Dell has unveiled a new Chromebook for classrooms alongside a slew of laptops and hybrid tablets designed to survive knocks, bumps and scrapes during everyday use.
The Chromebook 11 builds on last year's effort with an 11.6-inch anti-glare HD or Touch HD LCD with Gorilla Glass display. Under the hood is an Intel Celeron Bay Trail-M N2840 dual-core chip clocked at 2.16GHz backed up by either 2GB or 4GB of RAM.
As pointed out in our Chromebook 11 hands-on review, one of the most innovative features is an activity light on the back of the case that changes colour to alert the teacher when students need help or assistance at any time.
Its supposed schoolyard toughness is illustrated by its liquid resistant keyboard and touchpad that have been rigorously tested, according to Dell. The laptop is on sale now with prices starting at $249.99 (around £164, or AU$327).
For those more enamoured to Windows, the ruggedised Latitude 11 Education Series has also been added to the education line-up complete with an 11.6-inch display (touch or non-touch options available), Intel Celeron processor, 250GB hard drive. The non-touch version goes on sale from March 3 with the touch following in late June 2015, and pricing starts at $299 (around £194, or AU$388).
Venue launch
Finally there are two new hybrid tablets joining Dell's education array in the shape of the Venue 10 and Venue 10 Pro, which run on Android 5.0 and Windows 8.1 respectively.
Both standard versions have a 10.1-inch 1,280 x 800 resolution display (this can be expanded to full HD) and can be bought with detachable keyboards to turn them into laptops.
Venue 10 is also one of the first to be certified with Google Play for Education and has NFC so that teachers can download content to students by bumping devices. Venue 10 Pro starts at $329.99 (around £214, or AU$428) for the tablet and $379.99 (around £247, or AU$493) for the keyboard option and it available from March 3, 2015 whereas the Venue 10 will be out in spring 2015.
