Linux

for another (other than Tuxedo) EU based solution: https://slimbook.es/en/
(They are at Valencia, Spain).
But I have no about idea its quality as I have never tried one.

15 years ago I would have been surprised to hear that Thinkpads are cheap laptops !

My thinkpad model officially supports linux, so there is no problem there. It is also much cheaper than any of those brands, and it's also available from the regular stores.

those manufacturer either have to charge thouthands, or use the cheapest possible hardware they can find to be interesting compared to the thinkpads of old, which can take a punch or two and get replacement parts

Thinkpads cost a couple hundred dollars and works fine. If you don’t do anything intensive, there’s no reason to buy a near $1000 laptop. I also dropped mine from like 3-5 feet and the only damage was a slight paint chip on the battery. My 2012 MacBook would’ve been done for.

Give me something less than 15k INR and I might consider it

Not sure, but, I dont think any of them are available outside usa/europe. Lenovo has more global coverage

Those are all expensive, used Thinkpad is below the ground-dirt cheap...$150?!

My Thinkpad Ultrabook was insanely cheap even with a docking station. I do donate to Pop OS once a year though as a thanks for their work and I recommend the same. It's like $12 a year on their site and they do great work.

Trying to get one of their laptops but thats in short order for me, for now.

Adding on:

• lack of quick shipping
• proxied payments like PayPal or apple gpay
• some use laptop kits that are supposedly cheap
• hardware different from software if it breaks and there's no store or big company to ask for a refund from, you'll be pissed
• some of the hardware reviews about bugs and their handling of them are damning

For me it's Dell, when I bought my (used) Latitude E5470 there was even Ubuntu running officially on it IIRC at the time. I like the small Dell because there's ton of them 3+ years old, parts available everywhere, they are pretty solid and made for corporate world, they are no toy like Asus. A $1500 model can be had for like $200-300 after a couple of years. I installed MX Linux on it, everything works perfectly without touching or configuring anything.

For instance now you can find a nice E7480 for 200-300$, with Core I7, 8GB or 16GB RAM, SSD, 1080p, NFC, fingerprint, USB-PD dock compatible, etc.

I'd guess build quality is a big factor for most of those recommenders. I like Lenovo, even though other computers have better specs, because Lenovo's are tough and reasonably priced.

The X1 Carbon series is popular with Linux kernel devs, so it's had a lot of TLC. It makes a big difference for some stuff like sleeping. My Thinkpads handled sleeping really well, and I could expect to leave it sitting for at least a week and come back to somewhat low battery. My Framework laptops, as nice as they are otherwise, will drain the battery during sleep in 24h, no matter what I've tried. The situation is apparently better on the newer-gen Framework laptops, and IMO Framework's open nature will lead to a similar situation to Thinkpads, but it's not quite there yet.

Apart from sleep, I've heard complaints about the manufacturing quality of some of the other options, but haven't used them myself so can't verify. Might be why some people recommend the Thinkpads, though. I do really like the quality of the Framework, and I'd recommend people take a look at them over Thinkpads now, unless they care about sleep battery usage.

To chime in with some of the other answers, price also makes a difference. Thinkpads have been around long enough that there's a nice large used market. I got a rock-solid Thinkpad T480 for a few hundred dollars from some dude on Craigslist. My Framework is higher-specced and was paid for by my work, but it still starts out ~$800. I think it'll just take time before other manufacturers have a similar situation.

People will say many things. But at the end of the day, it’s the keyboard. I honestly cannot think of a company that does keyboards better than Lenovo (formerly IBM).

Bought my last few laptops from Tuxedo. Their 13" infinibook can be quite noisy, but I'm having a blast with the Polaris I bought last year.

Entroware is another you could add to the list. I had a good experience buying from them. They do the usual Clevo OEM things.

Didn’t Lenovo like 15 years ago make a line of desktops that shipped with some redhat derivative installed? Or am I thinking of something else?

Some of these dont really ship worldwide. Not all of them offer a good bang for the buck in terms of hardware specs, and big companies sometimes offer more options (system76 traditionally didnt offer screens over FHD, most laptops are only 14"....).

Had Tuxedo experience: 3/5 at most Had ThinkPad experience: 4/5 at least

One factor is that laptops need a little more design work to build out main boards and validate relative to a desktop, especially considering that you optimizing for power draw and that very little of the design is socketed. As a result a good chunk of the Linux laptop market uses OEM provided designs and then tailors their software around it. Last I heard system76 was working to bring that design work in house.

Framework has some quality problems, not everyone is a fan of the keyboard, and it's relatively expensive.

Tuxedo is quite good, but they often use stock Clevo models and customize them, so they might be cheaper and not that well designed than one by a "proper brand".

Not sure about the rest.

There's very little alternative if you want a ThinkPad style keyboard and track pad/trackpoint for the price of a used or older ThinkPad.

Also Vant and Slimbook from Spain. I own a PC from Vant and I'm happy with it but I would think twice before buying a laptop for 1.5k when I can just get a used lenovo for half that price and use it for next 10 years.