Here my list of items I consider when choosing a laptop:
Small, transportable screen size and form factor -- 14" or 15".
Wifi and bluetooth.
Thunderbolt charging, USB-A and USB-C slots.
HDMI connection.
Good battery. At least 8 h.
Fingerprint reader. Optional.
Centered keyboard, no numpad. (Usually achieved by small form factor).
Good touchpad. Read reviews of similar laptops.
16 GB of RAM. At least.
Silent cooling.
Good CPU.
Linux supported graphics card (!).