barrytone Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 Right, I know compativiely little about laptops... I've always been a full tower kinda guy, but I'm moving out for uni and I'm going to be really pushed for space. I've decided I need a laptop, and I'm leaning towards a Dell 640m with a few of the added extras (1gb ram for one). Anyway... Back to the point... Is there anyway to disable the trackpad click? By that I mean: the ability to left-click by tapping the surface of the track pad. I've been using a borrowed old acer laptop, and it's so damn irritating when my thumb touches the track pad and selects a different window or a different section of the piece of code I'm working on etc. As I don't have the laptop yet, I'm unable to poke about in the settings... So if anyone could tell me if there is an option, workaround or a hack to disable the trackpad click, I would be extremely happy! Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 Many of the trackpads I have used have drivers which you can use instead of the generic windows ones which let you customise features like that. I would look their first, I would think that new laptops will have it available, older ones might be harder. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darren Kitchen Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 The trackpad drivers on my old toshiba had a setting that would basically disable the trackpad while typing, thus keeping you from accidently opening other windows :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted June 1, 2006 Author Share Posted June 1, 2006 Thanks guys :) I'll hopefully be able to disable things. I'm torn between Dell and Acer at the moment... It's a tough choice ;) Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 I like Acer personally because they offer AMD laptops, (although if you want AMD then it probably best to wait a few months to get the Turion X2 CPU). Although I hate to admit it "Dell" do make some good stuff (servers and laptops). Although all of dells laptops are really made by Ergo which make some stunning laptops (especially the ones which are armour plated for the army and will stop small arms fire while working as body armour). I suppose the one thing that Dell does have is that you can customise what you want very easily, but it is quite hard to find somewhere to customise an Acer, they all tend to be pre-made machines (at least in the UK). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted June 1, 2006 Author Share Posted June 1, 2006 I like Acer personally because they offer AMD laptops, (although if you want AMD then it probably best to wait a few months to get the Turion X2 CPU).Although I hate to admit it "Dell" do make some good stuff (servers and laptops). Although all of dells laptops are really made by Ergo which make some stunning laptops (especially the ones which are armour plated for the army and will stop small arms fire while working as body armour). I suppose the one thing that Dell does have is that you can customise what you want very easily, but it is quite hard to find somewhere to customise an Acer, they all tend to be pre-made machines (at least in the UK). I completely agree. I used to hate Dell machines... And the idea of buying one. But even for desktops: it's getting to the point where it's very hard to buy components and build a machine of the same quality and performance, but for the same price, as a dell machine. I was almost certainly going to go for a Dell... But then a ton of people recommended Acer. I really need to find somewhere I can try out lots of different laptops. But that can be a pretty hard thing to do, esspecially for Dell :roll: I usualy wouldn't be so indecisive, but because it's for uni, this laptop is going to have to last me for 4 years. I'm really not going to be able to afford to replace or upgrade while I'm on a student budget. Thanks again for everyone's advice :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted June 1, 2006 Share Posted June 1, 2006 I know how you feel about needing the laptop for a long time, i'll be getting one between now and september before I go off to uni. You could always look at IBM/Lenovo, as they also have some very nice hardware, plus good linux support if you are interested in that. Best place to try out laptops is the net, read plenty of reviews, its the best way to get a feel for something you can't touch. Its also worth looking at comments by owners because they might pick up on something someone else didn't, but remember they might not be telling the truth, purposefully or accidently. As you are in the UK, if you haven't already check out www.ebuyer,com for some pre-built ones, they generally have a good range of Acer models and I've never had a problem with using ebuyer (although their enotes system is crap). The hardest thing to get in the laptop at the moment is fairly decent graphics, most laptops seem to have ATi which I dislike and the rest have crappy nVidia, getting somthing around the 6600/7600 mark is difficult. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
degoba Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I have an acer. Ive had it for 4 months and so far I pretty much love it. Its a mobile sempron so it runs a little on the hot side but you can buy laptop cooling pads that work just fine. It has good linux support, but be prepared to have to buy a pcmia wireless card. Acers built in wireless chipsets are broadcom and have virtually no linux support. Everything else however works great. I might also recomend the crystalbright screen. Watching movies on it is like watching them in hd. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparda Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I like laptops as portable computers. I hate laptop keyboards and mouse interfaces. If I had a laptop I would use a seperate keyboard and mouse where ever posible. Obviusly if I was on the move it would be very impractical, but if I know I will have access to a desk I would try and bring a keyboard and mouse. Even if it was just a crappy fold up keyboard and some kind of small mouse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted June 2, 2006 Author Share Posted June 2, 2006 I have an idea... I hearby proclaim this thread's topic changed to: "What laptop do you own/use, and what are your likes and dislikes about it?" :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stingwray Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I own a Toshiba 3110CT which is brillant. It has a 300MHz Pentium II (with MMX) and 128MB of PC100 SDRAM, followed by a 6.4GB 2.5" IDE HDD and 2.5MB of Graphics Memory. Plus it only has a 12" screen which means its tiny. Bad points about it are that its not very powerful, which means anything I run on it has to be light and I have to code my stuff to be light. Good points, its fits into a A4 folder and it makes the perfect Wardriving machine/text editor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgia_tech_swagger Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I have a Thinkpad T21. Mobile PIII 800 Mhz - 256 MB SDRAM - DVD-Rom - 20 GB HD. It doesn't have a trackpad. It has the infamous "little red nub". I love it. I never have to leave home row to move the mouse or left click or right click. Really very nice and efficient. And like every T-series Thinkpad... it's super thin, super light, and built to last. Linux works like a dream, and is very fast despite the older hardware. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barrytone Posted June 2, 2006 Author Share Posted June 2, 2006 I have a Thinkpad T21.Mobile PIII 800 Mhz - 256 MB SDRAM - DVD-Rom - 20 GB HD. It doesn't have a trackpad. It has the infamous "little red nub". I love it. I never have to leave home row to move the mouse or left click or right click. Really very nice and efficient. And like every T-series Thinkpad... it's super thin, super light, and built to last. Linux works like a dream, and is very fast despite the older hardware. I'm a little put off by thinkpads... I've very briefly had two of them in the past. The mouse went on both of them. I've been asked to fix one or two aswell... Always the same problem. That mouse nipple is just not reliable. Shame... I liked the laptops otherwise. *sigh*... I've now managed to add yet another laptop into my already tough decision... Anyone ever used a HP Pavilion dv1588? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anyedie Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 i have a pretty heavly customized Latitude D810! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonlit Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 I have a Toshiba Satellite 4000CDT which has had its keyboard section removed and lid/screen reversed to appear as a tablet-style computer. I have yet to actually attach the front bezel to the base of the machine so you have to be very careful when moving it. 12" (?) DSTN LCD @800x600x24bit, 233MHz iPII with 32MB RAM and 4GB Toshiba HDD. Upgraded with wifi capabilities with a crappy C&W 802.11b/g PCCard. It's been through too many OSs to mention but it's currently running Windows 98 alongside MacOS 8, RISCOS 3.1 and Amiga Workbench 3.1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted June 2, 2006 Share Posted June 2, 2006 Got a Toshiba Tecra S1 through work. 1.7GHz Pentium M, a gig of mem and 20 gigs of diskspace. It's decent. I would, however, NEVER buy a laptop for myself. In terms of upgradability you're fucked. Maybe a bigger harddisk or more memory, but both are WAY more expensive than desktop hardware, and typically slower. I've so far only once found myself in a situation where the mobility of the laptop was useful. For me, it's just not worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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