No. He has the school issued Chromebook and there's everything needed to be done for school can be done on that. If he wanted a "fancier" laptop for gaming or whatever, he always has the option of purchasing it himself. But alas...

If the school didn't issue Chromebooks we'd buy him one ourselves. But certainly not a Macbook Air!

Anonymous wrote:Mine just has a Chromebook. Seems fine. She does her homework on it and plays basic games, watches YouTube, listens to music.

Same. Mostly just uses it for movies and music.

16yo has my 7 year old hand me down MacBook that she uses for school.

All three of my kids (15,13,10) have laptops. They play a lot of Minecraft, Roblox, Jackbox games with their friends that aren't compatible with the School issued Chromebooks.
The older two have laptops we bought at Costco and the youngest has a hand me down.
They do not have desktops.

IME- buy the warranty from Costco. They have replaced laptops screens twice for us.

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Their school computers are garbage. They do homework work on their own laptops and just use the school ones in school.

Same

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless he needs potability for some reason, just have him build his own. He can tweak it as needs arise or change.

Home computers desktops in all the kids room. You all must have huge houses and separate offices.

Weird response. How much room do you think they take up?

A home computer implies you have sufficient space in your common area for normal living furniture (coaches and dining tables ) as well as a desk with a chair and computer monitor. For us it would be in the middle of the living room.

A desktop and monitor requires much larger desk than a laptop, which can be removed to do reading and paper work. We have a 40s colonial, bedrooms are not that big.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless he needs potability for some reason, just have him build his own. He can tweak it as needs arise or change.

Home computers desktops in all the kids room. You all must have huge houses and separate offices.

Weird response. How much room do you think they take up?

Nice desktop and a hand-me-down laptop that works fine.

They have a gaming computer not in their room and their own chrome book and a school one.

Anonymous wrote:Can high schooler students do college applications on a Chromebook? My 10th grader has been perfectly fine with her Chromebook so far.

Yes, both of my seniors did their Common App on their Chromebook and wrote their essay in Google Docs with no issues.

DD does because she has a side hustle art businesses and needed one for that.

Anonymous wrote:Last week I was a guest presenter at two high school classes and every student had a laptop.

Yes, I believe most school districts issue laptops or ipads (at least in the DC metro area).

Last week I was a guest presenter at two high school classes and every student had a laptop.

Can high schooler students do college applications on a Chromebook? My 10th grader has been perfectly fine with her Chromebook so far.

Thank you, all, for your input and suggestions. DS is a sophomore and has a MacAir for school, which works fine. I'm thinking it might be best to hold off and invest in a better quality laptop his junior year that he can potentially take with him to college. He'll just have to make do with the shared family computer until then.