Laptop for 10 Year old...best Buy or Sams

I would buy whichever brand Best Buy is offering the best price on this week. They are all more than adequate for a 4th grader's needs. Buy a regular laptop, not a a netbook. Netbook's are way too slow.

All laptops have limited battery life, it'll have to be recharged regularly. "Crashing" has more to do with the type and amount of software that is running. I would have them remove almost everything that it came loaded with. Then, a "restart" is the best first action if a laptop is showing signs of slow response or other behaviors.

Kaspersky is a GREAT antivirus that doens't take up most of your utilities (unlike Symantec), so definitly stick with that one.

For the processor/ram...etc....ANYTHING that's offered these days is way, way more than enough than you could ever need for email and the internet. Period. That's not even a concern anymore, honestly. (I work for a major national IT company that carries everything but Dell.)

Same thing with brands. There's really no differentiator.

You want to make sure that you understand the warranty, is all, and who would provide service if there are issues. Understand what the service level is that you can expect - what qualifies for replacement, vs. replacement parts. Where do you have to send it for repairs? How long would you lose it for? That kind of thing. Confusion about the levels of service you can expect from a basic or extended warranty is ALWAYS what leads to angry customers. They don't understand what's in the contract.

HP, Dell, Acer, Lenovo all are solid companies with solid service offerings (everyone has their bad experience to reference with all of them, so it really doesn't matter. None of them are "bad".)

So really, just have your daughter pick one off the shelf with a price that agrees with you. No matter what she chooses, based on the current level of technology out there, it's going to be plenty to do what she wants to do.

**I will say, if you find something that offers a "solid state hard drive", and you can afford, get it. They boot up almost instantly, and are far more durable in case of drops and whatnot. However, they're typically pretty expensive.

My husband's aunt is a computer guru. She has her own small business doing networking for small corporations and loves EVERYTHING tech. She built a desk top for each of our kids for Xmas a few years ago. Then last summer she gave each of the kids hand-me-down Toshiba laptops (used to be hers that she used, but she upgraded/newer). Just last month, she sent them brand new laptops to use for their online school (the old laptops are now just for playing games on). Yep, they are Toshiba. She said she got a deal on them so couldn't pass them up. They are the Satellite C650D models and they have Windows 7 on them.
I'm quite sure she knew what she was getting when she ordered these for them. These are the smaller ones (I think 3 Gig?) and I have seen them at Walmart even. What Aunti did though, was ordered them directly from Toshiba, online, and had them shipped.
I don't know about Kapersky, these came with Norton, but your ISP probably offers a security suite with your subscription. Ours is McAfee.
hth
p.s. I pulled them up online after they were delivered, and the prices were around $350, I think. Not sure about extras for programs.

http://www.great-info-products.com/Electronics/toshiba-sa...

We have a Panasonic Toughbook for our kids. It has been really good.

We got our 10 year old a samsung netbook and I HATE it and so does she. It's way slow! It holds battery life better than our laptop, but I'm way impatient with it and it won't let her play webkinz b/c the screen is too small.
We do have Kaspersky for our Toshiba laptop and we love it! Also, Toshiba has great ratings for longest lasting laptop and for the price. We love ours!

My 8 year old son has his own laptop - it is my old one, but I think of it akin to a Wii, or a DS, many kids have their own, and they cost about the same, but can do so much more.
I would buy from sams because their warranty runs concurrently to any warranty you buy, ie you get an extra year warranty for free.
Also they have a no quibble return policy, if you don't like it you can just take it back and change it - best buy don't do that, you only have 14 days, and only if you don't open the box which sucks.

I bought ( about a month ago) a HP dv7-4273 pc, it was $650, and it is a quad core entertainment pc, it is very nice, has a fingerprint reader and everything else you would expect - it is a 17 inch.

My daughters netbook is not slow at all. It's an Asus with 2 gigs of ram. She has a 12 inch one so it's small, but not tiny.

Best Buy hands down. The service there is great.

We have 3 Dell's. Our 16 yr old has a Dell Inspirion which is a great machine. It's about 5 yrs old now and still works well. She's up for a new on in the next year or so and will certainly go with Dell again..

We got my Dell and daughters through Dell direct before they were sold elsewhere. We have a plan on them and if issues arise, Dell comes to our house for repairs. They've been out fir both of us!

Hubby got his Dell at Best Buy with the Black Tie warranty and loves it.

We boycott SAMs/walmart due to business practices and they ride their vendors to get cheaper and cheaper with products. You get something there, rest assured, it is not the same quality you get elsewhere. I'm talking about everything they sell.

Remember. You get what you pay for!! Also, when purchasing something like this, buy the best you can afford, most memory you can afford.

We have Norton 360 and like it for security. I had MCAfee but hated it because it took up so much space and norton is better. I don't know about the security you mentioned.

Good luck

for a 10 year old?! I'm not sure I would want a 10 year old having their own lap top computer...

I know my HP with an Acceleron processor is great...battery life was better than expected - especially when you do NOT charge up the battery until it's "dead"...the RAM (Random Access Memory) she would need should be higher for faster page loading...

I've not heard of Kapersky antivirus...

I, personally, would use Best Buy over Sams...