Laptop Bargains - Dell Adamo 13

New Price: £1500 / Mar 2009

Price Now: £450 / July 2011

Screen:      13.3" 1366x768 LED (Glossy / glass)

CPU:         Core 2 Duo ULV 1.2GHz

RAM:         2Gb DDR3 1066

GFX:          GS4500

HDD:         128Gb Samsung SSD (with TRIM support)

OS:           Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit

K/B:          Backlit (auto brightness sensor)

Batt:          5 hours web browsing

Ports:        3x USB 2.0 / eSATA / Display Port

Network:    802.11 b,g,n wi-fi / Bluetooth 2.1 / Ethernet (10/100)

Size:         331x241x16.5mm

Weight:     1.75Kg

As I explained in my first post, looking for a 'thin & light' notebook on a big budget shattered my hope for perfection at a price. When spending upwards of £1000 I'd hoped to be able to hand pick every feature but instead I grew more disappointed with each model I examined. Stepping the budget down to below £500 (same criteria) I expected too much compromise but I was wrong! This was the second bargain that I just couldn't resist:  The Dell Adamo 13.

Unlike the other notebook bargain that I recently bought (the Alienware M11x) the Adamo doesn't sacrifice thickness for graphics punch and battery longevity, this thing is all about 'thin' but also manages quite a bit of 'tough' and 'cool' as well (style & heat :).

The Adamo was clearly made to compete with the first generation Macbook Air. It may not be a clone by design but it screams competition in many ways. The solid aluminium frame with no openings, the backlit keyboard with ambient light sensor, the basic front, the SSD etc. One thing they emulated a little too well was Apple's high prices, the Adamo was actually priced higher than the equivalent Macbook at the time. Cost, a rather lowly CPU and no dedicated GPU were probably the main reasons why this was not a huge success. At £1500 it was just too hard to swallow but at £450 (Save On laptops) however it's a different matter! Its two and a half years old now but think about what  that buys you now... A tablet (Asus Transformer / iPad 2)... A high end netbook (Asus Lamborgini VX6 / Lenovo X100e). These are great machines but I can't help thinking that they feel like toys compared to the Adamo. This feels like a serious machine for creating, not just play. The solid aluminium chassis, extremely good, backlit keyboard and a 128Gb SSD drive just feel special.

Comparisons

OK time to be silly... If you read my first post you would have seen that I came from using a behemoth of a laptop before getting this. A nearly 10 year old 15" Dell Inspiron from 2002 weighing nearly 4Kg and measuring 45mm thick. Perfect for some extreme comparisons to the new stealth notebook. I should point out that the old Inspiron 8200 isn't just a paper weight, its still working and has served my wife and I well (apart from the batteries - which I could fix if I really wanted to). OK on with the comparisons...

Side by side with the old 8200 there is a wealth of difference everywhere you look. Although the screen size has dropped by 2 inches it's actually wider than the 15" 4:3 ratio Inspiron. The Keys on the Adamo are actually bigger than those of my Logitech desktop unit! The keyboard backlight has several levels of brightness and is automatically controlled by an ambient light sensor which works well and also controls the screen brightness. The keyboard is extremely comfortable to type on and the touch pad feels equally nice although very sensitive I found the precision rewarding after a bit of practice.

OK not a comparison but check this out... No it's not a Dell mouse mat. This is the bottom of the Laptop. It's true that not being able to get in to the battery, RAM and Hard Drive is a down side. It looks damn pretty but it just feels wrong for Windows PC components to be so inaccessible. I'm sure this was more necessity than design, I can't imagine modular components being used in here. The RAM and SSD are probably welded to the motherboard and the battery squeezed in to every available nook. This is the down sides of being so thin and surrounded by such a strong metal frame, it's forgiveable at this price although upwards of £500 and I would probably feel differently.

All this aluminium makes it feel very tough, you can happily pick it up from the very corner without fear of flexing or stress. The screen is the same (build / materials), something not true of the Sony Vaio Z. This does however make it a very heavy machine! 1.75Kg might not sound too much and on your lap it's not but when you pick it up there is no denying that the weight is a shock.

I knew this would be a contrast: 45mm vs 16.5mm. The Entire thickness of the Adamo is about the same as the lid of the Inspiron. Although its even slightly thinner than the Macbook Air if you've held both you will know that's a technicality. The Macbook Air is lighter (1.35Kg vs 1.75Kg) and has less volume because of it's sloped sides. The Air feels thinner than the Adamo even if it's not on paper.

The thickness of the Adamo is also very similar to the new Sony Vaio Z. Yes the Sony has more battery life, weighs less than a 10" netbook (1.1Kg) while retaining a 13" (Full HD) screen and powered by a (non ULV) Sandybridge core i7 with 8GB of RAM! The Vaio Z is a marvel of micro engineering! It's the Bugatti Veyron of the notebook world and it costs accordingly. That said the Sony doesn't quite have the Adamo's tough aluminium frame and for the price of the cheapest Vaio Z you can buy 3 Dell Adamos with about £100 to spare.

