Building an Internet surfing PC for parents

[katsopolis]

Looking for a build for my parents since Windows XP is no longer being updated. PC will be used mostly to surf the Internet, do some word processing, and using Skype. Looking to keep it around $400 or under after shipping and rebates. They will need an operating system (not sure if Windows 7 or 8 would be better, so would like advice there) and will NOT need a monitor. Undecided on HDD or SSD, but they probably don't need more than 256GB. Needs to be built relatively soon so I won't be waiting around for price drops. Looking for a mid-tower. Thanks for your input.

 

[stillblue]

I'll probably have them try OpenOffice since that is what I have and am familiar with.

LibreOffice is a fork of openoffice created when Oracle, then Sun/Oracle then Apache bought it. LibreOffice has taken over the open source suite world but apache is apparently determined to got open office back in the game.