I have a T410 and a X121. The W, T and X-series are the ones to recommend when the specifications meet the intended use.

I love the IBM-Thinkpad keyboard. I type a lot and that keyboard has been a deciding factor in my choices. That keyboard remains one of my computer criteria. Chiclet or "to little travel and feel" is unpleasant for me.   

I hear that.

My favorite keyboard *ever* on a laptop was on my X230T. It was almost as good as a desktop mechanical keyboard. Second favorite was on my T420 - which was practically the same damn thing, but the thumb orientation to the top touchpad buttons was a little worse. Partially because they made the keyboard wider to use the extra space but then didn't compensate for that change when positioning the touchpad.

The new redesigned chiclet keyboard on the Thinkpad Yoga is pretty damn nice though. Much better than my keyboard on my rMBP 2012, but not quite as nice as their old school keyboards. Because they added the Lift-and-Lock system for tablet mode, it gave them the chance to add better (read: deeper and crisper) travel. Between improving the tactile feedback, fixing the layout, having adequate distance between keys, and providing excellent *even* backlighting, their chiclet is miles ahead of where it used to be.

The chiclet keyboard on their Thinkpad X1 Carbon...someone deserved to be fired for that thing. Mushy response, shallow travel, and mind-boggling layout changes. Who the hell replaces Caps Lock with a split key for Home/End? Just...ugh.

Lenovo has been my go-to recommendation nice windows hardware. But since the Superfish seppuku, I don't know what to suggest to friends.

Yeah that was an epic fail of biblical proportions. I'd still buy a Lenovo machine in the future, but I'd definitely be doing a Parted Magic secure erase first thing, and installing a clean fresh copy of Windows, though I already do that anyway with retail machines. They all come with varying levels of crap on there, plus annoying recovery partitions.

My Samsung S9 for example has a 128GB SSD. 40 some GB of that was carved out from the factory for the recovery partition. That's totally unacceptable.

I love the comments. "Well, it's not intended to be used while plugged in."

Yeah, you're holding it wrong, again....

I love the comments. "Well, it's not intended to be used while plugged in."

Yeah, you're holding it wrong, again....

Yeah. 

It's a friggin' laptop!

I hate the MagSafe connectors I've used. I'm happy to have something that will hold. I'm not apt to trip and knock over my laptops... I have a Dell for work that I've only destroyed once, and that was with an intentional punch to the screen.

I'm once again on the fence about this new MB, though. I'd want a port for a USB drive and a DAC, because I don't want to clog up the internal space with music. I should probably take a weekend and set up MPD on a linux box. Every time I've used Ubuntu recently, I've gotten to the point where I install the nVidia drivers, and then X stops working. Windows is boring and lame. OS X is great from a usability perspective, but Apple is losing ground with me. They lost their Solon, and now they're trying to catch up to themselves from 5 years ago.

I don't know what to do. Everything is a disappointment. Maybe I'll try heroin.

Find a used 13" rMBP for $1000 or even less... better specs, better performance, better screen, slightly more weight, but assuming you can wear a 1-lbs headphone like me, the extra weight should be trivial. More ports: 2 USB, 1 HDMI, full-size SD, etc...

You can install Linux and Windows alongside OS X... or even as the only OS if you somehow hate Apple.

Only drawback: it has a fan. But... really...