> If this pans out it could spell the end of Thinkpads as high quality laptops that deliver premium performance while being very robust and sturdy.

I think that boat sailed a while ago. I'm writing this on one and it's the worst machine I've owned to date quality wise. Keys that spontaneously dis-integrate, wwan card that bricks itself (and replacements are not accepted by the BIOS because they're not 'authorized') and so on. Last laptop of this brand for me.

Maybe Asus or Acer has something half decent?

I went from an x61 to a Tablet 2, and it's been lovely (the bluetooth keyboard with trackpoint makes it usable as a laptop for me).

Every generation of thinkpad in the past decade plus seems to've been decried as terrible by at least some people whose opinion I respect, and then I've bought another one and it's worked fine.

I have a feeling that while there may also be some degree of decline, a lot of this is that when a thinkpad's good, it's sufficiently good that when we have trouble with one we judge it far more harshly than normal.

Typing this from a cheap Acer Aspire V5-471G (the cheapest make and model for given specs). Remember you get what you pay for.

The laptop looks sleek, but build quality is very flimsy with issues like paint-peeling, scratches, and malfunctioning hinges causing display to flicker/black-out. Also Acer support sucks and traveller's warranty is not international warranty.

Beware of cheap thinner laptops. They may look nice in the store but poor construction and cheap materials will come to bite you later. IMO Budget laptops have regressed in this matter compared to older bulkier models (including Dell Inspirons and XPSes in my experience).

Can't speak for more expensive models though.

Which model do you have? I'm thinking about buying a laptop, and, obviously, one of the first things that come to my head is a Thinkpad, but I'm worried about the quality.

I'm on a carbon x1 and I'm not having any issues.

It's super light, but the feel and build quality is still there.

T 540 P.

I've heard that there are big differences in quality based on the manufacturers they use. For example, I think for the keyboards they have four or five different manufacturers. The T models use two different ones (while the lower budget models use the other three), one of them being LiteOn (which is the best one), and that depending on which manufacturer you get, you might get a higher quality or a lower one, especially with keyboards.

Have you taken a look at other laptops? If so, which one will you go with next time? I'm a Linux user, so if Thinkpads are as bad as some people say they are nowadays, I might even get a MBP and install Linux on it.

The last decent non-Apple laptops were the ones with 16:10 screen; since switching to 16:9 the whole industry refocused itself on making consumer grade products.

Have you considered switching to OS X? It’s a very good desktop OS.

Not a chance, linux and nothing else for me.

I still have an elderly iMac here that hasn't been powered up for a long time (the graphic card overheats easily so I have to run the fans at full power, design error on that particular model) so I know OS/X but it just does not compare for me to linux in terms of how easy it is to run it on anything and everything. What also helped deciding this is that I'm running a very close copy of what is on my production machines on my development machine so I can transfer stuff from the one to the other and expect it to work right away.

So the article title is "Former Apple rival IBM could become the biggest buyer of MacBooks"

And the submission title is "IBM to Purchase 200000 Macs Annually with 75% of Empl. Switching from Lenovo"

That's editing, not editorializing. There's no opinion inserted. Instead vague terms like "big" are replaces with concrete numbers, making the title almost as useful as the entire article. The guidelines are against edits, but they also seem to be against flashy vague terms, and a change like this is useful.

Except that the article itself doesn't say either of those things.

It says that 50-75% of employees could switch, and that IBM could purchase up to that many Macs.

It completely misrepresents the article.

> Are we left with only either apple laptops, or shoddy plastic jobs that need to be kept in bubble wrap at all times?

Dell Precision line is still kicking, beastly machines, there is no better (IMO of course ;-)).

They won't win any design awards and are a bit on the hefty side, but performance-wise hard to beat. Have 32GB RAM in mine, can have several VMs running, and do development work (compile to ram disk instead of thrashing SSD) on host OS (Fedora) with memory to spare.

Dual fans are also a nice-to-have with heat-generating i7 processor. Maybe not a huge deal for some but the BIOS is pretty ridiculous in terms of configurability/locking down the machine.

Looks to me like the M3800 isn't quite up to spec with the MBP, and has a ways to go to catch System76.

Edit: The M4800 doesn't come with 32GB of RAM either - which one do you have?

> The M4800 doesn't come with 32GB of RAM either - which one do you have?

M4700, would be surprised (and disappointed) if they neutured the M4800 down to 16GB.

Thanks for the System76 ref, looks like Alienware style, 7.4 lbs. on the 15", a tank in disguise ;-) Impressive that they're running desktop CPU in there, must be really loud fan-wise -- do you own one?

Not yet - just noticed it when I went looking today. I'm looking forward to testing 2 M.2 drives + 2 1T ssds in a laptop though. I'll sacrifice mobility, but heat/noise is a concern.

Alienware seemed focused on LAN party gaming even before Dell bought them - not interested :)

Do you like the keyboard? It's probably the thing I'm most concerned with. If so, which model do you have? I'm trying to find business laptops with good keyboards, but so far the only things that I find acceptable seem to be Thinkpads.

I (not original poster) have a Dell Latitude E5430 with the upgraded backlit keyboard and I like that keyboard a lot (vastly better than the standard one on my old D620).

That is great to hear. I've been taking a look at the Latitudes as an alternative to the current Thinkpad that I have, and I was concerned about the keyboard. It looked like a good keyboard after looking at some images, but it's always nice to hear from people that do have the laptop. Thank you.

> Do you like the keyboard?

Sure, when I use it that is. It lives on a laptop stand alongside connected monitors (which, btw, is another bonus, 5 displays if you like ;-)). Use a compact Cherry mechanical keyboard for day-to-day, only touch laptop keyboard when traveling.

The Serval WS from System76 has nice specs. If the build quality is reasonably solid, and it works well with other distros, then that could be my next laptop.

Then of course there's the Eurocom Panther 5SE: Xeon E5-2600 v2 series processors and 32GB of DDR3 1600MHz RAM. Weighs 12lbs :)

Eventually I think the low-power server movement could end up yielding more high end laptops... hopefully some that are lighter than 5kg!

Do you suggest that IBM was responsible for the vast majority of Thinkpad sales?

My hopes for great new laptops lie with some brand new crowdfunding efforts, fantastic as it may sound. Also, it would be a pity if Thinkpads would dies now, as they have just implemented dual batteries with hot swap in last two generations; IMO this is long overdue, but I haven't heard of a laptop manufacturer that did it.

> Are we left with only either apple laptops, or shoddy plastic jobs that need to be kept in bubble wrap at all times?

Anecdotally, and based on a limited sample size, I've had great experiences with HP's corporate laptop (and other) product lines - not the consumer lines. They seem to last forever, much longer than Dells and than users, who like new equipment, would like them to. I have one that's around ten years old that runs fine except for the pointstick. I can't remember the last one that suffered hardware failure.

Their Elite laptop line has excellent support and excellent design. Sitting next to me is an EliteBook; I can pop off the bottom cover and service it as easily as a desktop. It's pretty cool.

Article seems correct to me. Even diehard thinkpad fans say the product line has degraded. Have you actually compared recent ones to older ones or are you just complaining without data points?