Comments on: Dell faces hurdles in luxury laptop push

PC maker's Adamo is ill-timed and may be grasping for cachet that's not there.

[mbenedict]

Hey Brooke, that $1,099 refurb MacBook Air has a very slow PATA drive, not an SSD. And it's still overpriced, as is the Dell.

[seven7dust]

it'll still boot faster than most laptops even high end ones

[dhavleak]

This article totally misses the point.

For many years, laptop makers were concentrating completely on function and not at all on form. All the while, Apple was making sexy laptops, and the PC OEMs assumed Apple would never be a threat.

Well, now the OEMs realize that they can't ignore form any more. So it doesn't specifically matter if the Adamo is a success or a failure or is overpriced or if it hasn't got the best GPU. All that matters is that Dell has made a very serious commitment to improving the design of their laptops. Adamo is merely the first result of that -- there will be many more. Dell will find the right niche/price/performance balance eventually. But at least they will now have options for people who do want some style from their computers.

None of this presents a defense of the Adamo itself. But its still a good thing for Dell, and for us (consumers) because we now have more options.

[Random_Walk]

@dhavleak:

I agree with you for a distance of it... it is good that Dell finally (finally!) decided to remove head from rectum in the design department. Same with HP. They still have a long way to go, but it is good to see them at least trying to move in the right direction.

There is a problem, though. While Dell and HP are busy (finally!0 concentrating on form, Apple has leap-frogged them in performance (try finding a Dell or HP with DDR3 RAM in it for less than a MBP, for instance).

As for the Adamo? I don't know if it will be the first or last round of Dell's attempts in the netbook arena. I can sum up the reason why I'm not sure about their commitment with one small phrase: "Dell DJ".

[monkeyfun14]

@Random_Walk

Thats easy
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-studio-xps-16?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

All better speced machines with DDR3 half the price.

[JuggerNaut]

@monkeyfun14

You can't do math very well... MacBooks also come with DDR3 SDRAM with a starting price of $1299 (compared to Dell's Studio XPS 16 Laptop starting at $1099). Half the price if overstating it a bit, don't ya think!

[Random_Walk]

@monkeyfun:

besides JuggerNaut's commentary, you forgot to bring the cheap Dell up to snuff on the specifications (including OS, and a battery that has any hope of lasting anywhere near as long as the Mac's). Once you bring the Dell up, it costs nearly as much as the MacBook , and doesn't come with iLife. Add MS Office vs. Apple's iWork, and all of the sudde3n "half as much" just reeks of fanboyism.

[stuxstu]

Agreed, Apple products are over priced and it is ridiculous that people pay that much.....

[RDWNUR]

Awesome comment, really helpful. You are so smart.

[seven7dust]

tell that to all the people suffering with quality problems with the cheap Dells and Hps of the world
Apple has been leading in customer satisfaction for years now
while Dell and HP have almost always been last on the list
so yes quality comes at a Price !

[monkeyfun14]

@seven

Wheres your source?

[rnaoncfixd]

@ monkeyfun14

He doesn't need to pony up the sources because it's pretty widely known that Apple outranks in nearly all customer satisfaction surveys.

But in case you missed it:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10167523-37.html
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/2009/02/18/apple-leads-2009-customer-satisfaction-survey/
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/02/19/apple-leads-2009-customer-satisfaction-survey
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2008/08/apples-customer-satisfaction-up-despite-struggling-industry.ars

[Random_Walk]

Hey mbenedict, if you can find a refurb machine with the same specs (including size and weight) or better, and at a better price? Let's see it. I suspect that you can't, or you'll conveniently leave something out. Also, so what if it has a (way larger) PATA disk? You've reduced yourself to nitpicking just to make a (non-existent) point. ;)

[infinitely]

Wow, what are you, the kind of person who actually thinks before they spout off? We don't like YOUR kind around here!

[mbenedict]

No, a thinking person would buy the $399 netbook instead this crappy 1st-gen MBA.

Let's face it, even at $1099 Apple is having a hard time offloading these refurb 1st-gen MBAs. They've been on sale for MONTHS now and few people are buying them. Which by definition == overpriced. The market speaks for itself.

[Random_Walk]

So according to you, a "thinking person" who is looking for what the MacBook Air offers (think: maximum power in a minimum-sized package), would instead settle for a tiny screen and a gimped processor (we won't even mention the graphics),just because they save money in the deal?

