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Dell's Adamo Goes After MacBook Air 337

Posted by kdawson from the what-would-michael-do dept.
MojoKid writes "Adamo, pronounced 'A-dahm-o,' means 'to fall in love with' in Latin. Dell is certainly hoping you'll fall in love with this notebook's looks as well as its functionality. The Adamo's chassis is milled from a single piece of aluminum and features precision detailing with a scalloped backlit keyboard. Even the fan holes, which are punched out squares, have an attractive modern design. The Adamo features a thin 0.65-inch profile and weighs four pounds. The new ultra-portable will also offer Intel Core 2 Duo processors and DDR3 memory (up to 4GB), a 13.4-inch 16:9 HD display and a 128GB SSD hard drive. Pricing starts at $1,999 with Vista Ultimate 64." The Dell infomercial spokesmodel (video at the bottom of the link) concludes, "Adamo resulted from the union of technology with pleasure for the style-conscious individualist." OK, so he's no Steve Jobs.
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Dell's Adamo Goes After MacBook Air More

Dell's Adamo Goes After MacBook Air

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  • They must be crazy to be running that out in the current economic environment.
    We'll see how mant they managed to sell...
    What's the upcharge to NOT get Vista Ultimate 64 on that?

    • Holy mother of God, this is lame (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Man On Pink Corner ( 1089867 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @05:56PM (#27234265)

      http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=QUJqWc6seYk [youtube.com]

      How can they do this? How can this get out of the marketing department at Dell without someone getting fired, or sued, or a stop-payment notice put on their last paycheck at least?

      • Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame (Score:5, Funny)

        by Reality Master 201 ( 578873 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:26PM (#27234663) Journal

        Yeah, holy shit. Marketing a product as being cool and hip is the least cool, most deeply unhip thing they could have done. Fuck firings, I'm surprised there haven't been any suicides.

      • Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)

        by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:27PM (#27234675)
        Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame (Score:5, Interesting)

        by nine-times ( 778537 ) <nine.times@gmail.com> on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @08:23PM (#27235977) Homepage

        Yeah, that's pretty crazy.

        Compare to this:http://www.apple.com/macbook/the-new-macbook/

        Dell even put a foreigner in front of a white background to talk about the design, except he's all out of focus. It's like a retarded copy made by amateurs, filled with marketing speak. "the union of technology with pleasure for the style-conscious individualist"? What the hell does that mean? It was "created to elicit desire and re-define the image of power"? "ultra-thin portable aphrodisiac"?

        At best, it looks like it should be the rough draft that their marketing people mocked up as the pitch for some kind of ad. If Dell can't do better than this, then Apple deserves to own the reality distortion field.

        • A focus on function (Score:5, Insightful)

          by snowwrestler ( 896305 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @11:30PM (#27237213)

          For all the joking about how Apple is for effete fashion victims, the biggest difference I noticed from the Dell video is that the Apple video focuses almost entirely on functional design. In the Apple video, they don't say they use aluminum because it's sexy, they say it's used to provide rigidity for light weight. Instead of a fancy apartment we see industrial manufacturing. There's no spokesmodel (all the speakers are staff/management at Apple), and the only model is seen only for a few seconds at the end. There's no talk of fashion or aphrodisiac or etched patterns for looks.

          I think Dell is totally misreading the market if they think there is going to a big demand for the Adamo based just on how hot and fashionable it looks. That's especially true now...I think conspicuous consumption went out as a life goal for most people about 6 months ago. And even if people are willing to spend that much on a notebook, the way to get to their pocketbooks is to focus on the high-end quality of the product. It's the same reason people buy $450 Gore-Tex coats to walk their dog, or $55,000 SUVs to drive the kids to school.

      • Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame (Score:5, Funny)

        by rdnetto ( 955205 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @11:57PM (#27237387)

        http://www.youtube.com:80/watch?v=QUJqWc6seYk [youtube.com]

        Slashdot, the only website where people actually put the port number in links...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by maxume ( 22995 )

      More than 80% of people are still working. Lots of them probably feel pretty secure in their jobs. Especially the ones who would ever spend $2,000 on a new laptop (I don't see any problem with spending the $2,000, but good luck convincing me that a $2,000 laptop is $1,000 better than a $1,000 laptop).

  • Can you change the battery? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by OutLawSuit ( 1107987 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @05:49PM (#27234189)

    I think that's the question people want to know.

