UPDATE: in the two days this was up, having combed through the comments on three separate occasions – the following seems to be the general consensus, in rough order of relative importance:

1. S3 standby/sleep support required

2. low weight for luggability, 2.5lb maximum

3. survives table-to-floor falls

4. always-on-AC battery deaths unacceptible

5. survives being in a bag, accidental activation

6. Linux support for all hardware

7. trackpads on par with Apple, at least

8. keyboards with clear actuation, spill resistance and backlighting

9. kill switches or modular hardware for camera and mic

10. bright matte screens, with vertical space

11. memory and I/O performance approaching Apple's M1 SoC

12. HDMI, USB-A, 3.5mm, 10gbE, SD, USB-C periferals are what people own, support that

13. trackpoints are great for text-editing

14. quiet operation, no blinken-lights

15. prefer no webcam over shitty webcam, no BT/WiFi over shitty BT/WiFi

After the Apple event streams I shall post a list of laptops people seem to have a history of enjoying.

Cheers.

What is that crowd that you mention? BTW, what do you use the laptop for?

Not mention, describe. Therein your answer.

I would use the laptop for rendering and modelling, animating and music production, video encoding and massive compiling. Maybe a few virtual machines. If it can handle it.

EDIT: of course a lot of reading, coding and writing.

UPDATE: this seems to have blown up a bit.

Combing through once again, thanks everyone.