Are you sure? Before buying the laptop, which test can you (or some reviewer) run that will say if the keyboard will start having issues after 6 months or if the lid will break after 10?
When you look at the numbers (I presume you mean the number of CPUs, their frequency, the amount of RAM, etc), on the paper they all have something similar. How do you know if one has higher-quality RAM than the other?
There are lines of products (like macbooks or thinkpads) where you can check the quality of earlier models, but macbooks and thinkpads are on the higher end. My friends who want Windows don't go for thinkpads...
I agree with this. For a lot of people where midrange-ish kind of specs more than fulfil their compute needs, the spec list practically doesn't matter. So long as they tick some basic numbers it'll be fine. With their needs a gig of RAM is a gig of RAM for the most part.
But that's not really the thing with the laptop recommendation question. It then comes down to how good of a hinge on the screen. How much flex does the body have when you actually hold it and use it. How janky are the ports. Does the trackpad and keyboard feel terrible to use? Do you feel like you risk cracking it in half tossing it in a backpack and carrying it across town? These are things where there aren't necessarily hard benchmarks and can be difficult to ascertain by just looking at listing photos.
Outside of some things like Thinkpads and Macbooks I often have a difficult time making real laptop recommendations without actually going to the store and holding the machine or hearing a trusted(ish) reviewer comment on the relative build qualities. It can be pretty easy to tell case rigidity when its in your hands. You can tell if a hinge feels like crap or not moving the screen a few times.
When you look at the numbers (I presume you mean the number of CPUs, their frequency, the amount of RAM, etc), on the paper they all have something similar. How do you know if one has higher-quality RAM than the other?
There are lines of products (like macbooks or thinkpads) where you can check the quality of earlier models, but macbooks and thinkpads are on the higher end. My friends who want Windows don't go for thinkpads...