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so my daughter wants a laptop for christmas and after buying a junk PC last christmas i know that theres nothing worse than spending a good chunk of change on a piece of junk.

she's 10 and will be using it for school work and the internet. the only gaming that she will be doing are games like minecraft and roblox, nothing crazy.

would a tablet with one of those keyboard attachment things work?

it just cant be slow, that's her biggest complaint with what shes using now.

can anyone recommend something that will cover these without sending me to the poor house?

thanks all...

I'm kind of a computer snob. To me, a laptop is a laptop; that is, it's an overpriced toy with hardware and cooling that can never match the performance of a good desktop dollar for dollar. I know that sometimes you have to lug it around and whatnot, though.

Anywho, I wouldn't be concerned with specific brands past the kind of warranty and customer service they offer. Pretty much just get something with a decent processor (i5 or i7) and the other features you want such as size. You could go with a tablet as well, but remember that tablets are to laptops what laptops are to desktops. The smaller the hardware has to be in terms of portability, the more expensive it is for the same relative level of performance.

All that being said, I just use a Samsung tablet with a keyboard as my "laptop". It was less than $200 and I only use it for light productivity and emails so it works fine for me.

I think something from a major brand will be good enough for school work. Just don't go for the bottom barrel $200 ones. You might also want to wait a couple weeks unless you need it now though. Intel is about to release their newest 8th generation processors, so you might be able to get a good deal on an older one.

Lenovo and HP both brand I like most. You can try for one of it.

Avoid ACER and ASUS.

I worked as a system adminiatrator and seen a lot of that stuff. All had same problems. Keyboard not work, hatch broken, overheating, screen problems.

So as usual: "go ask real hardware forums", "you wouldn't go to dakka for medical advice right? right??", et cetera.

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Avoid ACER and ASUS.

When I worked for what was basically a mom and pop version of Geek Squad, we found ASUS generally to be decent devices, but that was about 10 years ago.

With regard to the OP: I prioritize the feel of the laptop over and beyond the power of it. It's a laptop. You basically either optimize for portability and comfort, or you optimize for power. And if you're optimizing for power, you don't want a laptop, you want a desktop.

So obviously, I optimize for portability, and so I usually look for something somewhat ultrabook-ish or Macbook-ish. Reason being is because if I'm looking for a laptop, it's probably because I want to take it places without feeling like I've got a boat anchor in my backpack. Secondarily, I always, ALWAYS, ALWAYS find a store that has the laptop physically situated in it for me to pound on the keyboard for a few minutes at a time to see how it feels. I click around on the touch pad for a while. If it has the little nubby thing, I play with the little nubby thing. This is secondary to the size, but really they should be about equal. If it sucks to type on, and the touchpad sucks to mouse around on, and you need an external mouse and keyboard to use it comfortably, then it's not really a laptop.

Having that been said, I also know how to keep a computer clean, do a full wipe and reinstall every year or two, and don't generally do anything other than programming or work on the laptop, so I don't really need much more than an i3 for just about anything. Your mileage might vary. And from a personal point of view, I'm not entirely sure I'd spend more than maybe $500 max on any fragile electronic device for a 10 year old. I'm not even sure I'd spend half that. I don't have children though, so who knows.

As a final note, WRT tablet+keyboard, I know a guy who used a iPad and a logitech keyboard for quite a while fairly comfortably. I have a Nexus 7 and a China special keyboard, and while they work, they fail the above pound test pretty hard. I say phones and tablets are for consuming, while computers are for producing. Having that been said, I know three programmers who have the Surface Pro, which is more like an actual computer, and they love the hell out of them, so that sounds like the exception to the general rule.

 Freakazoitt wrote:
Avoid ACER and ASUS.

I worked as a system adminiatrator and seen a lot of that stuff. All had same problems. Keyboard not work, hatch broken, overheating, screen problems.

If you asked any company's techies they'll tell you the same horror stories. Most machines have crap going on with them which customers don't know about, and hopefully most don't experience.

So I'll opped out of saying anything unless someone happens to mention a specific model.

This...

daedalus wrote:So as usual: "go ask real hardware forums", "you wouldn't go to dakka for medical advice right? right??", et cetera.

this...

I prioritize the feel of the laptop over and beyond the power of it. It's a laptop.

and this...

If you asked any company's techies they'll tell you the same horror stories. Most machines have crap going on with them which customers don't know about, and hopefully most don't experience.

So I'll opped out of saying anything unless someone happens to mention a specific model.

I think most companies have a few bad eggs you want to avoid, and those bad eggs usually occur at the cheaper end when looking at price per performance. I tend to hear more bad things about Acer but I think it's mainly because Acer tends to occupy more space in that cheap end of the spectrum.

any thoughts on a chromebook?
i'm not 100% sure what it is but she is asking for one and apparently they use them in school.
it sounds like a glorified ipad but i dont know.
theyre only like 200 bucks so is it worth it for doing homework and playing on the net or is it a waste?

Don't skimp, do research. Brand doesn't really matter but some do. I personally hate HP and have switched to Dell.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
any thoughts on a chromebook?
i'm not 100% sure what it is but she is asking for one and apparently they use them in school.
it sounds like a glorified ipad but i dont know.
theyre only like 200 bucks so is it worth it for doing homework and playing on the net or is it a waste?

I have one. It uses a different operating system than Apples & PCs so the games won't work, there's not many aps but it does start really quickly & you don't need to add firewall, anti-virus & other protecting software so over a couple of years you will save money. It doesn't have a diskdrive but you can use memory sticks, usbs & hdmi cables.