And over the past decade, Apple's hardware has gotten really good. Their trackpads have always been nice, but the new force touch version is the indisputable best. Current Apple laptops contain many clever design decisions that most of us don't explicitly notice, but together make the machine feel first-rate.
This is unlike my ThinkPad x140e, which has idiotic design galore. The microphone is placed in the palm rest, making it nearly useless. Typing makes speech inaudible. The keyboard lacks an LED for caps lock, yet there are annoying always-on LEDs in in the palm rest and lid. Instead of gradually ramping fan speeds up and down, it switches between discrete levels, causing unnecessary distraction. And while it's one of Lenovo's smallest laptops, it's comically huge and heavy compared to my MacBook.[1]
Obviously, these two machines are apples and oranges. They target different users and price ranges. It is unfair to compare them. Still, it's frustrating to see so many bone-headed design choices in the ThinkPad. Just a little more thought and testing could have made it a much better machine. Sadly, this is true even for Lenovo's most expensive models. The X1 Carbon comes with useless stickers on the palm rest, and peeling them off leaves a residue that requires solvents to remove. These annoyances may be small, but they add-up to give an impression of tackiness.