The Year In Laptops: 2009

cNet

2009 was a bumper year in the laptop arena. Instead of the usual and expected platform refreshes, we saw some pretty interesting designs and changes in the competitive notebook market. For one, well-known Alienware gaming machines have started appearing in Asia, years after being bought over by Dell. Other surprises include the appearance of CULV thin-and-lights that brought together the portability of a MacBook Air with the affordability of a budget machine. Without further ado, here's are a list of laptops that deserve special mention for changing, if not breaking, the frontiers of portable computing.

Alienware enters Asia
Alienware has been around a long time as a US-only premium gaming brand. Despite being bought over by Dell in 2006, it took three years before Asia had a taste of its notebooks which almost rival the performance of a gaming desktop. The first model to grace our shores was the Alienware M17x, which offered some of the most powerful Intel processors along with its dual graphics card setup. A smaller sibling, the Alienware M15x made an appearance recently and surprised us with an affordable price tag for the basic configuration.

But, in this case, great computing power requires an equally impressive shoulder strength, as both Alienware laptops make a mockery of the term portable. Still, it beats having to lug a desktop CPU and monitor to a LAN party any day.

Samsung returns to Asia
Despite an initial rollout that included the ground-breaking Q30 model, the Korean chaebol's premium laptops simply could not compete with the low-cost machines churned out by the likes of Dell and Acer and had to bow out of the Asia market in 2007. After licking its chops for two years, Samsung returned with a vengeance in 2009 with a small but impressive range. Not only are the price now within mortal reach, the company even upped the ante by using LED-backlit screens on the affordable R series models. The Samsung N310 Netbook was also different from its competitors, with a design that grabs attention without looking too toy like.

Dell launches Adamo series

We should have seen the writing on the wall. When Dell started to add more premium machines such as the Studio, Studio XPS and XPS series, we should have suspected that the Round Rock company has its sights on the premium market. Its first high-end fashion portable, the Adamo, created a stir with its unibody design and sky-high S$4,499 (US$3,312.40) price tag, making it more expensive than the MacBook Air. These are definitely NOT low cost Dell laptops. The timing was also rather unfortunate, as it was launched in the middle of the economic recession.

The following model, the Dell Adamo XPS, entered the world during the financial recovery phase and was helped along by a more realistic S$3,299 (US$2,428.90) price tag. The heat-sensing switch to open the laptop, exceptional thinness and unique design makes a bold statement as well. Though it's still not a laptop for the rank-and-file, the Adamo series has certainly elevated Dell's design team to the level of premium brands such as Apple and Sony.

Sony gets ridiculously thin with Vaio P and X series
Choosing a Vaio laptop is not just about specifications. The Japanese maker has a reputation of producing beautiful machines that stand out from the crowd and, almost every year, create laptops that push the boundaries of notebook design. 2009 was an exceptional year for low cost Sony laptops as it produced not one, but two models that redefined the term sleek.

Despite its Atom internals, the Sony Vaio VGN-P15G was emphatically not a Netbook. Even though it had an unusually wide screen, the chassis was formulated to fit a keyboard which was actually usable. But what captured the public's eye was its unbelievably slim profile, which was carried over to the Sony Vaio X series. The latter has a larger 11-inch display with a more conventional footprint. The Vaio X was so slim that the company had to redesign the Ethernet port to fit the chassis.

Though both notebooks are certainly more expensive than your average Atom-based machine, they pushed the frontiers of portability and made impossibly thin, possible.

Apple laptops wave goodbye to replaceable batteries
It all started with the MacBook Air. Possibly the first laptop to sport a unibody body, the manufacturing process allows for a slim yet strong shell which was not possible with traditional methods. Apple then continued the trend by switching its MacBook Pro series to the unibody bandwagon and, with the latest version of the Apple MacBook White that sports a unibody plastic chassis, the transition was completed.

But there was one trade-off. The unibody design precludes user-replaceable batteries, which means consumers will have to send the machine to the service center if the power cells require replacement. This also means no more carrying extra cells when traveling on long-haul flights or remote locations. On the plus side, the internal batteries have significantly longer uptimes and no doubt consumers will continue to seek out low cost Apple MacBooks. So are unibody designs the way of the future, or a fad like the FireWire standard? Only time will tell.

