Personally, it has been really hard to justify the Apple premium the past few years. My company upgraded us to touchbar MBPs a few years ago. I am thankful as it helped me avoid the mistake of buying my own.
Instead, I went Thinkpad+Linux(Lubuntu) for an iteration. Excellent machine as the article details. I was very happy with it for a couple years.
I wanted something with a beefier GPU though, so most recently went to Asus+W10Pro+WSL2. I was skeptical at first, having been off Windows for a decade, but it is pretty decent. There are some minor annoyances, but not enough to push me back to full Linux yet.
Instead, I went Thinkpad+Linux(Lubuntu) for an iteration. Excellent machine as the article details. I was very happy with it for a couple years.
I wanted something with a beefier GPU though, so most recently went to Asus+W10Pro+WSL2. I was skeptical at first, having been off Windows for a decade, but it is pretty decent. There are some minor annoyances, but not enough to push me back to full Linux yet.