Need a New Laptop ...

[Zoom-boing]

I hate the touchpad. When I worked, I used to have the IT department disable it, just so I could use the eraser head. Unfortunately, every laptop out is using the touchpad. I am a touch typist and hit the keys pretty hard when I'm motoring over the keyboard. As a result, it will cause the cursor to float everywhere, and if I am not vigilant will highlight and erase what I have just typed. All laptops have this annoying problem. Instead of resting the heels of my hand on the table below the keypad, I have to keep my hands raised and just dab at the keys, just to keep erasing what I have typed previously. If a laptop were my only computer, I would have to install an extra keyboard because the laptop keyboard leaves a lot to be desired.

That happens to me too! I'm always hitting the damn touchpad by mistake and bouncing the cursor around and erasing things. I end up resting the front of my forearm on the laptop and keep my wrists in the air.

I rarely use the touchpad on my Dell, don't like it. I prefer a mouse because I feel like I have more control. Or maybe i'm just old school. lol I do have to say, though, that the touchpads on some of the computers I tried out were realllly nice. You can zoom, move, enlarge with them (like you would on an ipad or other tablet). They were on some of the touchscreen laptops.

 

[XPostFacto]

I tried disabling the touchpad, but when I do that, it also disables the external mouse, so you have to have the touchpad working whether you like it or not.

I noticed in Windows 8 that you can use the touchpad to magnify or minimize your laptop view. I always get it all screwed up, so rather than use the touch pad, I press the Ctrl key and use the middle mouse button when I'm using the external mouse, which is just about all the time.

 

[Zoom-boing]

[QUOTE="XPostFacto, post: 10042989, member: 43863"]I tried disabling the touchpad, but when I do that, it also disables the external mouse, so you have to have the touchpad working whether you like it or not.

I noticed in Windows 8 that you can use the touchpad to magnify or minimize your laptop view. I always get it all screwed up, so rather than use the touch pad, I press the Ctrl key and use the middle mouse button when I'm using the external mouse, which is just about all the time.[/QUOTE]

I've disabled the touchpad on my Dell laptop and the mouse still works. It's wireless mouse.

 

[XPostFacto]

[QUOTE="XPostFacto, post: 10042989, member: 43863"]I tried disabling the touchpad, but when I do that, it also disables the external mouse, so you have to have the touchpad working whether you like it or not.

I've disabled the touchpad on my Dell laptop and the mouse still works. It's wireless mouse.

I've got an HP, and it was the case with the wired mouse. I never did recheck it with the wireless. I will see how it does and report back. I principally use my desktop, since it is my gaming machine.

 

[MikeK]

I tried disabling the touchpad, but when I do that, it also disables the external mouse, so you have to have the touchpad working whether you like it or not.

I noticed in Windows 8 that you can use the touchpad to magnify or minimize your laptop view. I always get it all screwed up, so rather than use the touch pad, I press the Ctrl key and use the middle mouse button when I'm using the external mouse, which is just about all the time.

I can recommend the Ligitech MS70 wireless trackball as the solution to your problem. I have two, one for a desktop and one for a laptop and could not be more impressed and satisfied with them.

Extremely simple to use. Just disable the touchpad and plug the tiny receiver into a USB port. The MS70 is very small, stationary, requires very little space to use, and it works flawlessly. I can't praise it enough.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

I hate the touchpad. When I worked, I used to have the IT department disable it, just so I could use the eraser head. Unfortunately, every laptop out is using the touchpad. I am a touch typist and hit the keys pretty hard when I'm motoring over the keyboard. As a result, it will cause the cursor to float everywhere, and if I am not vigilant will highlight and erase what I have just typed. All laptops have this annoying problem. Instead of resting the heels of my hand on the table below the keypad, I have to keep my hands raised and just dab at the keys, just to keep erasing what I have typed previously. If a laptop were my only computer, I would have to install an extra keyboard because the laptop keyboard leaves a lot to be desired.

I do that too!
Drives me nuts. I will be typing along - glance up and I am typing two paragraphs up!!
I hate that.

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I would stay away from Toshiba.

Picked up an ASUS multi media laptop a couple months ago and it's been flawless.
While it's a little out of your price range they do have some lower priced models.

I've had two Toshibas and liked them both. They seemed to be real workhorses. I just didn't like what I saw with what's available right now and Acer has gotten to be a big name.

Also, we had a small Acer for travel and liked it well enough although I prefer my iPad. Ended up giving the Acer to our house cleaner's son. Now have a small Samsung Chrome, brand new and will be giving it to a friend's son. Gotta stop buying new computers and giving them away.

I've had two Toshibas and they both sucked.

