I think Chromebooks are the way to go. They provide exactly what students need at value you cannot beat.

Google docs/google sheets is the free google version of Microsoft Office (word/excel) and to top it off Google offers free storage space so the lack of the traditional "hard drive" where you save your files on a normal laptop is completely irrelevant.

I've had my current chromebook for 2 years. I paid about $200 for it. I had one before this for 1 year which I broke from slamming it too hard. While durability is an issue with chromebooks, I broke my laptop prior to the chromebook the exact same way. The difference is the chromebook was $200 and my laptop was $1000.

The shift towards each student having a personal computer compared to having 20-30 computers in a special computer room or in the library is a change that a lot of people aren't going to like, but it is inevitable.