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[quote=Anonymous]$200-300 new gets you a junky Chromebook.  Don't do that unless you need to buy brand-new and you expect that the child will lose or break it within a year.

In that range, you should be looking at used/refurbished business-grade laptops.  Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Latitudes, and HP Probook/Elitebooks are good choices.  A 3-4 year old model will last another 3-4 years and should be good enough for non-gaming tasks.  These are generally repairable and upgradable if you need more storage or RAM.  Look for 16GB of RAM, 256-512GB of storage, and Intel 8th gen or newer CPUs.  Budget for a battery replacement (~$75-100).

If you actually want to buy new, the good stuff starts at about $1k.  There is a massive RAM and SSD shortage right now due to AI demand, so everything is more expensive than it should be (this started around September of 2025 and is expected to last for at least another two years and likely longer).  You can go lower than $1k (look for back-to-school sales in August and Black Friday sales in November, as well as open-box deals), but most of what you find in that range will be under-specced, non-repairable/upgradable, or both.[/quote]

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