What to consider when buying a school kid’s laptop?
Different schools have different ages when a child can bring a laptop to school, Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD). Some starts in secondary school (12 – 13 yrs old), some starts in Year 5 (10 – 11 yrs old).
Limitations
The school will set out its BYOD policy (example below).
Form Factor: require physical keyboard attachment
Max screen size: 15″
Max weight: 2kg
Device Type
Windows
Mac
Windows Tablet
Operating system
Windows 7 Windows 8.1 Windows 10
OS X 10.7 or newer
Windows 8.1, Windows 10
Wireless
Yes
Yes
Yes
Min screen size
11″
11″
10″
Min storage (SSD or HDD)
64GB
64GB
64GB
Min RAM
4GB
4GB
4GB
Min battery life
6hrs
6hrs
6hrs
Device eg
Lenovo 11e
11″ MacBook Air
Microsoft Surface Pro
Key Considerations
Ensure laptop is not too heavy & bulky, as child will have to take it to school in their backpacks with books, etc. Avoid the 2kg laptops and big ones ~ 34 x 24 x 2.37 cm.
Ensure the screen is not too small to avoid straining a child’s eyes. Avoid the 11″ displays
Ensure the laptop is performant, not too slow where child spends ages waiting for computer to respond. For budget laptops ~ $350, may have to consider eMMC (cheap flash drives like SSD, but not SSD) for better performance compared to spinning hard drives (HDD).
Recommendation
Personally, I’d prefer a laptop so kids can learn to touch type. Though possible to get a tablet with attachment keyboard
Get a light & compact device, aiming more towards ~ 1.2kg, 31.7 x 21.5 x 1.82 cm (if laptop)
Get a larger display, aiming more towards 13.3″. Bonus if you can find a FHD resolution (eg 1920×1080) compared to standard HD (1366×768). Can’t get too large, as max size could be 15″
Get a performant computer. Best to check before you buy that typical 4GB RAM, 64GB eMMC performs ok
