What are the best value windows-based laptops these days? My wife needs a windows laptop but doesn't want to spend much (it's for work).
Probably Chromebook
Chromebooks. well known for Windows!
Refurbished Dell Latitude or Lenovo from Amazon. Huge savings.
Acer aspire has been decent
check out the zenbook from asus.
I'm assuming you are stuck with Windows as a requirement. Do you require new or does refurb work? I've used pcliquidators.com for Dell latitudes or, more preferably, Lenovo thinkpads with mid range Intel i5 processors.
Windows? Why? Just use Linux, stop being a devil's serve.