  • Four pounds? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nursie ( 632944 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @05:52PM (#27234217)

    My one and a half year old vaio SZ weighs less than that (about 3 pounds) and isn't all that thick.

  • I am disappointed (Score:5, Funny)

    by overzero ( 1358049 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @05:53PM (#27234225)

    "Adamo resulted from the union of technology with pleasure...."

    A laptop is not the first thing I thought of when seeing that phrase. Not that sort of laptop, at least.

    • Re:I am disappointed (Score:5, Informative)

      by kestasjk ( 933987 ) * on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:08PM (#27235181) Homepage
      Have you seen Dell's YouTube video? They actually call it an aphrodisiac (no joke), and say they want to "redefine power".
      It's clearly trying to be the Mac "meet the designers" segment (right down to the foreign sounding artistic designer), but it ends up more like a parody of one.

      http://youtube.com/watch?v=QUJqWc6seYk [youtube.com]

      • Re:I am disappointed (Score:5, Funny)

        by sootman ( 158191 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @09:15PM (#27236399) Homepage Journal

        O M F G... did you catch the "unboxing" bit? A plain fucking brown cardboard box?!?!? (At the 30-second mark.) Dude--if it's a plain-ass cardboard box, don't show it in the ad! My only guess is that this was done by some guys who got some advance knowlege of impending layoffs at Dell that snuck into their boss' office and saw their pink slips in his drawer.

        Yeah, I'm sure this is really keeping Steve Jobs up nights. Maybe this was Mike's plan--to have Steve die in a laughing fit. Steve's probably conference-calling Phil Schiller and Tim Cook right now, saying "You know, I'm gonna retire early. You guys will be fine without me."

        OK, just finished the video... so it's two pounds heavier than the Air and still no optical drive?!?!? The ports can't weight that much. What the fuck is it made from, lead?

      • Re:I am disappointed (Score:5, Funny)

        by overzero ( 1358049 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @11:08PM (#27237109)

        I'm pretty sure the writer for that just won a bar bet with his friends.

        "Adamo was created to elicit desire and redefine the image of power."
        -Are we talking about a penis here?

        "Once you hold it, you won't want to put it down."
        -Yup, definitely a penis.

        "People will stare and that's OK."
        -I do what I can for the world.

        "Because with this ultra-thin, portable aphrodisiac at your side, lack of attention won't be a problem."
        -Wait... ultra-thin? Staring is no longer OK. =(

        "The whole product just feels very solid."
        -Now we're talking. I'll just let that last remark slide.

        "We wanted to make sure the product appealed equally to women and men."
        -...

  • Sounded pretty good... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by DarkRhystar ( 1136133 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @05:53PM (#27234235)
    ...until the "with Vista Ultimate 64" part.

  • An Adamo without Vista (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @05:55PM (#27234243)

    An Adamo without Vista is like chocolate cake without mustard.

    Give me the computer without slathering it up with old smelly mayonnaise, please. Thanks.

  • Hopefully the screen resolution is higher than the macbook air. That would make it more attractive to me.

    By straight looks the air is the clear winner. But honestly, neither is all that practical. The beauty of an ultra-light notebook is largely diluted when you add the weight of a bag, and all the other junk you carry with you. I'll take a slightly larger and heavier and more durable model for less money.

    Sheldon

  • $1999 with "Vista" (Score:5, Funny)

    by girlintraining ( 1395911 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:00PM (#27234313)

    Could I maybe get it for $1000 without Vista?

  • poor latin (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:00PM (#27234317)

    ""Adamo, pronounced 'A-dahm-o,' means 'to fall in love with' in Latin."

    phhh, as any fule knos, it really means 'I fall in love with' if they had wanted it to mean 'to fall in love with' it should be called 'adamare'

    come on, this is a basic 1st conjugation verb with a preposition, basic stuff.

  • I can picture it now... (Score:5, Funny)

    by larry bagina ( 561269 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:02PM (#27234331) Journal

    Dell Ad Exec #1: We need a foreign spokesman to give our product a refined cosmopolitan vibe. We can save some money by using an employee.

    Exec #2: How about one of mexican janitors?

    Exec #3: How about one of our indian support staff?

    Dell Ad Exec #1: Ok, maybe not. I think my cock-tease secretary mentioned her boyfriend was European. That's close enough.

  • I find it funny to see an online ad for the Apple MacBook while entering a comment for story on the Dell Armadillio. :P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jonr ( 1130 )

      Ad?

