I'm choosing a midi keyboard and I'm trying to decide on a good quality one with decent features for under $300.
I'm thinking about going with the novation launchkey 61, but from what I've read, all of its features wont work in Cakewalk sonar. It will work in midi mode I think but I'm not exactly sure as I'm new to control surfaces and midi keyboard brands.
http://global.novationmusic.com/midi-controllers/launchkey
 
It looks comfy and decent to me. It's a personal choice of course and i like the way it looks the best.
 
Is it a decent pick? And are their other decent brands you can recommend me for midi keyboards?

Do yourself the favour and spend the extra $100 on the Impulse. It's well worth it as the keys feel much better than the ones on the LaunchKey. I absolutely love my Novation boards (though I tend to not use AutoMap much at all)

For keys: you should test yourself. They are very different. I repeat that every time on such questions: unlike "Digital Piano", MIDI Keyboards do not have the "reference keys" to imitate. They are free to implement what they want (feel, hardness, response, etc.) in arbitrary wide range.
 
For Control Surface: either you stuck with explicit support for SONAR from particular device (for Novation - AutoMap compatible keyboards) or be prepared to spend quite some time to make it work. Official CW generic plug-ins are limited, my own is alpha (and since I am not from CW, it is not official).

M-Audio Oxygen might be good for you as it did well in a couple of tests and it is less than 300 $.

Roland A300/500/800 controllers are about as plug-and-play with SONAR as they get. They even have an ACT button right on them, although I admittedly mostly use mine for just the keys.

TerraSin
Do yourself the favour and spend the extra $100 on the Impulse. It's well worth it as the keys feel much better than the ones on the LaunchKey. I absolutely love my Novation boards (though I tend to not use AutoMap much at all)

Can you please describe what you mean by feels better? and what does a good keyboard feel like to you?

A good keybed should feel good to you.  I, too, am partial to the Novation line w/ the traditional Fatar keybed.  I've got an Impulse and it works nicely, from keys to knobs.  I've haven't messed with the Launchkey.  But as said above, pick a day and visit a Guitar Center or somewhere where you can "touch" a bunch of keyboards.  Your fingers will let you know which is best.  Fatar (the company that makes them) have been used in most mid-level to upper keyboards and have the usual synth feel - not spongy yet plenty of travel and push back a little when you dig into the bed.  Most cheaper keys feel cheap, the plastic slick, short travel or spongy with no weight.  They work, and only you can decide if the extra $'s are worth it.
 
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I'm honestly thinking about just seeing what happens for christmas and buying everything on my list then.
I dont like going out of my budget so if I have the money I'll see about the impulse. I was going to try and get a digital piano from costco but they took the ones I wanted out of circulation.
The extra dollars does seem questionable but I really just need something decent and to experiment on if push comes to shove with my budget.

If you're not a keyboard player, it's difficult to know what constitutes a "better" feeling keyboard, but most or all the budget priced keyboard controllers these days feel like crap and are not necessarily built to stand the test of time, so take that for what it's worth.
 
If you're a decent keyboard player, then odds are you won't like anything less than the higher end models. If you're a piano player, than none of the synth action / semi-weighted actions will cut it either, and you'll want a good quality 88 note weighted controller. If you're not a keyboard player at all, then none of this really matters, and a middle of the road model might be just fine.
 
I would try and find one that will run on an external power supply (wall wart) and not just USB power, and has real midi ports as well as the usual USB port. (Unless it's never going to leave your studio, and will always be hooked up to a PC.) Why? Well, it'll gives you more options depending on your needs, & whether or not you want to use it without a pc to control a rack synth or something.
 
 
 
 
 
 

nektar impact lx61 is also sonar ready...and inexpensive. Nice build, local company...
see here