Why do I get the suspicion that you're a lot like that "Giampaolo" guy in the Microsoft ads? You know, the one that claims to be tech-oriented, but then settles for far, far less than what he was looking for...


"They've been on sale for MONTHS now and few people are buying them"

And your evidence for this unsupported assertion is... ?

Perhaps if you compared the things with ultra-slim/light laptops in its class (such as the Sony Vaio for instance)?

[mbenedict]

Manufacturers always optimize their warehouse space, and Apple isn't so stupid to keep stock of 1st-gen MBA refurbs for sale _alongside_ current MBA refurbs, unless they really have to. That means there are a ton of these 1st-gen MBA factory-refurbs right now (otherwise they'd just stop making refurbs, and simply sell returns in-bulk to a 3rd-party processors).

A "thinking person" would realize:

1) This 1st gen MBA was replaced back in October 2008, six months ago -- which means, they've been out of manufacturing for at least seven months.
2) This same 1st gen MBA is being offered as a discounted _factory_ refurb world-wide with no shortages in each model.

So where is this stock of refurb supplies coming from? Noting supply vs. demand, there are only two realistic possibilities: a) defective MBAs are currently being returned in such great quantities that Apple has large amount of "new" refurbs 7-months after end of manufacturing, and/or b) people simply aren't buying them, thus they're still overpriced by definition.

[Random_Walk]

"Manufacturers always optimize their warehouse space..."

Oh, c'mon - you're just weaseling now. The consumer doesn't care about just-in-time warehousing or whether or not an item is in or out of manufacture - if it is for sale and fulfills the needs, it gets bought.

Just to play your game: If that particular MacBook Air dies during the warranty period, the consumer gets a brand new one if parts can't be had. So that pretty much removes the argument you had buried in there.

[sanjayb]

Guys like Leo Laporte and the Mac Brek Weekly guys have said that Apple isn't selling many MBA's these days.

[mbenedict]

Exactly.

You look at refurb deals from other manufacturers and often stock is depleted in a *single* day. Apple has MBA refurb stock that's 7+ months old... only hardcore fanboys like Random_Walk can say there's nothing wrong there.

[SlimGem]

For $1,099 you get an 80GB 4200-rpm PATA hard drive.

For $1,199 you can get a 64GB solid-state drive.

Overpriced is in the eye of the beholder. For that money you get an over 13" monitor and a full sized keyboard in a package that weighs practically nothing. It's simply another option and a matter of choice.

Brooke is right about Apple's refurbished products. The only difference is you don't get the fancy packaging. Buying refurb is a smart move.

[rocketjam--2008]

Virtually eveything I've bought from Apple has been from their refurbished items. They come with the same 1-year warranty that a brand new item comes with, but usually cost significantly less. You can't go wrong.

[coryschulz]

Agreed. I got my 24" iMac from Apple refurb for $1300 and it was a great deal. Saved me about $500 and I haven't had any problems with it at all. Upgraded the ram to 4GB for under $40 and I think I'll be pretty happy with this set up for years to come. When I do buy a new computer I'll probably go for another iMac. If I ever need something portable I'll most likely go with a refurb Air, but right now my iPhone fills most portable needs. The refurb iPods are a great deal as well. And ATT has refurb iPhones on their site for $100 off, but I'll probably upgrade to the new model in June when it comes out. I'm so glad I ditched Windows and the PC. My experience with Apple products has been great, while Windows was never anything impressive and often caused unnecessary problems.

[frvstandard]

You're first sentence nailed it.

At base Dell has a brand problem, and Adamo is another example of Dell getting in its own way.

Adamo was an attempt by Dell to be taken seriously as a design company, and by nearly all accounts they succeeded splendidly on technical grounds. However, a few artsy ads in fashion and lifestyle magazines can't overcome the inertia of years of "everything's on sale" consumer image. They want so much to be the cool kids, but selling fine art at the Dollar Store isn't going to earn that cachet.

Meanwhile, instead of pouring resources into flashy non-starters like Adamo, they could have been making that quality discounter reputation work for them in their netbook and low-end laptop range. They got good momentum with their 9" netbook, but their 10" effort limped under-featured onto the market. Acer's out in front with a new 11" netbook and even has a cheap ultramobile competitor to the Adamo. If Dell had innovated and built their design and innovation credentials there, they might have been able to gain share and mojo, and reshape their brand more to their liking.

