If it was waterproof. Putting a strap on it is just asking for trouble.

So, will there be a Dell Vostro netbook next from the small business team?

A lot of Vostros are very similar to Studio/Inspiron laptops, just more boring.

Is it as easily hackintoshed as the old Mini9?

You know, the one about ditching brand names when they get to be a joke?

Is there anyone out there who doesn't automatically read "Latitude" as "Lassitude" these days in connection with Dell? That name has a well-earned reputation for "exactly like everyone else's product of the same spec only a lot slower.".

In this case it would appear that such misgivings are misplaced, but the name still puts me off.

Hateful Dell charge £20 for delivery, bumping up the ACTUAL price of the base model to £317.40. At that price things like its miserly 80 GB hard disk start to seem like poor value. They even have the audacity to charge £16 (less VAT, of course) if you would like one in blue, green, red or yellow as opposed to the default black!

Just to be different. I like angular stuff, why does everything have to be curved these days? I like the rubberised coating, no creasy fingerprints all over a shiny surface. Yes, the spec is pretty mediocre, but if all you're going to use it for is surf the web and a bit of office now and again, who needs super-dooper processing power? If I had some spare cash (damn economy!) I'd snap one up tomorrow.

"It's a unique netbook feature as far as we know and we have to ask why it hasn't been done before."

Not a netbook, but Apple's 1998/9 Powerbooks Wall Street and Pismo were rubber covered.

It's a real shame its not dockable, I would have been tempted to buy one otherwise. Presumably that's why its not called the E2100, as only the E-Series are dockable in the current range.

Maybe they were worried about cannibalizing potential sales of 'proper' Latitudes, although I can't believe that many enterprise sales would have been lost to an Atom-powered netbook like this.

I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago to use for travelling and I have found it to be fantastic, especially the touchscreen - I now find myself using the touchscreen all the time when using Firefox, Openoffice and Outlook, something that I never thought I would do.

I give this netbook an A-, the only thing stopping it from being an A+ for me are:

- I had to dismantle the laptop to install the second 1GB RAM - why couldn't Dell have given me a 2GB pre-installed option on the website? I hate having to remove laptop keyboards, especially brand new ones.

- I find myself using a stylus from an old PDA but I'm sure I'm going to lose it because the Latitude 2100 touchscreen version doesn't come with a stylus slot. I know that might seem like an odd request for a netbook, but having used the touchscreen for a couple of weeks I really miss having a stylus always available in a little slide-out slot.

By the way, I think there is a tiny inaccuracy in the review - the activity light on the back is not configurable; you have no choice, it is always on.