This is for my son who is in grade 8. All the school work these days seems to be on Google Classroom and they have a mad rush for those without laptops to grab the chromebooks at school. He's got access to the desktop PC in the family area at home, so I want to go with a Chromebook rather than a more general laptop to keep it more (school) work oriented.
1) I'm in Ottawa, Canada so please bear in mind Canadian availability and prices. Bonus points if it's available in a local store like Canada Computers or Best Buy and I can try before I buy or have the ability to return it if it dies an infant death.
2) The Google Pixelbook looks wonderful, but its $1200+tax and that's a bit much to give to a 13 year old boy to have at school. He's not super rough on his things, but he's equally not the most careful.
3) Following on from the above, I know some laptops have coverage plans that protect it against pretty much anything. Any similar plans for Chromebooks?
I was thinking something like one of the Asus ones that's in the $300 range, but there are several of them and I don't understand the advantages and disadvantages of each. I'd hate to pick up one that's an old model and dog slow with poor battery life when there is something for $50 more that is a completely different experience.