[monkeyfun14]

They have been doing nice designs for the past few years now..

Studio , XPS, Etc

[Get_a_life_Leo]

Dell is testing the waters. This is a company in flux. It's putting out stalking horse products to gauge interest as it may not be able to maintain itself under its current business plan model of selling cheap netbooks and stripped down laptops. The real $$ Dell makes are in the server class arena and it knows that this segment will be tight for at least the next couple of years. So it's trying to go both up- and down-market and is testing whether people are willing to pay for cache and design. It likely believes this is the key to Apple's ability to charge its "tax" on machines, but its missing the key point that Apple controls the whole widget (hardware and software). Even though the parts bins are essentially similar between Apple and PC makers, Apple knows ahead of time exactly what hardware configurations it needs to support in the OS and has demonstrated a willingness to invest in technologies most companies leave to OEMs (like the battery tech in the MBA and 17" MacBook Pro.

The Adamo is a beautiful machine and may help Dell shake its plain vanilla design image (its XPS range is similarly targeted a limited segment). It is unlikely to be a money-maker, but as a flagship for design, may get people to take a look at Dell again. In that sense, it may be a good investment.

[frvstandard]

I think you give them too much credit. A test would be more rigorous, and a strategy would be cumulative and integrated. Introducing great designs, throwing a few ads at them and then letting them languish is not a turnaround model. Also, they said themselves in the launch that this was about design, not selling systems.

All of their machines -- not just Adamo and XPS -- from low end to high end look great now. Why don't they talk about the bigger picture in their advertising instead of "sale of the day." Or maybe do both -- affordable design -- like Target.

[YoungDonald]

It seems odd that a copy of someone else's product should merit a premium price. Why doesn't Dell do something creative to enhance their reputation? Or are they not a creative company? The only thing they did was sell and service the consumer directly, which was not really a new concept. Maybe they should concentrate on supplying and servicing cheap reliable clones, which has been their success.

[monkeyfun14]

Because thats not where the money is at do you think any company really gives a damn about making sure their consumers are getting the most savings? Hell no they want the biggest profit margin.

[Angmarr]

Too bad Dell had to make a replica of that Horrible Macbookair!

[stalexone]

Makes so much more sense for someone to buy a used/refurbished Dell D420/D430. If you find one with an all Intel chipset then you can also run OS X on it using Kalyway. These computers run from $350 to $650 on Ebay from reputable sellers...and the weigh 3 lbs and are Dual Core Intel machines! I don't know why anyone would even consider a Netbook when these babies have been on the market...I think Dell is just advertising these models very poorly.

[FormerPCwonk]

The posters on this board have a simplistic, 3rd grade understanding of what "overpriced" means. The true meaning of the term "overpriced" is demonstrated when a product or service costs more than people are willing to pay. As an example of this, recall the $599 PS3. The product could objectively be described as overpriced only because the product was not successful at that point.

However, if people are buying the MacBook Air, the Adamo or anything else enough that the product can be deemed successful, it isn't "overpriced," and the argument that you could sell more at a cheaper price is indicative of nothing, since that is true for any product at any price above $0. It may be subjectively overpriced, but that is a different question, and if you have beyond a 3rd grade education you should be able to distinguish between fact (objective) and opinion (subjective).

[mbenedict]

That's the whole point. People were NOT buying the 1st gen MBAs and looks like they're not buying these 1st gen refurbs either. They've been out-of-manufacturing for 7 months for goodness sake and yet Apple is still selling them as factory-direct refurbs.

If people were buying these refurbs, then we'd only see limited supplies available from current returns (or more likely, Apple would just sell the current returns in-bulk to a 3rd party and not even make factory-direct refurbs available.)

So by your own definition, they're "overpriced".

[JuggerNaut]

@mbenedict

..."They've been out-of-manufacturing for 7 months for goodness sake and yet Apple is still selling them as factory-direct refurbs."...

I would like to see proof of that?!

[faceless128]

Dell's Adamo baffles me, it's the kind of thing a mac user would buy, except it runs windows, which means the air of eliteness isn't there, so it leaves the market for windows users, who aren't used to paying a 'dell tax' on hardware. who would buy the adamo?

i'm typing this on a dirt cheap dell dmiension e310 too, so it's not dell i have the problem with, it's the thought that dell thinks they can charge apple prices for a windows machine.

