ThinkPad is a status brand these days. Perhaps not in the same respect but it is for sure cashing in on its history and brand after passing through several manufacturers. I have one for work 9 months old, X1 extreme, specced out to the limits i9, 64gb ram, good SSD, 4K touch screen. It had good numbers but next to my 16” i9 MacBook with way less RAM the quality sucks big, screen has horrid colour representation, trackpad is crap, keyboard is crap, camera is crap, mic is crap, there is no words for how much worse the speakers are, the Mac is generally faster feeling to use, the WiFi signal dies dramatically if I stand between the laptop and the access point at <4ft distance from the AP (every one of my colleges also has this issue with the same laptop) … oh and the battery on my macbook lasts no less than twice and typically three times as long. It is in every way I can think of a worse experience for at least 1/3 more at its higher spec. It just about passes as a desktop workstation when docked all the time, as a laptop it is borderline trash. I find it hard to view the MacBook as a status symbol against such cheap (quality not cost) crap. Now as previously admitted the ThinkPad is in some ways higher spec (CPU, more RAM but slower, more SSD but slower) than the MacBook despite generally worse performance in most day to day things like launching apps or turning on so it isn’t an apples to apples comparison, thankfully I’m glad not to have to deal with what that might be like. The MacBook might not be what you want and it might not be the only option out there but seriously the thinkpad in of itself is comparatively dreadful, please don’t kid yourself on this quality nonsense even if you don’t want a Mac, find something better.
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