ZoomText is a magnification software. It can magnify quite a bit regardless of the laptop you have.

Natural Reader Chrome extension is pretty good. If you want a dedicated text to speech software then Kurzweil 1000.

NVDA is an opensource screen reader. An alternative would be JAWS.

If you can swing it and she’s open to it, you might consider springing for a Mac. I find that the built in accessibility functionality (zoom, voiceover, etc) is significantly better than it is in Windows.

Best screen reader IMHO is NVDA.

Get it at https://nvaccess.org/

As to zoom I have no clue, I don't use that.

If she likes using zoom and touchscreen the only options on Windows that I'm aware of are Zoomtext and Supernova (both paid) or build in Zoom in Windows (but it has no colour schemes, anti-aliasing poor quality of zoom over 10x) If she has one of Zoomtext or Supernova license keys she can ask for a discounted upgrade to newest version or to discounted switch to one of either of those programs giving away in exchange old key to company I had done this myself few times it saves a lot of money in the long run. Advanced functions of those programs are far forward over those build in any system or free open source in case of screen magnifiers.

NVDA and JAWS are screenreaders and are meant for more keyboard shortcuts users, Braille users not mouse, touchscreen users.

Switching to Mac is often glorified but I founded it very frustrating. Had to find replacements to all my programs wasn't allways possible especially those for work or just retro games. Apple restricts what's allowed and what's not. There's no way to install from "third party sources" only official store is allowed. Hardware costs a lot and choice in it is limited compared to Windows world.

Perhaps look at a laptop with a high resolution 17 inch screen;I believe Lenovo, HP, and Dell offer some in their higher end range. Also, if you're buying a new laptop, go for something with a ssd, an Intel 10th gen processor, or one of the new AMD offerings. Also, purchasing a machine with 16 gigs of ddr4 ram, or, purchasing a machine that allows the user to upgrade the ram later would be a good idea. It'd help future proof it a bit.

If it is really hard for her to read with a decent amount of magnification, or, if her vision loss is a progressive thing, it may be time to start at least learning the basics of a screen reader because the user experience is different and takes time to acclimate to. (I lost my sight as a teen so went through that whole transition from using magnification software to using a screen reader. It can be a bumpy road.)

NVDA is a great free screen reader. Jaws is still the standard for now but 1, that's slowly changing, and 2, it's pretty expensive.

If she isn't in love with Windows, then I'd suggest looking into a Mac. The new 16 inch MacBook pro is a fantastic machine! Not only is it a well built workhorse, but the built in accessibility features blow the ones in Windows out of the water.

If she has to use windows, you can install Windows as a virtual machine, or, install it on it's own partition and run it natively thanks to the bootcamp utility. (This only applies to Intel based Mac computers but as of this writing, the new machines with Apple Silicon don't even have a release date yet and the first machine is rumored to be a 12 inch MacBook so that may not even work for her needs in any case.) I have my iMac setup this way and it's great to have both operating systems in one box.

I am totally blind, so I don't know much about magnification, but it sounds like a screen reader might not be exactly what she needs. As others have said, ZoomText is a program I hear good things about. I can't think of any other options for magnification.

You have to check out the Surface Book 3

I would suggest getting her the biggest laptop available on the market (17.3 inches) as it may help with the stain of zooming a bit.

I don’t know much about zoom magnification software because I am completely blind but if you want a text to speech reading software that I use every single day it would have to be NVDA because it is completely free and easy to use. All you Gotta do is download it onto your computer and set it up and you can have it read pretty much anything. It’s way better than a software like Jaws where you have to pay several hundred dollars a year and 1200 just to install it.

Use the free and open source utilities, or if what's built in Windows is good enough, stick with that.

Don't bother spending money on things like ZoomText or Jaws, they're a waste of time and money that provide mediocre results.