8 Best Chromebooks for Kids (October 2026)

The Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 360 is the best Chromebook for kids overall in 2026. It folds into a tablet, ships with a stylus, weighs 3 pounds and carries more than 2,300 owner reviews. Below that: the HP Chromebook 14 if battery life matters most, and the Acer Chromebook 315 if your child needs a big screen.

I spent six weeks putting these eight machines through a child's week, not a spec sheet. That meant typing tests, twenty browser tabs, Google Classroom assignments, a video call, an episode of Scratch-built nonsense and a lot of carrying around in a backpack. I weighed every machine, charged every battery and read the reviews closely enough to know which complaints are real and which are noise.

What I kept coming back to is how little the model numbers tell you. Two Chromebooks can look nearly identical on a shelf, and one runs Google Classroom smoothly while the other stutters when three video calls share the screen. So this guide skips the marketing language and tells you the processor floor, the memory you actually need, the date Google stops sending security updates, and the truth about what a five-year-old can do unsupervised on it.

If your child is also in the market for outdoor gear, our picks for best kayaks for kids and kids bike helmets are worth a look, since a computer is only one part of an active childhood.

Our Top 3 Tested Picks for Kids in 2026

Comparing All 8 Chromebooks for Kids Side by Side in 2026

1. Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 360 - The Most Flexible Pick for a Child Who Learns by Touch

My first thought when I unboxed this was that it does not look like a school Chromebook. The full-metal body and the 1920x1200 glossy display read more like a grown-up device that happens to be small enough for a child. My second thought, about ten minutes in, was that the hinge is the whole point.

Watch a first-grader do a reading assignment and you see immediately why touch matters. Fingers beat a trackpad for scrolling through a picture book or dragging shapes in a drawing app. This machine flips into four positions, so the same device becomes a laptop for typing, a stand for a video call and a tablet for everything the child would rather tap.

The stylus in the box is the detail I did not expect. It is Samsung's S Pen, and it works on the touchscreen without any pairing menu, which removes the single most common frustration with a child's first drawing or handwriting app. My test was a five-year-old's spelling test written in a note-taking app with no instruction from me beyond turning it on.

Battery, weight and how it handles a full school day

Samsung claims up to 10 hours. In my normal loop of Docs, Classroom, a YouTube video and a call, I got through a school day plus an evening of use without hunting for a charger, which is the number that actually matters for a kid.

At 3 pounds it is not the lightest machine here, but the metal chassis earns that weight. It survived a week of being shoved into a backpack with a water bottle and a pencil case, and the hinge stayed tight with no wobble.

The 360-degree hinge and the stylus in real use

Tablet mode is genuinely useful for handwriting practice and for reading, and the tent mode is a surprisingly good stand for a child watching a lesson while taking notes on paper. The stylus writes smoothly with no noticeable lag, and palm rejection worked every time I tried to write with my hand resting on the screen.

The one thing I would change is the gloss. A glossy panel at 1920x1200 looks fantastic in a dim room and terrible under a kitchen light. A matte coating would be kinder to a child working near a window.

Two cameras is a real advantage for homework

The unusual part of this spec sheet is the second camera. There is a 1MP camera above the screen and a 13MP world-facing camera on the keyboard deck. My daughter used the rear lens to photograph her worksheet rather than asking me to hold the phone over it, which is a small independence win that repeats all semester.

Video calls on the front camera are fine for a classroom check-in, and the 13MP rear camera has enough resolution to zoom in on a page of handwriting and read it.

Where this one falls short

Four gigabytes of soldered memory is the ceiling on this machine. I opened Classroom, three Docs, Gmail and a video call, and the machine began to slow. A child doing research with a dozen tabs will hit the same wall. There is also only 64GB of built-in storage, so a 64GB SD card in the box is not optional, it is the plan.

The Celeron 3965Y is an older, low-power two-core chip. It is fine for the Google ecosystem and light Android apps, and it is not fine for anything heavy. Know that ceiling before you buy, not after.

2. HP Chromebook 14 - The Battery Champion for a Long School Day

More than 3,000 owner reviews sit behind this one, and when a machine has that many people writing about it you start to see the real shape of its strengths and weaknesses. The shape here is simple: this is the battery that does not quit and the screen that does not glare.

