WON'T work when the computer is warmed up from hours of use. It will only work if the adamo is on power saving mode or a cold boot from startup.

As of right now my Adamo is on Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and I have tried downloading both the vista and win 7 drivers for the mutlimedia keys and neither works when the laptop is warmed up.

I wanted to return the laptop and get another one but I just couldn't let go of the design of the laptop. Therefore, I'm planning to keep it and just ignore the media keys.

I wish Dell will use the advantage of the remaining function keys so we can control the sound from there.

 

$1000? I'm seeing it for $1099. How'd you get that deal?

Also, how's the display quality?

 

oops my bad, I should not round the #'s haha. It was $1099 and in total $1200 with tax. The display quality is nice. With its WLED screen.

But i'm having seconds thoughts right now and might return it.

 

I just got my Adamo Pearl ($999 at Amazon.com). I learned so much from this thread, thanks to everyone who has posted useful info. In short, I LOVE this thing. Im an IT consultant and wanted something light and stylish. I almost got the Vostro V13 because of the price, but didn't like that it only shipped with 32-bit Win7. So for $400 more I ordered the Pearl and got 64-bit Win7 Home Premium and an awesome aluminum unibody case (no plastic flexiness!)

Most of my work is creating Office documents and RDP-ing into servers, and this machine has more than enough power for that. The Adamo runs cool, the fan almost never turns on and even when it does its not annoying. For me the SSD doesnt seem that much faster, but I do like the lack of mechanical noise. A hard drive activity light would have been nice though. My pro and con list:

PROS: impossibly thin, light yet solid, metal keys, beautiful design, good screen resolution

CONS: mouse keys contacts are not centered (pressing on one side of them is stiff), no Pause/Break key (use Fn-F12 instead), 2-finger scroll action is jerky (compared to Macbook Air), and the screen is a bit bluish (again, compared to Mac), environmentally-incorrect packaging

Yes, the con list is longer than the pro, but they're all just quibbles. Overall this is my dream laptop. I'll probably buy an upgrade to Win7 Pro instead of doing a fresh install because I want encryption but don't want to deal with hard-to-find drivers. Otherwise this machine is absolutely perfect for me.

 

First of all, adamo 13 keys are plastic

I bought both an onyx and a pearl, but eventually settled on adamo xps.

Pearl shows less prints than onyx. Both look great. My biggest peeve was that the hinge spring is very tight on the adamo 13. You need 2 hands to open the laptop.

Adamo xps is great, 2 biggest complaints is no dedicated home / end keys and no backlit keyboard.

None of the 3 laptops ever showed any slowdown in casual office usage, in fact ssd makes them seem very snappy.

 

UPDATE: Still really happy with the Adamo Desire, design just grows on me more every day. I'm not a techie in any way, but this is the first computer I've owned in which I feel great every single time I pop her open. I am sad to see the Desire Adamos pulled off the Dell website. I was planning on picking up an Onyx one as well...

1 issue has just come up which is shiety. The glass on my screen cracked. I'm not sure how it happenned; just got up and pulled open the lid and noticed some distortion for a second. I was half asleep so didn't pay any attention. Later during the day I noticed a fine crack from top to bottom. Anybody experience this yet? Isn't the Adamo supposed to use 'gorilla glass' or something of the sort?

 

Hi there,
I have a question:
Could anyone please post his (or her ;-) )CPU-temperatures in idle?

thank you =)
Chris

 

ambient temperature 30C
motherboard 50C
CPU(su9400 1.4mhz) 46C
idle state, fan is off

 

Wow, thank you very much.
Almost same as mine
.. know i can sleep again in the night - without nightmares of grilled cpus.

 

Just got my Adamo 13 for £600 here in UK, low spec but good value. and perfect fit for what I need. only the SSD is much slower than my old ssd and it is not TRIM enabled. guess I have to find some replacement in the future.ok with 4 hour battery time, but 4 hour charge time is too slow! guess it is to do with the small 45W charger, any one know an replacement charger will fit adamo? any 65w or 90w charger?

 

somewhere buried in the 167 pages of this thread there are some post that specifically discuss the slow charging time of this laptop. As I recall it had more to do with the type of battery than the charger. I'm surprised your hard drive is not trim enabled you may be able to change that by updating the firmware.

 

been using latitude 13 for some time and I thought the battery is very similar to the one in dell v13 and latitude 13, which using the normal 65w charger and it is very quick. no firmware for my ssd as it is not the newer pm800 disk. Guess have to wait and see any new product show up.

 

What happened to the Adamo XPS? I cant find it on the dell site...

