I am typing on a $500 Asus flip that is all aluminum with a glass touchscreen. It is very nice, but I regret the OS (Windows 8.1,locked in place using the hosts file to avoid MS upgrades).

The issue I see is that the other side of the fence is not so sweet either. You cannot release a buggy OS that leads to my laptop bricking itself 3 times, and then jump right into another one with a hyper-aggresive update cycle, and expect me to follow along. Never. I risk losing massive amounts of work and significantly impacting my revenue at the same time.

I still have not decided if I will accept the sunk cost of Apple or a user experience downgrade to Linux, but hopefully I can put the decision off for a number of years like I did migrating away from Windows XP.

The entire modern tech ecosystem is rotten:

My drivers don't work. My OS doesn't work. The official development software for my target OS stinks. The official emulator to run it is dastardly. The api and functionality of the OS itself is pathetically broken, and less productive than battling bugs in php ten years ago. It all looks pretty from top to bottom if you squint, but the emperor definitely wears no clothes. 2016 is massively frustrating, and I long for the time when the basic premise of a computer being a tool that needs to function effectively was the norm.

I feel you. This is why I stick with Apple, however.

They may be declining, but they still have an overall "least frustrating" experience, especially when I have to help my family members with Windows 8 or 10, or need to Futz with my nephew's Linux setup.

My Dell M3800 has everything a MBP has, including the aluminum enclosure and Thunderbolt port, and more, such as 15.6 4K touchscreen and multiple USB ports. Oh, and it's also repairable.

It looks very nice! How's the battery life? This review seems to indicate it sits at under two thirds of the MBPs:

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2458699,00.asp

Also, just for clarification, do you mean self-repairable? The review said it, like the MBP, has non-standard screw heads making repair difficult. Thoughts?

I don't know about self-repairable...yet. Mine's still under warranty, but that's almost up and I haven't had to use it.

I do use it plugged in most of the time, but I suspect that the review is spot on with the battery life. I maybe get a little more since I don't do much in the way of video, and I have my screen dimmed and my CPU in passive cooling mode.

You can buy whatever screwdriver you need for a few dollars. It's an annoyance, but not a real obstacle to repair.

Maybe not important for you but crucial for me; the M3800 has dismal battery life. And probably with Linux that is even worse.

I'm running an M3800 with Mint Linux 17.3. I can squeeze 2 hours out of the battery if I really need to; suspend/hibernate is currently completely broken, requiring that I cold boot the machine each time I open the lid; bluetooth has never worked properly, even after extracting the proprietary firmware from the Windows drivers.

And this is on a machine that shipped from Dell with Ubuntu 14.04 installed, so supposedly all the hardware is open-source friendly.

I could never accept ~2 hours on a $2000-ish machine.

I get 5-6 hours with Windows 8.1. I have a dimmed screen and passive CPU cooling when on battery, and I don't do much video.

Do you buy hardware based on what it looks?

Actually, yes. Given my computer is always on display on a desk or table in my home, I consider it to be a piece of furniture. Therefore aesthetics are as much a consideration as they are for anything else I buy for for my home.

People are entitled to do that.

Just like people buy cars/homes/clothes/cellphones just because of how they look.

I'd argue they should look at the overall "package" when purchasing, but if looks are important to someone that's absolutely fine, and there is nothing wrong with valuing looks.

It's certainly a factor. I also like that it's way more rugged than 99% of the other PCs out there that use cheap plastic.

Kind of. I'm willing to put up with some non-repairability for an ultra thin metal laptop with tight tolerances. ymmv.

That case could do double duty as an axe in a pinch. It's incredibly solid. I really wished the hardware was more standard there is no way I'm going to be using OS/X.

> Metal doesn't flex. Plastic does.

That's the benefit of plastic for portable, droppable, devices.

No, it's not. Plastic cracks and breaks when you drop it. Trying to sell this as a benefit ain't flyin.

Try installing ubuntu on a 7.1 macbook air and feel some pain. You're right though, nice enclosure. Of course I really should have known better but the places that I shopped at did not have anything at all that came close in stock.

I would say that some of the recent Dell, Microsoft, Asus and Razer designs are pretty nice, and there are plenty of metal laptop enclosures out there if you look.