Not cheap, but the Thinkpad X1 Carbons are machines of the same quality as Macbooks. They are comparable to the Air in weight (but a little larger, I think) and are designed with reasonable trade-offs.
They (of course) (only) come in stylish matte black, and have the little red trackpoint, which I personally consider the best input device by far (not counting the keyboard obviously)...
If you decide for a professional Thinkpad (which the X1 is), strongly consider upgrading the warranty.
On-site support with coverage for accidental damages is so nice when you need it....
My 4th gen (the current is 6th gen) machine (which is technically a yoga gen1 and not a 4th gen Carbon, but the same base machine) has been running Linux since it's second power-on :)
I wish I could agree, but my X1C6 has many issues on Debian.
* Hibernate did not work out-of-the-box
* Lack of fractional scaling makes everything too small or ludicrously big (100% or 200%)
* X server crashes often on suspend
* Audio is too quiet on maximum volume
* Occasionally CPU performance tanks, and I have to reboot
* Track-pad is unresponsive compared to a MacBook (if you have not used a MacBook often before you may not notice this, and it won't be an issue)
* Battery life is a pretty middling 5 hours.
- Battery: A package called TLP should drastically improve battery life[1][2]. Thinkpad t480s with battery life ranging from 6-8 for browsing to 13+ with min-brightness and just playing music. Before TLP I think it was close to 5 max.
- I'm assuming since X is crashing you're not using Wayland. I've noticed fractional scaling (which is a thing in Wayland) causes blurry text. This isn't an issue in X, but I've noticed if I mess around with custom xrandr config to customize stuff, I have issues -- i.e. total system lockup, reboot required -- with plugging in/out external monitors on to the fly. Anyway, a custom xrandr setup should make things a bit easier on your eyes.[3]
- For CPU performance maybe this anti-throttling script should help. I'm able to run at max CPU clock frequency at 85-90+ deg temps without throttling when doing CPU intense stuff[4]
I'm running Arch instead of Debian, so maybe having newer kernels or packages help in some aspects, such as hibernating, track-pad, and X. Idk. Running newest versions isn't always great either, there are often regressions and bugs you notice after upgrading.
[1]: https://linrunner.de/en/tlp/docs/tlp-linux-advanced-power-ma...
[2]: This is arch wiki, but it should still have applicable information for other distro such as debian and it's a bit more readable IMO, https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/TLP
[3]: FYI, this is somewhat specific for a 1440p display, not 4k or 1080p, but you should be able to modify it for 4k it needed by adjusting the `--fb` value primarily. https://gist.github.com/francium/d93bcf75884ebeea216cc04cee0...