      • Slashdot has ads running on the comment entry page. One for the MacBook, one for a ThinkPad, and another for fixing your Mac. If Dell was smart, they would've bought up the ads before this story appeared. Go figure...
  • ...I have a heightened sense of doubt with this product. It targets the Air well, but there isn't much that the laptop offers to make the Air's target audience REALLY want to get this. Coupled with the fact that it's not an Apple product makes it even more difficult. It's also pretty heavy for a laptop of this caliber.

    I hope it does well, since it's a beautiful and a LOT more versatile than the overpriced sheet metal that is the Air.

  • Dell has sold out to Marketing (Score:5, Informative)

    by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:04PM (#27234371) Journal
    If you haven't watched the movie in the link, you absolutely have to. I don't know what Dell was thinking but it didn't come from the realm of sanity (and let me mention that the laptop itself looks pretty cool. It's just Dell marketing that is quite out there. Really, watch the movie). It is so amazingly over the top, it's like they took every bad Apple cliche and made it into a marketing movie. For your pleasure I took some of the best quotes from the movie:

    "get ready to witness a true love story by Dell"
    "machined aluminum"
    "Adamo resulted from the union of technology with pleasure, for the style conscious individualist" (woahoah! Any guess what their target market is? Any? at all?)
    "machined aluminum" (they seemed to be quite proud of that point)
    "ultra-thin portable aphrodisiac" (oh yes, they actually said that!)

    Adamo. For all your computer love needs. I guess.

    • All your love needs (Score:5, Funny)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:20PM (#27234575)

      Adamo. For all your computer love needs. I guess.

      New slogan: "Adamo. There's a port for that."

      • I forgot to add the one thing the Adamo is missing - Rich Corinthian Leather wristpads. Only then would it be a true union of technology with pleasure.

      • Re:All your love needs (Score:5, Funny)

        by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:32PM (#27234729)

        Adamo. For all your computer love needs. I guess.

        New slogan: "Adamo. There's a port for that."

        Adamo. It's like a MacBook Air, but crappier.

        Adamo. Apple's price, Dell's quality.

        Adamo. Because we saw Vista running on a MacBook Air once.

        Adamo. Because "Adammit" probably wouldn't sell well.

        Adamo. If we really knew Latin, we wouldn't be working for Dell now would we?

        • Re:All your love needs (Score:5, Funny)

          by somersault ( 912633 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:50PM (#27235645) Homepage Journal

          Adamo. Because we heard geeks really dig Battlestar Galactico.

    • (woahoah! Any guess what their target market is? Any? at all?)

      What, as if the price tag and pushing aesthetics (not a single real tech spec there) didn't give it away?

    • The link does not go to Dell. What are you doing here ? Not only do you read the link, you then google the product, go to the manufacturers website, watch the video and then comment on it ? That sacrilege - you should be ashamed of yourselves being on slashdot.
    • I liked when they pointed out that Dell is known for industrial design of the aesthetic variety. I've got no problem with Dell but they are about as plan jane in most of their models as anybody. Even HP has the TouchSmart, and Sony has the fashion conscious Vaio. They make decent machines, but lets be honest guys.

  • But... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RandomChars ( 1455331 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:04PM (#27234375)
    will it run ubuntu without any huge issues?

  • niche market (Score:3, Interesting)

    by escay ( 923320 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:09PM (#27234443) Journal

    Modell (n): thin, fashionable, overpriced and only for those select few of the society whose vision often overlooks function for form.

    this is just bling for the glitterati. like those diamond studded cell phones, they target a niche crowd that can afford to be extravagant. In these days of $300 netbooks (and weighing ~2 lbs), very few regular buyers would plunk down 2G for a laptop; Macbook Air was partly justified in its price point when it came out but it has lost its relevance in today's market, I find it hard to conceive Dell considering this a mainstream product.

  • I'm glad to see that manufacturers are returning to the form factor that HP / Mitsubishi had in 1998 with the Omnibook Sojourn / Pedion: 0.65 inch thick, 12 inch display, full-sized keyboard, ultra light, decent battery life, fast (for the time) processor, elegant design, full-metal chassis (magnesium, back then), and so forth.

    IMO, it is the perfect form factor, about the size and thickness of a pad of paper.

  • Apart from the obvious flaw "with Vista Ultimate" the basic problem is that Apple are shiny, Apple are cool, Apple are the sort of thing that people buy because its Apple.

    This is basically like K-Mart trying to make a Nike Trainer, sure it looks similar, sure it appears to have similar specs... but you know what, if I'm spending that sort of cash on something I think I'll go for the brand.

