[scalesolved]

I've used one of their lower end thinkpads (s540) and have gotten 4 years of use out of it doing Java work with vms and running a ton of things without issues on Ubuntu.

I've had next to no problems the whole time, second monitors,webcams,printers,sleeping have all worked straight out of the box.

I've flown upwards of 50 times with it during this period, dropped it, spilt water on it and it has survived it all (almost!). The only reason I'm even looking at replacements is I spilt a full litre of water on the keyboard and a few keys have died forever.

If you're looking for a good development machine I'd recommend the following ThinkPad lines:

* X range: Smallest and lightest, maxes out at 16gb ram (new X1 extreme doesn't but it is $$$$).

* P range: Most power in terms of CPU/Ram/GPU whilst being fairly portable.

* T range: IMO the sweet-spot between X and P. Portable but still with enough grunt, the T480 takes up to 32gb ram.

[clircle]

Another ancedote: I used a thinkpad X220 throughout grad school and absolutely loved it (except the screen resolution). This year I decided it was finally time to move on... but to what? I heard all the new thinkpads have bad keyboards, and I'm not going to buy a dell since I generally despise Dell keyboards and trackpoints.

I bought a refurb T460. Love it. The thoughts that it has a "bad" keyboard are totally overblown. This thing has a great keyboard, screen, trackpoint. The whole package is good IMO. Opting for the T460 instead of the T460s, I'm able to enjoy keys that are slightly taller, and I can use my laptop without listening to the fans spinning on very much.

I run Debian Stable and this machine is fast as hell and problem free.

[sam0x17]

Also I could not LIVE without a trackpoint. I don't know how people use touchpads it's so barbaric.

[sam0x17]

Love the X230. Been using it as my daily driver for a year. Before that I've been using X series since 2010. X40, X60, X230.