Dell Intros New XPS Laptops; Kills Off Adamo Line

Isn't the Adamo line only 1 or 2 laptops anyway? They hyped that line up so much, and it hasn't even lasted 2 years.

diluting one's own brand is never wise. this was a smart move.

It has a lot to be hyped. It is the thinnest laptop ever made. Even the new Macbook air is thicker than the Adamo.

What about Studio brand?

I agree that it deserved the hype as they are gorgeous machines (I was looking into buying one yesterday, actually). I also don't think they needed to ditch the brand completely; they just needed to rename it Adama.

Wait people buy laptops without Core 2 duo cpus...

Why has Steve Jobs not been told of this!

Great news for Dell. As far as I've always been concerned, they make the best laptops after Apple and have great support. The Adamo line needed to go though, it may have been thin but it was ugly as sin. In many ways thin expensive laptops are a style statement and the only style statement Adamos made was that owners had no sense of style.

I will try my hands on these, I really don't like the looks of Dell laptops but I have bought few of them and serve me well.

I bought a Core 2 Duo laptop.... 2 years ago. I was going to go full bore and get an i7 but I don't need that kind of power in my laptop. My company gets a pretty decent EPP discount through Dell so these came out at the right time. That Core 2 Duo laptop I spoke of was an Asus and the backlight just went out on it. I'll be replacing the CCFL soon but I will never get another ASUS. I never had any issues with my old E1505 from Dell so it's back to Dell I go.

If they really want to recover from their tarnished reputation, they need to give an option to ship the system without bloatware. They need to can all the cheap plastic parts and go with aluminum (might I recommend black as a direct contrast to Apples's silver). Minimize unnecessary curves in the chassis that don't serve a purpose both functionally and aesthetically.

Why is this such a hard concept?

That would increase the price.

Just three lines? So no more Vostro or Latitude? Or is this just the non-business sector?

"randomizer 10/23/2010 7:16 AM Hide -0+ .
pocketdrummer wrote :

"If they really want to recover from their tarnished reputation, they need to give an option to ship the system without bloatware. "

That would increase the price."

Hmmmm i work for dell on the business lines, so lat/vostro/precision and you can dump the bloatware during the order on them. I honestly dont know if you can do it on the consumer ones. frankly they are nicer machines quality wise anyway baring the alienwares if you can tolerate less "oh shiney".

Plus remember dell doesnt ship "restore" discs with the machines when you order discs, you get a real windows disc so in 30 minutes you can have that clean os...........now only if the driver discs werent completely miserable. I really wish ours were like asus's driver discs.

LOL once second they say the xps line is going to go then next second it back.

Well is that such a bad thing for a "better" computer?

You're not thinking like a typical consumer. Cheaper is better.

In my opinion no but if you look at all the bashing of Apple products on this site due to their high prices and comments such as "I can get just a Dell just as powerful for half the price" style comments, most people on here don't value design quality, materials used or looks high at all.

The problem for Dell is that people that do care about those things are going to be hard pushed to consider buying a Dell over an Apple at a similar price point with similar amounts of money spent on those factors.

God forbid they have to rely on clever workmanship and choice of parts to keep the price down. They can't compete with more expensive brands and still retain the junk that forced users away in the first place.

I was thinking the same thing. LOL

It's about time Dell made a change. Cutting product lines and concentrating on improving the brands everyone knows might be enough to bring Dells reputation back to a respectable level. Or they could still screw it up. We need some laptop benchmarks from the new XPS line.

Adamo was probably the most beautiful line Dell was ever selling... this is a silly move in my opinion.

They do! My XPS1530 came with only Works and a couple cheap Office things which I removed anyway. (PowerPoint Viewer for example)

The new MacBook Air is superior to the Adamo. Instead of using Intel Graphics, Apple uses the integrated nvidia 320M chip, that has 48 "cuda" cores. Apple's own iLife applications use their Core Animation framework that requires good graphics to makes these apps shine. Dell has no problem selling an graphically challenged computer like the Adamo, that will have trouble running the latest crop of Windows apps developed using the Windows Presentation Foundation. That's a key difference between Apple and many of the PC makers. Every Mac is powerful enough to actually be ...a Mac.

Now, I'm not saying that PC's can't be great, they sure can. It's just you have to be careful.

I got a deal in email for the new XPS a couple days ago, but the 420M is to slow for me. I looked into the Alienware's 15" models because I don't want to lug a 17 and those have an ATI 5850M or a 260M. Neither of those are much faster than my current 9800M GTX.

Dell competing with Apple?
Not if Dell keeps shipping laptops that feel like tic tac boxes and creak and rattle like they are going to fall apart next week.

If they are using Flextronics as the ODM like they do for the Alienware line these should be solid. My M17x is built like a tank and has NO creaks or signs of wear after over a year of use now. The next business day on site warranty is the best in the world as well.....it really is next day....like, tech at your house with new part in under 24 hours.....(used a few times now - because I broke it, not because it was cheap from dell)

Also forgot to mention, the bloatware is pretty much non existent on the Alienwares (although what self respecting enthusiast does not fresh install anyways!)

So you're saying that the first MacBook Air wasn't really a Mac? Because it also had an Intel GMA.
If you spend the same money on a "PC" that you would have spent on a Mac you don't have to worry about the specs because it will be a good laptop. In fact almost all laptop nowadays comes with a dedicated graphics chip.

In the ultra-portable market the new MacBook Air has better OVERALL performance than any of it's competition and is priced better too. I'm talking about ultra-portables here, not notebooks in general. Now, If you wan't to get into an argument about notebooks, I can find a dozen reasons to buy the 15" MacBook Pro over any plastic, sticker covered, PC crap laptop at half the price. PC laptops can be cheaper, but not better than MacBook Pro.

Isn't the MacBook Air more expensive than the competition?


It depends on how you define better. In terms of hardware there are laptops that can do circles around any macbook pro. I can get a laptop "PC" with a quad-core i7, something I can't with any apple laptop. I can also get a laptop "PC" with a gtx400 series gpu, something i can't get with any apple.

Also a full aluminum body has it's disadvantages. When the computer is running intensive apps the macbook pro it has a tendency to warm-up quite badly. This is even worse on the i7 MacBook Pro's that reviewers found that the CPU heated dramatically reaching almost 100º. Because apple use the aluminum body as a part of the cooling system it made certain parts of the laptop simply untouchable. Funny enough laptops with the same processor but with a copper heat-sink and plastic shell don't have this problem. The CPU remains at a lower temperature when on load and the laptop itself remains at a comfortable temperature.

besides, nerds always know how to get rid of the bloatware, so it's never really that big of a problem...bloatware helps pay for the OS