 

[Ringel05]

We brought it back today, looked at some others and she found (almost) exactly what she wanted. Lenovo Yoga 2, (a 2 in 1) 13", yeah she said she would get used to the size, just finished setting it up for her.

 

[XPostFacto]

I tried disabling the touchpad, but when I do that, it also disables the external mouse, so you have to have the touchpad working whether you like it or not.

I noticed in Windows 8 that you can use the touchpad to magnify or minimize your laptop view. I always get it all screwed up, so rather than use the touch pad, I press the Ctrl key and use the middle mouse button when I'm using the external mouse, which is just about all the time.

I can recommend the Ligitech MS70 wireless trackball as the solution to your problem. I have two, one for a desktop and one for a laptop and could not be more impressed and satisfied with them.

Extremely simple to use. Just disable the touchpad and plug the tiny receiver into a USB port. The MS70 is very small, stationary, requires very little space to use, and it works flawlessly. I can't praise it enough.

I had a wireless mouse on my desktop but destroyed it playing melee games such as Skyrim and Assassins Creed. I went back to my wired mouse. I still use a wireless on my laptop, but it has the annoying fault of dropping out until I pull out and reinsert the USB receiver.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

We brought it back today, looked at some others and she found (almost) exactly what she wanted. Lenovo Yoga 2, (a 2 in 1) 13", yeah she said she would get used to the size, just finished setting it up for her.

My wife wanted a chromebook. She loves it. There is a lot to be said for "instant on" - you open it up and in a blink it is up. Love that. And the battery last forever.
Too little for my hands though.

 

[MikeK]

I had a wireless mouse on my desktop but destroyed it playing melee games such as Skyrim and Assassins Creed. I went back to my wired mouse. I still use a wireless on my laptop, but it has the annoying fault of dropping out until I pull out and reinsert the USB receiver.

The Logitech MS70 is not a wireless mouse. It is a wireless trackball, meaning it remains fixed in one place and you effect all movement with your thumb. And as previously mentioned, I have two of them and both have been working flawlessly since I got them over a year ago.

 

[Zoom-boing]

So my laptop hinge is still giving me problems, as is the battery/cord. (battery no longer charges, cord is duct taped into the laptop and still doesn't stay put, externally charge the battery). So I bought the Lenovo laptop. Really like it, great backlit keyboard, Windows 8.1 is not nearly as intimidating and awful as I thought, touchscreen is nice, touchpad is great, downloaded Classic Shell, am getting rid of useless apps, got mah Firefox add-ons to pretty up and also secure everything. My only complaint is that the battery life succccckkkkkkssssss. Initially it was like 6 or 7 hours but now that I'm up and running, it doesn't even get 3. Tried disabling some programs on startup but that didn't do much good. The fan is constantly running (which is what's sucking the battery dry imo). Any suggestions as to how to improve the battery life?

 

[iamwhatiseem]

So my laptop hinge is still giving me problems, as is the battery/cord. (battery no longer charges, cord is duct taped into the laptop and still doesn't stay put, externally charge the battery). So I bought the Lenovo laptop. Really like it, great backlit keyboard, Windows 8.1 is not nearly as intimidating and awful as I thought, touchscreen is nice, touchpad is great, downloaded Classic Shell, am getting rid of useless apps, got mah Firefox add-ons to pretty up and also secure everything. My only complaint is that the battery life succccckkkkkkssssss. Initially it was like 6 or 7 hours but now that I'm up and running, it doesn't even get 3. Tried disabling some programs on startup but that didn't do much good. The fan is constantly running (which is what's sucking the battery dry imo). Any suggestions as to how to improve the battery life?

If your CPU fan is constantly running, then I would call Lenovo. That should not be doing that.
I would suspect a faulty connection. Lenovo consistently rates high on customer satisfaction so my bet is they will fix the problem quickly.

 

[XPostFacto]

Maybe you haven't set the power options to put the laptop in sleep mode. You do that, and the fan will turn off and be in standby mode. You can set a timer on how much inactivity before the monitor and hard drive go to sleep.

 

[Zoom-boing]

Seems as if disabling some of the start up programs did help. Updates had been installed earlier and I think that's why the fan was running so much. It got quiet hours ago and hasn't started up again. At the risk of repeating myself, the backlit keyboard is da bomb!

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Seems as if disabling some of the start up programs did help. Updates had been installed earlier and I think that's why the fan was running so much. It got quiet hours ago and hasn't started up again. At the risk of repeating myself, the backlit keyboard is da bomb!

