It was a fun week for educators in Britain with technology focused BETT conference yielding a number of announcements from major manufacturers including Dell who announced a new convertible, ruggedised Chromebook.
The Dell Chromebook 5190 comes in either clamshell or 2-in-1 convertible designs with an 11″ display. The Chromebook has support for EMR (stylus to you and me) pen input and comes with USB-C as well as a ‘World Facing Camera’ which students can use to capture images of projects or information on the whiteboard.
The Chromebook runs on a Celeron platform, and they’ve upped the battery life from 10 hours on the previous 3000 series to 13 hours so you can rest assured it will last all day.
As it’s designed to be used by kids, Dell has invested in ruggedisation for the Chromebook 5190 with scratch resistant display, reinforced hinges, spill-resistant keyboards and a chassis designed to resist damage from drops. Dell claims the Chromebook will survive drops from 48-inches (about 1.2metres), as well as up to 10,000 micro-drops from 4-inches (10cm) which are more common for students throwing a laptop onto a desk.
The Chromebook 5190 will go on-sale next month (February) and pricing will start at $289USD, or about $356AUD. Dell has previously sold their Chromebooks through their Australian website so we may see this one down under.
Small problem, just spoke to our dell account manager and they said its not coming to Australia for the foreseeable future 🙁