Dell’s lithe, nifty beauty

Dell’s lithe, nifty beauty

Dell Laptop

SINGAPORE – Few laptops impress me with their looks, but Dell’s Adamo has earned a place in my books for its brilliant aesthetics.

While other reviewers might note how the Dell notebook tries to rival the svelte and minimalistic Apple MacBook Air, I think the Adamo’s utilitarian and sophisticated design places it at the other end of the spectrum – it is elaborate and luxurious while remaining lithe.

The pearl-white version of the machine I reviewed made quite a first impression, arriving in a clear plastic capsule reminiscent of an iPod nano’s packaging.

The machine’s glossy 13.4-inch screen is sharp and bright. It’s only 0.65-inch thick but the dense laptop weighs 1.81kg.

On the inside, there are touch-sensitive buttons for media playback and volume control and a well-spaced, back-lit keyboard. I especially liked the attention to detail given to the keyboard – it had a slight concave curve that made it easy to feel your way around it and a readable, unique font.

There’s no built-in disc drive, but USB and eSATA ports allow it to be connected to external storage and drives. They’re placed at the back of the laptop, too, so wires won’t clutter the sides.

You can fit the Adamo with an Intel Core 2 Duo processor but don’t expect too much horsepower, with speeds capped at 1.4GHz. The speakers were barely audible because they were placed behind the lid. There’s a slot for a SIM card so you could surf using a mobile broadband service, but we’re told this feature isn’t included in the models sold here.

The inclusion of a 128GB solid state drive as standard has also made the price of the Adamo skyrocket: It starts at S$3,499