Well, I’ve been very happy with my “cheap” Acer from Target. I’ve always liked Acer. Dell also makes nice CBs.
I would avoid Asus and Samsung based on past experiences. Their quality was sub par.
Memory is not crucial on a CB because it’s Cloud based. But more memory is helpful if he plans to have multiple tabs/windows open at once. The CB will freeze if it runs out of “working” memory.
I’ve heard there’s a way to “hack” a CB to play Minecraft, but in general playing MC is not an option.
DS '04 "Boogaboo"
DD '08 "Lilybear"