Left: Dell Adamo; Right: MacBook Air
Posted on 05/14/2009 9:58:09 PM PDT by Swordmaker
For those seeking the smallest, sexiest notebooks on the market, there are no closer two choices than Apple’s trend-setting MacBook Air and its late-coming competitor, the Dell Adamo. Though strikingly similar in many ways, they differ enough that true fashionistas will want to take a good hard look before plunking down $2,000 for either one. We’ve poked, prodded and broken out the calipers on both units to figure out which belongs in your chic Italian leather notebook bag. Read on to see which emerges victorious.
Dimensions
We never thought we would see the day when laptops would duke it out over a few millimeters the same way supermodels might over waist size, but in the world of fashion laptops, size is everything. Technically, the MacBook has a smaller footprint than the Adamo, but it’s less than an inch in all directions: The Air measures 12.8 inches wide and 8.94 inches deep, while the Adamo measures 13 inches by 9.5 inches in the same dimensions. On the all-critical thickness aspect, the Adamo has the Air beat by a hair. It measures just 0.65 inches tall, while the Air measures 0.76 inches thick. Sure, it’s like taking a deck of cards and sliding a few cards out, but because nobody’s paying attention to the footprint and thin is everything, we’re giving this one to Dell.
Winner: Dell Adamo
Weight
Dell doesn’t even begin to compete on this relatively objective metric: the Adamo weighs four pounds while the Air weighs a full pound less. However, it’s worth mentioning that Dell has distributed the weight equally through the notebook in an attempt to balance it like a fine watch. So if you factor “feel” into this category, there’s at least something to be said for the Dell.
Winner: Apple MacBook Air
Performance
Here’s where the rubber really meets the road. Both notebooks use Intel Core 2 Duo processors, but the Air comes in 1.6GHz and 1.86GHz variants, and the chips in the Adamo have been clocked back to 1.2GHz and 1.4GHz. The Air also has a faster 1066MHz front size bus speed and uses correspondingly faster RAM, but it can only be equipped with up to 2GB of it, while the Adamo can handle 4GB. Finally, the Adamo also falls down on graphics, where it uses Intel’s integrated GS45 chip rather than the Nvidia 9400M found in the Air. Before we hand this one to the Air on almost every front, though, be aware that the faster processors clock themselves down quite frequently to avoid overheating, so the gap in real-life use may not be as wide as illustrated by specs.
Winner: Apple MacBook Air
Battery Life
Both machines use lightweight lithium-polymer batteries – the same kind used in electric radio-controlled helicopters – rather than the more conventional lithium-ion batteries you may be used to. Apple claims 4.5 hours of runtime for its 37 watt-hour battery, and Dell claims 5 hours from its 40-watt-hours model. In reality, neither really approaches those numbers without some seriously conservative usage, but the Dell really will outlast the Air by 20 to 30 minutes with its extra capacity, which makes it the clear winner here.
Winner: Dell Adamo
Connectivity
Apple caught a lot of flack with the MacBook Air by including only one USB port, not to mention the complete lack of an onboard Ethernet jack, which makes it little wonder that Dell remedied both when it released the Adamo over a year later. The Adamo includes three USB ports and an Ethernet jack, plus a more standard DisplayPort adapter for video output (Apple’s Mini DisplayPort standard is far less common and necessitates expensive adapters). We call that no contest.
Winner: Dell Adamo
Price
Unless you’re buying refurbished, you can get a new MacBook Air for either $1,799 or $2,499. The Adamo runs for either $1,999 or $2,699, an increase in $200 across the board. But look closely at specs and you’ll notice that both Adamo models include a 128GB SSD, an option that will boost the price of the cheapest MacBook Air by a whopping $500. So if you’re hell bent on getting an SSD, you’ll get away cheaper with the Adamo, but for most other configurations, the MacBook Air stacks up about $200 cheaper. And let’s not forget that the MacBook is packing better guts.
Winner: Apple MacBook Air
Design
Let’s face it: For most people, this is what it all comes down to. And it’s totally subjective. Both machines offer machined aluminum bodies, which feel solid and look amazing either way. But the MacBook Air takes the minimalist route with only an Apple logo on its lid, while Dell rolls with brushed aluminum in, intricate grilles, real glass, and two color choices: onyx or pearl. But the Air also has shaved-down edges working for it, which give it the appearance of looking much thinner than it actually is in the middle. This category can honestly go either way, but at the end of the day, we’re suckers for Apple’s iconic design and legendary build quality.
