It was always the standard kit of the stereotypical scruffy Linux hacker, but it was mostly just a really good laptop. The connoisseur's choice, reliable, repairable, and IBM would come to you and fix it on the desk if you paid them.
A lot of that demographic have switched to MacBooks or one of the many ultrabook-type laptops of a similar design language, and what's left is the crew who valued the ability to hack on the machine.
They were always there, but they're most of what's left.
It was always the standard kit of the stereotypical scruffy Linux hacker
In reality, modern Macbooks have a horrible reputation for repairability and engage in dark patterns to stop you from getting your device repaired even when it is an option.
Macbooks
* 2% fail in first 12 months
* 20% need replacing in 3 years
Lenovo:
* 20% fail in first 12 months. (Surprisingly high number fail out of the box)
* 80% need replacing within 3 years
I don't want a laptop that's easy to repair as much as a laptop that doesn't need repairing.
Other laptops of the time were absolutely flimsy: Dells, and HP laptops of the time were particularly cheap-feeling, had hinges that broke, had driver issues, and overall didn't have the high quality feel of the T series.
My company has recently transitioned away from the T series to a different brand, but I'm holding on to my T480 until it dies or I quit.
Typing this on a T480 which 2 years ago, I accidentally dropped, while open, screen-first onto concrete from height of about 6 feet. There's a little dent in the bezel, but that's it. Still going strong.
I am peeved about the USB-c port not being a replaceable module though. I can still charge through the Thunderbolt/Dock port, but the other one no longer accepts a charge from any cable/brick combo I've tried.
No one actually wants to repair their computer, although it's nice in the abstract for repair to be easy when it's necessary. I value reliability quite a bit, which is why I was unwilling to buy a second laptop with butterfly switches, lucky for me Apple didn't force me to make a hard decision. I also value being able to bring a broken machine to trained professionals, with the expectation that they'll repair it.
Fixing a broken laptop interests me about as much as fixing a broken toaster oven.
Extendability was valuable when RAM and hard drives got cheaper faster than CPUs. It's still frugal, at least, to get just a little of each, and pay market rate for the upgrade, rather than the Apple rate.
This is something I've also stopped caring about. It's just easier to get the machine I expect to need up front. When I want more machine, used MacBooks have a robust market, so I get a new one and sell the old one.
I enjoy soldering and wiring up little hacker machines, though I'm not good at it, but that's a hobby. It's emphatically not something I want to do in order to resume my professional work.
There's still a whole swathe of ThinkPad users who like the interface, use 'exotic' ports, are maintaining old motherboards which work fine for them, more power to them. It's not surprising to see normal coders using a machine that just gets out of the way.
As someone who runs local VMs on Windows, this is still true. I would like 32GB RAM and 1-2TB SSD storage locally.
>It's not surprising to see normal coders using a machine that just gets out of the way.
Tinkpads still do this? My first is my work machine, a T490s about 2 years old? I haven't done anything to the hardware itself. No repairs or opening up needed.
I'm content with explaining why they aren't as popular, since they so clearly remain a good choice for a smaller group of developers. I don't know anyone using a ThinkPad who isn't enthusiastic about it.
The ascendancy of Macs in technical staff ranks commenced simultaneously with the ascendancy of Linux in the datacenter. The Windows tooling to integrate with Linux wasn’t as smooth as Macs. Back in the Dark Ages, about half of the battle IMHO came down to Cygwin and similar weren’t as nice as Terminal.app and Homebrew. And Terminal.app was a better ssh client than PuTTY. Back then if your backend heavy iron lived on Linux, then the overall development experience was simply lower friction on a MacBook Pro.
This has changed these days, of course. macOS’ low-friction edge is narrower now but a lot of what remains like mobile power and video management continues as especially challenging areas for Windows and Linux. VS Code is doing a lot to decouple developers from their hardware.
That is exactly my observation. When the good power Mac laptops came out a lot of my ThinkPad Linux laptop using co-workers jumped ship. Number one reason stated: battery life. Number two reason stated: suspend works reliably. Number three: it is POSIX/UNIX-ish enough that it is familiar and I can do my job.
Apple came close to capturing developer mindset at that time. Carting around a Unix workstation in a laptop, and if you spent the money to max out its memory, be able to simultaneously emulate a small Windows laptop at that time was a game changer for those who could leverage that kind of power.
Unfortunately Intel started slipping and Apple couldn’t really push laptop boundaries as much soon after.
Apple’s new architecture opens up that possibility again by decoupling from Intel, but I’m not sure Cook’s vision sees the advantages of a 128GB RAM MacBook Pro.
"Business" laptops have all gone down in a race to the bottom in my opinion. If you want to see innovations in the laptop space today, Gaming laptops is where it's at.
There are many gaming laptops that are more serviceable than business laptops. However, they also tend to be heavier.
It’s a trade off I guess
Sure, but 95% of business laptop use is sitting on a desk somewhere.
The other 5% being carried to/from a couple of conference rooms and/or a car.