Dell Adamo 13: CULV Goes Upscale
by Vivek Gowri on July 6, 2010 1:51 AM ESTDell Adamo 13: Battery Life
The Adamo's battery is straight out of the Apple playbook, a sealed-in, non-removable unit using lithium polymer cells. Except for one thing - while Apple generally fits large batteries in their systems (as seen by the 63.5 Wh units in the new 13" MacBook and MacBook Pro and the downright massive 84 Wh battery in the 15" MacBook Pro), the Adamo makes do with a comparatively tiny 40 Wh battery. The MacBook Air ships with a 39 Wh battery though, so maybe harping on Dell for the small battery isn't exactly fair.
But fair or not, it doesn't make the battery life numbers any nicer to look at. Absolute maximum life is just over 6 hours, and under our heavy load browsing test (usually a realistic measure of daily use battery life) is roughly 4 hours. I usually averaged around 3.5-4 hours when using it, maybe a bit less if I had a movie going. As such, the Adamo ran for just under 3 hours in our HD video playback test (a 720p copy of the movie Jumper ripped in the x264 codec - trust me, Jumper on repeat is just as painful as you think it is; it wasn't my first choice of movie...)
The HP ProBook 5310m has a similarly small battery (41 Wh) along with a faster low voltage Core 2 Duo SP9600, and gets marginally less battery life. On a per unit of battery capacity basis, the Adamo is within 10% of all the CULV competitors, and a little bit better than the HP. Considering that the processor is faster than both the SU4100 and the SU7300 that were in prior test units, this is about expected. That the SSD didn't save us any power is kind of disappointing, but considering that Intel's first generation of SSDs were never that much better than standard hard drives with power, it's not a big deal.
Overall, the battery life isn't great due to the small battery, and due to the sealed in nature, you run into the same problem as you do with the MacBook Air: you have an extremely portable system that needs to be tethered to a power cord all the time. However, if you can live with 4 hours of battery life or can carry a charger with you, it's fine.
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sidaja - Monday, August 23, 2010 - link
Did you ever find a good computer to buy? I'm in the same boat - looking for a Windows alternative to the MBP.JohnMD1022 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
And I must admit that, generally, their notebooks are a cut above most of the desktops I see.But the Dell desktops we see in our shop are pretty much junk.
It tends to color one's opinion.
stimudent - Tuesday, July 13, 2010 - link
We call them Packard Dell's in our labs.Freddo - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Still cost $2000 here in Sweden. But it sure is a beautiful laptop, I would have considered it if it had HDMI and if it was possible to get an old non-SDD hard drive to lower the price.beginner99 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
999$ for an C2D CULV with useless GMA and a non-trim ssd? Well, people that go for looks tend not to know much about the interor so it's probably good opportunity for dell to get 2 year old hardware sold for a high price.JarredWalton - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
FWIW, Vivek actually liked the design enough that he bought the laptop for his own use. Obviously, opinions on aesthetics are just that, but it does look nice and runs well enough. I believe he bought it off eBay with the X25 SSD for $700 or so; getting a different SSD is possible but I'm not sure if anyone does the requisite 1.8" form factor with a higher performance + TRIM model.rtothedizzy - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
I think OCZ has released their new lineup in 1.8" form recently.Jvboom - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Pricey and underpowered. It's a shame too, the thing looks amazing. If it performed half as well as it's design looks I would definitely get one as my next laptop.mrjminer - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Yea, I wish they'd toss some sort of discrete graphics in there.erple2 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Then it would also be significantly thicker than 0.65"...Discrete GPU requires beefier cooling which requires more space. More space than 0.65" can give.