Winner: Apple MacBook Air
Overall Winner: MacBook Air
With each laptop scoring three wins in each of our first six categories, and the MacBook Air narrowly edging ahead in the subjective seventh, it’s tempting to call a draw. But we’re handing it to the MacBook Air anyway, and not just because of design, which can always be contested. The Air pulls ahead significantly in three crucial categories (performance, price and weight), while losing by an almost negligible margin in two less significant categories (dimensions and battery life). The only glaring strike against it comes from that dismal selection of ports. Unless you plan to use multiple USB devices concurrently and plug into hardwired networks all the time, there’s really no good reason not to go with the Air, unless you prefer Dell’s more intricate styling and the fact that you’ll be holding onto a far less common piece of kit.
"you can get a new MacBook Air for either $1,799 or $2,499. The Adamo runs for either $1,999 or $2,699, an increase in $200 across the board. But look closely at specs and you’ll notice that both Adamo models include a 128GB SSD, an option that will boost the price of the cheapest MacBook Air by a whopping $500."If you buy the upper model MacBookAir at $2499, it comes with the 128GB SSD AND is $200 less expensive than the top Adamo.
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They aren’t laptops; they are fashion accessories for white hipsters.
The biggest selling point of the Air is that Microsoft products are completely optional and totally unnecessary.
That's worth a couple hundred by itself...
Not to mention that it’s not made by Dell, so you can be reasonably sure that it won’t cook its hard drive because someone in the engineering department screwed up the cooling system design.
I like the computers, even though they're out of my price range, and I think they're seriously cool.
Hilarious! Can’t they see?
One is pug ugly and it’s not the Mac.
Got the Air (solid state drive) during the first release as a birthday gift from my wife. This is the only computer I use now. I tell everyone to give it a try because I firmly believe that it is the laptop of the future.
Completely OT, but once upon a time I remember seeing a site that predicted good times to buy Apple products based on Apple’s release cycles and the current version’s age. Anyone remember what that is?
Reason I’m asking is because while it’s still a ways off, as soon as my Verizon wireless contract expires, I want to switch to AT&T/Cingular to get an iPhone (Blackberry just doesn’t measure up, and the plan costs are pretty much identical), but I want to be able to see if waiting an extra month or two might be a good idea...
out of your price range?
http://store.apple.com/us/product/FB003LL/A?mco=MjE0NDk5Mw (as of time of this post).
refurb 1.6 GHz, 80 gig, 2 gig. For 999...not bad.
If that's the criteria, the Air wins hands-down immediately. The Adamo is a brick. You can see Dell is trying, but they're just not there yet.
Totally agree.
Aw man, don’t tempt me.
don’t rush a decision - you can often find them out there for that price. just go to store.apple.com, then click on refurbs, left side of the page, towards the bottom. You save enough on refurbs to buy apple care. I have 2 refurb laptops and an iMac, and no issues with any of them.
The Adamo looks fine for a PC laptop, but being predominantly tied to Windows, the differentiation necessary to provide a designer product just isn't there. I think that's one of the reasons Dell kept begging Apple to license OSX to them. Apple also took some chances with the Air, including the enclosed battery and only having one USB port. Dell still tried to cross-bet to a traditional laptop, adding a pound to the device. For the designed application of the laptop (super light and mobile, designed for the person who computes everywhere and travels a lot) the pound makes a difference. Although it is a "designer" computer, if I did outside sales, I'd seriously consider the Air, and the Adamo if I had to do Windows. When I did outside sales, I found that you lost a lot of points if you walked in with 35 boxes and a top hat. The advantage of having a super cool looking laptop that works flawlessly means a lot in sales situations. Dittos for executives that go to meetings. With the Air, the premise is that you'll have a USB hub and a wireless connection at your primary spot, and that you won't be hooking up a ton of connections on the road. One thing I would like to see them do on the Air is include a built in wireless card that would allow you to drop from Wifi to 3G to phone connection, like the iPhone. A lot of the high school stadiums where I work don't have Wifi.
Two words: Boot Camp
Two more words: Fusion, Parallels (although I don't know if the Air has enough power to do a VM well)
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