Agreed wholly. I spent hours trying to find a laptop with a higher resolution screen than 1080 I could replace my T470 (14") with. After getting it I realized I significantly liked the 1080 panel better - aside from the fact I wish it had a higher nit rating. Not only that but the 1080 panel is much more power efficient and with the dual batteries on it I can get more than 10 hours out of it running Linux (and everything works really well). I have a hard time context switching between my work provided laptop (MBP 15", 32GB, Touchbar, etc) and it. The screen and the keyboard are jarring and, again, would rather do all my work on the smaller screen 1080 laptop with a real keyboard.

Apple could do wonders in a 14" MBP format with a typing focused keyboard (no Touchbar) and a 1080 panel. Would trade in my existing corporate laptop in a heartbeat. Especially if it had 32GB of RAM (needed for VM/container setup and could actually use 48-64, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon).

They made the 13" Air for the last ten years with a 13.3 900p screen

> Apple could do wonders in a 14" MBP format with a typing focused > keyboard (no Touchbar) and a 1080 panel.

While it might seem like a nitpick - they're not equal IMO. Putting a 13" MBA next to the T470 (I actually own one, funny enough - A1369) is not remotely the same end user experience. Also, Macbook Air is not in the same target market as Macbook Pro. What I'd ideally want is a compact machine with tech specs that align with the MBP line. CPU and RAM that the Air line will never see. I will agree that the keyboard on the MBA was pretty good. Apple truly messed that up.

In my T470 I have 32GB of RAM (user upgradeable) a dual core i7 @ 2.8GHz and an M.2 NVME slot which leaves me the flexibility for upgrade beyond the 500GB drive I bought it with. As it stands right now it's also got an open slot for a 2.5" SATA drive as well. It also has two batteries - a 3 cell 24Wh internal battery (field replaceable) and a 6 cell 72Wh external swappable battery. My one gripe is it only has one USB-C (it is Thunderbolt). I bought it in 2017 and it's still like brand new. Keyboard is still fantastic, screen hinge shows no sign of failing, I've never used a case to protect it and it continues to take a daily beating. If something fails, it's likely I can buy the parts and replace them with little to no fanfare. Honestly, if Apple sold something like this - it would sell like crazy. Lenovo now even supports Linux like a (mostly) first class citizen with regard to firmware and drivers.

For fun I just measured both and was looking at the screens side by side - the T470 has a bit more width, which is probably what I like since I do a lot of side by side comparison, and the additional pixels on the screen are at just the right scaling for how I like to work (which is probably why the higher resolution MBP I have feels jarring when switching).

For reference - what I measured... MBA: 11 5/16w x 7 1/8h (13.3" diag) T470: 12 3/16w x 6 7/8h (14" diag)

To nitpick, you'd have to compare with the similar model from when the MacBook Air came out.

The T410 (a brick with a terrible screen and battery jutting out the rear) or the X201 (a nicer brick and a tiny trackpad

I definitely agree with you that the current T470/80/90 is a pretty nice machine, it's wolrds ahead of what the ThinkPad was when the Air was 'new'

^ And I will, by the way, continue to insist that this was and is a great machine. People liked to hate on the screen but it was fine.

Great keyboard, great touchpad, pretty small, stellar battery life. I'm currently typing on the 11 inch variation.

I thought the same thing. But it only works if display scaling is perfect. Windows 10 just isn't quite there yet, espeially if you mix an external monitor of a different PPI.

1080 ~ 13/14" isn't quite big enough for me to use native, and not enough DPI to use scaled.

Lenovo's 1440p and Apple's 1600p displays are ideal. 1800p would actually be a little better. The Surface book's 2000p screen is best of all plus it is 3:2....