If you buy a gamepad for the pad I'd go with a xb0x 360 one. I use that myself and it works great especially with most microsoft based games, it just works right away. I got it to work with an emulator as well for old games.

For me personally any kind of pc mouse that's more expensive than 20 bucks isn't work it. But that's just me :P I bought 6 mice each worth 7.5 each lol. Since I tend to break them a lot with my clicking!

Ah, good recommendation for the X360 controller, and I like to stream games, so a good mouse is a big thing. X)

Good counter point if you need the extra functionality.

On a side note you like RTS games?

I used to really like 'em, more into FPSes these days.

Talking about longevity, I am planning buying a new laptop, because, well the bezel on this one is cracking, though it still works, but it is wonky at times

If you travel alot, sure a laptop's nice. If you don't, build a desktop instead. You can even build a small form factor one and it's still much more powerful than a laptop!

I like my laptop, because I am college student, and I take it with me to classes and my desk assistant job. I have a desk top at home, but god damn, that thing took a good 10 minutes to boot up and another 5 just to load my profile, granted it is older than my laptop, but not by much.