Although I wouldn't generally recommend to a normal person, this being hackernews, I can confidently recommend a Clevo. These laptops come with reference hardwa

Although I wouldn't generally recommend to a normal person, this being hackernews, I can confidently recommend a Clevo. These laptops come with reference hardware which means that you don't need to wait for your manufacturer to release their versions of the latest drivers. This becomes a problem especially with display cards, with AMD/ATi and Nvidia releasing new drivers quite aggressively while the large companies take their own sweet time to customize the drivers to their hardware. Another thing I'd like to add is that as far as my knowledge goes, these guys use copper heatsinks/heatpipe system. Sure, you pay for it but good hardware makes for a longer lasting laptop. The service manuals for Clevo are incredibly detailed, possibly almost as much as those Thinkpad ones. Reiterating again, the sheer joy of installing reference drivers over the course of years definitely outshines any advantages that I'd get by saving a few hundred bucks if I'd have gone with a popular laptop brand.