Dell has begun selling its slim notebook Adamo online, which follows a trend set originally by Apple with its Macbook Air.

Dell's Adamo laptop, which it claims is the world's thinnest at about 16.4mm thick, was first unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in January, and is the first product in an entire Adamo line that will feature new design aesthetics.

The aluminum-body laptop comes in two colors, onyx and pearl. It has a 13-inch screen and, with a depth of less than two-thirds of an inch, is thinner than both Apple Inc.'s 0.76-inch MacBook Air ($1,800 and up) and Hewlett-Packard Co.'s 0.7-inch Voodoo Envy notebook (from $1,900).

he base model comes with a 1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 processor, 2 GB of DDR3 memory, a 128 GB SSD, Windows Vista 64-bit and integrated graphics (Intel GS45 with 256 MB). $2700 will buy a 1.4 GHz SU9400 processor, 4 GB of memory and wireless HSPA broadband.

The laptop is available to pre-order today from the Adamo By Dell web site, and will start shipping worldwide from 26 March

Dell’s Adamo is certainly one of the more unique and stylish Windows notebooks available today. There are two versions, which cannot be further configured as far as their hardware components are concerned. The base model comes with a 1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 processor, 2 GB of DDR3 memory, a 128 GB SSD, Windows Vista 64-bit and integrated graphics (Intel GS45 with 256 MB). $2700 will buy a 1.4 GHz SU9400 processor, 4 GB of memory and wireless HSPA broadband.

The Adamo, whose name is derived from the Latin “adamare” and translates into “I admire” or “I fall in love with”, is not cheap by any stretch. Even when compared to the Macbook Air, the pricing seems to be confident. The Macbook Air starts at $1800 with a 120 GB hard drive, but costs $2500 with a 128 GB SSD (and a more power-hungry 1.86 GHz processor).

Click here to visit the Dell Adamo website.