Laptops, and the acquisition thereof

There is a possibility that I will obtain a Laptop at some point soon. Now, hopefully a rather tech-savvy person will look at the previous sentence, and notice that 'a Laptop' is a rather broad term. And right you are for noticing that: I recognize that there are many variations of laptops, but I am discombobulated at to what sort to get.

So, essentially, this thread is for recommendations for Laptops, and informing those dull on their knowledge of hardware, such as myself, so as not to screw up and buy some overglorified console whose sole purpose is to run Angry Birds.

Things I myself might be looking for in a laptop:

-Usage of Windows 7, as I hear that it is so far Window's best
-A fine keyboard for writing, as that is what I intend its primary function to be
-A strong processor for storing things without bogging down to a snail's pace
-Compatible with a mouse. I hate the typical touch-pad that all laptop's seem to use

Thank you for your time and patience to read this through, and I look forward to your recommendations.

I have an HP dv7. You can customize it to get what you want, so the price range varies, but it has a handy-dandy fingerprint scanner for passwords. It's the most convenient thing of all time, I don't even remember my passwords to half the sites I go on anymore.

...that will probably backfire on me one day. I'd reccomend it. Fingerprint scanner is a little moody, and the laptop is large (plus for me), but it runs fast and works pretty well.

Yeah, and all you need to do is get in some kind of accident to ruin your fingerprints.

My laptop is kind of old, and I honestly don't remember the name of it, so I can't really help. I do know it's an HP... Pavilion, I think, and it runs Windows 7. It's stored all the things I've asked it to, it just doesn't run games very well anymore. As for your mouse issue, every laptop should be capable of doing so. All mice plug into USB ports, I believe.

Heh, you need system specific specifications, of exactly what you want. You then fit the type of laptop, to the specifications. Viola.

Since you do not want it for gaming, it makes it even easier and cheaper. Like, if I were to pull up some random numbers, for what it sounds like you need...

A laptop with a 250-300 GB harddrive with 3-4 GB of RAM should do you just fine. As long as it has a USB port, and all computers, laptop or not, have at least one unless it was made before USB existed, mouse is no problem. Compatible with any laptop.

Now, on keyboard, that is just down to how large the laptop is. The larger it is, the larger the keyboard, and the easier to use, arguably, unless you find a small keyboard easier to use.

Nowadays, laptops by default run Windows 7, because it is the normal really good and stable OS out. You have Vista, which is absolute crap, and stay away from, and you have Windows 8. That is it. So you should have absolutely no problem finding a laptop to run Windows 7.

This is all PC basics, I do not own a laptop so cannot really give you any names right now, but I can take a look later if you like, sleepy now...

And on processors... I am not sure what the usual is for laptops, I want to assume dual cores but you know, I am not as sure on laptops. But yeah, you should find a laptop like that easy, that is like a default factory build pretty much, just comes down to price range.