Context: my primary system for both development and personal use has been Ubuntu for a while, but several years ago I picked up a MBP as a secondary laptop and for testing/spot-checking that cross-platform stuff actually worked well across platforms. When I first got the MacBook, I instantly realized that it was by far the best touchpad I've ever used, to the point of being somewhat embarrassed about the state of hardware on Wintel laptops. The display was one of the best ever at the time, too.
Recommendation: You should seriously consider giving one of the higher end Chromebooks a shot. I think their image has continued to be tarnished by the fact that when they were first introduced—and even for several years after—buying a Chromebook meant you were getting a near-disposable, low-end, plasticy ARM-based machine (that didn't run a "real" offline OS, either). Fact is, today there are really nice x86 Chromebooks with good build quality. I have a Dell Chromebook 13. The touchpad is just as good as the MacBook's (albeit slightly smaller), a 1080p (matte!) display that's actually better than the one on the non-retina MacBook, it's lightweight, it has long battery life (~8-12 hours?), and (continuing somewhat with the tone of the article) it runs coreboot. You can wipe ChromeOS and install another distro.
The biggest downsides are three, and they're all to do with the keyboard:
- The power/sleep button is in a weird spot, so sometimes I hit it when I'm an awkward posture and not touch typing.
- The row of function keys (which have Mac-style glyphs instead of Fnum printed on them) only go to F10, so you may need to remap some apps that use F11 and F12.
- There are no context menu and Super (Windows) keys where Wintel users would expect them to be between Ctrl and Alt. Given that you're coming from a Mac, this shouldn't be a problem. Caps Lock is also gone, but that's because that's where the Super key has been moved to.
The SSD is also tiny, but it's user serviceable/upgradeable, and has a microSD slot.
Also, when you reboot, it complains that ChromeOS is missing; you have to press Ctrl+L instead to move forward, and there's no on-screen reminder (a la "press any key to continue"). What the on-screen reminder does say is to press space to restore ChromeOS. If you've upgraded the SSD, though, there will be no ChromeOS recovery partition, so it's guaranteed not to succeed. What I don't know is whether your installation will be hosed in the process, however. I haven't tried. Assume that it will, and take it as a fortnightly reminder to make those backups that you already know you should be doing.