[Wylug-discuss] Laptop Recommendation

[Smylers]

Hello. Anybody like to recommend a laptop?

(Or a sane website for searching for laptops by criteria I care about,
rather than first making me pick which sub-brand of laptop I want or
define what sort of customer I am?)

I'm hoping that finding somebody who already owns something along the
following lines will be less painful than my previous approach of
interrogating various websites -- which surely should be trying to take
my money -- into providing useful information about what they're
selling:

* weight less than 1.5 kg
* screen about 12"
* decent touchpad (see below)
* SD card slot
* Bluetooth
* VGA port
* 3-years' on-site support (or preferably 4)
* decent amount of memory
* solid-state hard disk

I really liked the Synaptics touchpad in the Dell X300 I bought 8 years
ago. I didn't realise how good this was until I replaced that computer
with a Dell D430 4 years later: that came with an Alps touchpad
described as "Synaptics compatible" but in practice can't distinguish
gestures the Synaptics one could, such as between pressing 2 and 3
fingers, and circular scrolling isn't as precise.

Anybody got anything like that?

The Dell Latitude E6220 looks like it might be a contender, but I
couldn't find the touchpad manufacturer in its technical specs. When my
previous 3-year warranty with them was expiring they offered the option
to purchase a 4th year; hopefully that would be the case here as well
(though I can't find anywhere which says that). Buying a Dell might have
the advantage of still being able to use my existing power supplies and
external DVD drive. 

The ThinkPad X220 also looks plausible. Anybody able to report on the
touchpad? Or whether they off warranty extensions to 4 years?

With a MacBook Air it looks like I'd have to get the 13.3" model to get
an SD card slot (which might be either be a bit bigger than I want for
convenient packing or useful extra screen pixels for the same weight as
the competition). Anybody run Linux on one and able to report on the
touchpad?

Apparently various other companies make laptops too, but finding out
about them was just too painful. Suggestions of any I should consider
welcome.

Thanks in advance.

Smylers
-- 
http://twitter.com/Smylers2