ThinkPad goes dual-screen
There are some who feel that a 12-inch display is all they need, while others who think that even a 18.6-inch desktop replacement is still not big enough. Lenovo ThinkPads are legendary when it comes to toughness and reliability, but one rarely sees cutting-edge design for this range. When the Chinese maker showed off the ThinkPad W700ds, it broke new ground as the first to supplement its main 17.1-inch LCD with a slide-out 10.6-inch panel. The secondary display can be used for easy access to emails and IM chat windows while doing real work on the larger screen. Though this is unlikely to start a trend, this ThinkPad is one which we will not forget anytime soon.

CULV laptops breaks through price barriers
Netbooks were hot in 2008, but consumers soon found that the underpowered Atom processor was simply too limited even for Web surfing, especially when visiting Flash heavy sites. To bridge the gap between low-cost minilaptops and full-fledged notebooks, the Intel Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage (CULV) processor was born.

Priced lower than Intel's full-powered chips, the first CULV machines like the Acer Aspire Timeline 3810T and MSI X-Slim X340 were certainly costlier than Netbooks, but were several hundred dollars cheaper than traditional ultraportables. This new range of machines were not only sleek and sexy, the low power consumption of the platform and LED-backlit screens allowed for impressive battery lives. It's a pity that the optical drive was sacrificed in the process, but some vendors have overcome that obstacle by bundling external optical drives.

Later in the year, a new line of ultrathins came into the picture. While the first wave of CULV laptops sit squarely in the thin-and-light and midsized categories, the Acer Aspire AS1410, Dell Inspiron 11z and Gateway EC series sport 11.6-inch displays and are about as portable as similarly-size Netbooks. Though the battery life is significantly shorter, these new ultrathins give minilaptops a run for their money as they cost only a little more but offer much faster performance.

Will 2010 see even more upheavals in the laptop market considering this was a bumper year for the mobile computing industry? We'll leave that thought for another article.

Dell Adamo: Up Close And Personal

images from ZDNet / Cnet

Did Dell Forget We Were In A Recession?

Originally Posted to ZDNet

As I sometime am inclined to do, I’m going to head a bit off-topic (the topic being educational technology) and take a stab at Dell’s Adamo laptop. Fellow blogger, Larry Dignan, gave a fairly measured assessment of the “MacBook Air Killer” this morning, ultimately asking if the market was really ready for this product.

My answer? NO! Are you kidding me? A $2000 laptop so fashion-conscious executives and yuppies can sit in first class or at Starbucks comfortably typing on their uber-sleek laptops? They can probably buy them with their ill-gotten bonuses derived from federal bailout funds.

Have you seen the Adamo website? It’s the most ridiculous piece of branding I’ve encountered in a long time. There I go with that branding word; you can tell I’ve been hanging out on Twitter with too many marketing and PR types. But the word fits here. Let’s make Dell glamorous, shall we? The Adamo will look right at home on the catwalk with the new Japanese robot supermodel.

Who cares? For the price of a base Adamo, I can put at least 6 netbooks onto kids’ desks (OK, there’s the Ed Tech tie in - this can’t just be a rant), or, for that matter, outfit 4 or 5 employees in a business with a functional mobile computer that they can use to telecommute as needed and save a few hundred pounds of carbon.

Obviously, people should be able to buy whatever they want. Money talks, right? But in an economic climate that is only expected to get worse for the next year, value talks. How are people going to be using the Adamo? Surfing the net? Checking their email? Writing a document? Watching a movie? HP’s Mini 1000 will do all of those things quite happily for a quarter of the base price (give them a month or two and the Mini will probably also handle HD content).

Anyone who needs more probably won’t care that their laptop is only .65″ thick or that they can get “elegantly matched external peripherals” or their choice of “silver aluminum with unique edging and a pearl finish” or “only aluminum with a brushed finish.”

And here I was, seriously considering whether the netbook I snag would be an Inspiron Mini or an HP Mini. I’m afraid Dell’s little “branding” exercise made the decision for me.

What Sort Of Man Uses Adamo?

Originally Posted to ZDNet

Dell finally unveiled its Adamo feather welterweight laptop this morning, and it’s a beauty — arguably the most beautiful PC to date.

But does it matter?

