I just want a small, normal laptop *sob*

[drspouse]

My beloved red laptop, approx 12" screen, is on its last legs. The wifi card seems to have failed and the trackpad requires at least one extra restart to get going (and it's the same if I plug in a USB mouse), and the battery hardly lasts.

While I could get these replaced (I"m working off a USB Wifi stick now) I'm shopping now for a replacement in case this one gives up entirely and I lose stuff (more time in setting it up again as I back everything up).

But I really don't want a touch screen, and everything seems to have a touch screen. I actually struggle with controlling a trackpad (I can't drag and drop and have never been able to work out what I'm doing wrong). I can use an Ipad but I can't do much precision work.

And I want something small - I am not very big, but I do have to carry it around sometimes, including things like long walks to meetings from train stations, with my overnight stuff in my backpack too.

So assuming I don't want to spend £1000s, what kind of thing would I like?

And how do I get over my fear of trackpads (or what can I get instead? I always forget to take my USB mouse with me).

PS I currently have a Lenovo, and I am not AS bad using a Mac trackpad, though it's still not my favourite (as my DS would say).

Lenova Thinkpad with a nipple mouse possibly

For cut and paste
CTRL+C: Copy
CTRL+X: Cut
CTRL+V: Paste
CTRL+Z: Undo

I bought a lovely 11 inch Acer tablet from EBay Windows 10 £66 ideal for what you need. That said I am geeky so do understand specs and what I am buying.

What about a 14"? This one looks nice, for example.

www.johnlewis.com/hp-pavilion-14-al015na-laptop-intel-core-i3-8gb-ram-1tb-14-natural-silver/p2825660?navAction=jump

No touchscreen! I like tablets but am not a fan of PC touchscreens.

Cut and paste isn't a problem (erm yes I knew those codes!), it's drag and drop.
I currently have a Thinkpad and could dislocate my finger before I get the cursor to move using that red thing, if that's a nipple mouse!

I always use a USB mouse. I think you just need to remember to bring it.

Tipsy I really don't want a tablet! Not only would I struggle with typing/cursor control, but I need a proper OS for work stuff.
I think 14" would be too big. DH has a 13" and that might be OK but it's really pushing it.

Poo that works when at a meeting etc but not really on the train/sofa.

It is NOT a Tablet I bought a laptop. Its 11 inch Windoze 10 £66 500gb hard drive, 4 GB ram quad core CPU. Fab bargains on EBay if you know your tech :)

Sorry I didn't do my research! I had an Acer as my previous laptop and I don't remember the trackpad being quite so annoying so I will check that out.

I have a lenovo 100S, cost me £100, and it's not bad considering (though it has a shitty trackpad that won't do gestures e.g. pinch to zoom, 2 finger scrolling, etc., and is quite slow); I just stick it in my bag to use while I'm away from home and I don't care if it gets bashed and chipped for that price.

The computer is slow, I mean, not the trackpad. But I only need browser and Word.

Also it's red.

this

I don't think there is an option other than a USB mouse really. But you can control a lot of things on a computer just by using the keyboard; I would look into learning keyboard shortcuts for things and then you'll only need to use the trackpad occasionally when there's something you need to click on.

Just for starters if you press tab you can switch between items on a page. Home/End and PgUp/PgDown are good for navigation. Alt + Tab allows you to switch windows. Alt + F4 closes a window. Alt on its own usually opens the menus (File, Edit, etc), you might need to press the down arrow to The windows key will open the start bar and then you can use the arrow keys to navigate from there. Within a text or on a webpage, arrow keys + shift will select items, ctrl+shift to select whole items at a time. Shift + home or end will select from that point to the beginning or end of the document.

What are you trying to drag and drop? Normally you can get that function more easily with copy/cut and paste anyway. Drag and drop is the one which is supposed to be a more visual alternative.

I'm trying to drag actual windows mainly, but also things like working with pictures. I do a lot of different things for work - various geeky programs - and Windows is not well designed to work with just keyboard. You can't do things like open different folders, scroll down a list of folders, attach something in web mail (work with web mail at all), browse the internet, shop, select columns or scroll in Excel or my analysis program. You name it, you're using the mouse.

I know and use all those shortcuts and many more already. On a Mac the trackpad a is fine but some of the programs I use don't work well on OSX.

Iced That's what I have and as I said above, I could break my fingers before it does what I need!