I have a Thinkpad x220 and modern lenovo laptop. The latter has a metal frame, and is quite nicely built by modern standards; and of course it's far more powerful than the thinkpad, which is from 2011.
But I like the thinkpad way more. It's sturdier, the keyboard has real keys that stick up and not these horrible chiclet macbook-style keys that every single laptop has now, it has the thinkpad nipple, you can remove/replace the battery by flipping two latches, you can access/replace the hard drive/ssd, ram, wifi card etc. By undoing 6 screws or so, and I just prefer the old thinkpad aesthetic.
I never want to "upgrade" to the modern form factor; I think it's worse in every way. When I work on the modern laptop, and then take out my thinkpad for personal computing, I feel relief at how nice it is to type on the thinkpad! It's crazy.
It's very annoying to me that nobody's making laptops like that anymore. I use DWM and other lightweight tools, so the 2011 laptop is snappier than the 2022 one (programmers get worse at their jobs/adbicate any responsibility for performance faster than hardware gets better), but at some point it might be nice to have a faster processor.
But I like the thinkpad way more. It's sturdier, the keyboard has real keys that stick up and not these horrible chiclet macbook-style keys that every single laptop has now, it has the thinkpad nipple, you can remove/replace the battery by flipping two latches, you can access/replace the hard drive/ssd, ram, wifi card etc. By undoing 6 screws or so, and I just prefer the old thinkpad aesthetic.
I never want to "upgrade" to the modern form factor; I think it's worse in every way. When I work on the modern laptop, and then take out my thinkpad for personal computing, I feel relief at how nice it is to type on the thinkpad! It's crazy. It's very annoying to me that nobody's making laptops like that anymore. I use DWM and other lightweight tools, so the 2011 laptop is snappier than the 2022 one (programmers get worse at their jobs/adbicate any responsibility for performance faster than hardware gets better), but at some point it might be nice to have a faster processor.