Review: Dell Adamo

Dell's stylish new Adamo notebook.

Powering up an Apple PowerBook used to attract envious stares from PC-owning poor cousins. I use a past tense because it looks like Dell may have dethroned Apple with its rather lustly Adamo notebook, which is one of the most tasty notebook PCs I've ever clapped my eyes on.

Its most striking feature however is its freakishly thin design. The Adamo's chassis is so thin that you'd be forgiven for thinking it had an eating disorder. This said it still feels rock solid. When I say thin, I'm definitely not kidding - the Adamo which measures a mere 19mm deep - About the same as say, two magazines or dare I say the Apple MacBook Air.

Build-wise, the Adamo Build feels more like a fine Swiss watch than a notebook PC. With a case precision machined out of a block of aluminium, the end result is an incredibly stylish looking PC. The sheer quality of the Adamo's design is showcased by the fact that all its screws are hidden. Even its touchpad mouse buttons and keyboard keys are all aluminium. Funnily enough it also feels reassuringly heavy - but not too heavy - weighing in at a solid but not too chunky 1.8kg.

Speaking of the Admo's keyboard, I was also taken with its ambient backlighting feature which lights up in low-light conditions (which also be disabled for greater battery life).

Gee-whizz backlighting aside, its keyboard was well spaced and large enough to allow for extended QWERTY bashing sessions (writing this review on the Adamo was no chore at all).

The Adamo's screen also impressed. Even when unpowered it looked pretty good thanks a slick edge to edge a glass design that gives it a sheer frameless appearance. The real kicker however comes when the Adamo is fired up. Its widescreen 1366 x 768-pixel resolution delivered crisp images at near-sunbed levels of light intensity. Thanks to its energy efficient LED backlighting on-screen colours were also incredibly vivid without requiring it be plugged into a sub station for juice.

Under the hood, the Adamo uses a 1.2GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Dell has also added 2Gb of memory. Whilst this spec mightn't make the Adamo the best choice for decoding the human genome, its enough grunt to run most applications under Vista smoothly.

Given the premium price tag Dell is charging for the Adamo, I would have however expected a tad more RAM. This minor grizzle aside, the Adamo's battery life was reasonable, delivering just over four hours with average use.

Given its anorexic slim form-factor, it's not terribly surprising that there wasn't a tonne of space for expansion ports.

Dell have included three USB ports (the third does double duty as an eSATA interface for speedy external hard disk connectivity), plus an Ethernet socket for a wired LAN hook-up as well as a Display port (Dell bundles a DVI adapter for connectivity to monitors and/or TVs). Unfortunately there's no built-in memory card reader, and no internal or bundled external optical drive.

It's hard not to be impressed by the Adamo's stunning looks, amazing craftsmanship and sheer, slim design. However given its premium $4,499 sticker price, a few extras such as an external DVD writer drive thrown in would have been the icing on an already tasty cake. Would I want to own an Adamo? Hell Yes! it's a stunner.

Specifications

RRP: $4,499+GST
CPU: Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo Processor (1.2GHz)
OS: Vista Home Premium (SP1 64 bit Edition)
RAM: 2Gb 800MHz DDR3 dual-channel memory
Storage: 128GB3 solid state drive
Display: 13.4" 16:9 (720p) WLED display
Camera: 1.3 megapixel camera/microphone
Ports: Display Port (with external DVI adapter), USBx3 (1x eSATA), Audio Out and integrated RJ-45 port
Network: Ethernet, Bluetooth 2.1, 802.11n
Battery: Li-Polymer
Dimensions: (w x d x h) 13.03 x 9.5 x 0.65 in (331 x 242 x 16.39 mm)