Best Laptops for Kids

You naturally want to set your kid up to succeed, so you must be interested in determining the best laptop for kids. In writing this article, we reviewed 21 different laptops for kids and then narrowed the list down to the best 7. We’ve highlighted their features, pros and cons so that you can make an informed decision.

You’ll learn a bit about some important considerations when buying a quality laptop for kids before we dive into our list. We’ve also included a handy buyer’s guide later on so that you can be certain you’re checking all the boxes when you settle on a laptop for your kid.

Another thing you should think about is the screen. As children, we never had nearly as much exposure to mobile and laptop screens that today’s children are getting. Today, Digital Eye Strain (DES) impacts more than 50% of computer users and leads to headaches, dryness of the eyes, blurriness and head and neck pain.

Therefore, you must make sure that the screen on the laptop you buy is anti-glare and anti-blue light. If not, you should get either a software filter to replicate this feature or buy a screen guard that reduces strain on the eyes.

Children need to use these devices in environments that may be unfriendly to computers. While we are used to having charging points and keyboard trays in our office cubicles, a child may not find a charging point near them in school, so good battery life is essential.

Ordinary laptops are big and bulky. While they are fine for us to use, I would suggest only buying laptops that are less than 3 lb for a child. Most laptops of that weight have smaller screens in the range of 11 to 13 inches. 

Lastly, 2-in-1 laptops which convert into a tablet have suddenly become popular in the children’s laptop market because they tick off many of the boxes I have outlined. 

With this brief discussion complete, let me now share my list of the seven best laptops for kids.

I am starting the list with the Pixelbook Go: in my view, it is by far the best offering among laptops for children. Let me explain why.

First off, let’s take a walk back through history. The Pixelbook Go was launched in 2019 and is part of the Pixelbook lineup from Google. The original Pixelbook was an idea that started the Chromebook revolution back in 2017. It was a new concept laptop that runs almost entirely on the cloud, lives on the internet, and uses the Android OS, shunning Microsoft’s hegemony. It had a flip display and tablet mode and was an ultra-premium laptop, and critics met it with acclaim, although its commercial success did not rival its critical success.

The Pixelbook Slate was launched in 2018, another premium laptop with a similar configuration, but it ditched Android for the Chrome OS, bringing the device completely into the Google fold. It was Google’s first entry in the 2-in-1 laptop market, with a separate keypad and stylus offered for the Slate.

The Pixelbook Go is the latest in this lineup, and though it shares the Slate’s name, that is where its commonalities with its predecessors end. It’s a comparatively lower-priced offering with the same premium experience, but it’s a dyed-in-the-wool laptop and makes no effort to become a tablet whatsoever. The premium youth laptop market is the main target for the Pixelbook Go.

Let’s talk about features. We talked about processing power for streaming videos – this Chromebook has three processor options: M3/i5/i7. I will talk about the most inexpensive one, the 8th gen intel core M3-8100Y processor, which has a 1.1 Ghz clock speed and a Turbo Boost speed of 3.4 Ghz. It has a GPU with a burst frequency of 900 MHz, which is great for graphically intensive applications.

Even in the most basic version of the Pixelbook Go, the 64GB SSD and 8GB RAM provide incredibly fast bootups and can run most basic school applications without delay.

In regards to the screen, it has HD resolution and an anti-glare touchscreen display. Depending on the configuration you opt for, you can get a 1920×1080 screen with 166 PPI pixel density or a 4K UHD 3840×2160 display with a pixel density of 331 PPI. The screen has an IPS panel which provides better response times and wider viewing angles than LCDs.

Moving on to battery life, the M3 processor is incredibly power-efficient, which significantly improves the battery life on this Chromebook. The laptop easily runs for 12 hours after you charge it fully. It also has a quick charging feature that lets you get up to 2 hours of power in under 20 minutes.

Android has always offered the ability to filter out apps that are below a specific rating, so you can rest assured that unwanted apps will be out of reach of your kid. Another safety concern that comes to mind is hacking, and the Pixelbook Go does not disappoint on this front either. With its latest Titan C chip, automatic updates to chrome and built-in antivirus software, the Pixelbook Go is ultra-secure.

The Pixelbook Go has a 13.3-inch screen, and it weighs in at just 2 lb. The size is perfect for carrying in a school bag or backpack and is light enough not to put a strain on your kid’s shoulders.

Another notable feature is the easy-grip surface, which reduces your child’s chances of dropping the laptop. It also comes with an excellent backlit keyboard and very soft keys.

One disappointing aspect is that the Pixelbook Go does not have LTE connectivity. It has only Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for connectivity options. However, there will always be Wi-Fi at school, and if needed urgently, one can always tether the laptop to the LTE connection of your mobile phone.

