from my experience, unless you buy the premium brands (mostly lenovo and sony), there is no difference in the brands. I have a cheap acer that looks pretty good and is in a fine shape 3 and a half years later, but way more expensive asus and samsungs my friends have are made from such a cheap plastic, that it sqeaks and slightly twists when you take it in your hands.
so, don't judge the brand, and just try the particular laptop yourself.
performance-wise, i'd just suggest to get an SSD, as it's even more beneficial for a laptop, because everything will be stored in it, unlike in desktops, and laptop HDDs are even worse than desktop ones.
at that price range, you will probably have to install one on your own, but it's definitely worth it, even if you end up with way worse laptop.
you will also need to decide, do you need 256GB of storage, or will 128GB do just fine, obviously second is way cheaper.
tl;dr - brand doesn't matter, check the quality yourself, and get an SSD