Dell Adamo vs. MacBook Air

Digital Trends ^ | 05/14/2009 | by Nick Mokey

[Swordmaker]

Apple MacBookAir v. Dell Adamo comparison... PING!

"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.

MacBookAir v. Dell Adamo Ping!

If you want on or off the Mac Ping List, Freepmail me.

[mbraynard]

They aren’t laptops; they are fashion accessories for white hipsters.

[Swordmaker]

Make that: If you buy the upper model 1.86Ghz MacBookAir at $2499, it comes with the 128GB SSD AND is still $200 less expensive than the top 1.4GHz Adamo.

[Goldsborough]

The biggest selling point of the Air is that Microsoft products are completely optional and totally unnecessary.

[Swordmaker]

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...

[Spktyr]

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.

[Richard Kimball]

I can't argue with that. However, if I could afford it, I wouldn't mind having one of these puppies when I'm doing a game and need to do editing on the road and send the info to the magazine or the paper.

I like the computers, even though they're out of my price range, and I think they're seriously cool.

[BunnySlippers]

Hilarious! Can’t they see?

[BunnySlippers]

One is pug ugly and it’s not the Mac.

[PA Engineer]

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.

[kevkrom]

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...

[LearnsFromMistakes]

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.

[Gomez]

MacRumors Buyer's Guide

[antiRepublicrat]

For those seeking the smallest, sexiest notebooks

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.

[CheneyChick]

One is pug ugly and it’s not the Mac.

Totally agree.

[Richard Kimball]

Aw man, don’t tempt me.

[LearnsFromMistakes]

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.

[Richard Kimball]

I'm an Apple guy, but I've always had a soft spot for Dell, as Michael Dell is an old UT guy. Dell is working from a disadvantage in this market, as they come from a background of being THE cheap clone manufacturer. They're trying to do what Levis did when they tried to become a designer brand of blue jeans.

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.

[antiRepublicrat]

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.

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)