The ASUS Chromebook is a worthy number two in our lineup of the best laptops for kids. The Intel Celeron N3060 is a solid, dependable, and low-cost processor with clock speeds of 1.6 Ghz and burst speeds of up to 2.48 GHz. It has a dual-core processor with a 2M cache. Combined with a 4GB DDR3 RAM, most applications work reasonably fast on this Chromebook.

Admittedly, the 32GB eMMC storage space is a bit disappointing. Still, considering it is a Chromebook with most applications running on the cloud, the memory should not be an issue. On top of that, the eMMC storage is faster than even an SSD, so this laptop is speedy. To mitigate the lack of storage, ASUS also offers one year of 100GB cloud storage in partnership with Google.

There are a whole host of kid-friendly features in this laptop. The rugged exterior with shockproof rubber guards is ready for the rough and tumble that the laptop will receive from a kid’s hands. A spill-guard keyboard prevents damage to your investment because kids will be kids, and spills will happen!

There are rubber strips placed on the laptop’s bottom for easy grip so that the device won’t slip. Just in case it does slip, ASUS claims that you can drop this laptop from up to 3.9 feet without any damage. I tried it from about 5 feet on tiled flooring, and the laptop was fine.

The size is just perfect – 2.65 lb with an 11.6-inch screen is small and light enough to carry around, yet comfortable enough to work with. The screen is anti-glare and can be adjusted to a full 180° so that your child can get the perfect viewing angle. It has a screen resolution of 1366×768 pixels. Unfortunately, the screen is not a touch screen.

Moving on to safety features, Chromebooks inherently have the functionality of blocking app installation for apps below a certain rating. Apart from that, Chrome OS has a built-in antivirus program and updates the latest patches and virus protections automatically over Wi-Fi.

The battery backup on this laptop is amazing. Your child doesn’t have to worry about charging the device during the day, as the laptop boasts a 10-hour battery backup.

Connectivity is another important feature, especially for online classes. The laptop connects with both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to other devices and the internet. It also has two USB 3.0 ports for accessing your devices and USB drives.

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” – this laptop supports WIDI and Intel technology, with which you can stream music, photos, videos, movies, and apps without any wires involved. All you need is a compatible HDTV. You can stream HD-quality video with 5.1 surround sound on this laptop.

The HP Stream 14 is a budget laptop for children launched in 2016, two years after the success of its predecessors, Stream 13 and Stream 11. The major difference was the screen size (14-inch vs. previously smaller screens) and processor (N4000 vs. N3050).

The HP Stream 14 is a direct competitor to the ASUS C202SA but has taken the Microsoft route instead of becoming part of the Google universe. With MS Windows S (Student edition), you get the same safety and security while also getting access to all of Microsoft’s suite of products, and for storage, you also get 1TB of data on One Drive.

The Intel Celeron N4000 processor is about the same as the Celeron N3060. While the base clock speed is slightly slower (1.1 GHz), there is not much to differentiate if you are not running some heavy-duty applications. It is a dual-core processor with a 4M cache.

It has a 4GB DDR4 SDRAM, ably supported by the 32GB eMMC drive (you can optionally get the 64GB drive too). The laptop also has a touch screen option (costs about $100 more). These are two major improvements over the ASUS C202SA.

Another difference is the screen size – this is a 14-inch laptop compared to the 11.6-inch small-sized ASUS. However, this is more of a bane than a boon for a kid’s laptop. The increased screen size also makes this laptop weigh 3.17 lb. I would not recommend it for anyone younger than teens due to the weight.

The screen is a bit disappointing. While it has an HD display, it is a BrightView screen, which means that it is a glossy screen, not an anti-glare matte screen. Neither does it have IPS panels, so it’s not a great screen to work long hours.

However, the amazing battery that works for nearly 14 hours at a stretch certainly offsets the average display of this laptop. Even with wireless streaming, it can work for 11.5 hours which is quite good.

In terms of connectivity, this laptop packs a wallop. It connects seamlessly on Wi-Fi with both 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz networks. It also has a Bluetooth option. The laptop also has a digital card reader, a webcam for live streaming, and the touchpad has gesture capabilities.

All in all, if you are comfortable with the Microsoft suite of products, this might be a great entry-level option for your child, and it’s even cheaper than the ASUS C202SA by about $100.

The Acer Spin 11 is the latest version in the series of children’s laptops whose previous generation was the Acer R 11.

When comparing the Spin 11’s Celeron N3350 with the R11’s N3060, the N3350 has a faster RAM (2400MHz vs. 16MHz) and has a slightly larger L1 cache (2M cache). It also has higher memory bandwidth than the previous version.