 

looks like found an better charger to reduce charge time from 4 hours to 2 hours 30 mins. for an full charge

hp f1781a ultraslim ad/dc adapter out put 19V and 3.16A.

up from 15V 3A on the normal one.

the battery hasn't explode yet.

 

Their site was here: Dell Adamo XPS Laptop

Looks like its gone

 

Is there anywhere I can order the Adamo XPS? I don't like the normal Adamo

 

Try google?

 

Good news!

Dell *finally* released an updated firmware for the Samsung SSD drives (except for those with the older VBM15D1Q firmware).

The update process is a bit of a hassle since it erases all data on the drive and you have to reinstall everything. You'll need to make a full image backup of your drive BEFORE the upgrade. You'll also need a DOS-bootable USB drive to perform the firmware upgrade.

Here is the link to the release (be sure to read all the installation notes on the link below):

Drivers and Downloads

 

Gosh..
mine is running VAM05D1Q

 

Finally!

The only problem is that I loose the recovery partition with factory state image .

PICOW

 

Just do an image backup of your entire SSD (using Ghost or one of the many other image tools). Restore it after the FW update.

 

I upgraded my drive and am at 7.4 in the windows experience index for hard drive...nice find!

 

me too. Don't think there will ever been an firmware update for this one. as it is different hardware I think. no TRIM for us.

 

Are you sure this would work?

I installed Acronis, made a full backup of the drive (3 partitions). I tried to boot with acronis and perform a fake restore. Recovery partition was C:, system was d:. Factory settings was recovery no letter, system c:.

I am afraid that if I recover the whole drive with acronis, recovery partition will not act as a recovery partition anymore.

I wish Dell would give more instructions of this one.

PICOW

 

Hello all!

I’ve read through this entire thread and it just seems to me that we (the customers) were ready for the Adamo, but Dell simply wasn’t (with the exception of the people you put it together)… Apparently service is non-existent, software updates are scarce and delayed, accessories are difficult to find… It’s very disappointing to see the company not backing up its product. “I can’t believe it’s a Dell” – this phrase may be true after all!

Anyway, I really like the Adamo and I'm on the verge of pulling the trigger on an Onyx Admire (SU9400 1.4 GHz, 2GB RAM, 128GB SSD) – that’s the only one that Dell has left.

But I desperately need your opinion.

Let me just say that I use my laptop almost exclusively for working. Office programs (Word, Excel, PPoint), Acrobat Pro, Endnote (a bibliography program), SPSS (a statistical analysis program), and Explorer (browsing for work as well as entertainment). Oh, Skype as well for videoconferencing and Outlook for email. I typically have many of these programs running simultaneously- this is my kind of multitasking.

I do not use my laptop for playing games, or editing photos and video. Occasionally I may watch a movie or listen to some music, but that’s about it.

So, I would like to know your opinion on whether the Adamo Admire at 1.4GHz with 2GB of RAM will be able to handle all this with ease, or whether you think performance (again, from my perspective) will suffer.

Any answer is much appreciated.

Thanks!

fem

 

Hi, I am using the basic spec one with su9300 and doing pretty much the same thing on this laptop than you. I wound say you would find no problem at all. the only limitation I found using in office are no VGA port(dp port to vga converter is optional) and no dock port(so you have to try some of the usb docking). if you can live with that, I think it is the most elegant business laptop Dell can offer at the moment.

 

Thank you for your answer! Anybody else?
I don't care about the docking, really. I do care about connecting to an external projector, though, but I guess a DP-to-VGA adapter will do (Dell is selling a couple of them- has anybody tried them with the Adamo?)
thx again!

 

Hi all

** Ambient Light Sensor Not Working After Clean Win7 Install **

Just got an Onyx Adamo 2GB/128GB Running Vista HP. Loving it.

Upgraded via clean install to Win7 Pro (vanilla, i.e. non-Dell) + installed all drivers from Dell's site.

Everything seems to work except the ambient light sensor - it was fine under Vista.

BIOS reports that it is working; Device Manager shows the sensor and reports that it is working. I'm quite sure that it is not working. I tried disabling / re-enabling it (Fn+Left Arrow) to no (obvious) avail.

The current driver provider is described as Microsoft; Would this be appropriate?

If someone has a working ALS could you please let me know the driver I should be using? Alternatively, does a Dell Win7 Install Disc have additional slipstreamed files that I might need?

Any advice/guidance gratefully received.

Many thanks
James

 

is the adamo gone from epp? trying to look for a discount before ordering

nvm $-100 is the discount right?

