Helping my mom find a laptop for grad school

I'm trying to help my mom find a suitable laptop for both grad school (abroad) & leisure, but I have no idea what specs the laptop would need, let alone where to start.

Budget: $700 or less Screen: around 15" OS: Windows Other: Built-in Webcam

Uses: Educational purposes (word processing, powerpoint, etc), maintaining a blog, basic photography & editing. Most of her hard drive space would be used for storing photos, music, and some pdf text books. In addition she wants it to last long enough for a day at class & light-weight given battery life. Other than that, no frills (don't need blu-ray, hd, or any other add-on premiums).

Using find a laptop for me from wuggee, I found the Lenovo U510, Samsung Series 3 NP300E4C-A01US, HP Pavilion 15-b010us, HP Envy 6-1110us, and the HP ENVY 6-1010us Sleekbook. Would you recommend these based on the uses I posted here?

Thank you.