If what you are looking for is a laptop to use mainly for office applications and internet surfing, you don't really need to go crazy with extra memory and very fast processors. You can also put aside the fancy graphics cards and other special features that will mainly add to the price but not to the benefit you will get from the purchase. With that being said you should invest enough money to buy a laptop that won't become obsolete after a year or two.
One of the most important things you should take in to account is whether the company, whose laptop you end up buying, has a good service station near the place you live. Everything may be fine in the beginning but once something goes wrong, you'll be happy to get good technical support.
In order to give concrete advice one would have to know your budget but in general you should be looking for, an intel Duo Core processor with around 1.8 Ghz. I would go for at least 1 Gb of SDRAM and a DVD drive that can read and write. If all i've said till now sounds like Swahili I would go and read a bit about these terms. After that you'll be able to check out some great review sites and get a better picture of specific models that may be appropriate for you. Best of luck.
Here are a few sites to start from:
http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/
http://www.pcworld.com/ic/laptops/