For the second time, Dell has slashed prices on its once-premium Adamo laptops, so it's now possible to get one for $999.
It's been a long, hard fall for the trendy-looking 13.4-inch notebooks, which measure 0.65 inches and have an aluminum chasis. Their prices were already cut once last July, after the line debuted in March 2009. The Adamo Aspire is down to $999, from $1,499 and $1,999 before that. It has a 1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 2 GB of RAM and a 128 GB solid state drive.
The high-end Adamo Desire also got a $500 price cut, to $1,799. Debuting last year at a staggering $2,699, the Desire still has a 2.1 GHz Core 2 Duo processor, 4 GB of RAM and a 256 GB solid state drive. Both laptops now ship with 64-bit Windows 7.
We're finally getting to the point where the Adamo could be a good buy for fashionistas. There aren't many other options out there if you want a full-sized laptop with a solid aluminum chasis. Aside from the Adamo, there's the HP Envy, whose 13-inch and 15-inch models are priced at $1,500 and $1,300, respectively. They're a little more muscular than the Adamo, with more RAM, better processors and dedicated graphics cards, but they're thicker and don't come equipped with solid state drives by default. Beyond that, you're looking at MacBooks, and that's a whole other story.
Even with the price reductions, the Adamo is looking a little stale without some advances we've seen in other laptops lately. The lack of a discrete graphics card, or at least the option to switch between discrete and integrated graphics, means it'll be hard to play games. And battery life -- estimated at roughly five hours -- is decent, but not enough to compete with some thin and light laptops, such as Acer's timeline series and Asus' UL30a.
But at $1,000, Dell's Adamo is no longer jaw-droppingly expensive for a laptop, so people who value looks over performance won't have to pay luxury prices.
