I just bought two ThinkPad computers that retailed for about $3,000 each for around $900 each. End of the year sale, perhaps they are last year's models?
I liked mine so much I bought a similar one for my wife.
The only laptop I will buy, unless things change, is a ThinkPad. They are almost bullet-proof.
I just retired a 2002 that has been gigging with me since new. I gig for a living (or did until COVID-19). It leaves my house, rides in the van, sets up on stage, bounces on a keyboard stand all night, back in the van, back in the house 2 to 5 times a week. With all these rapid temperature changes and shocks, it has never crashed. The only problem I had was a bad CMOS battery, a $5 replacement.
I had two, but I dropped one a few years ago. The hinge broke, and it's not worth fixing, IF I could find the part. That one had a hard drive replacement when it was close to 10 years old. The drive started making a mechanical noise, so rather than wait for it to fail, I had it replaced.
I'll use a couple of old ThinkPads to replace them with. They still work good enough to play my MP3 backing tracks and display words and/or music notation on stage, but are too dated to run modern 64 bit software.
A couple of years ago I watched a video tour of the International Space Station. To regulate the oxygen and other life support systems on the ISS, they use two ThinkPad laptops. The two are for redundancy just in case one fails. NASA knows how reliable they are.
I also like that little "eraser head" pointing device between the B, G, and H keys. I can do everything I can also do with a mouse or glide strip, but without my hands ever leaving the 'home' position on the keyboard. It took a bit to get used to it, but once I did, it is a big time saver.
I like the build quality and the eraser head, so I'll continue to use them unless something better comes along to make me want to switch.
Insights and incites by Notes