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UT,
A Pentium brand processor makes an AMD look good.
I personally wouldn't touch anything with below a Core i5 (which is what my wife's laptop runs). Those are plenty fast for most items.
The SSD is the best value, however. Stick with a good brand like Samsung or Intel, and you'll love it. I used one to rejuvenate an old Core 2 laptop, and it is like having a whole new machine.
I would seriously consider Windows 8 with one of the Start Menu replacements like Classic Shell as the OS. It's really blindingly fast, wireless works as well as OS X, and it has really good power management support. The new UI is an abomination, but it doesn't mean you can't replace it. Plus, Windows Explorer has a lot of new features in this version. Task Manager is also greatly improved.
Windows 8 also has really good SSD support at the OS level. 7 doesn't have good support (it was bolted on).
4GB RAM on a Core i5 with an SSD on Windows 8 with a half-decent NVidia card and your machine will outright scream. I wouldn't put an SSD and 7 in the same machine unless I had to. OS X or Linux, since both have been tweaked for SSDs, I would.
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