The Latitudes I get are hunks of magnesium and aluminum, not plastic.
I don't give a shit about trackpads; I use the Trackpoints (which Macs don't have) since they're much easier and faster to use, and a separate mouse most of the time. No touchpad compares to a real mouse, just like a touchscreen keyboard will never compare to a real keyboard.
They're available with high-resolution screens, and even better, they're matte (Macs are not, they're glossy), so I can see them in different lighting situations.
Finally, I get mine at dirt-cheap prices by buying them used, because corporations buy these things in bulk and only keep them for a couple of years before liquidating them. So there's a very healthy used market with machines in excellent, near-new shape because they don't hold their resale value the way Macs do with their cultist followers (and the fact that most people have zero awareness of enterprise laptops). And since computers aren't actually improving technologically any more, a 3-year-old laptop in excellent condition is just as productive and useful as a brand-new one, but at a fraction of the cost.
The Thinkpad Helix 2 I'm currently sat at cost me 600 quid earlier this year (and is the 8Gb RAM model so not completely un-comparable to the lower end of the new macbooks)
I don't give a shit about trackpads; I use the Trackpoints (which Macs don't have) since they're much easier and faster to use, and a separate mouse most of the time. No touchpad compares to a real mouse, just like a touchscreen keyboard will never compare to a real keyboard.
They're available with high-resolution screens, and even better, they're matte (Macs are not, they're glossy), so I can see them in different lighting situations.
Finally, I get mine at dirt-cheap prices by buying them used, because corporations buy these things in bulk and only keep them for a couple of years before liquidating them. So there's a very healthy used market with machines in excellent, near-new shape because they don't hold their resale value the way Macs do with their cultist followers (and the fact that most people have zero awareness of enterprise laptops). And since computers aren't actually improving technologically any more, a 3-year-old laptop in excellent condition is just as productive and useful as a brand-new one, but at a fraction of the cost.