You can use a mouse with a laptop, I have the smallest Logitech mouse they make and I use it on the palm rest area. I don't like the pads either, they're just weird trying to operate.
Some laptops don't have much in the way of adding stuff on, business class computers have all sorts of USB ports and other ports, and they have DVD drives whereas most personal laptops do not anymore. Personal laptops have the same resolution as business-class but the screen quality is higher with the personal ones. Also, business-class laptops are built more durable than personal ones.
I had an HP Latitude, but the damn thing only lasted 5 years, so I thought I would get an Acer Swift 5, that thing had the best looking picture quality of any laptop I've ever seen, it was also extremely thin and light, plus it would run for 11 hours on a charge! Fantastic right? Wrong! The thing was too fragile, it slipped from my hand and fell 3 to 5 inches onto padded carpet floor, and the darn thing developed a flickering screen, so I took it back to Costco who refunded my money. Then I decided to find something a bit more durable and got a refurbished HP EliteBook 8570W which I have now, this thing is heavy, runs only about 2 hours on the battery but I don't really need battery life anyways. These HP's you can configure so I opted for 512 gigs solid-state drive with 16 gigs of ram, and the Intel quad-core I7 processor. Unlike the HP Pavilion the EliteBook you can take off panels on the bottom and change stuff rather easily. They call it a workstation which is similar to a desktop except it's a laptop. These EliteBooks sold new for over $1,800, I got the refurbished one for less than half that!
I also don't play games so I didn't need a gaming laptop or the really high screen quality. I'll never buy a new computer again, I spend a lot on that HP Pavillion and it failed in 5 years, so why pay over a grand for a computer when I can save money buying a refurbished one, and maybe it too will last 5 years. Although the EliteBook seems a lot more durable than the Pavillion or especially the Acer.