[onewhippedpuppy]

Mike, I've never spent anywhere near $900 and always had more than enough computer for the task. I ran CATIA v5 3D CAD software on my old Dell 5-ish years ago, it wasn't fast but adequate for a very demanding software. This was on an old laptop that probably didn't even had a dual-core processor. My current 2-3 year old $500 Sony Vaio easily runs basic CAD, Photoshop, and HD video. A brand new laptop, even an affordable one, will be significantly faster than my current one. For kid use (word processing, pictures, video, internet, music) any entry level laptop should be more than adequate. More so than the processor I would consider looks (they are kids after-all, it's gotta look cool), high quality and loud speakers (most laptop speakers suck), and a big hard drive to store all of their photos, videos, and music. I bet you can get all of that for under $600 along with 4 GB+ RAM and a quad-core processor.