Here's a nice bit of history, connections of 10 years ago vs modern ones (not much has changed since the Adamo was new). It's pretty crazy to see the size and general horror of the old connections that we used to use. Oddly, and interestingly for this comparisons sake both machines concentrate their ports to the back. Today most have their ports on the sides for ease of access and that mostly makes a lot of sense so why are these different? Well the old Inspiron had things like a CD drive, modem port and expansion around the side. The new Dell only has design as an excuse.

I am not sure quite what to think about the Adamo's choice of port location here. On one hand it does look pretty fantastic to keep them away from the front and even looks good how they're arranged on the back. Most connections these days (internet, network, mouse) can all be controlled wirelessly so is it that bad keeping all the ports out of the way? There is however the possibility that you might want to plug in a USB memory stick. This can be rather annoying unless you get used to where the ports are by feel, otherwise you will turning the machine around all the time. Since the build is so strong and the HDD not prone to shakes and knocks you find you don't need to be so careful when moving it around, just try not to forget if you have something big plugged in the back.

Despite being less than 17mm thick almost half of that is taken up by the screen. This might seem like a waste but having aluminium behind the screen as well is a nice touch. Another is the screen coating in the form of 'edge to edge' glass. This makes the whole laptop easily cleaned with a single cloth (no special cleaning fluid required). Hey what do you know, it comes with one, how nice right? Well I probably should have mentioned how much of a finger print magnet the front of the lid is. It does look very pretty with it's blend of materials but only when it's clean, otherwise it will probably drive you crazy (this machine needs to be sexy!).

Software

OK down to the important stuff. How does software perform on this thing? The processing power on offer here is a better than a netbook or tablet (at the moment) but it does have to cope with full fat Windows 7, no cut down starter edition here. The 2Gb of RAM on offer here is just about enough. Although 4Gb would have been nice it's plenty enough to cope with as much browsing, emailing, chatting and word processing as you can throw at it. Even several of each and all at the same time.

Disclaimer

These components are never going to support any kind of modern graphically intensive game, lets be clear. Unless used with some very old games or some kind of 'On Live' system they are just out of the question on this machine. As is any other 3D software, this should be pretty obvious but I should probably say it.

Trick Up the Sleeve

What makes this rather outdated / mediocre specification much, much more palatable is it's solid state drive (SSD). This makes almost every operation you do feel a lot faster than any CPU or RAM upgrade possibly could. As I said before it boots in to Windows 7 fully in just over 30 seconds but all applications get a similar boost. Photo editing was very responsive, actually the main reason I bought this (apart from browsing) is editing photos while travelling and so far I have been very impressed!

Notes about Solid State Drives

SSDs are great but one of the annoying down sides is that they can slow down over time if subjected to heavy use (filling it up, not accessing it a lot). A technology was added to newer SSDs to combat this called 'TRIM command'. Only Windows 7 and OS X Lion currently support TRIM and unfortunately the original Adamo only came with Vista. This version however comes with Windows 7 and what's more, although SSD in the Adamo is one of the older ones it does support TRIM... Bonus!

Battery Life

Although it uses a low voltage components the size of the battery is equally subtle. You can find notebooks running this hardware that can last upwards of 10 hours on a charge but they will not be as thin or as well built as the Adamo. Under light use, the screen at about half power (which is plenty indoors) and the wifi on the battery life is a good 4+ hours. With the wifi off and screen on low it could be nearly 6 hours but how much fun would that be? Heavy use (photo editing, video etc.) sees the life drop to 3 hours or less. It's not bad but I can see people taking issue with this when that's the only battery you have. although it's also true that a bigger battery (even if it could have been squeezed in) would have increased the weight further, something I don't think many could live with.

Pros:

• Beautiful Design
• Amazingly thin
• Strong Aluminium frame
• Backlit Keyboard (with ambient light sensor)
• A Proper SSD (with TRIM)
• Decent battery life (this could be a con if you are picky)
• Price (not the original one)

Cons:

• Components not easily accessed (although I have heard of people replacing the battery)
• Front of the lid is a fingerprint magnet (petty issue)
• Ports are all on the back (could also be a good thing)
• Keyboard flexes a little (but is the best I have ever used!)
• A little on the heavy side 

Summary

I must say that all of the cons are pretty insignificant at £450.

I have had this notebook for nearly two weeks now and I am thoroughly impressed with it. I bought in to it knowing it was not the fastest thing in the world but for what I use it for it's perfectly good enough. For such a thin, well made and durable machine I am constantly amazed at how much you can get it for. It may not be available for very long at this price so if you are interested you probably better make up your mind quick and I cannot recommend it enough. As of finishing off this review they have 13 left in stock (update: now only 6!).