Gaming Laptop for a 10 year old

[regencygirl]

The husband and I are diehard Apple fans, and both have MacBooks. Most of the games my 10 year old DS wants to play are only on a PC platform, so we were looking to get him an inexpensive laptop for Christmas.  The laptops labeled "gaming" are WAY more than I want to spend. For those of you who play on a PC, will a $200 Asus model #  E402SADS01BL be a total disaster? I don't know diddly squat about graphics, sound, processor speeds, etc. I just want an inexpensive laptop that will be used for school work and gaming (without incredibly crappy play).  No more than $500 if possible.  

[stephogirl]

I was in the same dilemma last year for my then 10 year old. I nearly fell over when I saw the price of gaming laptops. We purchased this laptop.

Asus F555LA-AB31 15.6-Inch Laptop (2.1 GHz Core i3-5010U Processor,4 GB RAM,500 GB Hard Drive, Windows 10), Black

We also added in this "cool" gaming mouse.

[2015 New Version] AGPtek ZELOTES LED Optical 2400 DPI 7 Button Adjustable 2.4G Wireless Professional Gaming Mouse Mice- Black

Both were from Amazon.

It's...okay. It's definitely not powerful enough to be considered a "gaming laptop." It's good enough for the majority of games he plays (think Minecraft range and slightly above). He says there can be a bit of a lag on faster games. He likes the mouse a lot.

[punisher]

Costco has a Lenovo ThinkPad on sale this season for under $500; I adore my Lenovo, which I've had for almost 3 years and use for livestreaming and graphic design/video editing, so I'm confident in what we got him.