humbucker pickup

I hope someone can answer my question. I am buying my son an electrid guitar. I see that the guitars have either all single pickups or one humbucker pickup and on or two single pickups or it has 2 humbucker pickups. Which one of these combinationw would be the best?
Thanks for any advice you can give me

not "better" than the other per se, but one type is generally accepted to be better for some types of music, the other for other types. These are the basics:
"In the beginning", there were only single coil pickups. Humbuckers were developed later, and they have the ability to negate the tendency to hum and feedback that`s inherent when using single coil pickups on a hollow body guitar. For well-shielded solid bodies, neither type tends to cause hum. Today, they are selected by guitarists more for their sound. Single coil pickups sample the string at one point. Their sound is described by their fans as "clean", "bright" or "clear". Their detractors describe their sound as "harsh", "nasal" or "twangy". Humbuckers sample the string at two different spots, and hence have a slightly fuller, but darker tone. Their fans describe them as "full", "mellow" or "ballsy", their detractors describe them as "thick", "muddy" or "blurry". The young players today mostly favor a sound full of distortion, which they feel comes off better with humbucker pickups. The best judgement is to head toward one or the other based on the type of music that interests the player. Early rock, surf/instrumental, country? Think single coil. Jazz, "metal", post-60`s rock? Think humbucker. And in the hands of a good guitarist, they are interchangeable for much music. Ignore anyone who ever says: "But ya can`t use that type of pickup for this type of music!" through a good amp - is what`s best for him or her. Hope this was some help.

Most importantly, make sure that the guitar is comfortable to play, and that everything works...all the switch positions, the volume and tone knobs, the tuning machines...everything. All of the strings should fret all the way up the neck without buzzing (if they DO buzz, it`s likely fixable, but the shop should fix it for you before you buy it).
If at all possible, take an experienced guitarist to the shop with you., and have them check the instrument out.
It`s a very nice thing you`re doing for your son...I`m sure he`ll really enjoy the instrument.

Single thing I don`t like about it is that most of them, AFAIK, do not have a "coil tap" switch that lets you choose between one coil or both coils on the bridge pickup. Speaking ONLY for myself, I would never own a solidbody that didn`t have a single coil at the bridge, but your son would be starting off with an instrument that is very versatile, and very mainstream, nowadays.

either replace one of the tone knobs with a "push-pull" version or drill a toggle switch to allow for coil-tapping. Such a modification would not be expensive. Even if the humbucker was 2-wire, by the time your son was ready to apply the coil-tapping, a replacement humbucker might not be that expensive in the scheme of things (unless you live in Canada)

Whether the pickups are wired in series or parallel can make an awful lot of difference. Also, depending on the physical location of the pickups in relation to each other and the strings, there might be a degree of phase cancellation from the signal source- IE the string itself. One pickup can be sampling the string in one arc of direction whilst the other is doing the opposite. Clapton (pre Clapton Strat) sounds spring to mind. They actually sound thinner than single pickups running on their own.

Thanks for the responses. You guys have been very helpful. Ted