Yes they are, you are making me want to buy a new one.
I miss that feature badly. Now I tilt the screen down so the light of the screen illuminates the keys - s u c k s

 

[ChrisL]

So my laptop hinge is still giving me problems, as is the battery/cord. (battery no longer charges, cord is duct taped into the laptop and still doesn't stay put, externally charge the battery). So I bought the Lenovo laptop. Really like it, great backlit keyboard, Windows 8.1 is not nearly as intimidating and awful as I thought, touchscreen is nice, touchpad is great, downloaded Classic Shell, am getting rid of useless apps, got mah Firefox add-ons to pretty up and also secure everything. My only complaint is that the battery life succccckkkkkkssssss. Initially it was like 6 or 7 hours but now that I'm up and running, it doesn't even get 3. Tried disabling some programs on startup but that didn't do much good. The fan is constantly running (which is what's sucking the battery dry imo). Any suggestions as to how to improve the battery life?

My laptop battery life sucks too. I wonder if certain programs use more power to run and therefore more battery life? I swear that if I play downloadable games, my battery gets drained super fast.

Also, my laptop was super cheap. It was all I could afford. No back lit keyboard. Not much for bells and whistles. Scrolling sucks. There is no scroll bar and I have to use the two finger method of scrolling. Also not all that crazy about Windows 8.1, I must say.

 

[ChrisL]

When I went shopping for my laptop, there were some that were well over $1000. I was like !!! Show me to the 300 and 500 dollar laptops!

 

[Zoom-boing]

When I went shopping for my laptop, there were some that were well over $1000. I was like !!! Show me to the 300 and 500 dollar laptops!

I know, right? The Lenovo I bought was $730 at Best Buy, got if for $670 on Amazon and all I heard was 'budget laptop' when asking questions about it. I refuse to pay over $1,000 for a laptop, especially when they don't last very long anyway.

I don't mind windows 8.1 at all. I thought it was going to be just awful but once you understand what they're trying to do, it's ok. I downloaded Classic Shell from here: Classic Shell - Start menu and other Windows enhancements to get the start menu back. Now when I press the 'windows' key on the laptop (bottom left area) the start menu comes up instead of the screen switching to the tiles page. I also went into the settings on the pc to tell it to load directly to the desktop so I don't have to switch from the tiles page. On the tiles page I went through each app and deleted or uninstalled the ones I'll never use. I also set a desktop tile on there just to make it easy to get back to the desktop. I understand what they're trying to do with windows and the app/tiles page ... have it be consistent across all devices. Laptops just don't seem overly conducive to apps, imo, even when you have a touchscreen. This laptop happens to be touchscreen. The only time I use that feature is if I'm using the apps but it isn't necessary. Oh, I do use it to swipe in from the right, to get to the control panel. Half the time I end up re-sizing my browser screen though. lol

Have you tried getting a wireless mouse so you don't have to use the track pad? I'm not a huge fan of the track pads, I fell uncoordinated and slow. I just got a wireless mouse and mousepad set (they match lol) at Target for $25. I prefer Logitech mouse, find them quite comfortable and reliable. Had a Microsoft mouse and it was awful, crappy scrolling. You can get just a mouse for pretty cheap .... $15 or so.

 

[Zoom-boing]

So my laptop hinge is still giving me problems, as is the battery/cord. (battery no longer charges, cord is duct taped into the laptop and still doesn't stay put, externally charge the battery). So I bought the Lenovo laptop. Really like it, great backlit keyboard, Windows 8.1 is not nearly as intimidating and awful as I thought, touchscreen is nice, touchpad is great, downloaded Classic Shell, am getting rid of useless apps, got mah Firefox add-ons to pretty up and also secure everything. My only complaint is that the battery life succccckkkkkkssssss. Initially it was like 6 or 7 hours but now that I'm up and running, it doesn't even get 3. Tried disabling some programs on startup but that didn't do much good. The fan is constantly running (which is what's sucking the battery dry imo). Any suggestions as to how to improve the battery life?

My laptop battery life sucks too. I wonder if certain programs use more power to run and therefore more battery life? I swear that if I play downloadable games, my battery gets drained super fast.

Also, my laptop was super cheap. It was all I could afford. No back lit keyboard. Not much for bells and whistles. Scrolling sucks. There is no scroll bar and I have to use the two finger method of scrolling. Also not all that crazy about Windows 8.1, I must say.

I keep testing the battery. When it's sucky is when the fan is running at high speed. Then the battery just drains within 3 hours. When the fan is running low or not at all (I think Lenovo's are designed for the fan to run most of the time) the battery is better, maybe 5 hours. Still testing that. Games will definitely chew up the battery faster.

The backlit keyboard wasn't something I was looking for but when I went to BB they had several Lenovo laptops (not the one I got though) and they all had the nice to use keyboards and they were all backlit. Maybe the backlit feature is standard on this brand? Don't know but I'm sold on it and will def always want that feature.