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Comment by mattl | Hacker News Reader

Anecdotal but I have all of my Apple laptops going back to the late 90s all still in working order. The only machines I can think of with a similar build quality was the IBM era ThinkPad range. I’ve never used a Dell laptop that didn’t have something off about it.

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The non ibm era thinkpads are great too. Screens are mostly hd on most models and speakers are average but otherwise perfect.

The keyboards are way worse now and they all have a trackpad now instead of just the traditional trackpoint that was common to the ThinkPad.

The trackpad can be turned off and there's still a Trackpoint on every Thinkpad that I've seen. Unfortunately the keyboards have become more Apple-like in the name if thinness, but I found that a good external keyboard like TEX[0] paired with a Thinkpad 2-in-1 (Yoga) gets me the the best of both worlds.

[0]https://tex.com.tw

so true. the keyboard on Lenovo flagships are barely C tier. and the keyboards on things like E series makes me want to type on my phone instead!

I love ThinkPads, but some models have horribly intrusive fans, whereas others are great.

It's necessary to do a bit of research ahead of buying. The new x13 looks really promising.

problem after ibm is they are garbage firmware. a few versions after Lenovo took over now you cannot upgrade parts because the bios/firmware have hardcore ids and will refuse non allow listed devices.

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