In terms of overall throughput, the N3350 is about 59% better than the N3060. The newer processor also has a faster GPU for low-level gaming support.

The N3060 was a version before Intel integrated USB-C support into the processor family. In the coming year or two, this version is likely to become obsolete.

Coming to the Acer Spin 11 itself, it has a foldable 360° hinged design with a touchscreen, instantly and easily converting into a tablet format for children.

It has an 11.6-inch multitouch screen AHVA screen. AHVA is an IPS-like technology that allows for better viewing angles. However, the screen is glossy instead of matte, so I would not want my child to work too long on this screen.

I have already talked about the Intel Celeron + 4GB RAM + 32GB eMMC storage configuration in the HP Stream 14 – it provides for breakneck speeds. Here, the processor only needs to power an 11-inch screen, so obviously, this will be even faster.

The laptop is about 3 lb in weight but is very thin (only 0.8 inches), making it easy for children to carry. It also has both Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity.

Acer has thrown in a nice laptop bag and mouse pad with this laptop, making it a great combo for children going back to school. However, one thing that I disliked about the laptop was the huge bezels on the screen. For an 11.6-inch laptop, it makes the laptop look like a clunky old machine. Acer could have avoided it.

If money is your primary concern, then the Samsung XE500C13 is a nice low-budget laptop with good features for your children.

I have already discussed the Celeron N3060 processor. However, the Samsung offering has a lower 16GB eMMC storage, making it slightly slower than the Acer Spin 11, HP Stream, and ASUS C202SA.

It has all the options you need for connectivity in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a USB 3.0 port. It also has an integrated webcam and an HDMI port, which means your kid is set for their online classes.

However, this laptop is unfortunately not a touch screen. It also does not have a 360° flip design. It does have all the benefits of the Chrome OS built-in, such as the security features and auto-updates.

The 11.6-inch LED screen has a 1366 x 768 resolution, which is good enough for most children’s applications. It has an anti-reflective coating to protect your child’s eyes.

The laptop weighs 2.5 lb which is just perfect for children to carry to class. It is also very thin (0.7 inches), making it easy to hold. The laptop has impressive 11-hour battery life.

The XE500C13 has a superb keyboard. It has a low friction palm rest, and the keys are placed so that the distance between them is less than 1.2 mm, which is much lower than the usual 2 mm. This lowered key distance makes typing a lot less stressful for children.

At first glance, the Lenovo Chromebook C330 is a dynamite laptop at an unbeatable price. It is the cheapest 360° flip-style laptop/tablet on our list and has many great features such as a 64GB eMMC storage, touchscreen, and an HD IPS display.

However, the difference here is the processor. The Lenovo C330 uses a MediaTek MT8173C processor instead of the Intel Celeron series, with which most other Chromebooks have gone.

While on paper, the MediaTek MT8173C is a quad-core processor with a higher clock speed than the Celeron N3060, if you delver further, you will find that it has only 1M cache with a top memory speed of 6.4GBPS as compared to the Celeron’s 25.6GBPS. These two things make the Mediatek processor a bit slower than the other laptops on our list.

Leaving that aside, this laptop truly has some premium features. The 11.6-inch IPS display screen also has an anti-glare coating. Your child can use this laptop in tablet, laptop, and canvas mode through its 360° flip option.

The laptop also has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, and USB Type-C ports for connectivity. It is very lightweight at 2.6 lb and is just about 8.5-inches thick. It has 10-hour battery life.

The Dell Inspiron 11 is another low-priced offering with similar specs as the Samsung XE500C13. It also has an 11.6-inch anti-glare display with HD resolution and the same Intel Celeron N3060 processor with 2M cache and 4GB RAM.

Like the Samsung offering, this one also has 16GB of eMMC storage, which is a bit low. You do get the option for the slightly lower-priced Celeron N4020 as well.

This Chromebook is a bit heavier than the Samsung offering, weighing in at about 3 lb. One feature where it scores points is the Wi-Fi option: Wireless-AC, which provides high-speed connectivity.

Apart from that, it also has Bluetooth, and a built-in HD webcam for streaming and online classes, along with microphones and an audio jack. It has HDMI connectivity for connecting to a screen and 2 USB Type-A ports as well.

The trackpad on this device is a bit recessed, which is great for putting your palm on it and causes your child’s wrist to tire less easily. The keyboard is slip-resistant and designed well for smaller hands. It also has an anti-spill keyboard, making it great for the rough and tumble everyday usage of children.

The Chromebook has about 10 hours of battery life and is about 0.8 inches thick, making it easy for children to hold it in their palms.

All in all, this is a good value for money laptop. For those looking only for a basic product with no extra frills, this is a great option.