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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FATCamaro - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Yeah looks just like a mac!! Amazing. Except its pricey and crap.tipoo - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
My friend just bought one of these days ago. One thing you didn't mention is that the fan seems to go off even with just light web browsing, and also seems to have too few modes to choose from (off, medium, jet engine). Now, maybe I'm micro-autistic or something, but fan noise of any sort just drives me up the wall :-PEven with all its flaws though, considering that the price has dropped to half its original price and half the price of the Macbook Air, if you absolutely need an ultraportable it isn't a bad choice for what you pay. The SSD does make a noticeable difference, despite being far from the fastest SSD's out there (speaking of which, some storage benchies would have been nice!).
Nice review though.
darwinosx - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
The MacBook Air is $1399 which is not 2 X $999. You get what you pay for.This laptop is actually better compared to a 13" Macbook Pro which starts at $1099 but is a dramatically better buy.
http://www.appleinsider.com/mac_price_guide/
Why people constantly compare these to a mac is beyond me since this runs Windows. i understand that Apple is the gold standard for industrial design, quality, and customer service though.
tipoo - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
I stand corrected. The rest still applies though.7Enigma - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Why oh why does it come with a G1 (probably got a great deal on the old drives)? With no TRIM on an aging drive, and at this cost I'll pass...StanTech - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
7Enigma: "With no TRIM on an aging drive, and at this cost I'll pass..."For the price, I think I can accept a scheduled http://www.anandtech.com/show/2865/3">"manual trim" compromise, which I think is http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?a...">now supported on G1 drives.
8steve8 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
pathetic that this doesn't have a i3/i5/i7 ULV cpu.Friendly0Fire - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
I really hope that Anand's 13 and below laptop review will give us a good comparison. Between the Adamo 13, the M11x, the Vaio Z and Asus' myriad of thin and light laptops (U30Jc, UL30Jt, etc.), there are a lot of choices. I'll be looking forward to more about this!afkrotch - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
I sport a 12.1" HP TM2T tablet. Wondering how it compares to the rest. Granted, you pay more for the tablet features, but a lot of killer deals are out there for it.freeman70 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Wait for the i3/i5/i7 CULV or later processors. You are just wasting money buying a stylish case with an old processor. I am perfectly happy to wait for something really great like sandy-bridge based CULV laptops. Until then I will be content using my Acer 1410 with 4GB of RAM and an Intel 80GB G2 SSD. Don't bother telling me the screen is average. I already know. But considering I paid US$450 (4GB RAM included) when I bought it, I think it's good enough for the time being. I won't upgrade until I can get a decent 32 nanometer CULV CPU, nVidia Optimus graphics, a good 13.3 inch screen, USB 3.0 and still get 8 hours of battery life.