Hands-on preview of the Dell Adamo laptop

Posted by Katherine Hannaford on Fri 27 Mar 2009

Take that, MacBook Air...

Announced a little over a week ago, T3 has just had a few hours' fondling time with the Dell Adamo, and we're ever so impressed. Crafted from a single sheet of aluminium, the lid is half matte onyx (black) and half glossy piano black finish. Or, matte white and glossy white, if that's your preferred colour for laptops. Sorry - pearl.

- See hands-on photos of the Adamo here

The 13.4" laptop is heavier than we were expecting, at 1.8kg, but at 0.65-inches thick, we'll certainly forgive Dell for the slight heft. The half-matte, half-gloss finish to the lid makes it look very premium, it's obvious Dell is really lifting their game in today's fashion-led market.

With most manufacturers forgetting about the aesthetics of a laptop bottom, the aluminium plate studded to the bottom of the Adamo is a nice touch. The keys on the keyboard are larger than normal, and scalloped, as Dell describes it.

Running Windows Vista, it seemed fast and responsive when we were using it, though the 1.2GHz Core 2 Duo U9300 processor could be faster in our opinion. Dell's also included 2GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD memory. There's two USB ports, and one USB/eSATA.

Considering it's Dell, the price tag of £1,649 may come as a surprise to some, though we're of the opinion that this stunning laptop is worth all the pennies they're asking. Stay tuned for a further review soon.

Link: Dell