Desktops including laptops are for both productivity and consumption. Tablets are primarily only for consumption. My advice? Provide your kids with both (assu

Desktops including laptops are for both productivity and consumption. Tablets are primarily only for consumption. My advice? Provide your kids with both (assuming your budget allows) and let them decide which (or both?!) they want to spend more time on. Make sure they are the real deal though, not some kneecapped toys. Also don't railroad them onto just Linux or Windows or whatever, rather give them the opportunity to see everything the computing world has to offer so they can decide themselves. Anecdata: Mom and dad got me an entire Pentium 1 desktop tower (circa mid-1990s) running Windows 95 as a (small!) kid to do whatever I want with after I'd showed great interest in their desktop tower running Windows 3.11 for work, because dad always says kids should get to play with real things rather than toys. I will forever appreciate it because only a few kids ever get opportunities to just dive in to something like that.