Price range???? Could I suggest a trip to a big box store ie. Walmart, BestBuy etc and take a look at some of their 17" models...I suggest a 17" because of the vision problems..Acer, Toshiba, Asus are all good brands of which I have had.

Recommending anything specific is kind of like trying tho find a needle in a haystack. Plus, you always get users with brand preference.

I suggest to potential buyers that they ferret though all the offerings, and provide systems of interest for review with recommendations. The search results are then more on point and responses quicker.

DA

ok... thank you. I have been lucky that my kids have bought my computers for me so I haven't paid attention. I know nothing about ram and gigabytes, etc. I think we are hoping to max out at $500. I got mad at Best Buy at Christmas for advertising something they didn't carry. I am willing to go to Walmart. Thanks.

Whatever store you get it at, dont let them sucker you into buying their warranty...you get a one year from the manufacturer in most cases and if you wish to extend it, buy it from the manufacturer...If and when you purchase it and bring it home..my suggestion would be to come on here before you start it up, let us know what you bought, someone on here can step you thru getting rid of the 3 month free trial add-on like (an antivirus program and possibly Microsoft Office). These should never be activated and we on here can get you a free antivirus and whatever else you may need..

I would suggest that if she has problems with her hands, that she turn off the touchpad on a laptop and use a mouse instead. In fact, a separate keyboard might be helpful. I find a regular keyboard much easier to use than the laptop keyboard. However, if you find a 17" laptop in that price range, the keyboard might not be a problem. By all means, try one out in the store before purchasing. I have had several laptops, and at my age and physical condition, I find a desktop much easier to use, but that's just me.

Thank you all; you have given me good ideas to start with.

I have lots of hand problems and the best thing I ever did for myself was get a mouse that is ergonomic and keeps the hand in a more vertical or hand shake position, I have had to order 2 for my husband he liked mine so much he wanted one for home and work, I have 2 of them myself, they are not very costly and she could use that instead of the touchpad. I can not use the touch pad at all.

Wow-Pen Joy WP-012 - 5-btn Mouse - Wired - USB that is it and various places to find it.

for laptop I would also go with the larger size if she will be mainly leaving it on a desk, check for full size keyboard, most of the major brands would be fine, I like HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba, I am not a Dell fan. I prefer an AMD processor to Intel and they are usually a bit cheaper. Most new ones will have windows 7 64 bit so you will want plenty of memory 4GB and up, she should be fine with what ever graphics card comes with it since she will be doing basic use. I would not go with an emachines.

Here are some options that you can view and see what the specs are.
Acer Aspire 17.3" AS7560-Sb416

HP Steel Gray 17.3" Pavilion

If she wants to go smaller with the 15-16 inch these might work
Acer Black 15.6" Aspire
this one is a dual core as opposed to a quad core so will be less powerful.

HP Dark Umber 15.6" Pavilion dv6-6119wm

pretty much you will see from a 500GB hard drive up which should suffice her needs.

Just remember she should make sure it has full size keyboard and of course she can plug in a regular keyboard to it also if she needs to.

It would be a good idea when she gets it to clear off all the extra junk that comes on one and to get rid of the trial version of the antivirus program and put on AVAST or MSE which are free, we can help with that and removing the extras.

Curious, I have told to be very careful doing online banking on a laptop computer due to possible firewall or lack of. Also, why a laptop instead of a regular computer unless she plans to travel with it. DH's laptop is heavy and that is why I bought him a IPad for Christmas which he really is happy with.
Just a thought
Marie

the firewall is built into windows or you have a stand along program like zone alarm etc it has nothing to do with if it is a laptop or a desktop it is software.
You might mean because it is wireless but so are many desktops too and as long as it has a secure network it would be all the same.
You would want to be careful if traveling and using public wifi spots for sure with any device.

"She has some vision problems and very crippled hands".

Depending on how severe is your sister's hand condition, with a new laptop you may want to consider using speech software. This software will allow a user to speak to the computer, and the computer will type the text, or execute the command given by the user. Dragon Naturally Speaking is such a product that comes to mind.

Again, thank you. I am saving all responses and will return for help when we actually do something. nearandwest, she tried Dragon a number of years ago. I don't remember what went wrong, but I will do some reading on it.

Windows 7 has speech recognition built in.

Yes it does! And if she purchases a new laptop, it will probably have Windows 7 loaded as the Operating System. I'm a Linux guy, so the Windows OS is not my strong point.