When buying a laptop for you child, you need to really think about what they actually do on the computer to decide whether you need to spend a ton of money or not.

Chances are, you don't.

The most your child or teenager does on their laptop is social networking, uploading photos, downloading music, writing short papers, and doing a couple of PowerPoint presentations a year. The things that take up the most memory, the pics and the music, are recreational activities, and probably not something you actually want to spend extra money to accommodate.

Research papers are only a few KB at most, and those are the essentials of what your child needs the laptop for, at least in your book. So, spending about $400 - $500 on a laptop for them should be enough. But, do not get them a netbook, because those do not have CD drives, and if you want them to watch movies on a long car ride or plane ride, then they won't be able to do that.

In terms of brands. Toshiba and Asus make pretty inexpensive models that are relatively reliable.