 

@ crspyjohn
The Adamo is still there for $899, both Onyx and Pearl, though only the Admire ( Your Member Purchase Program | Dell)

Use ?TN8W7?M9FHLBW coupon for free shipping!

@ jgrogan:
I think I heard that (non-functional ALS) before from people who have outdated BIOS or Win7 32-bit. What are you running?

 

Hey guys, so I have been so strung up on wanting this laptop, but I don't want the Admire model (I think the Desire model has better specs). I have checked the website for over 4 months and it seems they are not restocking the Desire model. I talked on chat with a Dell rep (who didn't even know what I meant by Admire and Desire) and asked if they were planning on restocking it or not. He said that when higher dell execs decide to "relaunch" it, he would notify me. I pushed him for an answer as to whether they were going to restock it or not (plain and simple)-- I don't want to wait forever if they are not going to ever restock it. He finally said yes, there is to be an eventual restock/relaunch and when he knows he will email me (I don't know if he said that because I kept annoying him or if he really knows that). Does anyone know if this is true? How would I be able to find out for sure? I want to call Dell and speak to someone in the Adamo dept, but I don't know how to do that and I don't want them to be all cryptic like this chat rep. I don't think it's too much to ask if they are ever planning to restock/relaunch--- I mean I'm not asking for specific details--- I just don't want to wait indefinitely--- dude, if they're not planning on restocking, just tell me, right? Don't leave me hanging on a string.

Anyway, anyone have any insight to this? Or have contacted dell and spoken on the phone to someone who actually knows what the Adamo is?

 

@fem

Running BIOS v7 & Win7Pro 64bit.

I was too dmb to make notes on the working config b4 upgrading. Do the screen brightness settings (in BIOS) override ALS if not set to factory defaults? (just a thought).

I can live without ALS, but as I have paid for it, I'd rather have it working...

Thanks for your attention. Appreciated as always.

Best,
James

 

I'm also too dmb to spell dmb (doh!)

Also, can somebody let me know where I can get the Adamo wallpapers and user login images (like the ivory flower on black background) as supplied with Vista HP I would be very grateful.

Thanks very much.

Best
James

 

James,
Win7 64bit and Bios 7 should be ok. I read in another forum that upgrading to Bios A07 (what you have) resolved the ALS problem after a clean install. Setting the brightness level though BIOS overrides the ALS (I am almost 100% sure). So, I guess, resetting the BIOS will probably resolve your issue.

rabidpup,
I think it is highly unlikely that Dell will release a new Desire version (e.g., with an i-core, etc). Usually, when the companies plan to release an upgrade, they never tell you! So your Dell rep probably told you “yes” to get rid of you!

 

This is a very good question!! Something I kept looking for several years

Would anyone be so kind to upload both?

Thank you guys!

 

I just have the backgrounds...

 

Ossom! Thank you so much!

With the wallpaper "DellSpecial1" and Stardock Logon-studios it is possible to create the original Adamo logon-feeling ;-)

 

Just noticed that all references to any Adamo have entirely disappeared from both the US and CDN Dell Websites.

Sorry, reference to Adamo still exists on the websites, though it has been removed from the menu as a category for laptops.

 

I also noticed. It disappeared on Saturday, I think. This is probably the end of it…
You can still find some on ebay, though. There is a refurbished, used Onyx Desire (L9600 @ 2.1GHz, 4GB, 256GB SSD) selling right now for $1175 with free shipping. With a Dell warranty until June 2011. (it's not mine!)

 

Link for the Desire is here:

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

And you can also buy (from ebay) a like-new onyx slot-in DVD-RW for $110 shipped. Link is here:

eBay - New & used electronics, cars, apparel, collectibles, sporting goods & more at low prices

And there you have it! With $1285 you'll get a Desire with DVDRW at your doorstep!

 

Does anyone here use these laptops for HD (dSLR) video editing/photo editing? Just wondering how they are with that.

 

Does anyone have recommendations for a neoprene sleeve for the Adamo? I have the Mandarina Duck sleeve (got it for a steal when it was on clearance through the Dell site for only $11!), but it's more bulky and adds more weight than necessary. I just need something that will protect it from scratches.

Will the Adamo fit in cases made for the Macbook Pro, or will there be too much extra space from the thinness? What about cases made for the Macbook Air?

 

I believe you will have a very difficult time finding one that perfectly fits the Adamo (other than the MDuck) due to its non-standard dimensions (13.4” and protruding back). I have searched quite a bit myself a while ago but found nothing. The only thing that came close dimension-wise was a Lenovo sleeve for the IdeaPad S (13-incher) but I haven’t tried it myself. I like the MDuck better.