  • Thank You Apple (Score:5, Insightful)

    by value_added ( 719364 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:19PM (#27234569)

    First we had Microsoft making efforts to change the look of their desktop to be something less "ugly" (a characterisation that even Bill Gates used) that took a wrong turn with XP but resulted in something reasonably coherent and possibly attractive in Vista (and its cousin, Vista SP1). Now we have Dell setting aside their traditional look (a make-it-up as-you-go-along aesthetic designed to appeal to one's inner ricer so those cheap-assed plastic/metal boxes with an in-your-face logo would actually sell) for something that actually looks like it was "designed".

    Hell, based on the looks, I'd even consider buying one. Someone would first have to convince me that during assembly, the internals weren't selected from a grab bag of parts taken from a randomly changing supplier list, though.

    So, kudos to Dell. But let's face it: the real credit belongs to Apple who forced everyone to adopt a higher standard.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by CannonballHead ( 842625 )
      and thank you Apple for making Dell think they can charge $2000 for it...

      • and thank you Apple for making Dell think they can charge $2000 for it...

        That will be fun to watch!

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Eil ( 82413 )

      So, kudos to Dell. But let's face it: the real credit belongs to Apple who forced everyone to adopt a higher standard.

      Hmm. If by higher standards you mean aesthetic looks, then sure. But the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad has always held the lead in durability and overall engineering. Problem is, they never marketed it outside of the business world. If they did, it wouldn't matter anyway because in the consumer market, "looks cool" takes precedence over "works well".

  • I'd like an Air, but 2 gigs of RAM is grossly inadequate for a computer one intends to keep using for several years. On the other hand, I don't really trust Dell to make hardware to the relatively high standards of Apple...

    • Re:Nice (Score:4, Insightful)

      by GreatDrok ( 684119 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:37PM (#27234783) Journal

      While I agree that 2GB being non-upgradable in the MacBook Air is an oversight, to be honest 2GB is still a fairly hefty amount of RAM. My old MacBook Pro has 2GB and rarely uses more than half of it under Leopard. In fact, Leopard on my old iBook G4 with 640MB works pretty well so 2GB is plenty for OS X. On the other hand, if you're talking about Vista then 2GB is a bit tight. It is funny when people compare specs between PCs and Macs and don't consider that the difference in performance between OS X and Vista can make a much bigger difference than whether one has 4GB or the other has 2GB.

      I fully expect my MacBook Pro (just coming up to 3 years old) to serve me well for another few years at least before it needs to be replaced. Not one of my PC laptops has ever lasted me more than a year since I am very hard on my machines. As you say, I wouldn't trust Dell to be able to make a machine that can withstand the daily use my laptops get put through.

  • Up to $2700 for Adamo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BoRegardless ( 721219 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:23PM (#27234619)

    Hey, Apple is the only one who offers "high-priced" laptops.

    What is going on here?

  • Does anyone else thing that thing's kinda ugly? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Reality Master 201 ( 578873 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:24PM (#27234633) Journal

    I mean, I watched the promotional video and frankly the thing doesn't look particularly nice.

    Of course, that might be a reaction to 4+ minutes of being told what a premium product it is, and how people will look at me when I'm using it, which basically made it sound like it's marketed to overpaid IT executives going through a midlife crisis.

  • And people bitch about Apple? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jht ( 5006 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:25PM (#27234647) Homepage Journal

    So it costs more than the Air, but has a crappier chipset. It does have more ports, which is good, and unlike the Air it can hold 4GB of RAM. It's also a little bigger, a little heavier, and it has way less processor in it. Plus it comes with Vista - though it's at least the x64 edition, it still will have that much more in driver compatibility issues as a result, and it's still only a Home edition. For that kind of coin, you'd think they would at least provide Ultimate.

    And how again is this Dell's MacBook Air killer? The best thing I can say about it so far is it's a little better-looking than most Dell laptops. But I think they're going to sell about 3 of these.

  • Looking at the back view picture [hothardware.com], it looks like the holes could be interpreted as code. Each column is a nibble, with the low end bits being on top. A hole is a 1, and no hole is a 0.

    So, on the right side, starting with the fist hole and going right, you get 2014A14B6BDF, and it just repeats with F's. This happens to be 12 nibbles, the size of a MAC Address. I looked this up for the associated vendor, but there is none.

