Adamo

To paraphrase Sally Fields as she received an Oscar, Dell wants you to really, really love its new Adamo notebook. ("Adamo," in case you skipped school that day, is Latin for "to fall in love with" or "covet.")

Our colleagues at TechRepublic went a step further--they loved the Adamo to pieces. As part of their "cracking open" series of photo galleries, they worked in collaboration with iFixIt to take Dell's ultrathin new notebook apart piece by piece, with tender loving care, to show you just what makes it tick.

The upscale ($… Read more

Updated at 9:10 a.m. PDT: correcting for refurbished Apple MacBook Air price and refurbished unit discussion.

Dell's ultra-sleek Adamo may be ill-timed and grasping for cachet that's not there.

Gizmodo summarized its review of the Adamo by saying: "Just don't dare buy this computer until Dell comes to their senses and realizes that $2,000+ is absurd for a 4-pound laptop with no graphics muscle."

Though I think Gizmodo misses the mark about "graphics muscle" (ultraportables are not designed or marketed as graphics powerhouses, or anything close to it), the reviewer is right about price--and high price implies cachet. Only Apple (and maybe the ThinkPad x301) can command the kind of cachet that demands $2,500 for a high-end laptop (i.e., the MacBook Air).

But there's a greater force conspiring against the Dell Adamo and even the Apple MBA: the Netbook.

High-end Netbooks, like the just-announced 11.6-inch Acer Aspire One, are priced well below $700, making it hard to plop down $2,700 for the 1.4GHz Adamo. Yes, the four-pound Dell is a stunning, superior design (0.65-inches thick, machined-aluminum chassis) with better hardware (Core 2 processor, 128GB solid-state drive standard, 13.4-inch 16:9 HD display with edge-to-edge glass) . But is it $2,000 better? In the age of the two-pound $500 "luxury" Netbook, definitely not. … Read more

We previously got an exclusive early hands-on look at the Dell Adamo, the new luxury 13-inch that's one of the most buzzed-about new laptops of 2009. That was a pre-production model in black (Dell calls it "onyx") and now our final shipping version of the Adamo has arrived, and this is the white "pearl" version.

As a Core 2 Duo laptop that's less than 0.65-inches thick, the Adamois much more powerful than other new slim systems such as HP's 12-inch Pavilion dv2(with a new AMD Athlon Neo CPU). It's also … Read more

While they're not the first name that comes to mind when thinking of Netbooks, PC maker MSI earned a lot of ink last year for its MSI Wind U100, one of the first 10-inch Netbooks to hit the market.

The follow-up, called the Wind U123, has Intel's latest Atom, the N280, as well as a TV tuner and optional 3G antenna. It'll also come in red and blue, in addition to the standard white and grey versions we saw with the U100.

MSI has also announced two new 13-inch models from the X-Slim line. Both have 1366x768 displays and run Windows Vista Premium, but the $700 X320 uses an Intel Atom Z530, while the more expensive X340 (starting around $1,000), uses Intel's new CULV platform -- basically a much more efficient mobile processor. At 0.7-inches thick and 2.8 pounds, we could see these being a low-cost alternative to slick, thin 13-inchers such as the MacBook Air or Dell Adamo.

Both the new Wind U123 models and the X-Slim Series notebooks will be available in the US this May, and full specs are after the break. … Read more

Less than 24 hours after it was announced that the Dell Adamo is now available for preorder, there are already rumors of new members of the Adamo family.

Engadget found references to an Adamo 9 in some support documents on Dell's own Web site. There's also reference to a Studio One 22, a slightly larger version of the Studio One 19 released last week. That the new touch-screen all-in-one desktop might come in a larger size seems completely reasonable.

Dell hasn't responded to a request for an official comment on whether there is a forthcoming 9-inch Adamo, … Read more

The 3.0 version of the iPhone firmware is coming in the summer and will feature copy and paste, MMS, search, and more. All things a cheap Nokia phone can do now, but hey, the iPhone couldn't and now it can. So there. We also review the sleek new Dell Adamo and take Australia to task for a fine for hyperlinks.

Live blog: iPhone OS 3.0 preview http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10197216-37.html http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/03/16/the-iphone-os-30-announcement-scorecard/

Hands-on with the Dell Adamo http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10197525-1.html … Read more

One of the most buzzed-about new laptops of 2009 is Dell's Adamo, a high-end, ultrathin 13-inch model that starts at $1,999 and shares a design sensibility with the MacBook Air and the HP Voodoo Envy 133.

