Personally, I would always go Acer or Asus.
The PYT is sitting across the room with her Acer laptop (can't remember the model but the specs of the OP's option sound familiar). As usual, the amount of USB ports is too small but a cheap hub is always an option. The machine runs like a dream, same as the one I got my stepkids a few years back, never any problems apart from the usual things that people do to computers (lack of updates to AV, etc).
As far as Asus goes, never heard a bad word about them either.
Oh, obvious points. Get an external mouse (and keyboard if you're going to use the machine at home a lot). Them touchpads are a bugger, I HATE them!!