CES: Dell's Adamo offers luxury computing in hard times

Back in the first Great Depression (oh, we're only in a recesssion? Sorry, I missed that class), some of the most popular forms of entertainment were movies featuring the trials and tribulations of the very rich. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, and their peers danced across luxurious apartments and expensive nightclubs wearing beautifully tailored clothing. Audiences ate it up -- if they had to worry about finding a job and putting off the landlord, at least they could disappear in this fantasy land for an hour or so.

Dell seems to have adopted this philosophy. This morning, Dell's Michael Tatelman, VP of consumer sales & marketing, officially announced the company's much-rumored-about Adamo line of luxury notebooks (the name apparently refers neither to Michael Dell's brother Adam nor the captain of Battlestar Galactica, but to the Italian phrase "I love you"). A very pre-production model was held up by an elegantly slinky model for the news cameras, and the words "precision craftsmanship" were used frequently.

No details, specs, or prices were given (except that its design includes anodized aluminum and glass), but don't expect this one to be on Walmart's shelves any time soon, despite rumors that it is supposed to be a price-friendly competitor for Apple's Air.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with trying to sell a luxury item, no matter what the economy is like -- and as Tatelman said, Dell certainly offers machines for the price-conscious as well. And perhaps the upcoming Adamo is a sign of the times -- if most of us can't afford to buy a luxury laptop, we can enjoy reading about it.