I maintain a 17 year old ThinkPad

Every hardware vendor has problems. Suggesting that Apple is uniquely bad while others “stand behind their products” doesn’t hold up. The difference is that Apple, after enough pressure, actually fixes things. They create repair programs, offer recalls, and have the infrastructure to make things right. Most vendors don’t. Let’s look at the examples you listed.

Butterfly keyboard

Yes, a bad design. But Apple launched a repair program that covered every affected MacBook for multiple years. I was affected by this, and had my keyboard replaced twice. Compare that to Lenovo’s ThinkPad coil whine and sleep bugs, which they never publicly acknowledged and never fixed. Users were told it was “within spec.”

Batterygate

Apple throttled devices to preserve battery life and didn’t communicate it well. After the backlash, they launched a battery replacement program and settled a class-action lawsuit. HP had massive issues with failing batteries and Nvidia GPUs no meaningful recall, just silence.

MBP GPU failures

Apple ran logic board replacement programs for both sets of failures. They repaired machines years out of warranty. Microsoft, on the other hand, ignored Surface Pro 4 screen flickering for over two years, then limited their replacement program to a narrow window, leaving many customers stuck.

Bendgate

Apple initially downplayed it, but the iPhone 6 Plus was later included in a touchscreen repair program. Compare that to Asus ROG Zephyrus early models that ran hot, warped, and suffered fan noise issues. Users got nothing but “working as intended” responses.

“You’re holding it wrong”

A tone-deaf response. But they gave out free bumper cases to all iPhone 4 customers, no strings attached. Dell’s XPS 15, meanwhile, had persistent audio latency and trackpad issues over multiple generations, and they never rolled out a formal fix or support campaign.

Apple has problems, yes. But they also have stores, trained techs, and formal programs that actually address the issues. The service experience isn’t perfect, but it exists. With most other vendors, you’re stuck mailing your device to a third-party contractor who might show up late and leave you worse off.

Apple doesn’t get a free pass. But pretending they’re worse than companies who ghost their customers when things go wrong doesn’t line up with reality.

I used to do this, I have "retro modded" Thinkpads. I keep one still running (X61p) to use as a car computer. I've since switched everything I do that isn't on my Macbook to a Framework 13 AMD. The Framework 13, other than the case design being flimsier plastic vs magnesium alloy, is better at everything a new Thinkpad does than a new Thinkpad, and is roughly equivalent to an old with modern specs. As much as I wish that Lenovo would make a modern equivalent to the X60/X61, that's never happening, so Framework 13 is the best choice right now.

Since the early 1990s, I had never a single Apple factory provided RAM fail, but certainly severals from 3rd parties – in the very same machines. And, of course, I've been too greedy to pay the premium… (But, in the end-run, this has probably been more expensive and certainly more of a hassle.)

WALL OF TEXT WARNING - SORRY! :-D

Recently pulled out a fairly modern Dell XPS that had a great OLED screen to read this thread and it was having some type of software or hardware issue.

Booted up my old reliable Thinkpad T420 (bought it from a Russian kid in SF years ago who upgraded it with an SSD and 12gb of ram when it was close-ish to new - it even has Cyrillic on the keyboard since he bought it in Russia originally!!). Besides a few windows updates and requiring a new battery (25$ aftermarket) the thing works great.

Forgot how damn nice those old Thinkpad scissor switch (I think that's the term) keyboards were - it truly feels almost mechanical keyboard like with a lot of travel. Did anyone ever sell a thin compact desktop keyboard with these style switches ? I could actually see it being very popular with people who like very low profile keyboards (like Apple desktops come with) but want something with more feedback.

I considered briefly upgrading the mainboard and internals to something more modern (there's an aftermarket Chinese company that sells replacements) as I think the T420 is the last Thinkpad to have the nice keyboards and key layout. Then again it was handling everything I threw at it without issues (even plays 4K YouTube fine!) probably because it has a decent i5 CPU from when they still had hyper threading and dedicated Nvidia graphics (the old semi "Quadro" NVS line 4200m). So many little features on these that are unique - instead of a complicated backlit keyboard for example it has a little downward facing LED light on the screen that can be activated by a hot key and illuminates the keyboard nicely at night. It's not as pretty or fancy but I love the simplicity and the fact you can also use it to illuminate a paper notebook or anything else.

One thing that does worry me is that Nvidia hasn't released updated drivers for this ancient chip since 2021 and I suspect eventually compatability will be an issue. I did have to disable hardware acceleration in the latest version of Libre Office (on Windows 10) to get it to work at all. I noticed in the BIOS it has options for Nvidia Optimus (meaning it also technically has an integrated intel GPU - currently disabled) so maybe worst case I will have to one day rely on that.

Thing is a real brick and battery life sucks but I also forgot how nice it is to have so many ports - it has dedicated eSATA (still super useful with an external SNES cartridge like enclosure to quickly read internal 2.5" and 3.5" drives) and a slim card slot where I had added two USB 3 ports. CD player wont see much use these days but a dedicated full size Ethernet port is great and an empty (I think they called it Ultrabay?) slot means I could theoretically throw in another battery or some random accessory. Also has full size display port for modern TVs and displays and oldschool VGA for legacy stuff. There's a fingerprint read I've never used (wonder if this even works with modern Windows?). Forgot I had even upgraded the WiFi chip in this thing (no soldering!) so it was getting great internet speeds as well.

I will say the cooling and fan situation though really suck - I forgot how damn loud the thing is with the fan even at 2/3 speed. I remember re-pasting the heat sink years ago thinking it might improve the situation and it didn't do much. Laptop was hitting 95C under load at first but after a little tweaking in the BIOS and the 99% trick to disable Turbo Boost it idles around 45-50C and hits about 85C briefly for high loads.

Would love a modern version of the T420 with a nice 16:10 OLED, the exceptional keyboard, tons of ports and expansion and repair-ability, a modern cooling solution, and less power hungry CPU. I really don't care if my laptop is thicker or a little heavier - the screen size is what restricts what bags I can put it in and the 14" diagonal format is pretty ideal. 13" I find too small and 16"-17" is getting way too big. I kind of even have grown to like the thicker bezels in a world that seems obsessed with minimising them - they really don't add too much overall size and I suspect it must contribute to the durability of the laptop and screen in general.

And of course gotta love a good track point mouse! With the mousepad disabled and my thumbs on the track point buttons you can transition from typing to moving the cursor around without ever needing to remove your hands from then keyboard - always loved the efficiency. I've had Dell and HP business class laptops with track points that also worked well but Thinkpad always had the best feeling thumb buttons.

Seriously though - why are there no slim scissor switch external keyboards out there ?! A compact 87 key format one would be the perfect travel keyboard (bonus if it had a track point and thumb buttons)!

At 14" doesn't 4K just seen like crazy overkill ? Sure on a laptop your face might be closer to the screen - but that's a lot of pixels in a small form factor. I'm still rocking 1440P 27" monitors for my desktop and find those good enough (although at that size you can see a benefit from 4K for sure).