Those are nice machines, I have the same model (diff specs) I bought it as a refurb for just under a grand about a year ago. 300 plus shipping is a fairly reasonable price (I would try and talk him in to 300 shipped... but that is just me). The only problem I have with mine is over heating if I set it on something that is not a flat surface, for instance a bed or something like that. After about an hour I will get visual artifacts on the screen. I have found that this is easily mitigated by taking a can of air and blowing out all of the fan/vent holes ever month or so. Since it runs warm anyways it collects dust and once it does, it can't cool itself. This one may not experience the same issues since mine has more memory, cpu, and gpu all making heat. Mine recently had decided that the battery shall no longer hold more than a 45 minute charge but I doubt that would be an issue on this one being that it has a newer battery.
If Zero Damage decides to shy away from the offer let me know, I too would consider this for my mother.