My best advice for anyone looking to buy a cheap laptop is:
Go into Currys/Comet/PC World, and try out the keyboard and trackpad/nipple/etc for yourself. If you can get on with it then you're going to save yourself inevitable heartache and disappointment. Then do an about-face, spending no money in the aforementioned shops, and buy it online from a reputable shop that gives you decent aftersales (if you need that).
Aside from that, most components (as is already mentioned) are much of a muchness at those price-points that you're not likely to have any specific pluses or minuses from ownership, so look for differentiation on software bundled with it, and go "Professional" rather than "Home" on Windows if you can.