Latitude 2100: Netbook Not Just for Students

The base configuration for the new mini-netbook costs $369. For that you get a rubberized casing in one of five colors measuring 10" x 7.3" and tapering in thickness from less than an inch in front to one-and-a-half inches in the back. With the 3-cell battery (providing about three hours of service) the device weighs just under 3 pounds. Inside is an Atom N270 processor with 1.6 GHz, 512-KByte L2 cache and 533-MHz FSB. The base Linux configuration has the usual connectivity options (USB 2.0 x3, VGA, mic in and audio out), SATA drives up to 80 GBytes and hard drives at 5400 RPM, 1 GByte RAM, Gigabit Ethernet, WLAN 802.11b/g and a 3-in-2 card reader -- but no camera.

With all possible add-ons, bells and whistles, you can easily triple the price. Next to more L2 cache, you can get more disk space, a webcam, additional working memory, Bluetooth, a touchscreen, a 6-cell battery or Intel WLAN 802.11a/g/n. Additional support options satisfy various business needs. Clearly Dell is thereby targeting students on the one hand, but also positioning the 2100 as part of its Latitude series for small and middle sized businesses on the other. Especially appealing to students is the rubberized casing and WLAN indicator when in the classroom.

The Latitude 2100 is orderable from the Dell Online website. The Windows version costs somewhat more than the Ubuntu one. However, Dell also reduced the shipping costs to less than half.