Things I actually care about these days that aren't already basically universal:
Good screen. Bright and High DPI, and an OS that takes good advantage of that.
Good keyboard. I'm gonna type a lot at least sometimes and use Vim, I don't want some mushy accessory keyboard.
Good trackpad. Reasonably big, but not so big your palms constantly make it do things despite software that tries to prevent that. Highly responsive and supports scrolling and dragging without trying to hold down a physical click mechanism.
Can run both a real modern web browser, as in with rapid automatic updates, and as good of a Unix-y command line as possible.
A good selection of ports is a nice plus. As is touchscreen and flexible orientation.
Having regular security updates is good, though it should also not be too pushy about forcing restarts for them. Ideally, it would never lose state, short of me rebooting it by direct command or being unplugged and letting the battery run flat.
It's also nice if I can leave it in "sleep" unattended and off the charger for a week+, open it up, and it's ready to use with the battery still pretty full.
I like a Unix-y command line, but I'm pretty meh about trying to keep a bare-metal Linux install running and updated.
What I actually got recently is a mid-high end Chromebook. I'm pretty happy with it - the current Linux it now supports turns it from a basically browser-centered thing to a very practical developer workstation, assuming you live in the terminal like I do.
Good screen. Bright and High DPI, and an OS that takes good advantage of that.
Good keyboard. I'm gonna type a lot at least sometimes and use Vim, I don't want some mushy accessory keyboard.
Good trackpad. Reasonably big, but not so big your palms constantly make it do things despite software that tries to prevent that. Highly responsive and supports scrolling and dragging without trying to hold down a physical click mechanism.
Can run both a real modern web browser, as in with rapid automatic updates, and as good of a Unix-y command line as possible.
A good selection of ports is a nice plus. As is touchscreen and flexible orientation.
Having regular security updates is good, though it should also not be too pushy about forcing restarts for them. Ideally, it would never lose state, short of me rebooting it by direct command or being unplugged and letting the battery run flat.
It's also nice if I can leave it in "sleep" unattended and off the charger for a week+, open it up, and it's ready to use with the battery still pretty full.
I like a Unix-y command line, but I'm pretty meh about trying to keep a bare-metal Linux install running and updated.
What I actually got recently is a mid-high end Chromebook. I'm pretty happy with it - the current Linux it now supports turns it from a basically browser-centered thing to a very practical developer workstation, assuming you live in the terminal like I do.