Ultra budget Windows laptop

[Yuriman]

My wife's 2007 14" Macbook seems to be at the end of its life, and I'm looking into a replacement for it. We've had Windows on it for a while now, but she's pretty OS-agnostic so long as she's able to run M$ Office 2010+ on it. I'm tinkering with Wine and Ubuntu on my Chromebook for her in the mean time, but it looks like a Windows laptop is probably in order.

Requirements:

Must be able to run M$ Office 2010 or later (we already have license)
Size between 12 and 14" (~13 probably best)
Must also run Netflix / Hulu smoothly
Under $300, aiming for $200

Nice to haves:
Good touchpad and keyboard
I'll spend a little extra if I can get above 1366x768
2GB RAM acceptable, would consider a 4GB option for a bit more

I have a spare SSD and if a laptop in that price range meets my criteria but has a mechanical drive, I'd be fine with cloning and swapping.

I'm slightly concerned about Atom's ability to smoothly play media which isn't properly hardware accelerated, and would prefer a Haswell Celeron unless you can assuage my fears. If I have to go with an Atom, I would strongly prefer an Atom quad over a dual, but no hard rules about this.

Some options I'm considering:

HP Stream 14 - $275
http://www.amazon.com/HP-Stream-Lap...8&qid=1424964590&sr=8-1&keywords=hp+stream+14

Pro's
-Quad AMD cat cores, better performance than Atom dual

Con's
-Lower battery life than Intel-based laptops


Stream 13 4G edition
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O65HZBC?tag=slickdeals&ascsubtag=0e667e37b81b4c59984cc8943411a996

Pro's
-Cheaper than Stream 14
-13" is ideal
-Better battery life
-Includes 200MB 4G data for life

Con's
-Looks like a toy
-Dual Atom


Refurb Surface Pro - $250 + type cover & AC adapter
http://www.cowboom.com/deal-of-the-...amY&siteID=lw9MynSeamY-E4CyIL6nubRZsGy5sYOcUQ

Pro's
-Excellent CPU, storage, screen

Cons
-Not great battery life
-Small
-Not a true laptop
-Refurbished


Dell Inspiron 3000 - $230 after coupons
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellst...9103-4485850-7422387dbac14281968e524846fb5705

Pro's
-4GB RAM model is $230 w/coupon
-Can use my current SSD
-Excellent battery life (8+ hours)

Con's
-Dual Atom



I'm leaning toward the Dell, but was wondering if there are any other strong contenders in this price range?

 

[Yuriman]

I'd like to add, I'd be willing to consider a large tablet with stand + keyboard, if such a thing exists in this price range. 11" may also be considered, though I expect she'll want to play with one of that size in-store first before committing to it, as she does a lot of writing on her laptop.

 

[gmaster456]

I have the Stream 14z and it is an excellent budget laptop. Performance is adequate for typical web browsing, office etc. Multimedia plays back without a hiccup. Overall it's a decent machine and I am still blown away at the quality of the build of this thing. It's actually aluminum aside from the bezel and side trim so it always has that cold touch when you go to use it for the first time. Very very nice.

Buy it from the Microsoft store. Free shipping, free returns and it comes sans crapware.
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.308012500

 

[frozentundra123456]

I have a quad core atom tablet, and it is OK for a cheap tablet to surf the web, but in a full size laptop I definitely would be unhappy with that level of performance. I cant imagine the A4 (edit, at least cpu wise) or that dual core atom could be any faster.

It is just my philosophy I guess, but especially in a laptop that one cant upgrade, I would rather spend more up front than have to live for years with something that has marginal performance.