Inquiring minds want to know! :-D
I went with the Lenovo X1 Carbon 3rd Generation. It overall fit what I was looking for:
I had been considering the Dell XPS 13, though a variety of commentary from Linux users seemed to suggest that there were a number of hurdles with getting it to work smoothly. Additionally, the X1 is 14" while the XPS 13 is (unsurprisingly) 13", and that extra bit of display makes a lot of difference.
The only pre-arrival disappointments are shipping time (I want it now! :-) ) and cost. Coming from MBP's I'm used to spending over $2k for a laptop (current lowest price for a 15" MBP from Apple is $2k on the nose before any customization) and I wanted to get a significantly cheaper laptop this time around. My goal had been roughly $1k for computer with a total cost of $1,200 with extra warranty, taxes, etc. The Dell XPS model that I was looking at pretty much hit this on the head, for example.
Did the X1 hit that? Both yes and no. The X1 the starting model is about $1,200 all told, so that's the "yes." However, the starting model didn't have everything I wanted, so that's the "no." I upgraded the CPU to the faster i5 (required for 8 GB of RAM) and 8 GB of RAM. This clocked in at around $1,250 for the machine and bumping up to a 2-year onsite warranty plus the taxes brought it to around $1,450. So that's more expensive than what I was looking for. That said, I take my laptop pretty much everywhere with me and use it quite heavily, so for under 50 extra cents a day I'll get what I want for two years (warranty duration) and anything after that is "gravy" (as I historically replace laptops every 3-4 years).
As a pseudo-disclaimer, the cost could easily go higher for other people. For example, my husband would completely freak out with only a 128 GB SSD (e-hoarder! :-D), want a three-year warranty to feel more secure about the purchase, probably purchase Microsoft Office for a current version, and likely upgrade to the 1440p display. All told these would add a huge bump to the cost.
And since I'm blabbing on about cost and I know that you're enthralled by everything I have to say (or can pretend, at least! ;-) ), this is the first time when I've done a hard sit down with "faster, cheaper, better: pick two of the three." Going with Apple has significantly reduced the variety of options and therefore the amount of decision-making that I've had to do. I've almost always gone with a more (if not the most) expensive option because (a) of how much I use my computer and (b) if I really want Component X often only the more expensive laptops have those.
For this laptop I really sat down and grappled with "needs vs. wants." I decided that for this laptop I wanted something that was faster and cheaper but not better than my current laptop. "What's the difference between faster and better for computers?" Totally fair question. For me, this is a faster computer for several reasons:
| Old | New |
|---|---|
| Sandy Bridge CPU | Broadwell CPU |
| 4 GB RAM | 8 GB RAM |
| HD | SSD |
| Four years old | Multiple cycles of Moore's law |
However, I wouldn't call it "better" because I'm also losing a few things as well, such as the 17" display (which has held up very well over the years) and a dedicated GPU. So overall my computer should be faster for most of how I'll be using it, and it is noticeably not an "across the board" improvement.