5 Great Laptops for Kids

The world is a high-tech place, and kids today will often forgo toys and treats in favor of tech and games. If you're thinking of buying your son or daughter their first laptop, you've probably wondered what's out there for them. We've sifted through the dozens of PCs aimed at adults with grown-up budgets, and found five great kid-friendly laptops.

Kids entering elementary school are now finding themselves interacting with PCs and the web, and it's not too early to encourage a budding interest in technology and computer science. The wealth of information available online has opened up new avenues for education in and out of the classroom, and familiarity with technology and the Internet is rapidly becoming as important to modern life as literacy and basic math.

Whether you want to equip your child for the classroom or just get them used to life online, there are laptops available that won't break the bank, and help ease the learning experience with fewer maintenance issues. When selected the following systems, we avoided laptops that might make buying a system for a youngster more trouble than it's worth.

Kids don't always treat technology with care, so we selected systems that were either ruggedized against drops and spills, low-cost to make replacement less painful, or both. The K-5 set probably won't be using any performance straining software tools, but they will definitely want to play games or get online, so we focused on laptops that would meet those needs without the expense of high-end processors. And finally, we looked for kid-friendly features, such as the educational tools found in the DirAction Classmate PC, or the dead-simple ease of use offered by Google's Chromebooks.

For a wider look at products for budding tech-geeks, check out our list of products to Give Your Children the Joy of Tech or take a look at 8 Great Websites for Kids to start them exploring the web.

FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP

Acer Aspire V5-571-6891

$499.99 list
$519.00 at AmazonThe Acer Aspire V5-571-6891 comes in as a price leader: under $500, yet it's a fully functional desktop replacement laptop rather than the stripped down netbook that you'd expect for so few ducats. 

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Samsung Chromebook Series 3 (XE303C12)

$249.99 list
The Samsung Chromebook Series 3 (XE303C12) laptop delivers what we wanted from Google all along—a cheap, portable way to get online, with nothing getting in the way. 

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Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2847)

$199 list
$268.99 at Amazon The Acer C7 Chromebook (C710-2847) isn't the slickest laptop out there, but it runs Chrome OS, has a roomy hard drive and a full selection of ports, and sells for a song. We'll overlook a lot for its $200 price tag

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DirAction NL3 Classmate PC

$499 list
The DirAction NL3 Classmate PC offers a kid-friendly design, lots of educational apps, and works with classroom management software. It's useful and affordable enough to compensate for its middling hardware and performance

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Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11

$669 list
$667.57 at ANTOnline The Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 11 is a good Windows RT convertible to have around if want a tablet-like experience, but absolutely need a keyboard. Its flips and acrobatics help usability, but ultimately this a laptop with a good mix of tablet functionality.