Buying a new laptop is quite challenging. Hardware specs make up long lists and it’s really difficult to understand or differentiate the features.
I just found this great guide Buying a laptop: everything you need to know that explains the process and aims to ease your buyer experience.
Basically, you need to answer one question: what kind of laptop user are you ? Do you need a laptop to surf the web at home, or for traveling, or to watch movies, or to make movies and music, or to play games, or maybe mine Bitcoins?
Finally, there is no one-size-fits-all laptop. And this is the best part.
P.S. Avoid anything called a “netbook.”