It?s hot! I am not talking about the soaring mercury over most parts of the country alone, but also about the very compact, almost pocket-able, lightweight computers called netbook.
HP (Hewlett Packard) used fashion icon Vivienne Tam?s flowing floral design in shades of red to hook young corporate ladies to grab their limited edition Clutch at a premium price. Sony targeted the hip pocket of the young ladies? jeans with the introduction of their rather pricey Sony Vaio P. The other players who are in the race such as Acer, MSI, Lenovo and LG are already in the process to come out with their generation-II netbooks.
Not to be left behind, computer giant Dell too has entered the fray by launching their netbook called Latitude 2100 Education. This time aiming the school going kids. Catch them young!
This elegant looking netbook is specially designed with reinforced rubberised outer shell to make it student rugged. It will take all the abuse, bumps and falls of the backpacks, apart from the rough handling a teenager is expected of.
Incidentally, according to the HP, it does not meet any standardised ruggedness specification norms. The tough outer rubber wrap is also crinkled with mat-like texture as to make it slip-proof from the sweaty palms of a school going kid.
The six cell battery is designed in such a manner that it doubles as a sturdy handgrip. To make it more student friendly, an accessory shoulder strap can also be attached to lug it around.
The 10.1inch WSVGA (1024 x 576) LED wide Display screen, as it?s now a standard for netbooks, is very bright and evenly illuminated all across and is easy on the battery too. There also is a VGA port present, in case you wish to connect it to a larger display panel or projector for a classroom project.
The outer attributes of 265mm (width) x 187mm(depth) x 22.5-39.9mm (height) and 1.32 kilograms (with a three cell battery) of solid mass, makes it to look a bit bulky, But what the heck?
Our kids are already used to carrying much heavier load on their otherwise tiny shoulders.
The nicely laid out keypad with almost full-size keys has perfect tactile feedback, and will be easier on the finger-muscles for long hours of typing. Though the touch-pad and buttons are a bit small and pushed far down on the palm rest, but our young ones will get used to them after a few hours of running in.
The Dell Latitude 2100-Education is powered by an Intel Atom processor N270 with 2GB of DDR2 RAM and 80 GB of Hard disk space (the one I got for hands-on review). But, as it?s always an option with the Dell machines, one can opt for a variety of hardware and OS configuration like bigger hard-disk, more RAM, touch screen, three or six cell battery and the cost will vary accordingly.
The choice of five colours (school bus gold, green, blue, red and black) and a transparent slider on the back to tag your name as personalising option may amuse the school kids.
But the network activity light on the top lid (designed for the teacher and parents to monitor the Wi-Fi internet connectivity status) will dampen their spirit a bit.
The netbook comes with three USB2 ports, one Ethernet port, bluetooth and Wi-Fi for connectivity options, a three-in-one Card reader, 3.5mm jack sockets for attaching headphone and mic and an inbuilt webcam as standard features.
With this dell netbook your child may get a tool and opportunity to learn the skills necessary to succeed in this digital world, provided you are willing to dig deep in your pocket, at least Rs 22,000 to start with.