Earlier this May I reported that Dell was going to sell a “never before seen” eco-inspired computer with a bamboo casing later this year. We could also see an early design concept of the computer. And now Dell has released their brand new eco-friendly computer, the Studio Hybrid. It’s small and it looks great.

According to Dell the Studio Hybrid is their “smallest, most personalized and most environmentally responsible consumer PC” to date. The computer is about 10% smaller than the average desktop minitower. It also uses up to 70% less energy and is Energy Star 4.0 compliant.

“Our goal was to design a desktop that fits in the office or in the living room, or anywhere space is at a premium,” said Michael Scheschuk, Dell desktop product marketing. “We’ve created a desktop PC category that combines style, performance and a high degree of energy efficiency.”

Dell has also designed the computers packaging to be more environmentally responsible:

• Reduced packing materials about 30 percent by weight as compared to typical tower desktops.
• Packing materials are also 95 percent recyclable.
• Reduced printed documentation 75 percent by weight on average as compared to typical tower desktops.
• System recycling kit is included.

You also have the option to personalize the computer with six external “jewel-toned color bamboo sleeves.” If you choose the more eco-friendly bamboo case it will unfortunately cost you $130 extra.

The Dell Studio Hybrid starts at $499 and is available at www.dell.com/hybrid

Has eco-friendly computers finally gone mainstream?

Michael Dell, the chairman and CEO of Dell, announced at the Fortune Green conference that the computer company will start selling a “never before seen” eco-inspired computer with a bamboo casing later this year.

The computer will be, according to Dell, 80% smaller than an average desktop computer. It will also contain recycled materials from plastic bottles and use 71% less energy than the average desktop computer.

The price tag is expected to land somewhere between $500 and $700. A name for the computer has not yet been decided on.

Image and Source credit: Earth2Tech

Michael Dell, the company’s chairman and CEO, says that “never before in the history of business have we seen such a critical need to build a worldwide community dedicated to improving the environment.” He continued by saying that “leadership starts at home, which is why we [Dell] are going carbon-neutral, but this should only be the beginning of building long-term partnerships with customers, stakeholders and suppliers of all sizes to team up and make a difference for the Earth we all share.”

Dell recently implemented a company-wide power saving program that, according to Dell, will result in a savings of about 13 million kilowatt hours of electricity (about 8,500 tons of CO2). This will also help save Dell about $1.8 million annually.

Dell is also on a pretty good spot on Greenpeace’s guide to greener electronics. But still Dell has no products on the market without the worst chemicals.

In November last year Dell’s Inspiron 531 became the first PC to reach Energy Star 4.0. Dell is also teaming up with ABN AMRO, AMD, Ask.com, Salesforce.com and WellPoint in the “Plant a Tree for Me” program where the companies have committed to offsetting part of their carbon output by planting trees.

Image credit: Joi. Image licensed under a
Creative-Commons Attribution license.

Dell is the first PC manufacturer to achieve Energy Star 4.0 requirements with its new Inspiron 531. Some of its features are a 80% efficient power supply and a paperless owners manual. The computer is also pre-programmed to switch to a low-power sleet state after 15 minutes of inactivity.

Dell Inspiron 531 comes with an AMD Athlon-64 X2 dual-core processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, 160GB hard drive, CD-RW/DVD-ROM combo drive, nVidia integrated graphics and Windows Vista Home Basic as operating system.

EPA, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, estimates that with the latest update of Energy Star requirements only the top 25% of energy-efficient computers will qualify Energy Star 4.0.