Thinkpad x220 checking in, still rocking my Sandy Lake and still enjoying a real keyboard. It's about 12 now. Other laptops have come and gone.
I couldn't live with my macbook m1. I hated the keyboard and the desktop - why is there no delete key, pray? UTM crashed a lot. Asahi was lovely but I just didn't like touching the hardware.
I got my M1 Max MBP 14" at the end of 2021 (so almost 2 years ago now) and my previous machine was an X220. The main reasons I switched were:
- I was a consultant/contractor, and sometimes you have to run software you really don't want to (Citrix, Teams). You can kind of do this on Linux w/ emulation, but on an older machine it's painful.
- Can't drive a 4k monitor at 60fps
- 1366x768 is hard to webdev on
I also had a multi-machine setup so like, a Chromebook for being spied on, a Windows machine for gaming, and an air-gapped Windows machine for music production. My partner and I had decided to move abroad and it felt like a little much to bring 4 laptops over, so I reluctantly consolidated. In truth the only thing I really gave up was acquiescing to being spied on, but at this point that's more because I haven't set up a pi-hole (etc.) than anything.
I do miss (Arch) Linux, and obviously the X220 input system is unparalleled, but I'll say that I'm pretty accustomed to the MBP input system now (I learned Fn-Delete is actual delete, which actually improved my life significantly). I probably lost ~30WPM (I'm around 100-150WPM on a good keyboard) and it's definitely a worse ergonomic experience to have to leave home row to use the trackpad (you're telling me you want me to stretch my ulnar nerve even more?).
There are other niceties. My partner can airdrop me things. I can load truly ridiculous Excel spreadsheets. I can move my music production onto it. I can stream both an Snes9x emulator window and a webcam grab through OBS to game w/ my brother in the states.
Glossy screens on laptops don't make any sense to me though. The argument is you get better color reproduction, but there are great matte screens that do that (I have a 32" matte display with 100% AdobeRGB that proves it), and besides that, I bet if the difference matters to you you've got a high performance glossy screen on your desk in an office with controlled lighting. Laptops go places! Sometimes they're sunny! Matte screens please!
