Why the Dell Adamo Rocks!

dell adamo 1
Originally uploaded by Creative Labs Studio

I’ve been having this seemingly unending debate with a good friend of mine, Aayush, about the dell Adamo. He roots for the Macbook Air, (which is a good product in it’s own category) compares it to the Dell Adamo. I personally, LOVE the Dell Adamo and am on this futile mission to try and get Aayush to see how the Dell Adamo is superior to the Macbook Air in build quality, design, aesthetics and appeal.

Well, so far so good. But now the adjectives and expletives are going to be flying left and right. Let’s begin by purchasing both the machines. For Dell adamo, you go to the beautifully designed Adamobydell.com and you are greeted with Fashion models posing with the beautifully slim (not seemingly slim, ACTUALLY SLIM!) Adamo. The site exudes Haute couture on every pixel. And that’s exactly the kind of market Adamo is aiming for. Not the lowly geeks and professionals like myself. However, I do dream of one day owning these fashion labels, and the very chic Dell Adamo.

Now lets head over to apple.com where they have their big ad for the ipod shuffle and a bar along the bottom with stuff from their entire product line like the cheap(by price) Mac mini.. bla bla.. Head over to store.apple.com and you are greeted with a busy page with tons of stuff from apple and third party, ads/offers for financing, refurbished and clearance macs, previous generation iMac models etc. You could also go over to apple.com/mac and see just how ‘consumer’ this whole experience is. You’ll feel like what I would describe as “being on Mumbai’s fashion street with people trying to hawk their wares to you” Over at apple.com/macbook air things start to look a little more polished. they have some beautifully shot pictures of the machine which is partly, just thin aluminum.(I am referring to the tapering design. You can go look for yourself at the top picture on this iFixit page) And wait, it also offers you to take a look at the television ad. I can’t ever remember seeing a television ad from fendi or ferrari.

Let’s go through the base models, trying to match them as closely as we can.
So, for $1,999 dell gives you in the Adamo:
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo SU9300 (3MB cache/1.2GHz/800Mhz FSB), Onyx
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium Service Pack 1 64 Bit
13.4 inch 720p (HD) WLED Display (1366x768) with 1.3 MP web cam
McAfee 9.0 30 day Anti-Virus protection
2GB Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM at 800MHz
128GB Solid State Drive
Intel® GS45 Integrated Graphics with 256MB Memory
40 WHr Lithium Polymer Battery
Battery life upto 4 hours 53 minutes
High Definition Audio 2.0
Integrated Gigabit (10/100/1000) Network Card

And oh yeah, the option of Onyx or Pearl Finish with matching accessories.

If we were to try to match that config from apple. We had to add the pricey SSD and also the ethernet port add-on.
for $2,328.00 we get
1066MHz frontside bus 6MB shared L2 cache
2GB of 1066MHz DDR3 SDRAM
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M with 256MB of shared DDR3 SDRAM
13.3-inch (diagonal) LED-backlit glossy widescreen display 1280 by 800
37-watt-hour lithium-polymer battery
Up-to 4.5 hours
128GB Solid State Drive
Apple USB Ethernet Adapter

For people who want to run windows on it, they’d have to pay additional 239 for the windows vista home premium edition. Ringing up the total to $2,567 So Aayush’s argument of it being cheaper than the Adamo looses ground. But hey, you can cut back and get a regular 4300rpm hard drive, no ethernet adapter and then it becomes a cheaper consumer end machine. And it’s not wrong to cater to the consumer market, it’s just below what the Adamo stands for.

Both the machines have bluetooth, & wireless N but dell Adamo also has the option of mobile broadband built in which the macbook air doesn’t.
I’m being very unfair here, to both the systems, as they both have their unique advantages. eSata port on the Dell Adamo, the multitouch trackpad on the Macbook air,
the higher resolution screen and higher resolution(1.3mp) camera on the Dell Adamo, faster processor and Nvidia Graphics on the macbook air.

But there are certain comparisons that can’t be done by the numbers. Let’s see:
The Packaging
The Adamo box is oozing ‘luxury’! it comes encased in a transparent plastic stand as if it’s being displayed in a fancy boutique. And this time, you actually get to open and touch it!
Macbook air just comes in a regular cardboard box. Nothing to talk about here.

The keyboard
I read on PCWorld and iFixit that the adamo’s keyboard has 30% more surface area than the macbook air chicklet style keyboard. The scalloped keys on the dell adamo have little dips for your fingers to rest in.
Macbook Air’s keyboard, well.. is ‘unique’ in it’s own little way. But I don’t like the flat keys with so much gap between them. I still love my previous generation Macbook Pro keyboard that has little dips too. So much more comfortable than the flat key style.

The big issue today that sparked the adamo discussion again was microsoft’s requirement of a sticker on every computer that sells with it’s operating system. Microsoft’s papers say that the serial number sticker should be accessible without any tools. And the Adamo designers tackled this very well by concealing this sticker under a latch that attaches magnetically. I bet Microsoft is looking pretty stupid now. Oh god I love the design people on Adamo’s team.

And I along with most other people in the arts and design field love the Adamo. It’s an expensive Luxury product, but not a ferrari. It’s not meant to be raced around the corners. It’s a bentley or a Rolls Royce that you park in your garage to let people know how much wealth you have. One day, when I’m that rich, I will own one of these Adamos, a Fendi suit, a bentley, Vertu phone, etc. And still have a mac pro for my graphics work, nike sneakers for the gym, levis jeans, smartphone, etc.