So most of us my age would probably start by getting a somewhat cheap laptop, my first laptop was a strange laptop that I found out was actually produced by ECS, or a daughter company to them, had I known that before I bought it, even back then I would not have done it, but this laptop also came as a Fujitsu Siemens laptop and a few others, it had a nice screen 15.4" at a resolution we sadly almost never see in 15" laptops, 1680x1050, the keyboard was nice, and it only had a touch pad, and for the longest while I was perfectly happy with that, but as I said this was made by ECS so slowly but surely the laptop broke, the PSU died, battery died, screen started getting stripes, it was the typical ECS experience, anyway when it Died I was almost done with my education, and considering the lenght of my education, that was pretty well done, anyway, I did some work for my brother as he was starting a company and in return he would get me a laptop, now I had seen a laptop I had chosen for him some months before, and it was a Lenovo T61 because my brother works as a carpenter, so the laptop needs to be quite durable, and I knew from what people had said IBM/Lenovo T-series are some of the best, unless you get those military laptops or Toughbooks but yes.
So I said I would love to get one of those, it ended up becoming the Lenovo T500, not that I would complain, except for the horrible GMA 4500 it was quite a nice laptop, the thing I noticed was instantly I was completely compelled to use the trackpoint, I think I did use the touchpad mostly in the beginning, but the fact that you can use your mouse without moving your hands is just a feature I can't help but praise, I know it sounds lazy, but I've had this laptop for about 2 years now, and honestly it's worth if considering how quick and precise you can go from typing to moving the mouse. Lately though I've been looking for a new laptop, not because this is outdated, it's actually still fast and just works, but because I do want one that is a bit smaller, and doesn't come with Intel graphics(The world would be a better place without ECS and Intel graphics)
But I found myself looking for certain features, and sometimes I would find the perfect laptop, but the lack of a trackpoint just gets to me, so I will most likely pay up and get a Lenovo again, this time though I'm looking for one without Intel graphics.
So yeah touchpads are fine, but the trackpoints, once you get use to it is a feature you would want it to be mandatory on every keyboard.
On a quick note though, I've worked with certain Dell computers, some of them pull off the trackpoint ok(Like the old D630), but some others, like the E6410 is a damn pain on standard settings, because not only is it hyper sensitive, some brainiac thought you should be able to click on it, a feature made in hell, because when you get use to not resting your finger on it and decide you want to try and click on it, you just end up making a mess on your desktop or in whatever document you were working on, the safest approach would to just get a Lenovo.
*UPDATE*
I fell at the end of November and broke my leg, and sadly I landed on my T500, it hit the motherboard somehow that made it simply not boot, you can see where there was most pressure, and it was underneath it just under the north bridge.
