Hack - The Laptop That Teaches Kids to Code

Just bought the hack computer for an 11-year old, and found it to be totally delightful. I did a lot of my own navigating in addition to watching how she uses it, and both of us have found it to be engaging, useful, and a huge value add. I really think this is the ultimate computer for kids. I love the fact that this little comp does everything it claims to do, extremely well. It's a great deal for a $300 computer that can educate kids, it comes with a ton of prepacked content and education apps that I downloaded for free.PROS- The computer guides you through games that are integrated into the OS itself, so you learn to code as you use the machine- Parental controls- Easy design, simple, fun, and engaging, it has these little monsters that are cute, and a character that guides you through each step. She gives hints if you needs them or leaves you up for a challenge if you want that too.- Steps get more challenging and offer more options as you progress- Endless has created a community, so you can join when you get the computer and receive regular updates and challengesCONS- It looks and feels like a regular computer, rather than something standard and custom, you get what you pay for.- Some episodes are still in development, but their website says more episodes are coming in March- Lightweight, but a bit too big in size- Doesn't run Windows. Runs EndlessOS, which I'm not used to but the kids loved.- Doesn't have enough storage to store all my videos and music without the cloud (64GB)Overall, I've really liked this computer and very glad I got it, it's turning into the ultimate resource for education, it's safe for kids, and prepares them for a future in which programming will likely be the thing they need most. I tried the games and found them challenging and fun. Highly recommend.

I bought this computer for my 5 year old. I plan to home-school her, so wanted a computer for her to use for that and I found this one. I did a bit of research, and I couldn't find anything better which had the same capability to teach coding (which is something my husband and I really want her to learn).We absolutely love it. As my daughter is still learning to read, we end up doing the coding together, which right now just adds to the experience. We get to learn together. The computer itself runs great, and the program is amazing! The characters are so fun, the instructions are incredibly clear, and the community is great. And, my daughter has so much fun! When she learns a new trick, she spends so much time playing around with it and making jokes. She especially loves making the cursor huge and move slowly.Overall, if you have a kid interested in coding, or would like to get your kid into coding, I highly recommend this computer! It is super useful (so you can do more with it than just the coding), and way fun too!

I actually love this laptop. My son is happy with it. He's able to play the built in hack game system and also use it as a normal computer. Wish it was designed with Microsoft applications however they interact well together. However, after 8 months the mouse stopped working. It remained stuck in the lower right hand corner. For the price this malfunction was annoying. I could have purchased a regular laptop for this kind of problem. Hopefully, this laptop is built to last but it doesn't seem like it so far.

I am a single mother of a 12 year-old girl and purchased Hack for my daughter for her birthday. The demands of an increasing school work load and her constant prodding finally convinced me she needed her own computer! I did my homework on similar products and what attracted ME to Hack was both the incredibly reasonable price point coupled with the safe environment it provided for her to do her school work and explore. What attracted HER to Hack was, after attending an after-school STEM program, learning to code through playing games! Honestly, I was a little intimidated when I opened the box but I found that the instructions were very clear. So far, she is really engaged. She loves playing the Fizzics game and I love that I am not worried that she is spending a lot of time on this computer. We are both looking forward to the next chapter! Maybe I’ll learn to code too!

I just purchased 2 laptops this past April 2020 for my kids. One of the laptops can't be used because an error keeps flashing and scrolling downwards which reads:"error: no such device: ostree."Any help on how to remedy this situation would be great.Thanks,Eddie S.

This was a difficult gift.Did not work out of box but was finally accepted for repair and was repaired but with Windows 10 and no hacker tools.CS grad had to get it set up for dual Lennox/Windows 10 operation and it now works. The drive was partitioned but the BIOS was incorrect.Nice laptop and it will go to middle school with grandson so he can change his grades...…..

We were very excited when we ordered the Hack computer for my 10 yr old. It is running a custom copy of Linux, that is the unique part of it. It is actually still in beta testing. We have had some hiccups with apps, but the Hack team has been very responsive to all of our concerns and has helped us out with issues. It is not perfect, you have to willing to tinker with things to be happy with this product.

After doing a lot of research and weighing the pros and cons of the Hack computer vs. a Chromebook, I bought the Hack. My 8-year-old daughter played a few of the games, but wasn't that interested in them. For the first 10 months, she used it lightly for school assignments and streaming music. It failed to handle online learning in the spring and crashed after just 6 weeks of using it for that purpose, which was about a year after I purchased the item in May 2019. If you really want to pay $300 for coding games, then it may be worth it. It definitely was not worth it for us.