Minecraft - what’s the best device to use it on?

[Freetodowhatiwant]

I am not interested in gaming myself and have a mental block when it comes to it. But my DS (7) loves it and watches a lot of YouTubers playing it and wants to get his own device to play on and his 8th birthday is coming up. He already had a kindle fire but says he finds it hard to control on there. He says the lack of buttons are an issue.

He would like either a laptop rather than Nintendo Switch to play on and really wants to play with his friends. Would a laptop be play? How would we do this? Can we then play on a server/with other people in Minecraft world?

Any advice gratefully received, and please write slowly for this complete newb.

Just to make things complicated there are in fact 2 versions of Minecraft. Minecraft Java which is what most you tubers use and Minecraft Bedrock edition which is on all the consoles and iPads etc. as well as Windows 10.
Advice would be to check which one the friends use. Java is flexible and the "original" minecraft but can get quite fiddly if you decide to start installing mods and customisations.

Bedrock is pretty decent and you can cross play with people on switch and Xbox for example. but lacks "mods" which is where the customisation comes in plus some worlds and skins cost money and there's a dedicated store front for all of that.

I'd do bedrock on a decent android tablet.

It's my set up and I've played many many hours.

DS prefers Bedrock on a Switch. He's tried most of the options over the years. He's 10.

My 10 year old plays Bedrock on all the devices (Xbox, PS4 and iPad) but he likes the Java edition on his laptop because it has better Redstone and he can get early updates with snapshots apparently. He says it's smoother in Bedrock. But he says they're both good :-)

Oh to play with his friends the Bedrock edition is better for cross platform. He's telling me all this, I don't have a clue!