There are other Ubuntu-derived implementations out there which I like. ElementaryOS is basically Ubuntu with an OS X-style skin, and Zorin OS has a lot of the nicer aesthetic features of Win7 in it, which I have tried and generally liked.

I find KDE a bit too heavy and graphics-intensive for my liking; Mint's Cinnamon desktop manager is about the right compromise between style, form, and functionality for me. But, of course, preferences vary by individual.

I want to have a LINUX computer again and might buy a less expensive model and install KDE LINUX Mint and have a commuter computer

Yeah that's the way to do it. Any decent laptop which strains to run WinDOZE 10 these days, will simply fly when given a proper Linux distro.

I became a fan when I dropped a T41 out of my backpack, on the corner of the screen, and all that happened was a dinged corner. I've traveled all over with these things. They are like old jeeps or Land Rovers. Never stop. By comparison, I've ruined other models by the dumbest of events. Like dropping something on the back of a screen from like 4".

Thinkpads are insanely cheap to fix. I've replaced screens (on ancient ones), and keyboards when I've spilt on them for pennies. By the way, I spilt wine in a T61. It went "poof" and stopped running. I took it apart, doused it in alcohol, blew it out with my compressor, let it dry, and it was right as rain.

While a Macbook may be elegant as it ever was, the new laptops for windows & linux have passed that bar awhile back.

My new work laptop is a Thinkpad X1 Carbon. It's far more elegant, useful and cool as any macbook. It's not all that bigger than a Macbook, and is just as sleek. It has HDMI, USB, and the new fast USB. Forget what it's called. It has a small dock that runs any legacy connection I need.

It has a retina type screen that's so clear it hurts my eyes. It has an i7, with 24G of RAM and a 1T SSD.

It is, by far, the nicest laptop I've owned. My only complaint is the corporate security policy makes it irritating to use.

But to be fair, the one thing you haven't given credit for on the MacBook is the screen, which is better than anything I've seen on a moderately priced Windows laptop.

That's a very good point and I definitely missed out on this in my rant above. I'll certainly concede that Apple's Retina display is, without question, amazing.

Also, anyone who tells you they can work just as quickly on a laptop as they can on a properly equipped desktop PC doesn't do anything particularly technical or involved. You can't beat a beefy i7 with 64GB, 2x QHD monitors and a nice clicky Cherry keyboard.

I agree. I restricted myself purely to laptops here but there is nothing close to using a desktop with multiple monitors and all of the peripherals at your fingertips.

But to be fair, the one thing you haven't given credit for on the MacBook is the screen, which is better than anything I've seen on a moderately priced Windows laptop.

Having done Win 3.11, OS/2 Warp, NT4, Win98, Win2k, XP, 7 and 10, plus everything from Slackware to CentOS, I'd never had a Mac until nearly 2 years ago when I had the opportunity to buy a lightly used 2015 MacBook Pro 15" from a colleague. Having wished for something that had the good points of Linux but the productivity of Windows, It was an itch I had to scratch.

It took me a few months to really decide I liked it, and to this day, the Mac implementation of MS Office is infuriating. In addition, I still need to use Visio and Project, which don't even exist on the Mac, and nor do any viable equivalents. Hence I still have to run a Win10 VM on the Mac for those exceptional cases.

But I really like the hardware package.. aesthetically and ergonomically it's the nicest laptop I've had in 20+ years of laptops. The only thing this one lacks is an ethernet port, so I use a Gigabit USB3 adapter on the rate occasion I need to. The KB on this model is far far better than the later butterfly keyboards, which have been a disastrous engineering choice by Apple. As such, if this 2015 MacBook were to come to grief, I'd go on ebay and get another of the same generation – I'd not have one of the newer ones with the shitty KB.

To this day, I still wish I could have a pure Linux desktop machine (I like Mint) but, while its great as a server, until there's fully integrated and native MS Office, it's just not going to work for me.

Also, anyone who tells you they can work just as quickly on a laptop as they can on a properly equipped desktop PC doesn't do anything particularly technical or involved. You can't beat a beefy i7 with 64GB, 2x QHD monitors and a nice clicky Cherry keyboard.

Agree with you. Mac's excessively priced computers have always been a deal breaker for me. I"ve never been a fan of Windows but learnt to live with its stupid quirks. I've dabbled with LINUX. I like both Kubuntu and KDE Linux Mint (I find GNOME non intuitive)

And there's more software available for Windows and it"s more reasonably priced.

I want to have a LINUX computer again and might buy a less expensive model and install KDE LINUX Mint and have a commuter computer

xavier