X1 Extreme is a better choice imo, up to 64G (replaceable), 2 m.2 slots, a GTX1050 for casual gaming or ML and a 4K display. I have one on order.
There is also the P1, which comes with a Xeon (!) option and Quadro P1000 graphics. The market for the P1 is pretty specific, but if you need those nVidia certified drivers, this is the one.
Edit: obviously you wouldn't run Linux on the P1 if you bought it for the certified drivers. It would still work though.
I use the P1 as a company provided laptop. It works very well, but the thing is a tank. It's probably twice the weight as a Macbook, and the battery life is about 2 hours or so. It has died if I have many meetings in the day.
Honestly I'd rather just have a desktop at this point. But I don't get to decide what hardware I use.
I get my X1 Extreme on Sunday -- had to order through a friend in the UK because the price in Thailand is nearly 2 times the UK one and in any case nobody has one.
Been a big fan of the thinkpads for 20 years. All of them very solid machines that just last and last, and never had a problem with running Linux on them
I ordered the X1X as a replacement for my 2013 rMBP.
One of the requirements I had was that I can use the single cable USB-C 'docking' stations we have at the office, like my colleagues do who are on the new macbooks.
The great thing of the X1 is (imo) that is has USB-C with TB3 and charging capability like the Mac, but it also has 2 USB type A inputs.
That said, charging over USB-C is not ideal, the supplied 100W Lenovo power brick (unfortunately with proprietary connector) will charge the laptop much faster. It wouldn't even surprise me if the laptop actually loses charge under high load when connected to a USB-C charger. My current MBP also does that with a 60W charger connected.
My experience with the XPS 13 has been pretty meh. Most things work reasonably well, except for using USB-C for an external monitor and the keyboard isn't holding up as well as I'd like. My biggest gripe is the wireless- there's a room in my house where every other laptop gets plenty sufficient signal (mb air, chromebook, windows) BUT the xps gets such a weak signal it's almost impossible to browse the internet.
If I wasn't worried about bricking it and all the config tweaks needed to get things like sleep and power management to work, I'd throw linux on the air and call it a day.
Recent XPS models use a "killer" branded wireless card that's soldered to the motherboard. I suspect things would be better if you could use an Intel card (as is used on most other premium laptops)
I've been using company a provided X1, X1 Yoga 1st and now 3rd gen.
I had several issues with the arrow keys on the X1 Yoga 1st edition.
Tactile feedback while pressing but without actual keypress action on the up arrow. We had a lot of 15 of those, and the issue was present on 8 of these.
3rd edition now has the same issue on the left/right touchpad buttons (the physical ones). If you press don't press on the dead center of these keys, you feel the physical feedback, but there's no keypress action. Again, we got a batch of 15 of those, out of which 10 had this issue.
For the 1st edition the shape of the key was the issue (slant on the membrane), while for the 3rd the key is just too soft (plastic bends before pushing on the membrane).
This is the most brutal behavior a button can have. What's the point of physical feedback if it's broken?
The monitor backlight on all the X1 laptops we have (we're using them since 5 years) developed bright spots. The black level of the screen degrades pretty quickly too, settling after 3 months of normal usage. If you turn on a "fresh" X1 it has significantly more contrast than what you'll typically get a few months on.
Overall, it's still a great line (up and beyond than the HP "elitebook" series), but the keyboard and button issues are really irking me up and the Yoga 3rd edition IMHO has a worse keyboard then the 1st overall.
I sadly cannot compare with the XPS series as I never used the series long enough to judge.
Running Ubuntu on T480s. Nice machine, plenty thin and really lightweight. Touchpad is nice, no pinch-to-zoom on linux but two-finger right click is finally working it seems (click, not tap). Battery life could be better, getting ~4hours on Ubuntu 18.10 with tlp installed (and I thought 6hrs on the 2016 Macbook Pro was a downgrade :/) I miss the mac apps though, linux apps got frozen in time somewhere in the early 2000s.