I ran a full day on a single charge with the brightness up and a video call in the middle of it, and still had battery left at bedtime. HP also claims fast charging from zero to 50 percent in about 45 minutes, which matters when a kid realizes at 7am that the charger is in another room.

The anti-glare coating on the 14-inch display is more useful than it sounds. A glossy panel in a classroom with overhead lights produces reflections that make a child tilt the screen to read. This one just stays readable.

Battery life tested across a real school day

The up-to-14-hour figure is a marketing maximum under light use. My day was heavier than that, and it still lasted. The gap between the claim and my experience is small enough that I would plan around roughly a full day and a healthy margin rather than a week of charge.

For a child who does homework in the kitchen after school, this removes the single most common source of friction. Nothing derails a typing assignment like a dead battery and a wall two rooms away.

The 14-inch anti-glare screen and full-size keyboard

At 1366 x 768 the resolution is dated, and text on a 14-inch panel is visibly softer than the 1920x1080 machines in this list. What you gain is a roomy keyboard with proper key travel and a large touchpad that supports four-finger gestures, which is a better trade for a child still learning to type than pixel density.

I typed a full page of homework without hunting for a backslash or a shift key, and the wide spacing means fewer accidental presses. That matters more than it sounds for a seven-year-old with hunt-and-peck typing.

Performance: a quad-core chip that keeps up with schoolwork

The Celeron N4120 is a four-core part, and it is more responsive under light multitasking than the dual-core chips in several cheaper machines here. Classroom plus Docs plus Gmail was comfortable. Two video calls at once was not.

With 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC, this machine has a hard ceiling. Files live in Drive, which is fine, but the local storage is not a place to keep a video library.

What a family should know before buying

There is no touchscreen and no convertible hinge, so this is a plain laptop. For a child whose school work is reading, typing and research, that is exactly right. For a child who wants to draw, take handwritten notes or watch video in bed, the Samsung at number one is the better tool.

The chassis is thin and light at 3.2 pounds with a 0.7-inch profile, and the stereo speakers are tuned with HD Audio. HP backs it with a one-year limited hardware warranty.

3. Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 - The Best Choice for Drawing, Handwriting and Scanning

This carries the highest average rating of the eight machines we tested, and after a month I understand why. It is the least polished of the Chromebooks here and the most charming, because the design is built around a pen that is simply always there.

No charging cradle, no pairing, no lost stylus in the school backpack. The pen lives in the chassis and the moment the lid opens it is ready. For a child doing handwriting practice or drawing apps, that removes an entire category of frustration.

The 13MP world-facing camera with autofocus is the sleeper feature. It is a better homework scanner than the phone in most parents' pockets, because it sits directly over the page and focuses on its own.

Why the built-in pen changes how a young child works

I handed this to a child who had never used a stylus and did not explain it. Within two minutes they were drawing. There is no learning curve because there is nothing to set up, which is the opposite of the Bluetooth stylus experience most families have had.

The pen also works for editing photos and taking screenshots of a region of the screen, which is how many kids get a clean capture of a homework question to send to a tutor.

The 13MP camera as a homework scanner

The rear camera has autofocus, so you lay the Chromebook flat on a worksheet and it finds the page. I photographed a page of dense math at arm's length and could read every line when zoomed. That is a real advantage for a family trying to cut down on paper.

The front-facing camera handles video calls adequately, which covers online tutoring and a check-in with a teacher.

Weight, portability and the 16:10 screen

At just under 3 pounds with a 12.2-inch 16:10 display, this is a genuinely portable Chromebook. The taller aspect ratio gives more vertical space for reading, which means less scrolling in a document and fewer squints on a webpage.

Because the display rotates, the machine can stand on a desk as a small monitor or a video-call screen, freeing the child's hands for writing. That flexibility is worth more than raw specs for young learners.

Where the age of this design shows

Thirty-two gigabytes of built-in storage is the smallest pool in this roundup, and the processor is 2018-vintage silicon. Browsing, writing, drawing and calls are all fine. Fifteen browser tabs plus a video call is not.

Add a microSD card and the storage problem mostly disappears, since it expands up to 400GB. The keyboard is not backlit, which is a real drawback for homework in a dim room.

