HP Spectre: A Better Dell Adamo

Earlier today, HP launched the HP Envy 14 Spectre and I was immediately reminded of the 2009 Dell Adamo, which was Dell’s halo product that year. Both are wrapped in glass, both look stunning in black and both would cause you to drool. But the Adamo was a bit ahead of its time, Intel hadn’t yet figured out how to package performance, we weren’t yet divorced from our optical drives (streaming was in its infancy), and Adamo had some nasty tradeoffs, not the least of which was a very high price.

With the Spectre, HP has launched a product with a similar look to the Adamo, but far fewer tradeoffs, some stronger wow factors and a much more attractive price. Viva Ultrabooks!

Adamo Memories

The thing about the glass version of the Adamo was that it would take your breath away. It really was that good looking – the combination of the Gorilla glass on the cover and edgeless display on the inside was true art and it remains one of the most beautiful laptops ever built. Few of them were sold, however, because at a $2000 starting price, the product represented too many tradeoffs for must users. It wasn’t helped by the fact this was launched during the Windows Vista issues and thermal problems back then meant you could only put a 1.4 GHz dual-core processor in it. It was one of the first products to ship with a 128 GB SSD, but those early large capacity SSDs were famous for issues and for being incredibly expensive.

One of the unique parts of this product was that it was heavy for its class coming in nearly a pound heavier than the MacBook Air, its closest competitor from Apple. Battery life was advertised at over 5 hours but you typically got close to 4 and it came packaged in a wonderful clear plastic box which was a bit of a problem and not, to my knowledge, repeated.

I was actually afraid to carry mine, not because it was fragile, but because I was convinced someone would take it from me.

HP Envy Spectre

There are a lot of similarities from an almost identical weight at 4 pounds to the heavy use of glass outside and inside the product. However, in features, the HP showcases that a lot has happened in the last three years. The operating system is Windows 7, which is both more reliable and faster than Windows Vista was. Streaming is common so we don’t miss the lack of an optical drive as much.   Intel has improved dramatically their mobile processors and this product is both faster and has over twice the battery life of the old Adamo. Price is around $600 less and while, like the Adamo, the Spectre has a lighted keyboard, the Spectre’s is proximity sensitive to it lights up in a wave as you approach the laptop.  This is probably one of the coolest looking features outside of the Alienware customizable lights on their laptops.

This piece of art has enough performance that HP actually packages Photoshop and Premier Elements on it which would typically require too much performance for a product in this class. Intel has been doing some impressive work here.

Carrying Art

Our technology increasingly defines us and both these products were and are designed to make as much a statement as they are to be a tool.   Both are stunning to look at and while the Dell anticipated coming trends the HP has taken advantage of those trends to build a far better product.   In the end, I applaud both companies, Dell for plowing the field, and HP continuing on with the idea.  I think there is room for beauty in laptops and both the old Adamo and new Spectre are stunningly beautiful products.

Rob Enderle in Business Products on January 09