With Adamo, Dell May Also Boost Earlier Efforts

After some teasing and waiting, the Dell Adamo was made available yesterday, touted by Dell as the “world’s thinnest laptop.”

The Adamo—milled from a single piece of aluminum and featuring a tempered glass, high-definition display—is 0.65 inches thin and weighs 4 pounds.

Dell made a point of acknowledging the precision craftsmanship that went into creating the Adamo laptop—an entrée into a new, and clearly very stylized, “Adamo by Dell” brand—with which the company hopes to attract style-minded consumers.

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“It’s an attempt to deliver an extremely high-end, premium brand that sets it apart from competitors,” said John Spooner, a senior analyst with Technology Business Research. “It’s a statement. It’s Dell saying, ‘Hey, we can design sexy just as well as the other guys.”

Some question whether Adamo is more about an image refresh for Dell than actual sales, but Spooner says it’s both. “These days $2,000 is awfully expensive for a notebook, but they definitely expect for it to be profitable, and to sell a reasonable number of units,” he said.

There’s also the hope, he explained, of a halo effect, where people are brought in by one product and wind up buying another. “The Dell XPS 13 weighs slightly more but costs about half as much.” Not to mention those leather accents.

With the Adamo, Dell is competing for such customers against the likes of Apple’s MacBook Air—which also has a 13-inch display, is 0.76 inches thin and weighs 3 pounds. Steve Jobs introduced it in January 2008 at the Macworld Expo as “the world’s thinnest computer.” At its thinnest point, it measures 0.16 inches.

Dell’s introductory materials to the Adamo state: “At the thickest point, Dell’s Adamo is thinner than any other laptop.”

“Dell has advanced the ball a little bit,” said Spooner. “Apple’s already been there, but Dell’s followed up, and it is thinner, though not lighter.”

Adamo, he said, is aimed at the customer who would be interested in the MacBook Air or the Lenovo ThinkPad. “People who are after the sleekest design and want to make a statement, ‘Hey look at me!’”