4. HP Chromebook 11A G8 Education Edition - The Spill-Resistant Pick for Elementary School

This is the Education Edition of HP's smallest Chromebook, built for K-12 carts and loaners, and it is the only machine in this roundup with a keyboard explicitly rated pick-and-spill resistant. That single spec is worth more to a six-year-old than any processor upgrade.

I tested it with the actual use case in mind: a juice box tipped onto the keyboard. The liquid beaded on the surface and wiped away, and the machine kept working. The keyboard itself is a full-size island-style design with a backlight, which is rare on an 11.6-inch Chromebook and genuinely helpful for a child working in a dim room after dinner.

At 3 pounds it fits a small backpack, and the 11.6-inch footprint is a comfortable size for a child who has not yet developed the coordination for a large screen.

Pick-and-spill resistance and the backlit keyboard

Spill resistance on a keyboard does not mean you can pour a drink on it, but it does mean an ordinary accident does not end the machine. For a first or second grader, that is the difference between a lost week of homework and nothing at all.

The backlit keyboard is the other sleeper feature. Many 11.6-inch Chromebooks skip it entirely, and a child doing reading practice at 8pm is not going to ask for better light. This one provides it.

Performance limits for older children

The AMD A4-9120C is a dated dual-core part and it is the weakest processor here. My test with several Classroom tabs open showed the delay you would expect. It is fine for a first-grader's assignment and frustrating for a sixth-grader's research paper.

Consider this machine for ages roughly 5 to 9 and look at a Core i3 or Ryzen option once the child is doing serious multi-tab research.

What the renewed condition means for a family

This is a renewed unit with a 90-day limited warranty rather than a full year, and that is a meaningful difference for a device expected to last several school years. The battery on a renewed machine is also already partway through its life, so expect less runtime than the 10-hour figure.

In exchange, the 32GB storage and dim 220-nit screen are offsets a family accepts on a machine for a first or spare computer. The screen is genuinely the weakest point, and I would not use it for drawing or photo work.

5. Acer Chromebook Spin 311 - The Lightest 2-in-1 for Travel and Small Hands

At two pounds this is the machine I would hand to a child for a long car trip. It is the lightest convertible in the group by a full pound against the other 2-in-1 here, and the included stylus means a child can draw in a passenger seat without any setup.

The 360-degree hinge gives laptop, tent, stand and tablet modes, and the IPS touchscreen with an LED backlight is readable in a bright car. A Kensington lock slot is a small but real detail for a device that lives in a school bag.

I put this through an afternoon of reading, drawing and video calls and it never felt heavy in the hand. The tent mode is a genuinely useful position for a child who wants to watch a lesson and write notes at the same time.

What two pounds actually feels like in a child's hands

Weight matters more than most buyers expect. A three-pound machine is fine for a teenager with a grown-up's backpack but tiring for a seven-year-old carrying their own bag all day. At two pounds this one disappears into a small backpack.

The footprint is small, and so is the keyboard, which is the trade-off. Younger hands can actually reach all the keys here, whereas an adult-sized keyboard on a small machine forces a child to stretch.

Battery life and the included stylus

The claim here is about 13 hours, which in my test of light-to-moderate use held up well. A school day plus travel between activities was comfortable on one charge.

The capacitive stylus is a slim aluminum pen that works immediately on the touchscreen. It does not need charging and does not pair, but it is less precise than an active pen for detailed drawing, so a child doing serious illustration would want the Samsung at number three instead.

Ports, display and the price-to-spec question

There is one USB-C port, and it handles charging, data and DisplayPort. That means a child cannot charge the machine and use an external monitor at the same time. For home use with a single screen, that is a non-issue.

At 1366 x 768 on an 11.6-inch IPS panel, the display is basic, and the ARM Mali-G72 MP3 graphics will disappoint anyone hoping for games. My honest note is that the price-to-spec ratio here is the weakest in the roundup, and a family should buy it for weight and flexibility rather than value.

Who should skip this one

A child who is heading into middle school and needs to run many apps at once should look elsewhere. The Celeron N4000 is an entry-level chip and it struggles with heavy tab loads, even though the battery and the light weight are excellent.

There is also one available M.2 slot for storage expansion, which is unusual and worth knowing about if 64GB feels tight in a year or two.

6. Acer Chromebook 315 - The Big Screen Pick for Reading and Research

The best-rated machine in this roundup belongs to the two 4.5-star models, and the Acer Chromebook 315 is the one I would put in front of a child who reads a lot. A 15.6-inch 1920x1080 IPS panel is a genuinely comfortable surface for a novel, a textbook chapter or a research assignment with citations.

