Lenovo ThinkPad P50

High-end ThinkPads were always very repairable (even if not upgradable wrt. motherboard). The P50 I bought 10 years ago came with 4 RAM slots (and ECC capable), 3 disk slots, removable battery and way more ports than a Framework. It really baffles me how people are willing to put up with the flimsiness of the Framework. Maybe they only move it from the desk to a sofa ? There are enough reports of Framework laptops dying after being carried too many times or being dropped. The lack of structural integrity is killing them, and this is all due to the approach to port flexibility.

I bought a P50 for my mother in law some years back to replace her desktop. It sits out of the way, lid closed, with a monitor mouse and keyboard attached. She still uses it and takes it with her when she travels.

Hm, odd that, the newest laptop I have here is from 2016 and with that just past your threshold. It works just fine, performance is no problem, the battery holds for around 5-6 hours. Maybe it helps to say I a) don't buy Apple products and b) only use Linux? Nearly all my laptops are Thinkpads, all of them run Debian in some form or other. From the ancient (T23) through the old (T42p) to the relatively modern (P50), all of them work for their intended purposes. They are built to last, if something breaks it is easy to fix but things rarely break. The batteries are easily replaceable, the same goes for the keyboards. In other words it is more than possible to use laptops beyond those 8 years as long as you buy the right ones. Performance is fine as long as you run the right software, i.e. not software made by a hardware vendor who depends on a regular replacement cycle.

You can't go wrong with any of the thicker Thinkpads like the P series(I personally use a P50 now), but that does come with lesser portability. With the thin and light models like the X1 Carbon, there's probably some level of compromise to get the laptops that thin, but I'm sure it's still miles ahead your current Macbook's keyboard. Other notable mentions: LG Gram, XPS (2018/2019 models)

I have owned Thinkpads since IBM days, testing the waters occasionally outside of the brand. My proposition is also a bit easier since I will only ever use Linux or FreeBSD (and never Windows or Mac). I stand by the W530, the P50, and most recently, the P52. I felt so strongly about my initial impression of the P52 that I bought one for myself to use for all of my personal work. Perhaps it's just a thing with the X1 Carbon? That being said, my personally-owned P52 is the first Thinkpad I've ever had that required me to re-paste the chips. For the benefit of readers, Thinkpads have a not insignificant chance (~5-10%?) you'll need to re-paste the thermal paste on the CPU and/or GPU, and this is the first one I've ever had that needed the re-paste. I have always re-pasted the chips perhaps the last ten years or so -- doing this while changing out the components (usually RAM and disk) with top-of-the-line components I buy separately because they're oftentimes hundreds of dollars cheaper if you install them yourself -- but didn't need to re-paste until this one, which would immediately throttle out under any kind of load. One more complaint: I wanted a P52 with a 4K display, but Lenovo refuses to sell a configuration with a 4K display that does not have that awful, terrible, shitty fingerprint-magnet glossy TOUCH screen. There is no way in hell I would use that glossy screen or a touch screen of any kind on my daily driver, so I was forced to stick with a "regular" HD displa

That's not really the point - other manufactures make laptops that are much more powerful than Apple. The ThinkPad P50 can be configured with a Xeon, 4K display and 64GB RAM for nearly the same price as the base 15" MacBook Pro. Ok maybe it doesn't have all day battery life - but most people, especially people who want "Pro" hardware, probably only need a few hours max. I've had an Air for two years, and I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I've used the full battery - all international flights and trains I've been on have had power sockets, so I can charge on the go. Plus thanks to USB-C, you can use a power bank to charge your laptop if you need more power: http://www.macworld.com/article/3028132/consumer-electronics... Apple is no longer giving consumers a choice, before there was the MacBook (old one) if you wanted a more-affordable entry level machine, the Air if you needed ok performance but great portability, and the Pro if you wanted performance in a laptop package. Now everything is lumped together with portability as the #1 priority. If Apple had just launched this as a new version of the Air I don't think anyone would be complaining so much.