Ironically for a Laptop I would rather look for something that feels good in your hands and has a good design and build quality.
Focussing on performance is not ideal for laptops, because you could end up with a loud, overheating thing with a wobbly screen and mushy keyboard. Just check that it has an SSD and >8GB of RAM and you should be good.
Totally agree. That's what I tell any friend who asks me for buying advice.
Go to the store, and see what you like, built quality and feature wise. Think about how many USB ports you need, what gimmicks you like, screen that you can fold over, or turn around and such things. Feel how heavy it is, how big the screen is compared to the overall size and how you like the keyboard.
Then go on the internet and get that base
model with the best internals you are willing to pay for.