What will the Ubergeeks do?

I was just watching a TWIT episode and re-noticed (I also noticed at this at DEFCON [no I wasn’t there, on video]) that most of those geeks have ThinkPads.  Among the tech elite IBM’s ThinkPads are pretty much renowned as the super notebooks.  I had an old thinkpad, a tiny one (Can’t remember the model, but one of the ultraportables) that took all sorts of beatings and was at least 4 years old by the time I hocked it and I can attest that it was nice.  But now, ThinkPads are not IBM products, that division was sold to the Chinese manufacturer Lenovo.  So, what is the super tech savvy geeks notebook of choice now? I use a Dell now, not because I love them, or even because I think they have great hardware (its ok) but they have unbeatable warranties/support.  I managed to get a 5 year warranty (stringing together student discounts, special offers, etc) for my Dell and have had to deal with customer service twice, and they did a pretty good job (or a great job if you compare it to average company’s customer support). I would rule out Sony because they have so many proprietary hardware issues (that’s not to say they don’t have some sweet offerings out there), and rule out AlienWare just because their systems are some of the few that *don’t* make the thinkpad prices look outrageous (i.e. very expensive), narrowing it down to… not sure.  Chances are I would go with a Dell again, for the warranty.  I am not the biggest fan of notebooks because if something in them breaks I can’t just replace it like I can in a desktop, so I am extra dependant on the manufacturer; plus, most people carry their notebooks around thus increasing the chances they break. One possibility would be a Mac, not so much for the hardware (and for the record I doubt I would bother with getting one at this point until they switch over to Intel) but for the OS. I notice lots of techies (the ubertechies [yes, I love the word "Uber", thank you Germany!]) use powerbooks now. I doubt it is because of the hardware, yes, the powerbooks shame most intel notebooks in terms of slick looking design but battery, speed, etc are lacking but the OS thats a different story. OSX is essentially a new UN*X flavor and has the power of UN*X, with more mature applications than say Linux (and of course that is debatable, but since many Mac apps are paid they seem to be more polished).



Anywho, I was just curious.