my goodness we lived with plastic thinkpads for decades and many of us still happily do. this fetish for "premium" hardware to be replaced every two years by the newest hottest thing (if that's not you: great, the planet thanks you) is just plain weird from the outside.

"We" didn't do anything. Nobody is replacing their MacBooks every two years; those machines are tanks and are profoundly overspecced for most users' needs.

I love my plastic ThinkPad, but it's also nice to use good-feeling hardware with a good haptic trackpad. It doesn't need to be replaced every two years. To each their own!

I don't know about you but I really don't want my laptop to be the hottest thing, it sits on my lap.

My thinkpad is from 2017, but I bought it in 2022, it's still working fine - I upgraded the memory to 32G (£70) and I've replaced the battery twice (once when I bought it, once a couple of months ago). When I replace it it will likely be because of hardware failure (droppping it etc).