There are indeed many tradeoffs - for you, 1 vs 2 USB ports is not an important trade-off, but for me it is. And I'm the OP :p

Try the Dell XPS 13 9360, I have had the older version with the same design for some time now and it is simply flawless. Apparently the latest models (9370, 2in1) are not as good.

yes. almost everyone else makes derivative pick-a-part products.

making a functional laptop is very easy. its just a matter of putting together parts from a bin. thats why there are countless generic chinese 'manufacturers' such as deeq, zeuslap, gmolo, amoudo, etc.
making a laptop that functions well is another. it requires thoughtful consideration in design, engineering, manufacturing.

the results shows up in:
-sturdiness of chassis and perceived quality
-tactility and satisfaction of keystroke and track pad
-balance in stiffness of hinge - soft enough to open the laptop without lifting the base, but heavy enough to not have the screen flop under its own weight
-body and corners and edges and how it interacts with the user -- does it "cut" into ones arm? does the corner poke? is the body grippy? does it smudge and smear?
-display - its not just speccing the highest resolution, or brightest, or highest contrast screen, or most saturated - but is the color gamut wide? is the screen glossy or matte and how is that fit for purpose?
-cooling and ventilation - any high spec machine can run fast in burst, but if it doesnt cool well, it will slow down under sustained load
-etc etc etc

so there are all these qualitative things that are not immediate obvious. and its something that the other company has done extremely well despite a crowd or industry that measures purely on Specs vs Price.

ive had toshibas, asus, hp, and countless dells, and theres no indication that most companies have the ethos to want to do the things above well.
that most of them offer 30 40 50 identical looking laptops without any obvious distinction. one surmises something about their product planning philosophy.

many people hold a similar view towards car manufacturers, or airline carriers. is that such a controversial opinion?

Surface laptops are not made by Microsoft. The OEM is Pegatron, essentially a part of Asus. While they are definitely among the thinnest and lightest and use some innovative solutions to achieve it, there are also trade-offs and drawbacks, and, unfortunately, widely reported quality issues, even confirmed by Microsoft themselves in a leaked memo: https://www.thurrott.com/mobile/micr...ty-reliability

Unlike most other laptops, including other thin-and-light ones, Surface devices have an iFixit repairability score of 0 out of 10, which is even worse than Apple products: essentially, everything inside is glued together and cannot be disassembled without causing permanent damage.

In short, these are devices with a premium price tag (exceeding $3,000 for some configurations) that are unfixable by design and suffer from a high failure rate. Feel free to make your own conclusions.

OK then. Now I'm curious. Why?

#define snark OFF
Why are two USB ports tantamount?

Maybe he hates touchpads and wants to keep a nano USB plugged in for his mouse. <shrugs>

I would generally agree with him. The majority of Windows laptops sold in retail stores are consumer-grade (poor quality, cheap components & design), even big name-brands. I would actually lump the Microsoft Surface in that group too.

If you're buying a laptop for anything other than screwing around on the 'net, do yourself a favor and buy a real enterprise-class laptop, even if that means buying a used one. Yes, they're a bit more, but for a reason -- better quality parts. Intel network cards *are* better than Realtek's offerings, and yes, they cost more. Proper thermal design costs money, and good heat sinks generally cost more to manufacture due to the precision required if you're going for lightweight, or the sheer mass of metal if you're going sloppy with the machining. Even the almighty Apple Macbooks had thermal problems due to them cutting corners on thermal management.

Not sure what to buy? Look around next time you're at the airport or on the plane. Look for laptops with barcode/inventory control stickers on them -- those are likely corporate machines. When an IT department has to support 1,000-50,000+ laptops, they're not going knowingly to buy something which is failure prone, fragile, or unrepairable. Chances are you're going to see Lenovo T, X, and P series and Dell Latitudes, maybe a Dell Precision. HP does make an enterprise line, but I've not overly familiar with them. You're NOT going to see Acer, Asus, Samsung, MSI, etc. Do be careful as Lenovo, Dell, and especially HP make consumer-grade laptops as well which are just as good/as bad as the rest of the cheap stuff flooding the market.

/typing this on a well-beaten, repaired-too-many-times-to-count 2009 Macbook Pro
//Replacing it with either a Lenovo T480 or T580. The new Macs aren't up for the rigors of the road, especially their new keyboards.

Because I hate touchpads, and keep a mouse plugged into one, then use the second for thumb drives/external hard drive/plugging in phone, etc. I know that I could get a BT mouse, but I don't want to have another battery to worry about. Hey. it's my life/way of working...

And KRSW - I look around the airport, and see those Lenovos and Dells, and they all weigh 4 lbs. I want LIGHT.

Take a closer look -- T480s (14" screen) is under 3 lbs, the X1 series generally are 2.5 lbs. For comparison, a 12" Macbook Air (13" screen) is 3 lbs and of limited capability compared to these. If price is a concern, buy used. There's always plenty of T & X series available on the off-lease market due to their popularity in the corporate world.

I'd argue a Chromebook is a better option if you are just "screwing around on the 'net".

Not recently.

Asus dismantled itself years ago.

" Not sure what to buy? Look around next time you're at the airport or on the plane. Look for laptops with barcode/inventory control stickers on them -- those are likely corporate machines "

What you write may have been the reality a decade ago, but these days is often just what the cheapest/best deal an IT department could get, and these machines generally come off the same line and have the exact same components as the "consumer" machines, often with even lesser specs. The World has changed.

We're still buying enterprise-grade-only for the majority of users. I do have a few Lenovo Yoga 12" out there operating as thin clients, but we're still using T, X, and P series ThinkPads here. They've been very reliable, stable machines, even if the users aren't. Then again, we typically operate on a 6-year lifecycle for these, with a mid-life refresh (max ram, faster & larger HDD/SSD). I even have a few 8 year old ThinkPads being used everyday by some users as their daily drivers. I can't say I've ever had a consumer laptop from Best Buy ever last that long under daily (ab)use.

There's more to a laptop than hard drives & RAM. Sure, those commodity parts are widely used. Even Apple use commodity parts, often with much lower specs than competing machines. There's a serious difference in keyboards, screen hinges, case plastics (ABS vs. glass fiber-reinforced), power, and thermal management. Volkswagen builds the up! and Polo, but they also build the Bentley Flying Spur as well. Yes, the Flying Spur's radio in the dash is identical to that found in a lowly CC or Passat. BUT I can guarantee the experience between the two cars is substantially different.

I think if you can get over the "gaming" stigma, I've a good experience with the Razer Blade Stealth series.
I've found it well made, and competitive in terms of performance. Price may be an issue so that' could be the detractor.
Slap a sticked over the "gaming" logo and its a pretty looking performer.
I have a 2nd gen RBS and I think my only complaint would be that the battery life is not as strong as some of the other ultrabooks out there. However, with the USBC, I'm able to charge with 45w PD battery banks so whilst traveling I've often not needed to hunt for outlets.

It may not be for everyone, but I've had good success with it.

KRSW, that was my point, not really anymore, The keyboards may now be the same, hinges might actually be better on consumer models, and regarding the other materials you state, maybe you are talking literally another $3-4 in actual cost to the build quality. The days that you are talking about are over, in any case. I have had both. and other than one brand that was always consistently trash (Toshiba) have found that almost every machine that I have had has outlived its usefulness before having a major breakdown. Lastly, unless someone is only basically surfing and maybe using Office, I do not know what real utility one would get out of any 8 year old Thinkpad! I had to pull something recently off of a 10 year old notebook that I had not used in at least 4 years. Everything worked...............but it was soooooooooo slow (and when it was bought, it was the best/fastest around)