School/Work laptop for ~500$

So my sister is going to LA soon to work in a court house for a year, then start law school, so i decided to get her a new laptop since her old one is a pos. She will basically only need it for email, watching movies, youtube, and writing essays (no gaming). So anything that can hold a decent charge and still be fast will do just fine. Also the price isn't necessarily firm, but would like to get the best bang for my buck, thanks.

1. What is your budget? ~500$

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Anything around 15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Decent resolution for watching movies and reading lots of text.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Both

5. How much battery life do you need?
As much as possible without it hindering the speed of the cpu

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
No

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Just Watching lots of movies and reading articles/typing essays

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Doesn't really matter, but around 500gb, maybe?

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Prefer Amazon, but any trusted site will do.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 3+ years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD ROM/writer

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Doesn't matter, but was thinking the ivy bridge i3 would be ideal for less heat and battery consumption

13. What country do you live in? USA