> There is no way a Macbook can compete with a proper Thinkpad [2] for programmer productivity: the keyboard, the UltraNav, the swappable batteries (you can fly around the world with a x260 + spare battery), a nice docking station
Keyboard and UltraNav are more taste than anything else. I have a T450s for work and a 15" rMBP and vastly prefer the keyboard/touchpad on the latter. It doesn't help that Lenovo's QA is shit. My T450s keyboard is bulging in the bottom right of the keyboard deck, and several of the keys stick for a millisecond on the way down. As if they're not quite seated properly and hitting the key causes something to click into place. I suspect it's temperature related, because it goes away after typing for awhile, but comes back after a bit of non-use.
> upgradeable storage/memory
Programmers are expensive. No reason not to buy a maxed-out machine to begin with.
Also, it's hard to get over Lenovo's penchant for shit displays if your job is to stare at text all day.
Lenovo is infamous for shipping shitty RAM / Disk options. You often can't buy appropriately maxed out hardware from them. A few years ago, I was procuring a few Thinkpad W520 for a new team and at no point did they offer a 500gb or larger SSD. The 384GB drive they had was an extra grand. I bought the machines in max cpu/graphics config and ordered ram and disks separately. Nobody on the team had an issue using a screwdriver for 5 minutes of their life.
Thankfully the W500 series is super easy to upgrade aftermarket like you said, we've never bothered ordering ours with anything but maxed out CPU's - RAM and SSD's are cheap and easy DIY upgrades and everybody on our team can swap them out in a minute or two.
This is what I did with the P50 my work bought me. Basically I bought a dual-4k-monitor setup with tons of RAM and disk for what a comparable MBP would have cost.
I have an X1 Yoga (a touchscreen equivalent of the X1 Carbon) with an OLED display and it's absolutely gorgeous. It's much better than the ~1 year old Mac Book Pro I have for work. The colors and contrast are incredible—it can even render a black that doesn't glow at all.
The X1 Carbon (4th gen) mentioned in this thread is not a touchscreen, they don't seem to offer a Carbon Touch anymore. It appears the X1 Yoga is essentially the Carbon Touch.
Agreed, I was wrong. I have a 2015 X1 Carbon, which has a touch-screen. I'm surprised they removed this, it's quite decent. But it is unlikely that I'll miss it.
Keyboard and UltraNav are more taste than anything else. I have a T450s for work and a 15" rMBP and vastly prefer the keyboard/touchpad on the latter. It doesn't help that Lenovo's QA is shit. My T450s keyboard is bulging in the bottom right of the keyboard deck, and several of the keys stick for a millisecond on the way down. As if they're not quite seated properly and hitting the key causes something to click into place. I suspect it's temperature related, because it goes away after typing for awhile, but comes back after a bit of non-use.
> upgradeable storage/memory
Programmers are expensive. No reason not to buy a maxed-out machine to begin with.
Also, it's hard to get over Lenovo's penchant for shit displays if your job is to stare at text all day.