just get something with:
size/weight: quite important if you're carrying it around lots. You'll want one that is light and a size you want. anyhting bigger or smaller and you won't like it. Don't strain your bag carrying around a heavy laptop.
functionality: look for the following (i might miss some out). You may or may not want some features.
USB - I think that's a MUST
Firewire - u might have devices that use this.
Network - Nowadays it's essential to get wired and wireless. If you can, get a Gigabit Ethernet NIC, and one of those b/g WNICs. for more compatibility for now and the future.
Modem - most of them come with modem for dial up.
Bluetooth/Infrared - some come inbuilt, others it's optional. Up to you.
Printer Port - for your old printers
External Video Displays - This is quite important for those wanting to do presentations, or watching movies off your laptop. Having just a normal port to a monitor may sometimes not be good enough. normal vga is standard, dvi if you need it, s-video will be the simplest to connect to a TV using ur RCA (red/white/yellow) plugs.
Harddrive space, monitor resolution, touchpad, ram,sound, processor should all be up to you.
Having hot-swappable drives (dvd rom / cd-burning / floppy) is also handy.
some laptops follow mulitmedia keyboards and have shortcut buttons to make some things more easil accessible.
If you're going for branded laptops, warranty and support is quite useful at times (if something does go wrong).
i guess this isn't a notebook recommendation, it's more of what to look out for if you're getting one. different brands have different features. just depends on what feature you want the most.