    Anyways, it'd be cool and rather geeky to have the MAC Address of the notebook's ethe

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ozphx ( 1061292 )

      Then you'd have the joys of fabricating individual cases, and matching them up / flashing the ethernet card :/

      Sounds like a massive pain in the ass, and probably $100 per unit for something that only 0.01% of customers would find cool.

  • Not even Sony would try this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by erroneus ( 253617 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:38PM (#27234797) Homepage

    Lately, I have been seeing TV commercials from Dell that say, using imagery, "stand in line to buy this and you will come out groovy and cool." Perhaps they are attempting to take a page from Apple's play-book, but the problem is that Apple's established image and Dell's established image are very different. You don't just pop up out of nowhere and say "hey! suddenly we're cool hipsters!" If Dell wants to become that, they will have to evolve their image, not manufacture it. And there has to be a LOT (and I mean excessively) of good will directed at the consumer before they will buy into it.

    Dell is best known for business machines. What's more, Dell is nearly anti-consumer in that the care offered to consumers is a LOT less than care offered to businesses. They need to reverse this condition before people will ever think of Dell as anything else.

    I have some ideas I hope Dell takes to heart, but they don't listen to people like me. But if Dell wants to REALLY get into the eye-candy end of things, offer up and electronic ink display on the back of the display that can be customized by the user. And with the interesting legal progress being made by the Mac-clone people, Dell ought to be preparing to blast out a Mac compatible of their own. Sure, don't market it that way... just put whatever is needed to make it Mac compatible in the machine and let hackers out there figure out the rest. (The Dell Mini9 is rather popular with people into Hackintoshes)

    There are a lot of ways Dell could become what they seek to be, but simply jumping right out into the middle and saying "HEY! LOOK AT ME!" ain't gonna do it.

    • Good point, I noticed the same thing a few weeks ago when I saw my first "colored" Dell laptop ad. It made me laugh because while there is nothing wrong with colored computers they kept making the point that owning one made you unique, so much so that everybody in the street was staring at the dude. As if nobody had ever thought of this before. To me however it just looked like any other Dell with a red paint job.

  • So if you're going to need to boot a Linux Live DVD on it, are you going to need an eSATA optical drive, or can it boot from a USB drive?

    Are there Vista drivers for using another Mac's optical drive wirelessly, or just drivers for a Mac to use a Windows system's optical drive?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HTH NE1 ( 675604 )

      are you going to need an eSATA optical drive

      Or should I have said eSATAPI?

      Strange moniker that, seeing as an IBM Personal Computer/AT had no such attachment.

      (eSATAPI == external Serial (IBM (International Business Machines Corporation) Personal Computer/)AT (Advanced Technology) Attachment Packet Interface)

  • While I appreciate that there are those who want Portable Power (and nice form), I am really looking forward to the ARM-based laptops, such as the ~$200 one that Pegatron was talking about back in January. Why would I need a laptop like the Adamo? O_o

    Perhaps if I were a constant traveling computer-user... doing some sort of heavy computing?

  • Late to the party and underwhelming... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:52PM (#27234991) Homepage Journal

    Using Intel's 4500 series? OK, so graphics are not its forte.

    It actually cost more than the Air and gives less power? Processor speeds are lackluster as well.

    You just have to hate Apple to buy this over the Air. I am not a fanboi of Apple, I do have an iMac (7600gt variety) and a Touch, but damn I always thought Apple notebooks overpriced cases with average internals...

    So what happened? What are they truly aiming at? This new laptop of theirs is practically a sales pitch for the Air.

    Now, if it started at 1299 then it might be worth looking at...

    Sorry, but I really don't understand how this shipped at its price point, especially with such a weak feature set compared to its obvious competition. Slower processors, 1/3rd the speed in graphics, oh I will just stop there.

    Oh, Blu-Ray, well it has something at least I cannot do on an Apple...

    Great, I am going to have to check myself in at Apple's Fanboi Anonymous group after posting this.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Kuciwalker ( 891651 )
      It costs more than the Air... until you realize it comes with an SSD standard. That's what got my attention.

  • Dell makes a (Score:4, Insightful)

    by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland@y[ ]o.com ['aho' in gap]> on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @06:58PM (#27235049) Homepage Journal

    thin, nice stylish laptop, and it's expensive.

    Remember that next time you whine about Apples prices.

  • Nugget alert (Score:5, Funny)

    by BorgCopyeditor ( 590345 ) on Tuesday March 17, 2009 @07:07PM (#27235161)

    That's ADMIRAL Adamo to you, nugget.

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