Primary benefits
The primary benefit of Laminate flooring is that it is one of the most scratch resistant options when it comes to flooring that gives you a wood visual.
Couple that together with its overall affordability, and there's no wonder this category of flooring has grown over the years.
Material thickness
The general consensus with laminate flooring is that thicker is better. The thickness of a laminate floor comes from its MDF/HDF core. Total thickness tends to range from 6mm (1/4") to 12mm (1/2").
This typically doesn't directly correspond to durability, but since laminate floors are installed using the floating method, thicker floors do tend to feel and sound more like hardwood.
Quick point about "hollow" or "squishy" or "bouncy" laminate floors - if you use any of those words to describe a floor, it was most likely an installation related issue, not the fault of the actual flooring material.
individual planks vs. "x-on-1" visuals
Some entry-level laminates may be ~7" wide, but have a a visual of 2 or 3 smaller pieces of wood on the same piece of laminate. This imitates the look of traditional narrow strip hardwood flooring while not requiring installers to click together 2 or 3 times the number of laminate planks. The only real drawback here is that at the end of eavery piece of laminate, you may have the visual of 2 or 3 planks joining together - something that wouldn't happen with actual hardwood strip flooring.
Most modern laminate will have visuals that match the size of the laminate material, so a 5" wide laminate will have a picture of a 5" wide piece of wood.
durability and moisture resistance
The durability of laminate flooring is usually rated using a scale of its abrasion class (AC) between 1 and 5 that objectively measures how the clear top layer of the laminate will stand up to abrasion before the visual/photo layer is impacted. Floors Come True only sells material rated at least AC-3 or higher or its equivalent.
Many products claim to be moisture resistant even water proof. Our flooring professionals will gladly discuss this with you in more detail to see if Laminate really is a good fit for your particular application.