We bought our son a high end laptop 7 years ago. The screen broke 3 times in the first 18 months. The reviews mentioned a fragile screen, but we didn't see that.
Got him a Chromebook and it was fine for the next 2.5 years. It had plenty of power to do whatever he wanted. Word processing and internet browsing doesn't require much power.
So if your son is like mine, the two most important properties are small size (my son likes 11") and durable.
I have a Yoga 11e; you can drop it 2' without hurting it.