I bought the wife and stepdaughter new laptops they are touch screen have win 8, it takes some getting use to, but you can choose desktop and its like 7 or vista, win 8 just has apps you can download, or see sports updates, news weather on a start screen. I was told how ever that 8 is more for a touch screen not a regular computer and has issues. I wouldn't go with dell, I had a dell laptop and the screen started messing up a year later, right now have a hp and love it, have had 2 hp desktops and both have ran great with no issues my last hp desktop ran 6 years and still would have ran but was getting slow.
I could do a vid on how to use win 8 and what stuff does if that would help, or even going youtube and type in how to use win 8 there are lots of vids out there.