Laptop choices

[Bartosz Fabianowski]

> Or, can the touch pads be disabled in the bios?

I have a Dell Inspiron 8600C, which only has a touch pad. *But* its 
immediate predecessor, the 8600, had a track pad and one of those little 
pink joysticks (what are they called anyway?) and I know for a fact that 
the keyboard and wrist rest in the 8600C can be swapped for the 8600 
model, which is often available cheaply on eBay. So, you could get a 
reasonably new 8600C (they were only replaced by the 6000 line a couple 
of months ago) and add the stick you like for a couple bucks. But I 
think that the touch pad will still be enabled - unless you cut a couple 
of wires, which shouldn't matter much because in case of a warranty 
return, you can swap back in the original keyboard and wrist rest, so 
nobody at Dell will see the cut wires :).

Of course, this is not a Thinkpad clone, but it is a very good laptop 
nonetheless (especially the awesome 15.4" 1920x1200 screen).

- Bartosz