Dell Adamo laptop review

Dell may not emanate the instant cool that comes with each new Apple launch, but it's doing its best to change that. Months of drip-fed information, a few brief hands-on previews and a luxurious official website whipped up expectation, but fortunately we can confidently say the Adamo has been worth every second of the wait.

It comes in silver or black, with suitably lush monikers – the Adamo Pearl and Onyx – and its dimensions are to die for: it's impossibly slim at just 18mm and weighs 1.8kg, so it should become a permanent companion on your travels – although we’d recommend a padded slipcase, at the very least, to ensure the exquisite exterior isn’t scratched or damaged.

The chassis, as well as providing a striking first impression, is peppered with impressive details: dozens of tiny pinpricks sit toward the rear of the machine, ostensibly to provide ventilation, but one of them lights up when the laptop is on and pulses on and off when it’s in sleep mode.

Turn the Adamo over and you’ll see that its service number is written in miniscule font along a discreet edge – because having stickers and removable panels scattered across the underside just wouldn’t do. Instead, the bottom only features a raised metallic plaque with the Adamo logo and the Vista and Intel liveries that would usually – on a normal, common laptop – sit below the keyboard.

To keep the sides neat, all the ports and sockets are sequestered on the rear of the machine. You get two USB ports, a combined eSATA/USB port, Gigabit Ethernet and even a DisplayPort output squeezed in. There’s no D-SUB output, so require DisplayPort-to-D-SUB and HDMI.