After teasing the system at CES 2009, Dell formally announced its online availability starting March 17, and we've managed to get our hands on a preproduction version of the hardware to bring you our initial impressions.

At first glance, the Adamo, is a stark break from Dell's recent laptop designs, built into an aluminum case with unibody construction, similar to the current MacBooks. The model we have is black (Dell calls it "onyx") and a white "pearl" version is also available. The back of the lid and the keyboard tray are split between brushed metal and a fingerprint-attracting glossy finish.

About 0.65 inch thick, Dell claims this is the thinnest laptop in the world. It's certainly thin, but going toe-to-toe with the MacBook Air, the true "thinnest" title is open to interpretation. The tapered Air is thinner at its narrowest point, but slightly thicker at its widest point. In either case these are both very slim systems.

Picking up the Adamo, we were surprised at how heavy it felt. At a hair under 4 pounds, it's certainly lightweight, but based on the size, we were expecting something closer to the 3-pound MacBook Air.

Dell is pitching the Adamo as a "luxury brand notebook design for the luxury conscious consumer," which may not seem like the most timely of ideas, considering the current economic climate and the resultant growth in low-cost Netbooks. While the timing may be unfortunate, products such as this generally have long, multiyear production cycles, from concept to release. … Read more

The Adamo is clean. Unlike almost every other Windows laptop you can buy, it has no "Designed for Windows" or "Intel Inside" stickers glued to the palm rest. Turn it over, and instead of a jigsaw puzzle of FCC approval stickers, serial number tags, and Microsoft certifications, there's a metal builder's plate with Dell, Intel, and Microsoft logos subtly printed on it. There's even a special magnetic cover hiding a required licensing sticker.

Designing the labels off a laptop is an aesthetic triumph, and it's apparently not so easy. I talked to Gregor Berkowitz at the design firm Moto about product labels. He's worked on the label problem, and told me that at most manufacturers, engineering and expediency hold sway over design, and the certifications and requirements for labeling just pile up. Engineers and product managers send labeling requests in piecemeal, and that's how they end up on the products: stuck on, one at a time.

At the design-driven Apple, obviously, things are different. Berkowitz said that label requirements are collected by a team responsible for keeping the product clean and true to its visual concept. The information that needs to go on the outside of the case is reviewed and whittled down to the bare minimum, in time for it to be engraved onto the box in a consistent typeface in the faintest possible way.

For the Adamo, Dell borrowed this idea, but had some Windows-specific challenges to meet. In particular, Dell's John New told me, Microsoft requires that the Windows Certificate of Authenticity sticker can't be replaced by a monochrome etching, and must be accessible to the end user without the use of tools to see it. For most machines, that means a sticker on the bottom of the product. For the Adamo, though, a magnetic coverplate behind the Adamo's screen hides the COA (and also the FCC certification). This cover also hides a few service screws, but its main purpose, and the reason it is magnetic, is to meet the letter of Microsoft's sticker law while still keeping the laptop free from unsightly badges. … Read more

Just over two months after Dell first showed off Adamo at the Consumer Electronics Show, the company says the notebook will be available for order starting Tuesday.

Adamo is Latin for "to fall in love with" or "covet." And of course that's what Dell hopes consumers will do when they see the sleek lines and extra attention to design details it's showered on this notebook.

It also adds up to an incredibly high price tag, one that seems entirely out of touch with the current economic reality. Debuting a $1,999 Windows PC right now is questionable at best, but make no mistake: whether Dell actually sells a lot of these makes little difference to the company, even if it won't say that publicly. The Adamo itself is not a guaranteed money-maker as much as it's a statement about how Dell wants to be perceived from now on.

"This is not necessarily a product that's designed to sell a lot of units. It's much more a showpiece product to demonstrate Dell's commitment to upgrading the level of design in its products," said Stephen Baker, an analyst for the NPD Group who keeps tabs on the electronics retail and PC industries.

It's safe to say that it's achieved that here. Whether the approach is too heavy-handed is more of a matter of personal opinion, but for Dell, it's clearly the most emphasis on design of any PC it's made. Every conversation with Dell about Adamo up to now has been entirely about the design and materials used, despite completely respectable interior specs. (For more on that, be sure to check out CNET's hands-on first take on the Adamo.)

The company is certainly proud of what its designers have come up with: unibody construction; superthin profile, .65 inches at its thinnest; etched aluminum; and a razor-thin bezel around a 13.4-inch glass wide-screen display. Proud, even if Adamo's design inspiration isn't disguised all that well, especially when it comes to the packaging--iPod circa 2007, anyone? … Read more