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Dell Adamo's Achilles Heel: Battery Not User Replaceable

Andy Salisbury — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 16:00:44 -0500

Dell’s Adamo is one sexy notebook, featuring an impressively thin form factor that allows its users to bring it with them just about where they want. But, along with all that good news we’ve got some bad to report – the battery isn’t replaceable by the user.

Following in the footsteps left by Apple’s 17-inch MacBook Pro, the un-removable battery can only be replaced if sent to Dell. There’s no word yet on just how much this procedure will cost as of yet.

Unfortunate news, to be true, but we can’t say that it completely surprises us. You don’t get a notebook this thin without losing some of the usual advantages.

Image Credit: Dell/Maximum PC

Pro Photographer: Dell Mini's Screen is Better Than The MacBook Pro

Andy Salisbury — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 14:17:45 -0600

Professional Photographer Rob Galbraith undertook the task of figuring out which notebook has the best screen for others of his trade, and according to his research the Dell Mini 9 finished the rigorous testing with the highest marks.

He considered three notebooks when making this decision: Apple’s MacBook Pro, the Dell Mini 9 and Lenovo’s W700. His point of reference was an Eizo ColorEdge CE240W, due to its in-plane switching LCD panel and even screen brightness.

While Lenovo’s W700 did come up near the top of the list thanks to its built-in pantone calibrator, the Dell Mini 9 took the top spot. That’s right, a $300 notebook has a display with better “overall huge accuracy” than the $2000 MacBook Pro, which apparently sports a display that is “one or two steps below a good desktop.”

Check out his full evaluation here.

Image Credit: Rob Galbraith

Greenpeace Unimpressed by "World's Greenest Family of Notebooks"

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:32:15 -0600

Apple is finding it extremely difficult to avoid being in Greenpeace’s cross hairs. Nearly a year ago, Greenpeace branded the iPhone as “toxic”. Now, the organization has flayed Apple’s pompous claim that its Macbook line of notebooks are the greenest there are.

The Macbook range of notebooks scored a highly disappointing 4.3 out of a possible 10 points on the organization’s green index. Greenpeace did laud Apple, though very frugally, for doing away with bromide flame-retardants and other toxic plastics. But it clearly believes that Apple should take more steps to substantiate its towering claims.

Greenpeace has put the ball in Apple’s court by asking it “to commit to phasing out additional substances with timelines, improve its policy on chemicals and its reporting on chemicals management.”

No BS Podcast #84: The Zombie Slaying Edition

The Maximum PC Staff — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 11:55:07 -0500

Mark your calendars, because the zombie apocalypse is coming on November 18th. But we've got your covered. The podcast gang recounts their visit to Valve's Left4Dead preview event, where the game's Versus mode debuted to the public. We also quiz Will about his adventure in Apple land for the Macbook Pro keynote, and as always, answer a load of listener questions.

Do you have a tech question? A comment? A tale of technological triumph? Just need to get something off your chest? A secret to share? Email us at maximumpcpodcast@gmail.com or call our 24-hour No BS Podcast hotline at 877.404.1337 x1337--operators are standing by.

Subscribe: http://feeds.feedburner.com/maximumpc/1337

Will makes a special guest appearance at the 25 minute mark in the Apple keynote webcast.

Caption this image! The best caption will get mad props on our next podcast and possibly some sweet prize. Photoshops welcome as well!

Take That, Jessica Chobot and Olivia Munn! Maximum PC Scores Voodoo Envy Hands-On and First Licking (Size Comparisons Too)

Norman Chan — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:00:59 -0500

Just call us licky. We mean, lucky. You've seen the official super-hot photos of the Voodoo PC's Envy laptop, but we got our hands on one and were able to take tons of close-up photos of the as well as try out the highly touted instant-on feature. Our initial impressions: the laptop is really light. HP claims the laptop (it was the SSD version) weighs three and a half pounds, and even though we didn’t have a scale in our messenger bags, it sure felt about the same weight as the Macbook air, power supply notwithstanding. Stacking the Envy against a Macbook Pro and Thinkpad X300, Voodoo’s pricey portable was both smaller and slimmer, though it sports a 13” screen.

