Dell is introducing its first Chromebook, and it’s an 11 inch laptop aimed at the education market. The Dell Chromebook 11 features an 11.6 inch display and an Intel Celeron processor based on Haswell architecture.
The laptop weighs 2.9 pounds and Dell says it should get up to 10 hours of battery life, which could come in handy in a classroom setting. Prices are expected to start at $300, and the first units will be available for purchase in the US and the UK January, 2014.
The Dell Chromebook 11 features a 1366 x 768 pixel display, 16GB of solid state storage, up to 4GB of RAM, and an Intel Celeron 2955U processor. It has 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, 2 USB 3.0 ports, and an HDMI port.
If the laptop looks familiar, that’s because it’s quite similar to the Dell Inspiron 11 3000 Series notebook that launched recently. That model has an additional USB port, a touchscreen, and Windows software, but it’s pretty clear the Chromebook 11 is cut from the same design cloth.
Dell is also launching its Wyse PocketCloud software for access to documents, media, and other files stored in a “personal cloud,” which allows students and teachers to access files from any of the Chromebooks. The company plans to make PocketCloud for Chrome available from the Chrome web store in January, so you won’t necessarily need a Dell laptop to use it.
Makes sense to target education since Google is practically giving these Chromebooks away to schools.
I know a few teachers and their schools have Chromebooks. The main reason they have them was because they were almost free. Of course, no one is really using them for much because the school just jumped on the deal without actually planning on how to integrate them into their curriculum.
ASUS T100 for the same price.
Full Windows, free MS Office, tablet/laptop and you can install chrome.
Schools have lousy budgets and terrible IT, so a chromebook that can only do websites and web apps is perfect. No viruses, complex administration, expensive upgrades, security difficulties, etc.
for the consumer, the Windows laptop is the better deal, but I do agree that Chromebooks would do well in schools
Windows shit? No thanks!
With so much being done online, I think the Chromebook is a good idea. If the student edition is used to get on the school ‘cloud’, this could help students, IMO. Since it not expensive, it could help with budgets too.