Think of features that you really want, need, and depend on in a laptop.
First things that come to mind for me are:
keyboard backlight
a large enough touchpad
Primary interactivity components
Keyboard & backlight
key depression type
backlight colour
backlight brightness steps
backlight LED placement — are the LEDs directly visible? (distracting)
Touchpad
size
surface texture — low friction
surface material — not going to break down (like a thin film of plastic)
position — easy to reach with your dominant hand; hard to tap accidentally with hand whilst typing
shape — somewhat similar to laptop screen shape
Speakers
size
number
placement
sound quality — bass is usually a good measure overall
Microphones
number — two or more is better, allowing software to operate real noise cancellation
position — away from the keyboard ideally, to prevent typing clacks
Camera
one is usually enough, but new software may allow 3D webcam capture in the near future
resolution — many webcams on new laptops are still shite, even in 2024
lens size — important for light capture, larger is better for dark video
framerate — modern video is 30-60 , higher is better.
Higher framerate is also required for single-lens HDR video, although the sensor chip, controller hardware & firmware probably also need to support such a feature.
check video performance in relative darkness — check for noise, graininess, low framerate, clarity
Ports
Headphone jack!!! 3.5mm port for regular audio cables. You have no idea how important this can be.
USB normal port — make sure that these are at least ! It should say SS on. You want 3+ of these.
— make sure they're also at least ! USB version 2.0 is shit! You want 2 or more of these. Double check if your laptop charger uses USB-C too — if so, try to get one with 3 or more USB-C ports.
HDMI — ideally you want a regular HDMI port. Mini HDMI also exists. More rarely, you will find DisplayPort — this is the actual standardized display connection type, but somehow the HDMI form won that war. DisplayPort is superior, but you will rarely find anything to connect it to.
Ethernet — this is the raw internet connectivity. WiFi can have issues sometimes. WiFi is also always limited by physics, so ethernet will guarantee you a solid, fast and stable connection. Some companies require that their employees have access to ethernet.