Ive went with a T420 recently, mostly because of the keyboard. But also because $400 for laptop + battery + Samsung SSD + 16GB hyperX Ram sounded so cheap i could not resist. And honestly even after a 2015 MBP it feels perfect for all my needs. In fact due to the superior RAM and SSD it feels often way faster than the MBP for 5 times that price felt. Plus it has way better battery life.
Seriously Thinkpads are the best dev laptops ever.
Sorry, but then you did something wrong. Since Haswell they are not only better overall but also much more energy efficient. The Macbooks went from 5-6hours to 10 in that generation.
not sure what we are arguing, maybe i should have mentioned the fact that my macbook ran OSX and my Thinkpad runs Arch Linux? I've did several battery management optimizations as well.
If i could run Arch painfree on a mac i would agree that i would have better battery life most likely.
I am mostly just arguing against the constant mention for "macbooks having the best battery life for developer laptops". Which is not true if you could also use a Thinkpad with Linux
Typing this from a refurb T410 with added SSD. It was dirt cheap and the only issue I have running Ubuntu on it is a funny wake-from-sleep issue that sometimes makes some text display badly. Apart from that it has a lovely keyboard and does what I need. Battery life is not an issue for me, I have a laptop due to lack of space for a desk, but I am normally plugged in. Screen res could be higher, but it makes no practical difference in writing Python code or browsing HN
I wont upgrade until a) it breaks or b) someone pays me to get a new one
What about the T-series keyboards changed recently that bothers you?
If it's actually the touchpad changes, they reverted them on the xx50 and up (or made them optional, I forget which).
(Typing this from a T430 I'm using while my W550s is being repaired, and I can't recall any drastic keyboard changes that had me in an uproar in the last while.)
Not recently but simply the amount of keys have dropped from T420 to T430. The Home - End - PgUp - PgDn keys are the same place on my T420s (which is upgraded to a quality full HD screen) as any 101 key keyboard in the last 35+ years. Insert - Delete isn't but that's kinda OK because Insert is rarely needed anyways. Taking away the 7th row is the cardinal sin of the T430+ keyboards. Also switching to keyboard backlight from ThinkLight is a moronic decision, there are more things to light than just the keyboard.
I have not tested a t430 but the t450 feeled a lot more "mushy" or rubberdome like. The t420 has a solid click (without the "click" :/) which is something i really like.
From what ive read it got worse after the t420. So it was a easy choice for me.
Linux, the 3 cell one (the one i got it with a 2 cell has about 4 hours left). I get about 9 hours with full light and wifi and about 14 with ethernet & slightly dimmed light. Obviously linux (also Arch), i dont think Windows can be optimized for such battery life. And in my experience Arch also beats Ubuntu. At least without a lot of hacking.
Seriously Thinkpads are the best dev laptops ever.