My macbook pro from 2008 survived a motorcycle accident and became accidental back armor. Still worked up until a few months ago until the mainboard went kaputt.

I'll rate that as damn good. Only damage was cosmetic other than that it was in great shape. I think you may be rating the macbook pro too low. I've seen people drop their thinkpad and having them go boom.

Yes yes anecdotal evidence blah blah. But I place a lot of props to that macbook pro surviving a motorcycle accident. Its been retired along with the helmet that saved me. Just my $0.02

In early March I was in Santa Clara for this year's PyCon. I took with me a white early 2006 Macbook which needed replacement for the bottom shell (it cracked and a piece fell off). Repair was to cost US$ 120, which I gladly approved. Since there was a recall replacement to be done, the replacement of the bottom case came at no cost. During the replacement, they damaged the cable connector for the keyboard, which was also replaced without cost.

In the end, I took a 6 year old computer to an Apple store and walked out with it looking more or less new, for free.

Apple's service is nothing short of amazing. I doubt IBM would have done that to your Thinkpad.

More anecdotal evidence, but I have a 5 year old Thinkpad and a 5 year old Macbook. Guess what: both are going strong. Quality isn't exclusive to one manufacturer. I really dislike these either/or strawman arguments.

I'll have to disagree with you as I own both a 3 year old Thinkpad and a 2 year old Macbook Pro. The keyboard of my Thinkpad has been giving me problems for over a year, and I haven't had any problems with the keyboard on my Macbook.

It's funny that the people who make bets like this (that Macs are unreliable) are the ones who don't actually own them.

My Thinkpad is only a few years old, and the cooling system is acting up, I'm also having keyboard issues (even after replacing it) and just isn't worth bothering with. My old Macbook Pro on the other hand still practically runs like new, and never had to be repaired for anything.

I wish people wouldn't make claims based on speculation.

I wish people would be more specific when discussing this. "Only a few years old" and "old" can both cover a rather wide range, even if in this case "old" is capped at six years by the date of introduction of the model.

Oh well, my old Mac keyboard crapped out. And my Thinkpad's is fine. I reckon though the Thinkpad's would be cheaper to replace.

I realize this is anecdotal, but my 2009 macbook pro 13 is in great shape. Screen, battery, and keyboard are all great. I've watched the new macbook pros come out for 3 years now, and I have felt no serious desire to upgrade.

The only thing the newer macbooks would beat mine on would be games, and I just don't play very many. When I do its usually casual like Plants vs Zombies or whatever.

It's lasted longer and fared better than any other laptop I've owned (14" vostro, 13" inch vaio, 17" HP). It has simply been the best laptop I've every owned.

I have done upgrades, the best of which being an SSD. Without that, I'm sure I'd be feeling the pain of old hardware. I pulled the optical drive out and moved my mechanical drive to that bay for extra storage.

The casing has a few very minor nicks, and I did take it in to the apple store to get new rubber "feet" a few months back (under warranty).

I love my macbook pro. Someday I'll upgrade again, if the logic board gives out or something. Probably to a new macbook pro. Perhaps not though, the other manufacturers are catching up with their ultrabooks.

This laptop has been the first computer I've owned where I haven't felt like I was "fighting" with it to get work done.

The "retina" display is the first thing they've done that has me actually wanting to buy new hardware.

I've never used a Thinkpad, though, so I can't say whether it would have fared better or not.

> I've never used a Thinkpad, though, so I can't say whether it would have fared better or not.

Well... my 2006 T60p is in great shape. Original hard drive, battery only 14.7% down from its original capacity.

My 2004 X31 is still ticking and it's been through a lot. Zero problems with the electronics although to be fair I did upgrade the hard drive in 2007.

The t60 was the last model built when IBM still owned the laptop division. Spun off, Lenovo commoditized and did not keep up the QA. In my org, t60's were widely coveted, hand updated (ssd's, memory) and kept over newer offerings.

The latest T's and X's are better, but your average 60p has a better monitor than nearly all of the current tpad line.

T60ps were built by Lenovo and some outright carried the Lenovo badge. You could claim the design has gone downhill, but the build quality is Lenovo's.

Looking at the IPS-equipped X220 for my next laptop :)