University of Utah also has some really excellent free lectures on YouTube. I highly recommend Cem Yuksel's (a professor at university of Utah) channel if you're interested in learning about computer graphics.
I had similar concerns before getting mine. The build quality is definitely not as high end as a mbp but it's acceptable. I'm happy with it although I do hope they make future versions more sturdy.
The track pad is basically the same story. No real complaints but it could be better.