Some of the newer Asus Zenbooks have the three criteria you're looking for, but they're very flaky on consistency and reliability (different trackpad hardware on the same laptop at random, screens dying randomly).
I actually have no huge OS preference, but I use a MacBook because it's literally the only thing on the market right now that fulfills those three criteria (I also have a fourth: <5 lbs) and reliably performs for longer than a year.
Lenovo's keeping up to some extent (I loved the X220 and X230, but the X240 is no longer competitive. Like others here have mentioned, the T440s is pretty nice, but the trackpad is clunky), but HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, and everyone else seem to have completely forgotten about the business laptop market. What happened, laptop manufacturers?
In short, I think the X240 improves incrementally on its predecessors, but the rest of the market has moved fast enough that it's behind the curve now.
Slightly longer:
For $1000 today, I can get a Macbook Air with:
- An SSD
- Twice the battery life (yeah, the X240 has nice removable batteries, but that kind of defeats the point of an ultraportable)
- A higher res screen that's only half an inch bigger
- A far nicer trackpad
- A nicer graphics chipset
I'd be giving up:
- Alloy roll cage and spill protection
- Powerbridge (hot-swappable batteries)
- A touch screen/digitizer (an Intuos2 ($40 from ebay) fills that gap nicely for me)
I don't think the X240 is a bad laptop, but, right now, the costs far outweigh the benefits.
I actually have no huge OS preference, but I use a MacBook because it's literally the only thing on the market right now that fulfills those three criteria (I also have a fourth: <5 lbs) and reliably performs for longer than a year.
Lenovo's keeping up to some extent (I loved the X220 and X230, but the X240 is no longer competitive. Like others here have mentioned, the T440s is pretty nice, but the trackpad is clunky), but HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, and everyone else seem to have completely forgotten about the business laptop market. What happened, laptop manufacturers?