Anecdotal but I have all of my Apple laptops going back to the late 90s all still in working order. The only machines I can think of with a similar build quality was the IBM era ThinkPad range. I’ve never used a Dell laptop that didn’t have something off about it.

System76 makes good quality Linux laptops.

No, nothing really comes close to the M4 Max right now. Intel and AMD have really dropped the ball in the last few years. I'm considering replacing my Dell with an M5 when they (probably) release in October.

If I were buying a non Mac laptop today it’d likely be a Framework. Their laptops don’t feel as premium, imo, but the fact you can repair nearly every single thing on the laptop yourself makes up for a lot of it. I don’t think they’re very directly comparable to a MacBook, they’re two products with fairly different ideologies behind them. Other than that I’ve been largely unimpressed by non-Apple laptop offerings.

You have not provided enough information for anyone to say.

What screen size do you need?

What will it be used for?

Will you be using it at a desk? with a monitor? or always travelling.

What battery life do you need

Etc

I have a Dell XPS that I bought in 2020 and still use daily, the only issue I've had was the rubber feet/lines needing to be replaced. I still have my previous laptops (only two, because I don't need to buy many when they last forever when you take care of them) and they all work perfectly (just outdated specs, so I use them when I just need to do a presentation or something).

I do notice that most people tend to abuse their laptops; I believe my laptops are outliers because I don't abuse them.

Your laptop performance should not be degrading if you don't allow it to overheat.

In addition to physical treatment, the software that you allow to run on it, makes a difference. (Software maxing out the CPU constantly is going to cause it to overheat and degrade.)

Huawei M series laptops are the best pcs I've ever owned. Best in class security and privacy, amazing processors for the money, and whip apple hardware in every metric. Plus repairable in every way. Never going back to mac.

Alternatively, how about a base model Macbook as a thin-client (running MacOS) + a powerful Linux desktop/server to remote into?

Have you considered getting a MacBook and running a Linux VM on it? I do this using UTM, which is an excellent macOS front end for Qemu and Apple’s own Virtualization framework.

https://mac.getutm.app/

Its not what you asked, but on the off chance you use local LLM’s for anything, getting a macbook with unified memory is a great price/performance ratio without spending tons on graphics cards.

Personally if I was in the market for a new laptop I would be upgrading my 16gb M1 macbook pro, to whatever the latest MBP is with as much RAM as I could afford.

16gb can run 14b models slowly and they are semi usable, good for small tasks.

24gb or 32gb can get you into 27b models that start getting pretty usable.

What is important for you?

Web surfing and watching Netflix? They are all pretty much equivalent.

Running Linux? I don’t think the M chips are well supported, and last I looked it appeared the M3 and 4 are not supported at all…though, I did not look at Arch.

Equivalent in price, aesthetics, or brand identity?

For Gaming? Programming? Training LLM’s? Editing Video?

Battery Life?

I'm not sure what about CPU performance but if you want a good windows laptop buy an ASUS. I find it easier to find models in Amazon Europe. They have some lines that aren't flashy with added crap.

If I were getting a PC laptop today, I'd get one with an AMD APU which has great performance/battery. Whether you want a discrete GPU or use the integrated graphics is up to you. The integrated graphics is also pretty good. I'd opt for a system using the AMD Ryzen AI Max+ 395 'Strix Halo' APU with integrated 9060S GPU and up to 128GB of quad-channel LPDDR5x memory (soldered so decide once).

I'm really enjoying Thinkpad X1 Yoga as a Linux laptop. I have the Gen 6 that's a few years old by now but it still feels and looks as good as new.

Caveats: 32 GB RAM is enough for me and I don't need a powerful GPU. Also battery life is average, but there's a way to optimize the system for minimum power draw which I never did.