I have a handful of laptops but by far my most reliable have been my macbook pros. I'm writing this on a mid-2010 mbp that's run like a champ since day one. I also have a 2014 mbp for work, but I really like the 2010. It's not a skinny ultra-portable but it's not a tank either. It only runs hot when I have it hooked up to a large display. Eight years with no notable problems for a daily driver is pretty good in my eyes.

I agree completely on the touchpad. I picked up an XPS13 that I'd intended to use as a replacement. The touchpad is as good as I've had on a non-Apple product, but it's still not on par with Apple. On the otherhand I've started playing with OpenBSD with ratpoison & qutebroswser and it's pretty remarkable how far you can get without a touchpad at all.

A couple years ago I wouldn't have considered anything but an mbp, but with the recent touchbar and butterfly keyboard shenanigans I would absolutely consider something other than an mbp. I hope Apple comes to recognize that reliability is more important than super skinny unrepairable machines.

I appreciate your comment and sentiment, and agree to some extent about previous MBPs, but saying that "it only gets hot when attached to a large display" is quite shocking...I normally use 3 external screens for work on my Dell XPS (previously Thinkpad), and don't understand why a powerful laptop would get hot just by outputting to displays..

In general, I would agree that Macbook Pros are very reliable.

Having said that, it's not like Apple hasn't had their share of lemons. I was unfortunate enough to have an early 2011 15" Macbook Pro. Without getting into too much details, it's a known lemon that has been discussed here on HN many times. My 2011 MBP was the first laptop I've ever had that actually stopped working. FWIW, most of my other laptops were PC laptops that didn't cost nearly as much as the MBP.

Seconding the touchpad. If I'm spending eight or so hours a day using a computer you can bet I'm going to get the one that feels best. CPU performance matters, but I'm not running at 100% CPU all day. I am clicking and typing all day, though.

Have you taken the Surface Book 2 for a spin? Pricey, but gives the MBP a good run for its money, and does a couple tricks the MBP cannot, such as having an excellent touch/pen surface for a screen. Real ports, including SD card. The outstanding downside is, of course, the abominable Windows 10.

How often do you rely on the touch screen? I know it seems like a naive question, but I have an older surface pro and I rarely used the touch screen. The machine itself was bulkier than an iPad or Nexus9, so I tended to use those instead for tooling around and mindless consumption. The surface pro was pretty much useless for actual work unless I had a second monitor, actual keyboard, and trackpad.

I do native Windows dev for a living, but I have no urge to pick up a machine with a touch screen unless it's a tablet. Is a touch pen/surface actually useful in day to day work?

I use the touch screen all the time. They made it very easy to do one important thing, they let you take a screenshot by pressing the pen eraser twice, and immediately begin annotating it by drawing right on top of it. For doing things like UI prototypes this is a huge booster. Someone sends me a test build or concept, and I can leap right into graphical annotation. Why waste time typing when unambiguous visual communication is this easy.

As a pen input device it's at least as good as my Intuos2 which it replaced, plus you get to draw right on the screen. (I don't like the side button though, it requires too much force to press.)

The surface pro seemed designed to be a tablet that could also be your computer. The surface book is a laptop that can also be a tablet. This difference is really important for interaction. That said I feel like the digitizer is only really useful for taking notes that contain diagrams, or things like digital art. I also barely use my surface book, despite thinking it's one of the best alternatives to my beloved 2015 15" MBP.

I have a touchscreen on my dell e7470. I use it daily and I wouldn't want to miss it. It's perfect for like web browsing, navigating diagrams, and presenting. It's not useful for actual coding itself, only for supporting activities. I only use the laptop monitor itself, as soon as a actual monitor becomes the primary monitor, the usefulness of a touchscreen declines massively.

I have, and to give Microsoft credit, it's the closest thing to a MBP I've ever used. That said, it still doesn't just quite feel as polished (the touchpad isn't as accurate, for one). But if I had to use a non-Apple laptop, I would probably go for a Surface Book.