Today, Dell has announced 3 additional Chromebooks to be added to their lineup, squarely aimed at the education sector.
It seems Dell is joining the quickly-growing fray of companies announcing upcoming Chromebooks aimed at the education market.
With Chromebooks’ current dominance in EDU, this is of little surprise.
Dell has also added a Windows variant of each device to their announcement, making a total of 6 devices announced today on their website.
While details are a bit scant at this point, it looks like all three Chromebooks will be running 6th-gen Intel silicon. While likely being of the Skylake variant, the inclusion of the simple Celeron name could be pointing to a couple different options.
For instance, the 5th-gen Celeron in the Acer Chromebook 15 could be the 3205U or the N3160. That N before the number is important as that denotes a much slower processor.
We’ll see how it shakes out when these devices fully become available and all the specs are there for viewing. For now, size and processor is all we have.
An 11-inch convertible, 11-inch laptop, and 13-inch laptop will fill out the offerings. All of these devices are built to survive the classroom, says Dell:
All three mobile devices have been designed to MIL-STD 810G specs to survive the daily rigor of the classroom environment. Each model includes fully sealed keyboards and touchpads, providing protection against spills on a student laptop, and a metal bracket adds torque-resistance to the power port.
Dell delivers fully rugged products for the harshest environments. Drawing from Dell’s experience building mobile devices for field services, law enforcement, first responders and the military, the new education laptops are designed to ensure students and teachers have the most durable products to rely on, every day.
One more item of note: the convertible Chromebook device won’t come equipped with stylus support. Though miscommunicated earlier today, Dell has clarified that only the Windows variants of these devices will see the stylus and ‘world-facing cameras’.
Chromebooks Still Win the Price War
Last thing to notice here is the price differential. These devices are nearly identical, with the Windows versions being labeled as Latitude devices. The Chromebook 11 is $219, while the Latitude 11 is $349. The Chromebook 13 is $299, and the Latitude 13 is $519.
When entering the education market where devices are bought in bulk, price speaks. And the price difference here is pretty sizable. Combined with ease of deployment and upkeep, Dell could have a few real winners with these new Chromebooks!
Look for these to hit the market around February 7th.
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