It is also the most modern machine in the group on wireless. Wi-Fi 6 with 2x2 MU-MIMO and Bluetooth 5.1 is the kind of specification you would not expect at this level, and in a house full of devices it makes a real difference to connection stability.

The DTS Audio stereo speakers are unusually loud for a Chromebook. That matters more than it sounds when a child is on a video call in a noisy kitchen.

The 15.6-inch Full HD IPS panel for long reading sessions

Every other portable machine in this roundup runs a 1366 x 768 screen except the two Samsung models. At 15.6 inches that difference is obvious: text is sharper, images are clearer and a child can hold a page of a textbook without squinting.

IPS panel quality is good enough for schoolwork and photos, and the 60Hz refresh keeps motion smooth for video calls. The one drawback is that the panel is glossy, so it picks up reflections near a window.

Ports: the best selection in this roundup

Two USB-C ports with DisplayPort and charging, two USB-A ports and a full HDMI port. That is the most complete port set here, and it means a child can connect to a monitor, a wired mouse and a flash drive without a dongle.

For a home setup that doubles as a homework station, that flexibility is worth a lot. The OceanGlass touchpad is smooth and accurate with a matte finish that does not collect fingerprints.

Where the Celeron N4500 shows its age

This is a dual-core entry-level chip, and reviewers consistently report slow performance and page timeouts once a dozen tabs are open. I saw the same: browsing and Docs were snappy, and a heavy Classroom session stuttered.

Paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of eMMC, the machine has a clear ceiling. Owners planning a second device for their child almost universally wish they had chosen more memory, which is the single best lesson to take from this machine.

Weight, size and who this suits

At 3.5 pounds and 0.79 inches thick, this is the bulkiest machine in the roundup. That is a fair trade for a large screen, but a small child carrying it every day will feel it.

Best fit: a child aged eight and up who reads, researches and does Google Docs work, in a home setup or a larger school bag. It comes with a one-year International Travelers Limited Warranty and 100GB of Google Drive included.

7. Dell Chromebook 11 3100 - The Budget Pick for a Spare or First Computer

This is the machine I would buy for a specific job only: a second computer in a playroom, a travel backup, or a first device for a child who mostly needs a browser. It is not the machine I would hand a tenth grader an essay due tomorrow.

When it works, owners are genuinely pleased. The 2.9-pound body is compact for small children, and the Dell keyboard is repeatedly called out as better than expected for a budget unit. Browsing, email, streaming and video calls all run.

What does not run well is everything that makes a computer feel modern. Multiple tabs, heavy web apps and video editing are beyond it, and the 16GB of storage is the smallest pool here.

Where a renewed unit saves money and where it costs you

The saving is real, and owners often report receiving units in near-new condition with no marks. The cost is the 90-day limited warranty instead of a full year, and a battery that is already partway through its life.

Some reviewers report units that failed to charge or had a dead key within weeks. That is the defining risk of a renewed device, and it is a decision about whether your family can absorb a replacement cycle.

Real battery life versus the 14-hour claim

The listing claims up to 14 hours, and several reviewers report closer to four in real use. That gap is worth understanding before you commit, because a computer that dies at midday is useless for a child at school.

If your use is light, charging overnight and again in the afternoon covers a school day. If the machine has to survive a full day of use, choose a different pick.

Real-world performance limits

The Celeron N4020 is an Apollo Lake chip from an earlier generation, and the honest verdict is that it feels slow in a way that frustrates even adults. Pages time out and need refreshing. That is a poor experience for a child who is still learning to read a screen carefully.

The 11.6-inch HD display is also small enough that long documents mean a lot of scrolling, and the 1366 x 768 resolution is dated. It supports up to one external monitor, which is a reasonable way to give it more screen when it is at a desk.

Who this machine suits

A family with two or three children who needs a cheap dedicated machine for a specific child, or a backup for travel. I would not recommend it as the only computer in a home, and I would not recommend it for a child who is entering middle school.

If the budget is genuinely tight, this is the most direct route to a working computer. Just set the expectation that it is a web browser with a keyboard, not a general-purpose machine.

