An inexpensive laptop can be a powerful educational tool for your child. Here’s what you should consider when shopping along with some of our favorites.
The question of whether (and when) to buy your son or daughter a smartphone is fraught with concerns over responsibility, online safety, and much more. The same goes for buying a laptop, except for one very important difference: Many elementary and middle schools consider them essential educational tools, and equip classrooms with machines for their students. Other schools require parents to purchase laptops, offering a selection of recommended models.
Their effectiveness at improving learning is up for debate, but the upshot is that your kid might need to use a laptop at school whether you like it or not. They’ll almost certainly want to use it at home, too, both for fun (messaging their friends, watching videos, playing Fortnite) and homework (looking up information and typing book reports).
Kids being kids, the list of factors to consider doesn’t end there. Don’t forget about parental controls, durable plastic, and water-resistant keyboards. At least you won’t have to worry about the cost. Buying a kid-friendly laptop need not break the bank—all of our recommended models cost less than $500—and the even better news is that just because they’re inexpensive doesn’t mean that they are necessarily slow or poorly made.
Our focus here is on younger kids. If your child is at the university level, check out our roundup of the best laptops for college students. And you’ll find even more choices in our overall roundup of the best cheap laptops.
Before you begin to evaluate features, you’ll start with the essential question that has plagued PC shoppers for decades: Which operating system should I choose?
This is not the Mac vs. Windows debate of old. New Apple laptops aren’t available for less than $500—not even close. The least-expensive Mac laptop, the MacBook Air, starts at $999, and while that’s an outdated model that has been supplanted by a pricier 2018 version with much better specs, it’s still overkill for an elementary- or middle-school student. If you’re an Apple fan and want to raise your son or daughter to be one too, you’re best off giving them a hand-me-down and buying a new MacBook or MacBook Pro for yourself.
Reused Macs aside, most parents will choose between Windows 10 and Chrome OS, the operating system from Google. Chrome OS is a relative newcomer to powering PCs, but it became much more useful last year thanks to the new ability, in late-model Chromebooks, to run apps from the Google Play store designed for Android smartphones and tablets. Microsoft Office also recently became available on most Chromebooks via the Google Play store. If you’ve decided against buying a smartphone for your kids but they talk your ear off about wanting to play mobile games, buying a Chromebook might be a good compromise.
Windows 10 has also become more useful as an operating system for kid-oriented laptops thanks to the new Windows 10 S version, which is aimed at the education market and, among other security enhancements, prevents apps from being installed unless they’re available on the Microsoft Store. This means you’ve got the ability to block games and apps based on their content ratings (something you can also do with Google Play apps). When your son or daughter gets older and more responsible, you can easily upgrade to the full version of Windows 10 to remove these limitations.
If your child’s school has specific software that only runs on Windows, your operating system choice will be decided for you. If not, you’ll want to take a close look at Chrome OS, since many Chromebooks include gimmicky but kid-friendly features like display lids that double as whiteboards.
Unique features like these are what transforms an ordinary cheap laptop into a school-friendly machine that kids won’t outgrow or destroy in a few months. Arguably the most important is how rugged the case is.
A few Chromebooks and inexpensive Windows laptops have spill-resistant keyboards, which means that they should survive splashing with an ounce or so of water unscathed. It’s much rarer to find entire laptops that are waterproof; the ones that are (models like Panasonic’s Toughbook line or Dell’s Latitude Rugged Extremes) typically cost several thousand dollars and aren’t geared toward kids at all. Likewise, it’s relatively easy to find reinforced lids or cases made of rubber to help absorb drops from a few feet, but you just won’t find fully ruggedized machines anywhere close to this price range.
Portability is another key concern, especially for middle- and high-schoolers who walk to school with backpacks laden with heavy textbooks. Most laptops in this category with screen sizes from 11 inches to 13 inches weigh about 2.5 pounds. Go above 3 pounds, and you’re putting a real burden on your child’s shoulders. Some laptops include carrying handles so kids can bring them from period to period without a backpack or a visit to their lockers.
Battery life is important, too, but it’s no longer the limiting factor that rendered the laptops of a decade ago useless if they spent more than an hour or so away from a power outlet. Even the cheapest laptops now boast times of about 10 hours on PCMag’s battery rundown test, thanks mostly to their power-sipping Intel processors.
Speaking of presentations, the final consideration is how your kids will use the laptop, which in turn determines the processor, storage, and memory configurations you should select. Tasks such as taking notes, writing papers, or making PowerPoint slides require little more than the bare minimum, which means that an Intel Celeron or Pentium processor will suffice. (Intel Atom chips are lower-end than these and sluggish by any measure, though they may suffice for truly lightweight single-tasking.) The next step up is an Intel Core i3, which you should consider if your kid’s teachers regularly have them stream online educational videos. An Intel Core i5 or i7 is all but impossible to find on a laptop or Chromebook that costs about $300.
As for memory and storage, a common configuration is 4GB of RAM and a 64GB flash drive. You’ll definitely want to consider bumping up the storage capacity to 128GB, since the operating system files on a Windows 10 PC can take up more than 20GB, leaving your kid with a paltry 40GB or so of built-in storage. The exception is if you choose a laptop that has a roomier but slower (and more easily breakable) spinning hard drive, or one with a built-in SD card reader.