Glove-like sleeves for the MBAir (like the “envelope”) will by no means fit the Adamo (check the photo on p.127 in this forum ). I don't know about the MBPro.

Some users have suggested some aftermarket sleeves (see p.153 and another one earlier than that) however I don't think they ever tried them (maybe they have, but I am not sure they reported back here ).

My suggestion is to keep the MDuck unless you like experimenting and RMA-ing! Granted, you have some $ to spend for shipping the sleeves back since you got the MDuck so cheap!

Take care

 

Thanks for the insight.

To answer my own question, I found a pretty good neoprene sleeve, the Case Logic ENS13 (the one for 13.3" laptops). The fit isn't perfect, but it conforms to the Adamo much more like a true sleeve while adding minimal weight and bulk. I can put the Adamo in the Case Logic and still fit the whole thing inside the Mandarina Duck. The style and branding of the the Mandarina Duck are definitely higher end, but the Case Logic is much more practical for my needs.

 

Well this sux.

Shoulda kept my desire.

I work for WWTS and yes it has been phased out.

Don't know what or even if they are going to replace it,

I will know before any1 because I have access to internal Dell training docs.

 

Let us know, sleey0, if you hear anything, though I doubt. I don’t expect an upgrade, at least not with the current i-heat processors! And by the time SandyBridge comes out next year, Adamo will be kind of “old” for an upgrade (2 years old, actually), especially after staying half a year or more in the background.

It has been a refreshing design, nonetheless. Something different from the plastic, round, boxy, boat-like laptops out there (IMHO ).

It was actually the only laptop (plus the short-lived Voodoo Envy 13) that shooked me eek: ) after Sony’s X505 back in 2003-2004 (typing on it right now, that's how great it remains after 6 years ). Another collectible, if I might say!

Till next time…

 

phew I bought one a week before it disappeared from dells website. I think I will keep it, $850 shipped, no tax

 

Do you guys even think it's worth buying the Dell Adamo now then? Will its specs just be too out of date? I just can't find another laptop that looks as good and I always keep my laptops for at least 5 years so if it'll be really super out of date it's a concern (and please don't suggest mac)...ug it's so aggravating!

 

My suggestion is to get it if you like it, but make sure it satisfies your current needs. Forget about future-proofing; there is no laptop like that, IMO, esp. when it comes to the ultraportable ones.

I have been using a Sony Vaio X505 for 6 years now without a problem. In case you don’t know, I am referring to a 10.4” screen, a Pentium M 1.1 Ghz and 512 MB of RAM, which debuted in 2004 (for some insane amount of money). I am running XP Pro (custom light version with nlite, but fully functional), Office 2003 Pro, Acrobat 8 Pro, EndNote X1, SPSS 18, and IE8/Chrome. For all these, it’s great and plenty fast, or at least not painfully slow. And boots with its 20GB hard drive at 4200 rpm (not kidding; it’s that old) in about 30 sec. But games, HD video, PS, etc. just forget about it! I have many other laptops, more powerful, but I always prefer this for portability reasons (weighs 850 grams or so) when I travel for business, and also because I like its looks!

My point is this: If you have realistic expectations from the Adamo, then by all means get one. As long as it fits your current needs, you will enjoy using it for years. And the wow-factor will always be there, guaranteed (for yourself and others!).

Now, if tomorrow you need a laptop with a 16-core processor running the 164-bit version of Windows 9 because you decided to start working on holograms, well, Adamo won’t cut it, but neither will any other laptop out there at present.

In my case, for my needs when on the road, the Adamo is lightning fast (just compare it with the specs above).

Also, I believe, for a price of around $700-900 (Admire at eBay), it’s pretty decently spec-ed. For example, the recently-retired ThinkPad X301 (ok, a completely different class of machine but of similar from factor) with U9400 1.4GHz, 2-4GB RAM and 64-128GB SSD used to sell for >$2000 until 2-3 months ago, and refurbished ones at Lenovo outlet still sell for >$1250. And the built-in DVD-RW does not make up for this difference!

So, see whether it satisfies your needs, and if it does, try to find an Adamo just a couple of months old (still under warranty) because people in this forum have had several problems that required service, which doesn’t come cheap. The RAM and SSD are soldered into the mobo, so they are neither upgradeable nor replaceable (meaning you have to change the entire mobo if something goes wrong- unless you are a tech-savvy who is not afraid of desoldering and soldering on his/her precious!).

BUT: If you are into photo/video/games, etc., I would probably wait for the SandyBridge to come out early next year, since this is believed to bring a significant boost in graphics performance among the ultraportables.

That’s my 2 cents.