Your child's first laptop shouldn't be too complicated, and the NE56R11u 15.6" Laptop Computer (Black) by Gateway fits the bill. It's powerful, reliable, and has what your high-school student or grandparent needs, at a price that's as easy on the wallet as this unit is on the eyes.
An Intel Celeron B820 chip running at 1.7GHz powers the dual core notebook, with a 2MB cache to back it up. It's more than enough power for application programs and web surfing. To help you with those tasks, there's 2GB of DDR3 SDRAM (expandable to 8GB if you need something more intense), and 320GB of storage with the SATA hard drive.
Graphics are powered by an Intel HD graphics card with a dedicated 128MB of RAM, and laid out across a beautiful LED backlit 15.6" TFT LCD Ultrabright WXGA display, featuring a native resolution of 1366 x 768, and color support of 16.7 million. The recipient of this laptop will appreciate the vibrant colors and sharp graphics that this notebook is capable of.
If you're buying this primarily for web use, you'll be more than satisfied with the Gigabit Ethernet or Wireless 802.11 b/g/n options, the integrated webcam and microphone, and the numerous ports, including USB 2.0 and VGA and HDMI out ports, along with the 4.5 battery life.
Budget-minded parents or family members looking for a good, conservative, solid laptop with few frills but lots of reliability are definitely going to want to take a look at the NE56R11u 15.6" Laptop Computer by Gateway.