Some schools have started to supply their students with laptops direct from the public purse. Even if your child's school does not supply them with laptops, they may have links with local businesses that will give you a discount on certain models.

Usually what parents are looking for in this range is spending around £150 - £250. If you can find something that is hard to damage and possibly has a foam casing to absorb the impact that children will often leave when playing with their computers.

At this age you would probably be looking at buying a windows operating laptop they are around £60 more expensive than a Linux laptop. The Linux laptops are very good and sometimes work better than windows machines. They take up less resources, this means that you don't have to buy as high a spec laptop for your child as it doesn't need as much RAM to work at a decent speed. Linux is a free operating system that was put together by volunteers. You won't find many virus if any on Linux as most of the virus software writers will concentrate on writing programs for windows users.

You maybe thinking of buying a refurbished laptop for your child, but with the prices of laptops falling over recent years, you can often buy a brand new one for a cheaper price than some people sell second hand ones.

One thing to note is that you probably won't get any form of insurance to cover a child's laptop whilst outside of the home and in control of the youngster. Most laptop insurance schemes will have buried in their terms and conditions something which prohibits this and will invalidate any claim.