Not OP, but basically share that opinion.

Traditional laptops have their place, but I think most people would be better served by other form factors.

For instance a good amount of people use their laptops basically like a desktop and dock it to an external screen 90% of the time. For that specific use case, a tablet form factor will have better thermals, and lend itself better to have a separate and better keyboard and pointing device. The other 10% will still be a decent experience with either the detachable keyboard or straight bringing along an external keyboard if the work sequences are exepected to be long enough.

People more on the go but needing a powerful setup when needed now have access to devices that can expand the screen real estate beyond the 15" traditional limitation. Lenovo has been pushing the enveloppe on that front, and the build quality isn't bad either.

Gaming laptops are better served by Steam Deck/ROG Ally type of form factors etc.

The market is decently diversified and the form factors I'm describing are as far as I know selling better numbers than people clinging to Thinkpads and macbooks would expect.

> "Are you saying that the laptop is an outdated form factor?"

Yes, that's the gist of it. Classic laptops gave way to an acceptable interstage, the T-hinge convertible (with many great examples especially from IBM/Lenovo, HP, and Fujitsu), which was then superseded by the best of both worlds: the detachable. The latter chassis design, taken to its logical conclusion, is the best form factor for a modular, ultramobile to mobile general-purpose computing platform, i. e. it can technically be implemented as anything between a UMPC (i. e. a smartphone-sized and -styled slab) to something with a footprint of maximally 14 inches (example: HP's discontinued ZBook X2 G4 mobile workstation). Anything bigger I consider an antithesis to the form factor and therefore would not buy it, but that's obviously in the eye of any beholder.

One possible unrealistic "dream" design for me is, as weird as it sounds, a cross between a Nintendo Switch/Lenovo Legion Go (complete with detachable controller options!) and an improved Panasonic Toughbook G2, reworked as a professional-grade, maintenance-friendly mobile workstation (or a scaled-down, more maintenance-friendly and otherwise improved HP ZBook X2 G4 with ECC memory).

> "What 'market realities' are you noticing?"

Well, the above mentioned design is unrealistic as it would amount to an expensive general-purpose machine that needs a long-term support infrastructure. Not many companies on the market that are in a position to deliver on that promise for at least three continental zones (say, the Americas, the Eurozone and major parts of Asia). Or willing to do so.

Furthermore, the comment was a reflection on what is available on the market for the foreseeable future. I'm eyeing such a small mobile workstation for a) 2D graphics work and b) analysis of historical and archival data. I am even willing to put up with a classic laptop if I could get an ECC-equipped model. But none of these machines are mobile, they're all 16-inch+ brutes. No thanks.

So I have to look for other machines. ECC-machine? Fuck, most likely some mini-PC in addition to something mobile without ECC memory. Keeping that in mind, what are the options that come closest to the above ideal? Essentially only overspecialized, maintenance-averse gaming machines with pathetic battery life and a support quality somewhere between questionable and utterly inacceptable (Lenovo consumer division, OneXPlayer, Asus).

A Panasonic Toughbook G2 10-incher could be an acceptable alternative, but I'm not gonna fork over Panasonic-money for a non-ECC ruggedized machine without a DCI-P3 screen and a digitizer that's even worse than an Apple Pencil (I think they use either Microsoft's Pen Protocol or Wacom's AES tech).

Everything else is locked-down garbage with some sort of Fisher-Price OS, e. g. everything Apple, Samsung's Galaxy Tab Active5 Pro, etc.

> "I don’t know what you mean by 'market realities'."

The reality that a certain crowd, I count myself among them, has to/or might have to choose laptops because machines in their preferred form factor either a) implement too many inacceptable but technically entirely avoidable compromises, or b) don't exist at all. That market reality. Like, when you have to settle for a laptop.