Yesterday, Dell released Dell Adamo. The Adamo is not a single 13″ notebook and will be the name given to a full line of style conscious PCs from Dell. Findings from bloggers show that the Adamo 9″ notebook is just around the corner. The Adamo joins Dell’s 22″ “Crystal” LCD display and a few other fashionable systems like the Dell One. I see Adamo is a great effort to counter-act what Apple has been doing for over a decade. Let’s admit that Apple wasn’t the first computer to make well designed computers. The original Macintosh G3 tower, PowerBook 100 and LCIII weren’t beautiful machines and I give credit of beauty to Steve and his industrial design team. Hell, even Windows 95 was a lot prettier than Apples OS 9. Beauty didn’t strike Apple until iMac and Mac OS 10 which was only 12 years ago.
Dell might be a little late to the game but they’re finding that Apple sells a crap load of computers and is selling more every quarter so Apple is doing something right. What Dell doesn’t realize is Apple has a better formula than just Dell computers. I’m going to list these off.
- iPod
- iPhone
- Macintosh Operating System
- Stylish Computers
- iLife
- A Vibrant 3rd party developer community (hardware & software)
- They’re products are cool to use
- Great Marketing
So, as of today, Dell has 1 of those. Good work Dell! Personally, I think the Dell Adamo is a great computer if it was $500 cheaper. I would actually consider buying one if it was $1499 and not $1999. The reason is speed and that’s it. Here is why I love the Dell Adamo 13.
- .65 inches thin
- 720P screen
- 128GB SSD
- More I/O than MacBook Air (3USB + eSata + DisplayPort
- 5 Hour Battery Life
- Unibody Construction
it’s a great computer and Dell has hit a home run on the design of this computer. There are some things that make me not want to spend $1999 on this machine and here is what I think makes the deal not very sweet.
- 1.2/1.4 Ghz Core2Duo Processor
- No Multi-Touch Trackpad
- No HDD Option
- No Matte Screen Option
- Unknown Battery Options (removable?)
There’s a reason why I didn’t mention price. Sure the price is high and I can get a 15″ MacBook Pro from Apple that is 1.2Ghz faster with a faster front side bus, more memory, larger hard drive, possibly longer battery life, larger screen, dedicated video graphics chip, a backlit keyboard, more I/O and only .29 inches thicker. Seems like a no brainer to me. This machine is actually more expensive than Apple’s MacBook Air and the air starts with a processor that’s 400Mhz faster, has better NIVIDIA graphics and an awesome multi-touch trackpad. Unfortunately, Dell can’t have a multi-touch trackpad because Windows doesn’t support it yet. That’s why Apple is pretty cool because they develop the OS and the hardware.
Basically The Dell Adamo rocks and I’d love to own one but the problem is it’s too slow too new to cost $1999 and even more if I want to get a slightly faster processor and more memory. The Adamo 13 is very Apple like in the way it costs more just to look good and if it ran Mac OS 10 and had a 1.8Ghz Atom processor, I’d be sold. For now, I’m going to price some MacBook Air notebooks or buy a Dell Mini 9 that has a faster clock speed than the Dell Adamo and costs $1700 less.
I have full faith in Dell’s Adamo line of fashion computers and there may be a day when I purchase one of them but for now, Apple will keep getting my money and Dell will be where I buy my monitors. Dell you have caught my eye and I’m excited to see what you release next.