The new MBPs (and MacBooks?) have a two finger touchpad interface that I've found makes a huge difference in its usability - with one finger down already controlling the mouse a second finger essentially works as a mousewheel. I can use my MBP's touchpad fine but can't stand having to use my work dell laptops w/o that feature.
Almost anyone that is willing to spend a couple of days adjusting to the ThinkPad's TrackPoint is going to be in for a treat. In particular, in most applications, holding down the center Trackpoint button will make the trackpoint work like a mousewheel (or, you can configure it to work like that all the time using its driver software.)
Most of the PC laptop touchpads that I have used will scroll the focused control if you run your finger up and down along the rightmost edge (or bottommost for horizontal motion). If yours doesn't, check your control panel settings to see if it can be enabled.
It's not quite the same as a scroll wheel in that there are some programs where one scrolling technique (wheel or trackpad) will work while the other won't, but it's similar enough to handle most cases.
oh this I'm aware of. mine has this feature. I still think touchpads (all that I have encountered) suck.
and infact on linux you can modify the area of the touchpad that does this. I think you can even add horizontal scroll if your touchpad didn't previously support it (not 100% on this).
If you're going to buy the new MacBook Pro (or another Apple laptop with multi-touch trackpad functionality) you'll want to get the application MultiClutch. It basically lets you set up rules globally or per-application that assigns gestures to keyboard shortcuts.
In other words: if I'm in Safari, I can remap three-finger swipe to changing tabs, swipe down for new tab, rotate right/left to back and forward, etc. It's very useful.