Basking in dramatic lighting and beautiful photography, the Adamo is as impressive as a woman who can strut down the sidewalk in a pair of 5.5-inch Christian Louboutin stilettos. Why? Besides the subtle pattern that recalls a high-end handbag and the clean lines that reference Sweden’s best design firms — after all, if Apple’s Macbook Air has the gentle sloping lines of Pininfarina, the 13.4-in. Adamo has the hard lines of RB Arkitektur — it’s not a bad piece of hardware.

Notice I didn’t say, “for the price.”

First, the specs:

• 0.65-in. thin profile (Macbook Air: 0.16 to 0.76 in. thick)
• 13.4-in. 16:9 HD widescreen display with edge-to-edge glass
• Aluminum body
• Backlit, scalloped, full-size keyboard (Ynqwie Malmsteen, eat your heart out.)
• 128GB SSD
• 1.2/1.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Processor with Centrino tech
• 2GB/4GB 800MHz DDR3 dual channel memory
• Wireless N, Bluetooth 2.1, one RJ45 port, optional mobile broadband
• 5 hours of battery life
• Compact power adapter
• Peripherals that match, like the Air
• 4.0 lbs., versus Macbook Air’s 3.0 lbs.

…so while it’s no Alienware machine, it’s formidable for the form factor.

Furthermore, there are no “Intel Inside” or any such geeky proclamation of power, according to CNET’s Rafe Needleman. The Adamo’s profile is frictionless.

Simply, the Adamo is a laptop for the discerning lady or gentleman. Yes Larry, that means GQ or Men’s Vogue or Elle or Glamour or even the fellows who wear Church’s on their feet and ride the Amtrak Acela to work.

However — and a big however here — it is not for the cost-minded. The form factor commands a hefty premium, to the tune of $1,999 or $2,699. Consumer laptops haven’t been sold at such prices in years.

(Save for the Air itself, which retails for $1,799 for a 1.6 GHz CPU and 120GB HDD and $2,499 for a 1.86 GHz CPU and 128GB SSD. To compare in-house, a Dell XPS M1330 laptop equipped with a 2.0 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 3GB RAM, Wireless N, Bluetooth and 128GB SSD will run you about $1,044.)

But is the Adamo a consumer laptop? Sure, if you pay $6 for your coffee. But if you didn’t understand half the references in the third paragraph of this post, it’s probably not for you, either.

Why Adamo matters

With the world ensconced in a global recession, how exactly is the Adamo relevant? Isn’t the age of the yuppie over?

Perhaps. But Adamo is a major blow to Apple, king of premium branding perception. Until now, Apple has pretty much cornered the premium laptop market — the one not intended for gamers, but professionals. If you wanted to have a reasonably good-looking machine, inside and out, you paid Apple for that service. Short of uber-geek supermachines, Apple’s line of Macbooks claimed most mobile superlatives. And Microsoft and its cadre of PC manufacturers — Dell, HP/Compaq, Sony, etc. — haven’t really turned out a notebook worthy of a glass house.

Until now. Finally, the PC user has something for an Apple buyer to be envious of. Finally, the Windows user has hardware that doesn’t scream, “I’m a PC, and my refrigerator is still eggshell.” We have graduated from the regrettable visual combination of glossy white and silver paint that has plagued many a PC since Apple introduced the first Macbook Pro in Jan. 2006.

It’s all about perception

For Microsoft, there finally exists hardware that brings Windows in line as more than just a computer for the pocket protector set (even if most people actually use Windows). Microsoft’s banking on Windows 7 to usher in a new era of the company’s branding and perception — hip, cool, unobtrusive — and Adamo finally fits the “return to hip” message in the way that so many XPS, Pavilion, Vaio (save for the recent, diminutive P-Series) and netbook machines have failed.

Impractical as it is, Adamo screams “Geek no more!” It represents the culmination of the PC craze that has introduced a computer into 51 percent of homes in 2000 — now nine long years ago.

The computer is no longer a novelty — it’s now an accessory, something to be taken for granted. Once there are computers everywhere, how do you distinguish yourself? With looks. The Adamo represents all of this.

Don’t like it? Don’t buy it

Does Dell care if you buy Adamo? Well, if you were disgusted by the price and the marketing, the company wasn’t counting on you to buy it anyway. (But you probably got the hint after seeing the Jet-Setter and Entrepreneur packages, didn’t you?) But for those who saw the full-page advertisement in Harper’s Bazaar, it’s the solution for someone who cares about fashion but hasn’t had a Windows option.

