Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

Netbooks, we all know they can be great little devices for kids.  They’re cheap, small and can go with them everywhere.  They even sell the things in toy stores.  It makes sense then that Dell would release a netbook that’s focused on K-12 education.

The new Latitude 2100 is a 10.1” screen netbook designed to be handled by children.  It has a “rubberized” grip on the top and the bottom of the machine that Dell likens to a four-square playground ball.  It also has a touchscreen option and a gigabit Ethernet port to help is stand out against all the other netbooks. 

The Latitude 2100 will be offered to schools with a special 24-machine media cart for classrooms.  The media cart will be able to store and network 24 of the netbooks with a single power cord and ethernet cable, presumably it has a built in router.  When the students are using the netbooks in class the teacher can monitor the network activity lights on the lid of each netbook to see if maybe some student is too busy browsing the internet to pay attention.

The idea of an education focused netbook is very nice, and Dell also expects this to appeal to others outside the education space.  However, looking at its awful design and rubberized casing, I don’t know anyone that would prefer this machine.  The touchscreen is nice, as is the option to get it with Ubuntu Linux, XP or Vista, but the netbook just looks too ugly.  Dell was doing so well with the design of their machines as of late, which makes this disappointing.  Just because little kids are the main focus doesn’t meant that it has to look so damn unappealing to anyone else.

Read [Dell]