Most of the time, a laptop is a laptop is a laptop. However, the really inexpensive, high quality ones from the top manufacturers are that way only because the bells and whistles that you might want for the music/video/multimedia kind of work are not there. Corporations which are the target audeince for the business laps don’t want or need those items and thus the prices are lower.

Business machines are usually bought in bulk and don’t have the fancies that you’d expect from a personal laptop. They all work the same for browsing since your connection type/speed controls that - regardless (usually) of the machine you log into. As long as it’s fairly new, not a 1993 version or anything like that…. you should be good to go.

If you’re buying off a re-sale site (like E-bay or something like that) just make sure that they are legit — you don’t want to end up with a hot machine!

a laptop is a laptop is a laptop, what will separate the men from the sheep will be components in it and if the load vista business os or office suite but the machine can have the same specs, if it costs less it would be features that are included

lower prices usually means less quality components
less ram less cpu speed less hard drive space no dvdrw drive etc.. etc

Most of the time the business ones are not as pretty looking as the home versions there are usually differences in some of the features that normal computers come with that are more for home users.

But as far as using it for a basic computer and all the needs you listed you can go with the cheaper version and just be fine.