Modern laptops are horrible and have been since they stopped making any without that horrible chiclet keyboard, modern trackpads are also very bad.

If that ever becomes a problem, you can always buy a cheap (wireless even) external mouse and keyboard, and use them with the laptop.

That said, some chiclet keyboards are actually quite good, so good that many external keyboards nowadays also come with a chiclet keys (e.g. Logitech K360 and many others) instead of the more traditional deep keys. And I hardly ever even use my laptops with the trackpad anyway, 95% of the time with a mouse, so I am pretty much unaffected by the quality of the trackpad.

I use a traditional (external) keyboard at work and also sometimes at home, and when I use the laptop or Logitech K360 chiclet keys (like now when I am writing this), I don't get a "damn using this chiclet keyboard sucks so much!"-feeling. So apparently I feel the chiclet keyboards are fine, even when compared to traditional keyboards.

And I've noticed that in gaming the keyboard (chiclet or not) matters even less than in writing long messages or documents.

Yeah. Maybe he should just cancel his trip to Japan, then.

Funny. I quite like the chiclet design. Took a little getting used to their new design, but overall I definitely prefer them over the old designs - I certainly don't miss that horrible clickety-clack of the old mechanical keyboards. Works like a charm for me. Trackpads have never been that good for extended periods of use at the best of times. Most of us lappie power users have almost always a mouse plugged in.

Actually, I have a relatively new Lenovo and write on it constantly for 8 hours a day - I was trying out a fair amount of external keyboards to make my life easier, but what do you know .. I have stuck with its keyboard in the end, as it's by far the easiest to use. For whatever reason I didn't even give it a chance in the first place.

Chiclets are cripplingly uncomfortable and imprecise. And I'm not talking about mechanical keyboards, so I don't know where you got that. Lenovo made the best laptops in the world, and didn't use chiclet, until they got sold to the Chinese and become cheap plastic crap with chiclet KB.

Alright, I think I've pretty much settled on a Sager with i7-4700MQ, 8gb and one GTX780M.

But a lot of places come with Windows 8 standard and charge extra to change to Windows 7. Is Windows 8 really that bad that it's worth going to 7?

if you like playing games I suggest taking your pc, laptops aren't that good for games. :D

I'm interested to hear what you think of the Sager, should that be your purchase. I was -thisclose- to getting one on my last go-around but the Dell XPS won out by a nose. No regrets with the XPS but I'll consider Sager again next time.

What size chassis / screen are you looking at? 17s are a bit of a chore to lug around, but it sure is nice to have that larger keyboard and screen. All else being equal I wouldn't be surprised if they run a tad cooler, too, what with the extra room for ventilation.

Oh - have fun in Japan!

No.

If you look beyond the start screen, you find a better 7.

As for the start screen: either you like it and use it and its "modern apps", or you don't like it and you do the same procedure as in 7 and Vista to launch applications - press windows key, start typing part of the application name, press return to launch.

Thanks!

I'm thinking of going with a 17. I don't think I'll walk around with it that much and when I do I think I can handle the weight. There were times going to class where I had so many books with me that I'm pretty sure my backpack weighted more than 15 pounds, so I'm accustomed to this.