[brian.lee]

The problem with PC's isn't as much the hardware anymore it's the operating system. I would run os x on an HP if I could or a Dell for that matter. The problem is I can't, and I can't buy windows xp either so I choose to pay more for Apple.

[holyhope]

I am running a dell right now with OS X. I have a mac sticker over the dell emblem on the cover. I paid 300$ for this nice machine three years ago. I am in my 60's and retired, and don't need an over priced piece of hardware. All the tests show the speed is equal to or surpasses Mac. It has that QE and that other Mac whatzit to show better function. I could care less about elan or show. I want function, and more and better function with lower cost. The audio and video is good, but I consider it a super linux, and for some things linux is better. thanks

[lightwave300k]

none of the macbook air like netbooks shown till now are less than one inch thick. the thinnest from MSI is 0.95-inch thin at its thinnest part compare that to macbook air at 0.17-inch thin. Also performance of a MacBook Air is hundred times better than a netbooks. i personally have used both MacBook Air that i bought 2 months ago and HP mini 10 that i bought for my girlfriend, the netbooks is hundred times slower. Actually we both have stopped taking the netbook anywhere as we can get much more done on macbook air. for example to convert a 4 minute WAV file to mp3 on netbook it took around 3 mins, whereas it took less than 60 seconds on Macbook Air. What i have seen till now is, most people just like to complain without actually using the product and that is what is happening in the comments

[sflocal]

People here are quick to pounce on the "shortcomings" of the MBA. I wonder how many of these critics have actually used one for any length of time. I own an MBA as my 9-to-5 laptop. It is ten-fold better than any prior Wintel laptop I've owned. It also runs XP faster (in a VM) faster than my previous Sony Vaio.

Netbooks are a curiosity. I've tried them. Company I work at even purchased them for the mobile staff. Want to guess where they are now? Sitting on a shelf gathering dust because they essentially suck. Performance so bad it's not even funny.

"Why should I buy a $1000+ notebook when I can get a $300-$400 netbook?" - Simple, if you want to get your work done, buy a real notebook. The performance of a netbook just is not there. It's not even remotely in the same state-line of a notebook regardless of who makes it.

The only item I agree with is the timing/price of Dell's Adamo.

If you're happy with your netbook, good for you. But don't even try to shove your opinion to other people that don't agree with you. There is more value to me than just cheap price. You didn't figure that out yet.

[seven7dust]

don't worry about it too much !
the MBA is probably the most hated/Loved Laptop in history especially in technology sites and blogs
the funny part most of these haters have never even touched it let alone use it !

[JFerrari427]

I recently bought a MacBook Air for $999 refurbished from Apple, you cant tell its not new besides from the packaging. Thats a lot better than paying $1799 for the MacBook Air new or $1999 for the Adamo. The MacBook Air is a steal refurbished, even tho a PC for the same price has better hardware specs, the Air is quicker than any PC running Vista, even at its base specs- probably due to OSX's efficiency.

[Rezabe]

Gizmodo is right about its comment on graphic muscle because they talk about a 4 POUNDS laptop that obviously isn't a ultra portable laptop.

[PowerOfThree3]

The Lenovo ThinkPad X300 is available NEW from Lenovo Outlet for under $1200. For a refurbished unit, the price dips below $1000....

[Maccess]

Now, that's a gorgeous little beastie. Well worth paying more than HPs $699 17-incher.

[tundraboy]

Yup, couple of years back Walmart tried to go up market. And VW tried to sell the Phaeton for 70 thou. And this year Dell peddles the Adamo. Walmart and VW failed and so will Dell. It is so easy to go down market from up. The other way around is waaay harder than it looks. Most people will think "the Phaeton's a damned nice car but if I'm going to spend 70 G's, I'd rather spend it on a Mercedes and get the cachet and exclusivity that goes with the brand name". Toyota, Nissan and Honda had to launch new brand names to do it. That's an expensive proposition but it's really the only way.

[elitebuyer]

Dell will not be able to sell these drive. We have customers comming in out our office at long beach computer www.elitebuyer.com. Most off them used to buy dell and they are not happy.

[Maccess]

Not to mention that their operating system vendor has been conditioning buyers that PC laptops are supposed to be cheap: $699 for a 17" HP and only Apple's are expensive, right? therefore, Dell's shouldn't be more than $699 too, otherwise they'd be Apple's, which they aren't.