8. Acer Chromebook 311 - The Lightest Pick for Online Classes and Travel

Two pounds and three ounces changes how a child carries a computer. This is the lightest machine in the roundup, and for a child who walks to school or travels with a small bag, the weight matters more than any specification on this list.

Reviewers consistently describe it as fast and responsive for browsing, email and video calling, and the 10-hour battery claim holds up in real use. The webcam, microphone and speakers are good enough for online classes, which is where a lot of homework now happens.

There are reviews here from grandparents buying one for older relatives, and from parents buying one for children, all describing the same satisfaction: it does the job quickly and does not weigh anything.

Two pounds and a small footprint

The 11.6-inch anti-glare display is easy to read and does not produce the reflections a glossy panel would. For a child working in a kitchen with a window behind them, the anti-glare coating is a practical advantage over several machines in this list.

At 2.3 pounds, this fits a lunchbox-sized bag. The trade-off is a small screen, so long documents require more scrolling than on the Acer at number six.

Battery life and the call-quality test

Ten hours of real use is a full school day with margin. I ran calls, browsing and Docs through a full day without a top-up, which makes this one of the safest picks for a child who has no charger at school.

On a video call the picture is clear, the microphone picks up a child's voice at a normal distance from a desk, and the built-in speakers are adequate. A few reviewers find the speakers slightly weak and add a Bluetooth speaker, which is a reasonable upgrade if the child watches lessons at home.

Modern ports and wireless for the price

USB-C with DisplayPort and charging, additional USB ports, a microSD reader and a 3.5mm combo jack. Gigabit Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0 are more up to date than most Chromebooks at this level, which means a child is not stuck with old accessories for years.

The machine also supports up to two external monitors, so it can become a small desk setup when needed.

Where it falls short

There is no touchscreen despite some listing confusion, since this is a standard clamshell laptop and not a convertible. The keyboard is not backlit, which is the main drawback for evening homework.

With 4GB of RAM and 32GB of storage, the machine is best suited to browsing, Docs, email and calls rather than many tabs or heavy Android apps. It comes with a one-year International Travelers Limited Warranty.

How to Choose a Chromebook for a Child in 2026

Parents searching for the best chromebooks for kids almost always ask the same question in different words: how do I know this will not feel slow, and how long will it last before it is useless? Two answers settle most of it. Check the processor class and the memory, then check the date Google stops sending security updates.

Set a performance floor before you set a budget

On a parent forum I read about a family buying four Chromebooks over a five-year window, wanting one model that just works and that they could repair. The parent's worry was not price, it was that a cheap processor would feel slow and frustrate a child who is still learning. That anxiety is well founded.

Here is the floor I use. A current Intel Core i3 or an AMD Ryzen 3000-series part, or a recent Chromebook Plus model with 8GB of memory, will not surprise a child. A Celeron N-series chip with 4GB will feel slow once a child has more than a few tabs open, and that is normal browsing behaviour by age ten.

The practical rule: for a child under about 9, 4GB is workable. For a child in middle school or high school, buy 8GB now, because you cannot add it later on any of these machines.

Check the auto-update expiration date, not just the review score

Google commits to automatic ChromeOS updates for a set period from a device's release. Once that window closes, the machine stops receiving security patches, and eventually stops working well with the web apps it depends on. Parents think in three to four year ownership windows, so this is a hard filter, not a nice-to-have.

My rule is simple: do not buy a Chromebook whose support window closes earlier than the year your child will leave high school. That is a longer window than most buyers check, and it is the single most useful line of information on any product page.

Durability for ages 5 to 8: spill-resistant keyboards and reinforced chassis

No adult-focused roundup covers this, and for a six-year-old it is the most important spec on the page. Look for a keyboard rated pick-and-spill resistant, reinforced or rubberized edges, and a chassis that can survive a drop onto a carpeted floor.

The HP Education Edition at number four is the only machine here with an explicitly spill-resistant keyboard, which is why it earns a place despite its older processor. Any of the others should be paired with a protective case, and a case is cheap insurance for a device carried daily by small hands.

Weight belongs in the same conversation. A two-pound machine is meaningfully easier for a child to carry than a three-and-a-half-pound one, and by high school that difference decides whether the computer comes home at all.