With the instant-on function, Voodoo claims the Envy boots from the BIOS to a simplistic GUI menu in three seconds, though our test clocked the boot-up at four seconds. Launching the pre-installed Linux kernel took another six seconds (you have the option to just launch Windows), which is pretty handy if you just want to surf the web or run an instant messenger client. The custom Linux build lets you surf the web with Firefox, browse photos (which have to be stored in specific folders), listen to music, instant message with Pidgin, or even chat with Skype. Voodoo chose all of these apps because they were open source. The UI menu looks simple and can be configured to dock to any side of the screen. The look of the Linux UI still isn't final, so what customers will see might look a little different from our photo.

We like the Envy’s slim design and light weight, though the lack of an onboard Ethernet port and optical drive are unfortunate sacrifices. The square-ish (yet still thin) power brick didn’t look too cumbersome to inhibit portability, and includes an Ethernet port to broadcast wi-fi to the laptop. The shiny carbon fiber weave surface looked really stylish and sleek, though this was a pre-production model, which explained why it had a few scratches and signs of wear. Our fingerprints were also immediately noticeable after handling the laptop for a few minutes, so wiping the surfaces down with the included soft microfiber sleeve is probably recommended.

Once our hands-on time was up (our review unit is coming later), we (meaning Norm) decided to make his mark on the Envy with a slobbery lick. So what did Voodoo’s Macbook Air killer taste like? Says Norm: “ a single plum floating in perfume served in a man's hat.”

(edits made to clarify the pre-production nature of the unit and Linux UI)

Continue to the next page for more photos and a truly terrifying image.

Nightmares courtesy of Maximum PC.

Apple MacBook Pro

Gordon Mah Ung — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:44:53 -0500

We’re always a little taken aback when we see Apple’s MacBook Pro in the hands of PC power users. For example, we’ve seen PC game developers typing on MBPs at industry events. And at trade shows, it isn’t uncommon to see Windows app developers sporting Apple’s pro-class portable. Are we far from the day when Bill Gates is a proud MacBook Pro convert?

Ever since Apple swallowed its pride and embraced the x86 instruction set used by every other PC, its computers have been far more compelling given their ability to run a Windows OS directly on the metal without emulation. Of course, most MBP users will probably go OS X, but having the Windows fallback for gaming and application fidelity is a comfort—no other PC vendor can currently offer that OS combo.

Wrapped in an aluminum shell, the MacBook Pro’s thinness is impressive next to other notebooks in its class. Dell’s XPS M1530 (reviewed on the next page), for example, feels downright chubby in our hands. We’ve seen other notebooks that come close to the MBP in thinness, but graphics are usually compromised to get there. For example, we had a hard time finding another notebook in the MBP’s class that sports a GeForce 8600M GT with a 512MB frame buffer. Most other superslim notebooks resort to integrated graphics—and even Dell’s loaded-for-bear XPS has just half the frame buffer.

The MBP’s CPU is also top-notch: Intel’s 2.5GHz Core 2 Duo T9300 chip. This 45nm-based Penryn CPU is just a step away from Intel’s fastest mobile CPU, the 2.6GHz C2D. A 250GB SATA drive, slot-fed DVD burner, and 2GB of DDR2/667 make up the rest of the notebook’s specs.

But specs aren’t the full story. The MBP includes some really nice extra touches, such as a backlit keyboard that’s connected to a light sensor. Apple sells the unit with either a glossy or anti-glare finish to the LCD screen. Ours came with an anti-glare 1440x900 TFT screen with LED backlighting. From what we’re told, LED backlights aren’t used in notebooks so much for power savings (most OEMs say the reduction is minimal), but rather ecological reasons. Doing away with the fluorescent tubes in the screen eliminates the last bit of mercury in a notebook PC. Our screen was quite good in high-glare environments, such as our office and outdoors, but for watching movies or playing games, the glossy screen would be preferable.

As slim, fast, and fashionable as the MBP is, we do have issues with it. First, the screen doesn’t tilt back far enough. It’s fine if you’re sitting in front of it at a desk, but working from, say, the hood of a car or a lab bench, the off-axis angle is a minor annoyance.

Second, accessing the hard drive or optical drive is not fun, unless you’re the kind of person who enjoys disassembling a notebook to do something that’s quite easy with other notebook designs. There’s also no way to add a cellular modem to the notebook and no factory option for it either.

Apple also decided to use an ExpressCard/34 slot instead of the standard ExpressCard/54, to save space. Hey, Apple, there’s a reason there’s a standard, and plenty of ExpressCard/54 parts are available, so why not just support both? We’d recommend chucking the FireWire 400 port to make room since there’s no reason for both a FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 port.

In the grand scheme of things, these are fairly minor kvetches and the MacBook Pro is a surprisingly satisfying machine.