[dsego]

Well, don't get the Thinkpad for better speakers. Speaking as an owner of a new t480s, whose dumb idea was to put speakers on the bottom of the case? My lap don't have ears. Of course the battery life is even worse than the bad 2016 Macbook, not by much though. But it's not whatever double digit hours they claim. If you think apple makes nonsensical design decisions, try any windows laptop, apple is still miles ahead in certain areas. Windows is so bad it's not even funny anymore (for example cortana guided setup is disturbing) and don't get me started about linux.

[boomskats]

What's wrong with Linux? Its support for Thinkpad hardware is pretty exceptional, it just isn't great at holding your hand.

[dsego]

If by holding your hand you mean stuff works out of the box, then yes it isn't great. I did manage to get hidpi working in just 1-2 days (not with wayland, nothing works on wayland, let's give it just 5 more years and I'm sure it will happen), and it also goes to sleep fine, trackpad is not as bad as I expected it to be. All perfectly great achievements for 2018.

[jhcl]

xubuntu versions running perfectly on my Thinkpad E550 (and Desktop) for many years already. Raspbian on my PI's and ubuntu on my beaglebone black. Don't settle for the provided software configuration. Settle for the open tool that is made for support.