I guess the recipe is - do your homework and do not buy crap but that is what many corporations do for their employees. Their laptops cost way more than the one I mentioned and are still slow.
T470 was fine :). $Company thought that a "T490 must be better and good enough" :). In fact, if you cool down a T490 good enough, it _is_ faster than a T470, but in the end the T490 is useless for a developer that needs processing power.