Dell Adamo

With much fanfare, Dell unveiled their new ‘luxury’ laptop this week. Just 16mm (0.65in) thick and weighting 1.8kg (4 pounds), Adamo (meaning ‘falling in love’ in Latin) seems aimed at the Macbook Air market. But is it really worth the hype?
Adamo’s system specs are as follows:

• 13.3″ display;
• Intel Core Duo 1.2 GHz;
• 2 Gb DDR3 RAM;
• 128 Gb SSD;
• Windows Vista Ultimate 64bit.

How much does it cost? Two grand. ($1999 to be more exact.)

Now excuse me, but it seems like a crazy idea to me. Coming out with an underpowered and overpriced laptop in these economic times? How are they planning to sell it?

Have a look at the advertorial below:

In case you got bored watching it, here are some quotes:

• “Adamo was created to elicit desire and redefine the image of power“
• “Adamo resulted from the union of technology with pleasure“
• “Once you hold it, you won’t want to put it down“
• “Because with this ultra-thin, portable aphrodisiac at your side, lack of attention won’t be a problem.“

Excuse me? Union of technology with pleasure? Portable aphrodisiac? Are we talking about a laptop here or were the copywriters on crack? My take is that they’ve tried to copy Apple’s style and failed. I mean, have a look at the video again, the woman pulls the laptop out of a cheap & ugly cardboard. Marketing 101: if you sell something at a premium, at least make sure it’s packaged like a jewel. (Apple knows it best).

Now, I’m no Apple fanboy (I don’t own any Apple products) but it seems to me that Dell dropped the ball on this one. Advertorial aside, the laptop specs don’t justify its cost and personally I don’t even like the design. I wouln’t buy it.

Would you?