Laptop recommendations for teenager

[Eaudeunaturale]

Couldn’t find best board to post on (have posted on Christmas but know that’s a niche area at the moment )
Looking for recommendations for laptop for young teen DC, will be used for school work, general internet usage & probably gaming (although they have a games console & phone they like to play Kodu on a friends Pc)
Don’t want to spend megabucks as money is tight this year but equally don’t want to just get the cheapest if it’s not going to be of much use

A chrome book is all they need at that age. We’ve got 2 that cost about £230 each and are full HD and large screen. They’re particularly good for school pupils as many schools will
Set work on Google Classroom which connects perfectly with Chrome Books.
Another advantage is they have no software so no need to update and no viruses .

DD has an acer chrome book and seems very happy with it.

Not sure if its any good for gaming though as she tends not to use it for that but certainly fine for school work, internet, video streaming etc.

Thanks both, I am clueless when it comes to laptops so don’t really know what to look for (all the RAM etc is way over my head)

Mine has a Lenovo idea pad which we bought for about £300 at the start of lockdown and so far so good. It coped with zoom well although hasn't really been used for gaming just school work and you tube etc.

With a laptop you need to set a budget and then get the best machine for the money. I would suggest about £300 for a teen and a machine that will last them through school. More if you have it.

Ram - try and get a machine with at least 8mb

Hard drive - if careless try and get an ssd one. These are solid state and more likely to survive getting knocked. However they are more pricey. If they are careful and want to store lots of photos or games then a large non solid state drive might be better.

Processor - these days these are a bit of a minefield it isn't a case of the higher the number the better the chip. What I recommend is to Google the chip eg i3-7020u benchmark. This will link to a webpage with a number. The higher the number the faster the chip. Try and get a chip with a benchmark of at least 4000. The i3 I said about above is only about 2500 so quite slow.

Personally I tend to go to pc world and look through their bargain clearance bins, with my phone and Google to hand.

Thank you @Tiggles that’s really useful info