HEL80; New to barebones, lots of questions, install OS yourself?

Hi, after vacillating through lots of weird models not locally available here in Finland (and a few not so weird, like HP nc6400), I'm starting to lean heavily towards a HEL80. From here.

I'm a lap-person, so any comments on heat and noise? General comments on build-quality, buttons etc? What about the touchpad? I'm partial to Synaptics - what touchpad does the HEL80 have?
(As an aside, it's weird: 3 years ago when I was last shopping for a laptop (and ended up with a hp nc4000) I had no trouble finding specs on touchpads - I think I scratched one or two alternatives because of non-synaptics - but now that info doesn't seem to be available anywhere)

And what processor would you recommend with that in mind? "My" reseller doesn't offer a lot of options, I was thinking I would go with the T7200.
I was also thinking getting the 100GB 7200rpm HD instead of their standard offer of 120GB 5400rpm - is the speed of the HD a (big) factor in heat?

Another question I have is about including an OS or not? I really don't want to deal with Vista (so far nothing in it I want, a few things I don't want and mostly stuff I couldn't care less about), so I'd be staying with XP pro.
Most standard installs I've seen are absolutely not to my taste, and I think I or some family member, might have an old full version of xpp lying around somewhere. So why pay ~145 euros for something I already have, right?
But... might it be worth it just for the ease of getting to know my new tool/toy when it arrives?
(I have re-installed xpp (both official and "tweaked versions") on my current laptop, and one or two desktops - but when you *re*-install, you sort of know what to expect and what you want to change - a virgin install scares me a bit.)

Am I right in assuming that if I buy it with an OS the reseller will install it for me, along with all the drivers? (Of course I will ask them, but not much chance of them answering until after Easter)

And generally, when you buy a machine like this, does it come with a gazillion driver-CDs? Or do I have to hunt around on the net for them?

And is there a smaller, 6-cell?, battery available (anywhere, but within EU of course preferable)? The thing jutting out at the back is seriously ugly!

What else?
Yes, just in general, please please as many comments (and pointers to reviews etc) as you can muster about the chassi/casing itself!

I'm the kind of person for whom build and design ( and keyboard! - I have small hands and actually liked the old smaller keyboards on many notebooks, no chance of finding one today unless I go for a sub-sub notebook, and I need a larger screen and a built-in DVD) are extremely important.
It took my 1+ year to get over my anger at the "presentation"-button on my current lapwarmer not being (easily) re-assignable, and the wifi&BT button being combined into one (most stupid thing ever - on the go, wanting to conserve battery you need only BT to connect via your GSM/only wlan to hook up to a hotspot).

How about dust- and finger-print magnetism? Not only the surface, even more important is how much, and how easily, gunk gets sucked into the machine. I'm not very good at doing thorough (internal-) cleanings regularly, and I live and work in a very dusty environment (and spill cigarette ash and breadcrumbs...).

 

Build quality is excellent. the buttons can be reprogrammed via a program called 'Sidewalker', so you can make them do whatever you want.

What are you doing with this laptop? If your doing mostly word processing, some movie watching and some games, the T7200 would be overkill. Save yourself some dough and get a T5600 instead. If your doing movie or graphics editing/converting etc. then it would probably be a good thing to get.

It all depends what you are doing. In general a 7200RPM hard drive would create noticeably more heat (on the order of ~5 degrees C) than a 5400 RPM one. And, if your doing movies / word processing / games, you would not need a hard drive that fast. Unless, again, your doing things like graphic and movie editing.

Don't buy XP if you already have it. Just install it via your cd you own and use the drivers cd (theres only 1) that comes with your laptop and your good to go.

The keyboard is OK, but I would highly suggest you test it out for yourself if at all possible, since it sounds like you are picky with keyboards (I don't mean that in a negative way, everyones picky about something. I'm picky with sound quality). This keyboard has some flex, and is not rock solid. Personally, I think its more than adequate (though not perfect).

Heres the review from this website, if you haven't looked at it already.
http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3060&review=Compal

 

Thanks!

Well it's only ~40 euros more for the T7200 vs the T5600, so not too big an investment compared to the whole machine.
The thing that is frustrating me most about my 3 year old hp nc4000 (so the model is even older, when I bought it it was already being replaced) is trying to work with Photoshop, InDesign and other programs like that.
And I'd like to feel that I at least have the possibility to do something with video if I'd like (combine avi's with subtitles and re-encode it with hard subs for instance, or strip one soundtrack and replace it with another, that kind of thing).

Five degrees? Yikes! Hmmm. Double hmmmm. Perhaps I should start out with the "standard" HD then. If I start feeling it's a bottleneck I can always swap it out later, right? (My external USB2 HD wouldn't be as fast as an internal at 7200 RPM, or would it? I've never even thought to test it, only used it as storage, since my current lapwarmer is so old and slow.)

That's good to know! So it's basically just boot it up, partition/format, install and then insert the driver CD? Would the drivers be fussy to be installed on a "tweaked" XP? (I know, I know - it is probably illegal to use anything but original media etc etc, but grrr! I've paid for that OS and if some kind soul has designed a wonderful versions that turns off all the crap I hate I don't see why I shouldn't use it </rant>

That is a tiny bit worrying. But probably one of those things that one gets used to. Unfortunately there is probably no chance to test it out myself - my "local reseller" is 400 km away...
But I'm used to this - actually getting to handle any notebook here exept for the "supermarket" models (HP's, Fujitsu's, Acer's, Toshiba's, Sony's and recently LG's cheap models) is more or less impossible.
As long as the keyboard isn't super-flexy and plasticky it will probably not be a problem. If the worst comes to the worst I could always clean up my nc4000 and use that keyboard over some remote-desktop or such when I want to really type a lot.

 

I use an application called Synergy. It's freeware and basically a multi platform driver based KVM. Very slick application for using a desktop mouse and keyboard on a notebook without anything other then a network connection.

 

That's probably a good solution - unless you are weirdo me, who hates desktop keyboards and mice!
But that's an idea to remember, it should be quite usable on a desktop too, shouldn't it? (Ignorant noob question: KVM = ???)
Perhaps this would be a good time for me to finally hunt down a non-standard small keyboard and an external touchpad.