Reddit mentions of ASUS X200 12-Inch Touch Laptop [2013 Model]

The HP probook mentioned by SaneBRZ is a fantastic laptop for its price. The amazon listing is a little weird and lists the wrong weight, according to the actual datasheet, it should weigh in at something above 3.3 pounds, and not the whopping 5+ pounds there.

Here's a few alternatives, just so you can compare:

Asus x200CA- slower than the probook but should be adequate for your usage. Has a touchscreen and is very light and portable. You mentioned the $300 laptops at Bestbuy- to me this suggests that you'd probably want something decently under $500 and not sitting at it. That said, between the two computers I'd rather take the probook for $200 more

For $530, this Lenovo gets you almost twice the performance and a touchscreen- not bad for $30 more. The probook uses an ultralowvoltage i3 processor, which prioritizes battery life and heat over performance. Additionally, the i3 lacks a few features that the i5 has. This means that the i5 in this laptop benchmarks almost twice the speed of the other. It also has more ram. Although it uses a normal 1TB hdd, versus the super fast SDD in the probook, I don't really see it as a problem. You won't be gaming, so fast load times aren't really useful (well I guess huge spreadsheets). Additionally, windows 8 can boot in 3 seconds with just an HDD, so there's really no major benefit to be gained there. Additionally, if you don't have an external harddrive, then that could add another $60-$100 to your probook because the 128gb SSD won't hold much. The only major downside to this laptop is it's form factor, it's big thick and heavy, at least compared to the probook.

This lenovo is similar to the previous one, but slightly slower and without the touchscreen. It also might run a little hotter too. However, at $460 I included this in case you wanted the performance of the previous, but the price was a turnoff.