Remember: The “world’s thinnest notebook” was introduced just over a year ago at $1,799, and one analyst said it represented 16 percent of Apple’s sales in 2008. Since its introduction, it has done wonders for Apple’s image. It draws stares — even jealousy.

That’s the point of Adamo. To make you notice.

The Making Of The Dell Adamo

Originally Posted to ZDNet

After months of teases, Dell has finally launched its Adamo high-end ultraportable. The basic design–an ultra-thin 13-inch laptop in the mold of the MacBook Air, Lenovo ThinkPad X301 and HP Voodoo Envy 133– has been well-known since the company’s press conference at CES in January. The specs are pretty much what you’d expect from a premium ultraportable including a glossy, edge-to-edge 13.4-inch LED display, ultra low-voltage Intel processor and solid-state disk (SSD).

By now, we know what Adamo is for. It is part of an ongoing, broader company makeover that includes developing more innovative products, establishing a retail business and expanding internationally. The question is, who is it for? Adamo, which starts at $2,000, is hardly the only luxe laptop out there, but it’s a tough time to be launching a new one.

CNET.com has extensive coverage of the launch including a hands-on preview, market analysis and even a detailed look at one of the design goals–hiding the ugly Microsoft, Dell and FCC stickers plastered all over your typical Windows PC.

Adamo is all about design, and its most distinctive trait is a very thin chassis. At 0.65 inches thick, it is arguably the current thinnest laptop in the world, though it depends a bit on how you measure the MacBook Air, which has a more tapered design. The basic design is a rectangular slab of aluminum that looks similar to Voodoo Envy 133, though Adamo is available in white as well as black. It is also a bit heavier than the competition at 4.0 pounds–that’s heavier than the ThinkPad X301 with a an internal DVD burner (which Adamo does not have).

• Dell Adamo: 0.65 x 13.03 x 9.5 inches; 4.0 pounds
• Apple MacBook Air: 0.16-0.76 x 12.8 x 8.94 inches; 3.0 pounds
• Lenovo ThinkPad X301: 0.73-0.92 x 12.5 x 9.1 inches; 3.12 pounds (with 6-cell battery and no optical drive)
• HP Voodoo Envy 133: 0.70 x 12.65 x 9.04; 3.37 pounds

Although Dell offers several different packages, Adamo isn’t fully configurable. The $1,999 base model includes the 13.4-inch LED display (1,366×768), 1.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9300, 2GB or memory, Intel GS45 integrated graphics and a 128GB SSD. That is a reasonable configuration for the price considering the aluminum construction, Intel ultra low-voltage chip and especially the SSD are big-ticket items.

The proof will be in the reviews, but based on what we know, Adamo looks to have an innovative design and decent performance. But it enters the market a difficult time, and it faces a lot of competition–not only from other luxury laptops but also other Dell notebooks. Dell has been accumulating laptop brands, sub-brands and models at a rapid clip. It now sells notebooks under Inspiron (and Inspiron Mini netbooks), Vostro, Latitude, Precision, Studio, XPS and most recently Studio XPS brands–not to mention the Alienware gaming laptops. Several of these include similar laptops with high-end configurations, most notably the XPS M1330 and Studio XPS 13, which both have 13.3-inch widescreen displays. For example, you can currently pick up the new Studio XPS 13 with a 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo P8700, 4GB of memory, Nvidia GeForce 9500M graphics with 256MB, a 500GB hard drive and slot-loading DVD burner for $1,588.

Adamo is meant to appeal to a niche audience that is willing to pay a premium for the design. It is also, I suspect, as much a marketing experiment as a product. The entire rollout–the leaked product shots, the cute code-name that stuck, the sneak preview press conference, and the Flash-heavy site (adamobydell.com) and online videos–all seem like tests of new ways to get the word out about Dell’s product designs, which have in fact been getting a lot more interesting since the release of the XPS M1330 in late 2007. Dell executives have said the 13.4-inch laptop is only the beginning of what will be a family of Adamo products, and some analysts believe Adamo is meant to have a halo effect over all of Dell’s products–in much the same way that the iPod and iPhone have helped spur sales of Macs. So what Adamo may lack in sales numbers, it could make up for in other areas.