Thinkpad for me is the gold standard because I can swap out the components and they have videos and guides of how to do so on their website. Their materials are sturdy and light.

MacBooks may use some nice materials, and their processors are interesting, but for a customer like me that prefers to install the hardware and software of my choice either today or in ten years, they have no products I'm interested in.

I've never had to sell or retire any machine I've had in the last twenty years, they're all somewhere doing something right now.