this is the first one i could find within that budget. you could search deal sites to find better laptop deals. there was a sweet toshiba on sale for ~230. two different stores sold out within the past 24 hours. i bought my last two laptops as refutbs. first one off ebay. lenovo thinkpad t61. it worked well for me but got slow over time. the next is a hp elitebook with one year warranty. i had to send it back and forth a couple times to fix problems. even had to replace the first elitebook for another same model. even this one has some quirks to it but i suffer through it. i dont really mind cus i have other computers in the house. both were around 200.
i wouldnt rule out tablets for this activity. you could prolly get a good tab with keyboard and mouse for that price. i have a toshiba thrive that i like a lot. i hear really good things about the surface pro. i think surface has two model. regular and pro. ppl are telling me the pro version is good.
laptop from walmart
HP Winter Blue 15.6" 2000-2d19WM Laptop PC with AMD E-300 Accelerated Processor, 4GB Memory, 320GB Hard Drive, and Windows 8: Computers : Walmart.com