But, important thing to say, I hold on to my Macbook Pro 2013 because of the bad quality of the new versions, not because I’m happy keeping my 2013. The money is still available and I would happily throw €3000 at Apple. It’s just that, they don’t want it, as if I’m not in their target audience. I don’t write enough emojis to benefit from an emoji bar.
Yeah, there's a ton of money just sitting there for whoever makes a viable replacement for the 2012-2015 rMBP. Anything with windows on it is disqualified, and I don't have the inclination these days to deal with driver issues from running Linux on something unsupported.
The closest I've seen are the Dell XPS 13/15 and Thinkpad X1 Carbon/X1 Extreme, but I'm not a fan of the Dell build quality, and the linux support on the Lenovos isn't quite good enough yet (Nvidia Optimus driver issues mostly, and issues with battery life relating to it).
The other potential option is System76, but their laptop hardware just isn't up to par - their POP!_OS seems pretty good though, despite the horrible name, so they are part of the way there.
Same boat. I rationalized to myself when I bought it that this would be the laptop I stuck with for a decade. I didn't realize the reason I'd be doing that is because the current generations are just so bad. (Keyboard, touchbar, aggressive port diet, etc.)
If someone were to steal this, I'd probably get a Thinkpad at this point. At least their keyboards don't suck, and I can get by with the half-decent touchpad. Maybe even convert to the red little nib...
The little red nib is great once you get used to it. I was a Mac user for many years but I've become a convert to Thinkpads (running Linux, not Windows).
That's the impression I get. I have a company-issued Thinkpad (X270, love it) and I use it about 95% of the time on a dock with external screens and keyboard.
But whenever I use the builtin keyboard, I force myself to ignore the touchpad and use only the trackpoint. It's still weird and clumsy, but I am getting better at it.