Review of Dell Adamo XPS

Launched in November of this year, the Adamo XPS rocked the world of Adamo fans with its ultra slim - 9.99mm (.39 inch) profile, innovative concepts, and high level of craftsmanship. Everything about this laptop has an outstanding design - even its glitzy package looks more like a high end jewel box than a packaging container!

The Adamo XPS was recently recognized as the hottest Windows 7 product by leading technology analyst Rob Enderle with Digital Trends.^*1

Love at first sight - Jaw dropping style and high craftsmanship

The world's thinnest laptop weighs just over 3 pounds and with the swipe of a finger on a touch sensitive strip, the keyboard flips open under the display.

The unique keyboard sits at a titled angle to make it easy to type and enhance the device's cooling. The full size chiclet keys have superb tactility and the touch pad offers good accuracy and comfort. The machined, torsion tested aluminum chassis gives the Adamo a sturdy feel and a nice smooth touch.

Above the keyboard the good size 13.4 inch display is quite bright and portrays colors vividly with its 16:9 aspect ratio HD resolution. The XPS has 2 I/O ports on the side of the screen bezel, which makes it convenient to plug in peripherals and the two USB ports are a definite advantage over the Mac book Air.

Click here for demo of Adamo Xps.

This laptop is definitely one of the hottest accessories for a techno gadget junkie, but is there more to this stylish device than good looks, sturdy finish and excellent keyboard?

Features and specs

Dell's engineers definitely had a hard challenge when they tried to cram the latest technology in Adamo's compact space.

The end result was a LED-back lit 13.4 inch, 720p wide screen display, 1.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo ultra-low voltage processor, GS45 integrated graphics, 4GB of DDR3 RAM, a 128GB thin-micro SSD for a faster, cooler, quieter and more durable storage than traditional hard drives, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit.

In terms of connectivity, there is an Ultimate N WiFi Link 5300 (802.11a/g/n) Half Mini Card, a Dell Bluetooth 2.1 adapter and the integrated 2.0MP webcam.

Form over Function? Adamo XPS' Performance and battery life

Unfortunately though Dell has improved the physical aspects of the Adamo XPS over the first Adamo launched last spring, the XPS' performance is still limited. This machine is a good option for basic tasks like web surfing, office productivity applications and watching high def movies but running games like Street Fighter 4 is going to choke the system resources.

The 20WHr Li-Ion battery should last slightly over 2 and half hours, or you can get the optional 40WHr version which Dell claims would give you over 5 hours of juice yet I cringed when I read a report about battery performance of the XPS in a real life test -

"We surfed the Internet over Wi-Fi. Here it managed to last for just under two hours... Adamo XPS has half the battery capacity of the original Adamo (20 Whr versus 40 Whr). It was utterly disappointing to see such a dismal battery performance. In a day where sub-Rs. 20k notebooks can last as long as five hours, the Adamo XPS's battery life completely marred our excitement around this product. It won't even let you watch a full-length movie without the need to connect the adapter. And this is despite having a low-voltage processor and on-board graphics." *²

Price

With a price tag of $1500, the Adamo XPS Admire is the quintessential aspiration product thanks to awesome design and high craftsmanship but if you want better performance, you have to add an extra $800 and upgrade to the Adamo XPS Desire at $2300. The Desire has a 2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor, 4GB 800MHz DDR3 dual-channel memory, 256GB solid state drive, and Mobile Broadband.

Further pricing and information about Adamo XPS' optional accessories can be found here

Sources

^*1 Ross Miller "Dell Adamo XPS coming 'in time for the holidays' for $1799" Engadget.com

^*2 Rohan Naravane "Dell Adamo XPS Review"Techtree.com