Dell Latitude 2100 Review: A Netbook for Students

Dell Latitude 2100: At First Glance

Seeing how successful the Inspiron Mini netbooks were, Dell decided to venture more into the education market. Hence, with the Latitude 2100, students will have a usable netbook that is tough and has a range of other impressive features.

However, the Dell Latitude 2100 netbook is not only limited to educational use, it is also very suitable for businesses. Thankfully, it goes for a very affordable price, such that even small businesses can afford it.

Speaking of the price, it sold for $95.00 in February 2022 when I wrote this review.

Is the Dell latitude 2100 more than just another netbook? Please read on to find out.

Dell Latitude 2100: Design, Dimension, and Weight

Dell understands that kids often handle their laptops roughly, which is why the Latitude 2100 has a rubber chassis. This rubber chassis makes it easy to grab and protects the laptop’s lid and bottom from scratches and bruises.

As for color availability, the latitude 2100 is available in five different colors. These colors are Chalkboard Black, School Bus Gold, School House Red, Ball Field Green, and Blue Ribbon.

Now let us talk about the design features of this laptop, starting with the lid. On the right side of the lid, there is a Dell logo in silver.

In addition to the logo, the lid also houses a network activity light. This activity light beams when the laptop is connected to the web.

Dell’s intention of putting the network activity light on the lid is major to help teachers easily monitor their students’ network activities. The activity light will also help teachers to identify students who may be surfing the internet when they need to focus on classwork.

Having talked about the features on the lid, let us proceed to open it. Lifting the lid reveals a 10.1-inch matte screen which is held up firmly by solid hinges.

This hinge construction is somewhat stiff and restricts the maximum lid opening angle. The stiffness of the hinges also makes it difficult to open the lid with just one hand.

For the screen, it is surrounded by an 0.5-inch thick bezel. The thick bezels are not appealing, and they make the 10.1-inch display appear smaller.

The screen also has a matte finish which reduces reflections and makes it excellent for use in the classroom. Like many current Netbooks, the Latitude 2100 features a LED-backlit display.

Additionally, the screen has a 1024 x 576-pixel resolution. Impressively, images are sharp and bright, but the screen still lacks the kind of vibrancy a glossy screen will offer.

More impressively, Dell equipped some models of the Latitude 2100 with a camera and touchscreen display which this review unit has. This means that you can purchase the Latitude 2100 with or without a camera and touchscreen.

However, as you’d expect, the models with a camera and touchscreens cost significantly more than the ones without.

The camera featured on this Dell Latitude 2100 review unit is a VGA camera. The camera is located at the top of the screen.

For image quality, the camera surprisingly delivers clear images even in a Skype video chat. As for touch response on this review unit, the default touchscreen display is a total mess when you first get hold of the Latitude 2100.

However, the touchscreen model comes with a calibrating app that you can use to increase the sensitivity of the touch display. After calibrating with the in-built app, the response becomes reasonably accurate.

Unfortunately, the touchscreen model does not come with a stylus pen.

Proceeding to the keyboard area, the Dell Latitude 2100 accommodates a spacious and comfortable matte keyboard.

These matte black keys produce nice tactile feedback. The right Shift key is full-sized, and it is located directly below the Enter key.

Above the keyboard, you will find three volume controls for lowering, raising, and muting. Meanwhile, below the keyboard, you will find the touchpad comfortable and spacious.

The 2.5 x 1.5-inch touchpad feels smooth and is wide enough for proper navigation. Rather than integrated mouse buttons on the touchpad, the Latitude houses separate left and right mouse buttons for clicking.

Moving on to the speakers, the Dell Latitude 2100 has loudspeakers that are located on the display’s sides. Unfortunately, the sound the speakers produce has weak bass and is barely balanced.

However, these loudspeakers are sufficient for usage in schools as long as the classroom is small and quiet. The maximum audio volume should also suffice.

Proceeding to the ports, the Dell Latitude 2100 has one USB 2.1 port, VGA, headphone, and microphone jack on its left side. Meanwhile, there are two more USB 2.1 ports and an Ethernet port on the right.

