I don't have a cheap laptop recommendation (I use higher end ones), but for cheap and easy at home web surfing it's hard to beat a tablet and the convenience and battery life is great. I wouldn't argue too much with the $300 cutoff point vs cheap and good on tablets and maybe $600-$800 for laptops. I'm an Android type but there's not much wrong with an iPad if you're not terribly computer literate. As for typing on a tablet, well, voice recognition is amazing these days. If you're typing regular (not too technical) emails on a tablet of any kind then you should really get used to speaking it and having it automagically typed for you. Both Siri and Android are quite good that way. I'm even starting to use voice dictation a bit on my desktop and I can touch type quite quickly. Tablet or phone? Dictation all the way unless it's quite noisy or I don't want people around me listening to what I dictate. If you're not a great typer and want to write long emails or whatever then a tablet is probably a better way to go unless you really need a full implementation of Java. Apple doesn't really do Java at all and Android is getting away from it. If you really want a laptop, personally, I'd recommend something with an Intel processor (i3 or possibly i5 maybe if battery life isn't as important) and a good screen (bright, good colors, and sharp (depends on your vision for resolution). 1080P is good if you have sharp eyes, 900P is good on a 17" screen if not, otherwise 768P on a smaller screen. Visit a Best Buy or Costco or wherever and try a few out. I'm a Costco member and love their free 2yr warranty and pricing if they have what I want. Longer warranties are available and cheap as well.