I mostly think of thinkpads as chinese crap-gadgets anymore since ibm discarded the brand name to lenovo. I have one from my current customer, a T14, I7 proc, dock, etc, and not a bad box - other than it runs windoze that I can't simply blast and put linux on (outside a vm I run on it). I don't really know that I trust it much, to me it's a dumb windoze box to do dumb windoze crap that only works on windoze for them.
I considered a thinkpad for a bit before I bought my last xps15 dell, but 1) price killed the notion (you'd think they'd be cheaper being owned in china), 2) I don't really trust they're up to par with old ibm-based thinkpads, and 3) simply don't trust them at all. Everything is made in china these days true, but still rather not invest directly in china, trust they aren't adding some snoop hardware ala the Supermicro hardware fiasco, and simply take the blue pill.
I agree this
frame.work laptop concept is probably a long-shot, but the notion is novel. Not seen one like the framework, but likewise burned on kickstarters and such, I mostly avoid them all together. Here's to hope for better days I suppose.
My old xps15 9560 still holds up currently after upgrading to 64gb of ram (and a new battery recently) every day, so while I probably could use a new laptop, it works fine to fidget too much to get a new one. I've been watching for a sleek ryzen/epic amd laptop, and will probably wait for that.
-mb