Dell debuts colorful new Latitude 2100 netbooks for education

Dell's done good things for the mainstream of the netbook market with its Mini 10 series, keeping prices low and quality relatively high, and now it looks like that ever-alluring educational market is next on the table. The new Latitude 2100, which we've spotted previously, harbors traditional netbook internals, with kid-friendly perks like colorful lids and a rugged rubberized design, along with options for a carrying handle, shoulder strap, antimicrobial keyboard, touchscreen LCD and a Dell Mobile Computing Station docking cart (which can manage and store 24 of them with a single Ethernet cable and single power cord). The netbook is going to be available today with options for Vista, XP or Ubuntu 8.10, and the base configuration retails at $369 -- though we're unsure how much cost the options like SSD, a 6-cell battery (3-cell is standard), touchscreen or Vista will be. In a perfect world, no child would have to suffer with one of those "spinning hard disks," corrupting all their Kid Pix masterpieces with every bump.

Update: Video added after the break.