School’s starting in my country in two weeks’ time and now I read about Dell Latitude 2100s as K-12 friendly. Interestingly enough these nifty netbooks have rubberized casings so that it won’t easily slip from the hands of students. And the units are quite colorful too.
Some nifty features:

optional touchscreen
webcam (say, “Hi, Teacher!”)
labeling window – personalize your netbook so they know who owns which unit
network activity light that warns teachers if their students are using the WiFi connection instead of focusing on their studies
you could get it with Ubuntu, instead of Windows
3-cell or 6-cell battery
option to choose between an …read more

Laptop prices have dropped considerably lower over the last two years and it’s even getting lower with the Asus EEE. Dell apparently wants to introduce laptops which will have a competitive price against the Asus EEE. They have Red Flag Linux running on one of their low-end machines.
This sounds great to me! No lock-up with Windows. You could either go with the default Linux installed or you could install a distro you are more comfortable with.
News from PCWorld.