Laptop Choice?

You don't need MS Office for basic stuff. Get Libre Office as a free download, it'll work just as well.

If you have a good internet connection through most of the day then a Chromebook might suit you?

These things look pretty good, I'd never heard of them - thanks for the heads up!

Are they basically just a step up from a tablet but not a full on laptop with all the nonsense that I probably won't need?

I tend to always get a decent connection yeh. Is that with reference to the cloud access?

It really is just internet browsing, streaming and downloading stuff (legally of course), moving info to and from mp3 player / garmin etc and basic word and excel that I need. So not much.