The Dell Latitude 2100 uses Bluetooth version 2.1 and an 802.11 a/g/n (2×2) Wireless LAN for connectivity.

Moving to the weight and dimension of the Dell Latitude 2100, this education-intended laptop weighs 1320g. Since this laptop is majorly made for kids, it is quite heavy.

For its size, this laptop has dimensions of 265 x 187 x 22.5 – 39.9 mm (W x D x H). Hence, the Dell Latitude 2100 is not very portable for kids to carry around.

However, it is still more portable than the CTL 2goPC NL2 Convertible, which is also made for kids. Specifically, the CTL 2goPC NL2 Convertible has a dimension of 266. 7 x 193.04 x 30.48 (W x D x H).

In conclusion, I found the design of the Dell Latitude 2100 impressive especially for its sturdy build and its ruggedness. Hence, I will rate it eight out of ten in this review section.

Dell Latitude 2100 Processor (CPU) Performance

The processor that handles processing tasks in the Dell Latitude 2100 is an Intel Atom N270. The processor has a base frequency of 1.60 GHz.

To add to that, the processor has a 512 KB cache memory. That being said, it’s important to note that the Intel Atom N270 processor is not considered a high-end processor.

Thus, the processor does not have enough power to efficiently perform intensive tasks. To be specific, the Dell Latitude 2100 is only suitable for basic office tasks and school use.

For a better analysis of the processor’s performance, let me share its result in a single-core and multi-core Cinebench R10 benchmark test. First of all, Cinebench R10 is a benchmark test for measuring a laptop’s processor performance.

The benchmark works by running actual-world workloads on the cores of the processor. Also, a higher score from the benchmark test signifies a better processor performance.

Therefore, in the Cinebench R10 overall performance test, the Dell Latitude 2100 scored 531 points in the single-core test. Additionally, it scored 816 points in the multi-core test.

In comparison with the Acer Aspire One D270-26Dbb netbook, which uses an Intel Atom N2600 processor, the Dell Latitude 2100 underperformed. Specifically, the Acer Aspire One D270-26Dbb scored 531 points in the single-core test and 1,548 points in the multi-core test.

In summary, the Dell Latitude 2100 features a processor that only delivers the speed needed for school work. Therefore, it will be fair to give it a rating of six out of ten in this CPU review section.

Dell Latitude 2100: Memory (RAM) Performance

The Dell Latitude 2100 comes with 1 GB memory on its single DDR2 slot. Well, the good news is that the memory is not soldered directly to the laptop’s motherboard.

Therefore, you can upgrade the Dell Latitude 2100 memory to a maximum of 2 GB. Hence, if you’re a user who desires more memory for your school work and assignments, then you can upgrade the memory.

For the memory performance of this system, you should note that with 1 GB of memory, the laptop does not have great multitasking abilities. In fact, this laptop will only be able to open a few Chrome tabs comfortably.

Specifically, the Dell Latitude 2100 will only open about five Chrome tabs without any lag. Also, streaming videos from Netflix will be challenging, except you do not open any other browser tab while doing so.

Switching between a few Chrome tabs will be just fine, as well as downloading light files. However, you cannot load this laptop with so much work else it will lag.

Let us not forget that the Dell Latitude 2100 is a low-budget netbook specifically made for pupils to use in school. Hence, the small memory.

To prove the overall performance abilities of this laptop’s 1 GB memory, let me share its performance in a PCMark 5 test. PCMark 5 benchmark test measures the overall productivity of a laptop’s memory, where a higher score denotes better performance.

According to the PCMark 5 test result, the Dell Latitude 2100 scored 1,586 points. Meanwhile, the Acer Aspire One D270-26Dbb scored 1,797 points.

In conclusion, the Dell Latitude 2100 offers a small memory capacity that significantly limits its multitasking ability. Hence, I give this laptop a six in this review section.

Dell Latitude 2100: Storage Options and Performance

In the aspect of storage, Dell makes the Latitude 2100 available with two storage options. You can buy the Dell Latitude 2100 with an SSD or HDD storage.

The HDD storage option has a maximum storage capacity of 250 GB. On the other hand, the SSD storage model only allows 16 GB maximum capacity.

