Pros:
Nice CPU stats - I could mine dogecoin effectively on the Pangolin, not so much on the (albeit 5 year old) MBP. It seems to be roughly equivalent to an AWS m3.xlarge instance. Trackpad is flush with the case, which prevents food crumbs & dirt from getting stuck in it like it did with the MBP. Pretty rugged construction. Haven't had any reliability issues and I've had it a year or so. Good display. Has a numeric keypad and the cursor navigation keys, unlike the Mac. Linux "just works", since Ubuntu comes pre-installed with auto updates. Often a lot easier to get many UNIX programming packages working on Ubuntu/apt-get than on MacPorts, and you don't face deployment issues because of the OS being different from other UNIX systems
Cons:
Wireless sucks - it won't work with 5GHz at all and often has reception issues with 2.4GHz in my crowded apartment complex. Keyboard and trackpad takes some getting used to, because of the keypad your hands are over the left side a lot. I miss the MagSafe power adaptor, I used to trip over my cord all the time. Battery life isn't as good as on the Macs. Can't do iOS development, and can't use Mac-only software like many games.
On the whole I'd say the Mac had slightly better quality, but the Pangolin (at half the price) gave better value. If you're on a budget I'd definitely give it a try.
I wouldn't want to drop it though...
I'd see if one of the ThinkPads is in your range, and look the model number up, so you can see what experiences others have had with that model.
I know on my W530, everything works. But it's $$$$$$.
Good physical construction, but the touchpad is quite oversensitive. I use it only occasionally, but it seems pretty solid.
I'm a Thinkpad fan myself (T61/X230), although that comment by 'zanny isn't wrong. If you're going to go the Thinkpad route, make sure you read reviews of the screen options for the specific model you're interested in.
(I'm currently using Fedora20 on a 2009 MacBookPro amd ot feels like a real kludge.)