I'm looking for a good value laptop for my Dad to use at home. His Sony Vaio just failed, the screen is showing static and weird characters and it blue screens regularly, potentially a video card problem - no point trying to fix it I figure. No idea what to do with it, probably dump it or recycle it.

Requirements:
 - Good general purpose laptop, suitable for word processing, email, web browsing, and online games. i3 CPU with 4GB RAM is plenty.
 - 15" screen or better
 - It will rarely if ever leave the house, weight isn't that important
 - Battery life not critical, but it is used on battery on the sofa or such
 - Something that will last a while is important
 - Value is more important than speed - no SSD is required, a touch screen is nice to have but not worth much to them

My recommendation is Lenovo E540, touch or non-touch based on their budget. It ticks all the boxes, in my experience they're good quality, built like tanks, and cost $900 to $1000 delivered.

Can anyone suggest a cheaper alternative that's still good quality?