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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estee - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Sure, it's also made by Dell, but it's almost identical to the Adamo (same .65" profile, display, battery, slightly slower CPU, w/o the ID though) and costs $330 less!Scott66 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
I am sure dell will get a few customers complaining about broken USB ports due to having all of the ports on the back.When a person reaches around to plug in a jump drive, one tends to lift the laptop. Unfortunately anything plugged on the back will get pressed down against the desk and either bend itself or, over time, crack the connector on the Motherboard.
Main reason all Mac laptops now do not have any ports on the back, instead using the back for moving warm air out.
afkrotch - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Think it's all about how users deal with ports on the back. Me for example, I twist my laptop around to access ports on the back. With ports on the side, I tend to lift the laptop sideways to get to them. I personally prefer ports on the back of my laptop, as it's out of the way.rtothedizzy - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
This is pretty much the laptop I want. Love the look. Love the feel. I won't be buying one anytime soon though because it's basically a year or two old technology. It needs to be updated.Give me:
i5/i7 ULV processor with their improved integrated graphics.
at least 4GB of ram
a newer SSD with trim or an option to get a normal HDD so I can replace it with a SSD myself
As soon as it has those specs I'm getting one. That is assuming they stay near the current price and don't go back to the crazy original price. They updated the 11 inch alienware finally, hope that means the adamo is due for an update soon as well. Anyone heard anything on this front??
solipsism - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
When the machine is geared to compete more directly with Macs than most other non-Mac PCs I’d like to see the charts include Macs. You certainly compare them to Macs in text, but never at a glance in the performance and battery charts.tipoo - Saturday, July 17, 2010 - link
Agreed!brianh902 - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Looks nice... I am waiting for MacBook Pro 13 to go Core i... That will be the one.mindbomb - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
if it has a 4500mhd, then it can fully hardware accelerate 1080p h264, vc-1, or mpeg 2.And it has the added benefit of being able to output hd audio via hdmi.
JarredWalton - Wednesday, July 7, 2010 - link
Not Flash... 10.1 still dies at 1080p on 4500MHD. Sorry if that wasn't clear, though I don't know if a high bitrate (say >20Mbps) H.264 could decode on 4500MHD, lower bitrate certainly works.techandtech - Tuesday, July 6, 2010 - link
Best alternative is the iPad and wireless keyboard when necessary.And if not that, then the next version of the iPad...