The choice of which storage option to buy depends on the nature of tasks you will perform on the laptop. SSD storage is known to offer faster storage performance than HDD.

Hence, the SSD models should be your go-to option if you prefer speed over larger storage space.

On the other hand, HDDs come with larger storage spaces. Therefore, if you prioritize larger storage space than speed for your storage needs, then an HDD model will suffice.

In addition to that, the Dell Latitude 2100 also comes with a 3-in-one card reader for storage expansion.

Having said that, let me now discuss the storage performance of the Dell Latitude 2100. It is important to note that this review covers the storage performance of a 16 GB SSD storage model.

Once again, because this is a netbook intended for pupils, it can only perform minimal tasks.

According to a transfer test carried out by notebookcheck.com, the Dell Latitude 2100 recorded an average transfer speed of 50.7MBps. On the other hand, the Acer Aspire One D270-26Dbb recorded an average transfer rate of 33.7 MBps.

I ought to include the system’s performance on a Crystaldiskmark benchmark test, but the test does not support low storage capacity.

In conclusion, the transfer speed of the Dell Inspiron 2100 is not the best thereof. However, it performed better than its competitor.

Thus, I rate the Dell Inspiron 2100 a six out of ten in this storage review section.

Dell Latitude 2100: Graphics Card Performance

For graphics, Dell equipped the Inspiron 2100 with an integrated Intel GMA 950. This GPU has a base frequency of 250 MHz and a maximum frequency of 400 MHz.

Unfortunately, this laptop does not come with a dedicated graphics card. For a laptop with no dedicated graphics card, do not expect it to have a great gaming performance.

Of course, this is because the Dell Latitude 2100 is mainly for educational purposes, and kids are expected to concentrate on their school work. For further emphasis, this laptop will not play high-end games.

However, you can freely download a 720p resolution video and play it back without any hiccups. Now, let’s proceed to see the Dell Latitude 2100’s performance on the 3DMark03 benchmark test.

Notably, the 3DMark 03 is a benchmark test that simply measures the ability of a computer to render 3D graphics. Therefore, like other benchmark tests above, a higher score in the 3DMark 03 benchmarks also denotes better performance.

Therefore, in the 3DMark 03 benchmark test, the Dell Latitude 2100 had 748 points.

While this score is seven points below the 208 points category average, it is 115 points above the Samsung N110 score. Specifically, the Samsung N110 had 633 points in the same benchmark test.

To conclude this section, I rate the Dell Latitude 2100 six out of ten for its graphics performance in the benchmark test.

Dell Latitude 2100: Battery Life and Performance

For the battery, Dell made the Dell Latitude 2100 available with two battery types. One model comes with a 3-cell Lithium-Ion battery, and the other comes with a 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery.

As you might expect, the Dell Latitude 2100 netbook with a 3-cell battery option is less expensive than the 6-cell battery option.

This review, however, focuses on the model with a 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery. Unfortunately, Dell did not make the battery life of the laptop available.

However, we will find out about that through a battery test performed by notebookcheck.com. The battery test involved surfing the web via Wi-Fi till the battery died.

In the test, the Dell Latitude 2100’s six-cell battery was able to last 4 hours and 47 minutes.

Considering the size of the battery, the battery performance is disappointing. The Dell Latitude 2100 performance is 90 minutes less than the average runtime for a six-cell battery netbook.

In fact, the Samsung N110 delivered more than seven hours of battery life.

Meanwhile, if you plan to purchase the Dell Latitude 2100 with a 3-cell battery, you should note that it will deliver about half the runtime of the 6-cell battery.

Considering the battery life performance of the Dell Latitude 2100, it deserves a rating of seven out of ten.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

The Dell Latitude 2100 is carefully designed for schools and light computer users. Its robust case, port selection, and impressive keyboard should really appeal to this target group.

Additionally, the laptop also supports education-centered software that makes learning easier. The trackpad is also spacious and responsive.

However, the battery life is not so impressive, and it is pretty bulky for students to carry around easily.

Notwithstanding, the Dell Lattitude 2100 is a well-built netbook that’s perfect for school works. Therefore, it is worth considering.

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