New laptop purchase questions

I am going to buy my wife a new laptop for her birthday this week. I have been looking at Best Buy because other than Walmart, they are pretty much the best store we have here in Reno to purchase computers. I see they still have a bunch of Win7 machines and alot of Win8 machines:confused:. I haven't been keeping up with pros/cons of 7&8 because I have a Win7 desktop and I will probably still have it when Win9 is released~~~ :rolleyes:
Questions...In the $500-$750 range which brand would get the best bang for the buck??? Any brand(s) to avoid??? Toshiba, Dell, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, Asus all have machines in my price range. I have about 4 hrs TOTAL fooling with laptops:o They are too small for me and I don't care to fool with them. This is making my shopping difficult to say the least.
Also...I see that almost ALL have NO built in DVD/CD drive!!! Is this industry-wide???

I guess I should mention...the wife only uses the computer to shop, Facebook, E-mail and Craigslist. She has an Acer now and constantly complains how she wants a new computer. I am trying to surprise her. ;)

I was looking at the Asus X75A-DS51 and then checked pricing and reviews on Newegg...it only had two reviews...1 egg and 5 egg. Not much of a sampling there :confused: So...I figured you guys would know!:)
Thanks,
Andy