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.

Checking with the school or the major department (to see if there is a specific reason for or against a particular choice) is a good idea. My own family's experiences, which includes a total of 6 undergrad and grad program starts, was that 1) Not surprisingly, all schools and programs could accommodate and provide tech support for both Mac and Windows machines. All 6 could provide software either for free or with heavy discounts and left the choice of flavor up to the student with no specific recommendation, and 2) While all schools offered "special pricing" for purchases from the school/student store, none required it. None of the school "deals" we encountered were ever particularly competitive, I was always able to get more value for money from normal sources. I wouldn't be surprised if there were some photo/graphics or art programs that may be Mac only. You'll learn if one of those special situations applies by asking.

To use the wireless service, you need a wireless b/g card; most of the new laptops have this built in. Rather than purchasing MS Office, why not download free Open Office and give it a try? Once you are on cable, the download should not be too much. OO documents are compatible with Office, from what others here say. Several others here use OO and can answer any questions you might have. By all means get 2GB of memory. The size of the hard drive is up to you, but it sounds as if you don't need a huge one, given the history of your desktop. You might also consider later purchasing an external hard drive just for storage of pictures, music, and such. These are not at all costly these days. Look for plenty of USB ports and built-in memory card reader to help in transferring your pictures to the hard drive from your camera. A combo CD/DVD burner is almost a given, as that is pretty standard now. The 15.4" wide screen is not at all bad, but the 17" is nice if you can find it in your price range. Check around and watch the sale circulars. There are some great buys to be found.

Snidley gave good advice. I agree with just about all of it. You're not going to tax the performance of any modern machine you buy with the uses you specified. My one recommendation, and what I do every time I buy one or set one up for someone is to max out the RAM as much as possible. Fill open slots at least with highest possible. RAM will do you more good than CPU power in about 90% of all cases I've seen. If you buy from a computer shop they'll usually let you buy enough RAM to max it out and credit you for what's in it. Often there will be, for instance a 2gb when the slot will handle 4 so you have to remove it. Cheaper machines often only have 2 slots. For me, I quit using the tablet, partly because it died but partly because it's just not convenient. I bought a $20 smart phone to use as a mini tablet when I'm out and about. Works fine for me. I much prefer the keyboard and 17" monitor features on a notebook/laptop. It's my primary computer. I'm probably going to get another in the next month or two. I was looking at a refurb Toshiba for about $350. Everything I needed and more. Like I said I'd then add some RAM which I haven't priced but should be less than $100. Occasionally you'll see places that include office in their packages, however it's not "free". Technically, no extra charge, but they charge you a few hundred more for the package so, you still wind up paying for it. Most everything sold now should be compatible for Win10 unless you buy something old. Doubt you will. My needs aren't the same as yours although we do use them similarly! Brand, well other than HP/Compaq I wouldn't object to most any. Dell at the bottom of the barrel. Much depends on luck and how you treat them. Look for the features you want. Number of USB ports, etc. For me, a modem is required and few if any notebooks have them anymore so I have to dedicate a port to the modem. I always use a mouse so there goes a second one. I use an amplified speaker powered by USB so there goes another. Historically I too like Lenovo and I've had great luck with Toshiba but haven't dealt with them now for a long time, except my first one (13-14 y.o.) is still going strong. I had one that died. Still the overall quality of them were far above others. But YMWV. (Second to )Last comment: I do not hesitate to buy refurbs. They're often only slightly used if used and almost always a great value. OH, and DO NOT get misled by some of these places that include "$2000 worth of FREE software!!!" Most of it is available free anyway, such as firewall, anti-virus, anti-malware, etc. NOW, for last comment, check your software that you find absolutely essential and see if it's compatible with the OS you're getting. Probably should check to make sure it will work with Win10 since it will be force loaded on you unless you take action to stop it. I lost use of some essential programs going from Vista to 7 so I keep the XP unit around for when I do desktop publishing which isn't too often but still needed. Good luck in your search.