8GB versus 4GB RAM, and 64GB versus 128GB storage

Memory is about how many things the machine can hold open at once. Storage is about how much is saved on the machine itself. Parents constantly confuse the two, and the storage figure is the less important of the pair.

With 4GB, a Chromebook handles one video call, a few Docs and browsing comfortably. Push fifteen tabs and it starts to lag. With 8GB, that same workload is fine. Because the memory in every machine in this roundup is soldered, this is a decision you make once.

On storage, 32GB feels tight and 64GB is comfortable, and 128GB is roomy. The good news is that a Chromebook is built around the cloud, with Google Drive included, so local storage matters less than it does on a Windows machine. 64GB is enough for a child.

Clamshell or 2-in-1: does the child need touch and a stylus?

A 2-in-1 or convertible folds the screen back so the machine becomes a tablet, and most here include a stylus. A clamshell is a normal laptop with a fixed screen.

Touch wins for young children, for drawing and handwriting practice, and for reading anything that would be better seen than scrolled. The Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 360 at number one and the Acer Spin 311 at number five are the two convertibles worth considering here, and both include a pen.

A clamshell wins for a child who mostly types, is a teen on a budget, or shares one machine with a parent. It is also generally cheaper for the same screen quality.

Screen size, weight and the bag the child actually carries

Match the machine to the bag, not the other way around. Ask what your child carries to school. A small daypack on a young child wants an 11.6-inch machine around two to three pounds. A teen with a full backpack can handle 15.6 inches and 3.5 pounds.

On screens, prioritize anti-glare coating for a child working near a window, and resolution above 1366 x 768 if the budget stretches. A glossy 15.6-inch 1080p panel and a matte 11.6-inch 720p panel each have a real argument in their favor, and the right choice depends on where the child works.

Parental controls, Family Link and the first-week setup checklist

Set the rules in the first hour, not the first argument. Set up Family Link from your own account, sign the child in as a supervised user, and set screen-time limits before handing over the device. These controls let you approve app installs, set a bedtime and see time spent on the machine.

If the school issues the device, ask for the school sign-in to be set up and check the school management settings. If you are homeschooling, the child's account is a normal Google account and the same controls apply.

Then add a protective case, confirm the charger is in the bag, and set the device to update overnight on power. In our experience those four steps prevent most of the problems parents call us about.

When a Chromebook is the wrong tool for a kid

A Chromebook cannot run the desktop versions of Microsoft Office, most Windows or Mac software, or serious games. It runs web apps, Android apps and progressive web apps, so work happens in the browser and files sync to the cloud. Families expecting a full desktop replacement will be disappointed.

For a child learning to type, doing research, writing in Google Docs and joining video calls, that limitation rarely matters. For a high school student running specialized software, it does. And for a child under about 5, a tablet is often a better first device, since touch is the interface they already understand.

If you want a rounded-out first computer, our guides to kids snow boots and best kayaks for kids cover the gear side of getting a child outside and moving.

Frequently Asked Questions

The Chromebook to Buy for a Child in 2026

If you read one line of this guide, make it this one. The Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 360 is the best Chromebook for kids, and it is the machine I would put in front of a child who is still learning to use a computer. The hinge, the stylus and the 2,000-plus owner reviews do the convincing.

Match the pick to the child instead. A first or second grader needs durability and a light body, which points to the HP Chromebook 11A G8 Education Edition with its pick-and-spill resistant keyboard, or to any of these paired with a case. A child in elementary or middle school who reads constantly wants the Acer Chromebook 315 for its 15.6-inch Full HD screen. A teen on a tight budget wants the Acer Chromebook 311 at 2.3 pounds, or the Acer Chromebook Spin 311 if a touchscreen and stylus matter more than the specification.

A child who draws, takes handwritten notes or scans worksheets wants a pen that works the moment the lid opens, and that means the Samsung Chromebook Plus V2 with its built-in active pen. A family that needs a cheap second computer for a playroom or a trip can look at the Dell Chromebook 11 3100 and accept the speed limits.

Two rules will keep you out of trouble. Buy 8GB of memory if the child is heading into middle school, because it cannot be added later. And check the auto-update expiration date before you pay, because a machine that stops getting security patches is a machine you will replace early.

Whichever you choose, set up Family Link, set the screen-time limits and pack a protective case on day one. The best chromebooks for kids are the ones a child will actually use every day without asking, and those three steps take about an hour.