I'm currently using the laptop
cattitude bought recently (for himself to use when traveling/commuting, mostly). In its favor: it has GAIM already installed. Against: the system has the habit of following links I haven't actually clicked, or going back when I don't ask it to. Also, the keyboard is
larger than I find comfortable, which I didn't expect on a laptop but makes some sense given that it was purchased by someone with much larger hands. I think I'm going to take him up on the offer of connecting my desktop keyboard (and maybe monitor) to it.
ETA: It seems to be configured to treat taking your hand off the trackpad and then putting it back down as a mouse click. So we've plugged in a spare trackball, unfortunately very heavy, and I'm getting by on a combination of that, the trackpad, and using the arrow keys to move around.
None of this delights my shoulder; I think this nice box gets to be shut down and plugged back into the charger soon. I may not be on GAIM for a bit, therefore. (It looks as though the new box won't be shipped until Wednesday, which means I probably won't have use of it until I'm back from my next visit to Adrian.)