if it really is just for surfing the web then anything will do, for that money you could probably get a new netbook never mind an old laptop. Netbooks are a bit crap but absolutely fine for surfing. I think you would be hard pushed to find a laptop from the last 8 years that doesn't have wifi so that isn't a concern. Dell, HP or Toshiba are my usual preference but my own laptop at home is a Samsung and thats a great bit of kit. For that kind of money your going to be looking at windows XP, so make sure it has at least 512MB of memory. Even if you see a bargain laptop with Vista on it, dont bother as Vista is garbage. Anything with win 7 is going to be out your price range but should there be a steal of a deal make sure it has 2GB of ram or 1GB if it is starter edition. I would think that would be extremely unlikely though. the rest doesnt really matter since its just for surfing.