>>>>She does email, browsing, and a very, very, occasional Office application.
>>>>We have an anniversary approaching and I'd like to buy her a new machine
>>>>I'm a depression baby, so CHEAP, CHEAP.
>>>>Any suggestions?
>>
>>All she needs is a previous generation Android smartphone or tablet for a couple hundred $.
>
>When you reach the senior ranks, John, screen size and font size are key issues.
>
>Neither of us can read the fonts on our phones.
>
>She'd need at least a 15" screen.

Here's something you can try for free: create a bootable flash with some decent linux distro. I have one with Ubuntu 14.04 and it boots in seconds on this machine where W7 boots for a whole minute (checking disk after I log in and doing other things). I also have a seven-year old 8" laptop with linux Mint on it, and it wakes up from sleep mode in 4 seconds, boots cold in perhaps 50 (but its sleep mode actually works, so I boot it perhaps twice a year). The XP which was on it before would take almost two minutes to boot up.

Email, browsing, Libre Office and a bunch of other apps come bundled. If the W8 machine is really hosed, you can boot with this flash and use the situation to copy whatever files you want to save to another flash, then install the linux (if you can't salvage that box otherwise) and restore those files. Still costs you nothing.

If that works, you can have a fancy dinner for a fraction of the money you didn't spend. And it would take just a couple of hours altogether.