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Dell's Adamo Goes After MacBook Air

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.

38 of 337 comments (clear)

  1. Can you change the battery? by OutLawSuit · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

    1. Re:Can you change the battery? by techmuse · · Score: 5, Informative

      No. You actually have to send it in. Really.

    2. Re:Can you change the battery? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You know, I own and regularly use 2 laptops, and I can count the number of times I've removed the battery on zero hands. It's not a big deal to me.

    3. Re:Can you change the battery? by earnest+murderer · · Score: 4, Funny

      I took my batteries out to save the weight.

      --
      Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
  2. I am disappointed by overzero · · Score: 5, Funny

    "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.

    1. Re:I am disappointed by kestasjk · · Score: 4, Informative

      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

      --
      // MD_Update(&m,buf,j);
    2. Re:I am disappointed by sootman · · Score: 5, Funny

      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?

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    3. Re:I am disappointed by overzero · · Score: 5, Funny

      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."
      -...

  3. Sounded pretty good... by DarkRhystar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...until the "with Vista Ultimate 64" part.

  4. An Adamo without Vista by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    An Adamo without Vista is like chocolate cake without mustard.

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

  5. Holy mother of God, this is lame by Man+On+Pink+Corner · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

    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?

    1. Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame by Reality+Master+201 · · Score: 4, Funny

      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.

    2. Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame by DigiShaman · · Score: 4, Funny

      "Ultra thin portable aphrodisiac"

      Money quote right there, baby!

      --
      Life is not for the lazy.
    3. Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame by nine-times · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Holy mother of God, this is lame by rdnetto · · Score: 4, Funny

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

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

      --
      Most human behaviour can be explained in terms of identity.
  6. $1999 with "Vista" by girlintraining · · Score: 5, Funny

    Could I maybe get it for $1000 without Vista?

    --
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  7. poor latin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    ""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.

    1. Re:poor latin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      In their defense, there is a long-standing tradition of confusing the "dictionary form" (i.e. first person singular) of a verb with the infinitive. Other examples of this phenomenon are the words audio and video which are commonly claimed to mean "to hear" and "to see".

    2. Re:poor latin by damburger · · Score: 4, Funny

      "People called Romanes they go the house"?

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
  8. I can picture it now... by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --
    Do you even lift?

    These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.

  9. Dell has sold out to Marketing by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    --
    Qxe4
  10. Re:Eevrybody's SURE to get in line for that... by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 5, Funny

    You're paying extra for Steve Jobs' blessing with Apple. Who the heck wants to pay extra for Mike Dell's blessing?

  11. Thank You Apple by value_added · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  12. All your love needs by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Funny

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

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

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:All your love needs by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 5, Funny

      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?

      --
      #DeleteChrome
    2. Re:All your love needs by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

      Adamo. Because we heard geeks really dig Battlestar Galactico.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:All your love needs by dangitman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't really like the Apple notebooks except for the MacBook Pro. All the others look like eeePC cheap plastic toy laptops. But, MacBook pros are $2000+.

      You must have missed the fact that current Macbook models are machined from a solid block of aluminum, just like the Macbook Pros.

      The other reason I don't like MacBooks is that it seems that people who use them seem have fallen in love with their laptop. They always want to have it on and in front of them at all times - always claketing around this or that.

      What a strange thing to say. You don't like a certain model of laptop, because its users seem to enjoy using them? Would you rather buy a model which the users are frustrated with, and don't use very much because they are a hassle?

      --
      ... and then they built the supercollider.
  13. And people bitch about Apple? by jht · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    -- Josh Turiel
    "2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
  14. Not even Sony would try this by erroneus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  15. Re:While this is the awesome... by dmullenaux · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Really? I can run Windows on a MacBook Air. How well does an Adamo run OS X?

    It'd probably run great if apple would allow it.

  16. Late to the party and underwhelming... by Shivetya · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    * Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
  17. Nugget alert by BorgCopyeditor · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's ADMIRAL Adamo to you, nugget.

    --
    Shop as usual. And avoid panic buying.
    1. Re:Nugget alert by Plug · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nonsense. We all know a Dell Adama would have no networking.

  18. Re:Four pounds? by Fred_A · · Score: 5, Funny

    yes, but it's a sony...

    And you know what they say : "better safe than Sony".

    --

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  19. Re:Up to $2700 for Adamo by initialE · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Didn't Sony start first with their VAIO line?

    --
    Starbucks, Harbuckle of Breath.
  20. Apple, the masters of lock-in. by sethstorm · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apple is still the only computer maker that understands the value of integrated hardware and software design. No piecemeal computer kit thrown together by others will ever quite match the integrated holistic approach of Apple products.

    You could have said that Apple has mastered lock-in while appearing to be open.

    --
    Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
  21. A focus on function by snowwrestler · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
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  22. Last time, pointless by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Every time a sealed device (iPhone, Air) comes up someone likes you brings up the external battery.

    Such a pointless question though. Who cares when an external power pack the a laptop can run from takes the same amount of space as the spare battery would have? The ONLY time you ever need one of these things is really long air travel, when you're in steerage without a plug. Even when traveling in the deepest heart of Africa I didn't need a spare battery because I just charged off the car we were traveling with (and yes in fact I did need a laptop it was not just some electronic toy I could not live without).

    As for replacing it, since you do that once every few years I can't see that as a serious concern.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley