Elevated Design

As you lift the lid, the keyboard unfolds from the display (almost as if it were a spaceship deploying its ramp, inviting you to come aboard) and the bottom part of the lid extends beneath the display, elevating the bottom of the system at about a 30 degree angle. Dell says this helps dissipate heat, but it also creates a more ergonomic typing position.

Keyboard and Typing

When typing on a table, the notebook felt perfectly balanced, but we couldn’t wait to put this thing on our lap to see if it would topple over. Surprisingly, the Adamo XPS didn’t slip off our legs as we pecked away, thanks to two strategically placed rubber bumpers on the bottom part of the lid. However, during our brief time with the laptop it felt like it was sliding down slightly.

Display, Location Awareness

The Adamo XPS sports a 13.4-inch display that’s bright (300 nits) and sharp, and we like that the desktop isn’t cluttered with crap. What Dell does include is a location-aware gadget that leverages Skyhook’s Wi-Fi triangulation technology to pinpoint your location.

Outlook

The original Dell Adamo was slick in its own way, but it was heavy for its thinness and didn’t really push the envelope. The Adamo XPS, on the other hand, is a leap forward in industrial design, and possibly for the first time ever Dell is leading instead of following the pack. We’d like to see how the extra capacity battery performs–and how well it blends in with the rest of the design–but there’s no question that the Adamo XPS is in a class by itself.

Via Laptop Mag