If you are not sure what you want, make a list of things you want to do with your laptop and ask someone who knows about computers to tell you what you would need for it (gaming -> number of decent chip names, writing and internet -> nothing matters, storing a lot of movies/games -> more than XX Gigabytes of harddisk space, video chatting -> webcam & microphone, etc)
Make a checklist of the things you want/need.
Browse for notebooks and write down those that fit all of your criteria.
Choose the one that has the shiniest finish or cutest name.
Done.
vs.
Click on the picture that looks like what you want, tweak a few straightforward options (or leave them to default, knowing they're probably fine), buy.
Once again Apple provides simplicity at the cost of freedom of choice.
EDIT: to the downvoters - your inability to acknowledge a simple truth astounds me.
As the "knowlegable friend" in my circles this just means that I get swamped with requests for assistance in selecting laptops which means I get the joys of navigating shitty PC websites for a machine that I will never use (until it breaks).
I made the decision a long time ago to tell folks asking for help "if you want a Mac, I'll give you all the assistance you want but if you want a PC, you're on your own."
Yes, simplicity by definition is something simple. But that's not the issue. I'm talking about the way that simplicity is offered at the expense of freedom of choice.
Freedom of choice by definition needs choices.
If you have twenty choices vs. two; by definition, the former offers more freedom of choice.
More seriously, you have all the choices you want - no one is forcing you to buy a Mac. For the 0.5% of the population who want that freedom, it's there, for a price (both financial and in terms of quality, hassle, ease of purchase, etc).
For the other 99.5%, who want the simplicity, it's there too.
There will always be a benefit to being able to choose. I'd rather have to acquire knowledge, and be able to make an informed choice - than have someone else make that decision for me. I know I'm not the only one.
EDIT: Okay - so why the down-vote? Commenting on any Apple-centric post, with any comment that can be considered even slightly disparaging towards Apple is hazardous.
When it comes to Apple, some people seem to end up exchanging their brains for shiny-hardware. Depressing.
Let's go laptop shopping!
store.apple.com. Presented with pictures of things, with the name of the line under them. I can see (I don't even have to read or select a menu, I can just see!) two types of laptops: the Air and the Pro. One is little and the other is big. Do I want a little laptop or a big laptop? Little! Click on the little one, then click through "select a macbook air." Presented with two more pictures: 11" and 13", each with text underneath offering two options (more or less HDD space). At every point, the gist of what the difference is between the various selections is painfully clear to the shopper.
shop.lenovo.com. Presented with: promo for IdeaPad U300s. What if I want other laptops? Shop -> Laptops & Notebooks in the small text below the big promo. Now I'm presented with three lines of laptops. Aside from color, they look the same. How do I differentiate? One is for "basic everyday computing" the other for "dazzling multimedia experience" and the other for "tools to save time and money." Whereas I didn't even read the marketing copy on the Apple site, because I had pictures that got to the heart of the differences between the models, here I'm stuck reading marketing copy to make a decision. If I select "prices you'll love" does that mean the others will have "prices I'll hate"? Luckily Lenovo has given me a matrix to help me choose. The matrix has 38 rows... Say I blindly click on the ThinkPad. Now I'm presented with 6 series. The bold text to help me differentiate is more marketing copy: "environmentally friendly" versus "mobile freedom." Are some of these laptops not environmentally friendly? Do some lack mobile freedom? The information that is most pertinent to me as a laptop buyer (weight and screen size) is actually at the bottom of the lists in the same font size as the footnotes and legalese!