Dell serious about going green, unveils bamboo PC

Earth Day has come and gone, but that doesn't mean we can't continue to think green when it comes to consumer electronics. At a recent FORTUNE Brainstorm: GREEN conference, Dell's CEO Michael Dell challenged every technology company to make the environment both a business priority and daily conversation. He then took the opportunity to announce Dell's greenest PC.

The unnamed mini-desktop is the smallest, and most eco-friendly consumer desktop the company has yet to released. Earth2Tech has a few pictures of the bamboo covered PC, which is said to be 80 percent smaller than a standard mini-tower desktop, and 70 percent less energy-consuming too. No idea if the bamboo casing is just on the prototype, but I'm hoping they all come looking like that out of the box.

The company said the green PC will be shipped in recycled and recyclable packaging when it goes on sale later this year. Pricing hasn't been announced, but is likely to range between $500 and $700.

This is not Dell's first eco-friendly computer. Last year, the company released its first consumer desktop, the Inspiron 531, with Energy Star 4.0 specifications, as well as Dell Latitude notebooks and OptiPlex desktops that consume up to 70 percent less energy on average.

There are plenty of green computers out there such as Everex's Green gPC, Apple's iMac and HP's rp5700, which Treehugger say meets EPEAT Gold critieria, so there's no reason to go green and save a few bucks in the process.