I'd like it in a setup that makes usable as a portable without a lot of setup. IMO it is feasibly to disable the keyboard/trackpad and just put my keyboard on top but it isn't ideal.
I have an external Thinkpad USB keyboard with full-travel keys, a built-in trackpoint, 3 physical buttons, and no trackpad. It cost me about £60 new, 3 years ago.
I use it with my MacBook Air when travelling, and a cheapo external USB-C screen with a broken laptop mount.
The MBA is slim, light, and 3 years on, its battery still lasts several days. It's perfectly able to do 8-10 hours of near-continuous use. But the keyboard and trackpad are awful.
So, external keyboard, external screen, pocket USB-C hub to connect them, which also gives me a spare full-size USB port and Ethernet.
If you don't need the battery life, I suggest investigating a ?20 era Thinkpad.
The X220 is quite portable and though the screen is small the keyboard is great and the range of ports good.
The T420 is moderately portable, has a decent screen and the i7 has a discrete GPU. Works surprisingly well with Wayland these days.
The W520 is not really portable at all but has a lovely big screen, tonnes of ports, and quad-core models have 4 SO-DIMM slots so 24 GB is cheap and 32 GB doable.
For all, get an i7 model, fit 2 SSDs and max out the RAM, and the result is perfectly usable in 2026 if you're a gamer or "influencer" who needs to edit video.
Cost, £200 or so.
And there's the 701 DS which has 2 screens, a numeric keypad, and a Wacom tablet built in.
I'd like it in a setup that makes usable as a portable without a lot of setup. IMO it is feasibly to disable the keyboard/trackpad and just put my keyboard on top but it isn't ideal.
This is so established a thing that it has a name: Sonshi Style.
https://dylanbaileywrites.medium.com/sonshi-style-an-obscure...
I have an external Thinkpad USB keyboard with full-travel keys, a built-in trackpoint, 3 physical buttons, and no trackpad. It cost me about £60 new, 3 years ago.
I use it with my MacBook Air when travelling, and a cheapo external USB-C screen with a broken laptop mount.
The MBA is slim, light, and 3 years on, its battery still lasts several days. It's perfectly able to do 8-10 hours of near-continuous use. But the keyboard and trackpad are awful.
So, external keyboard, external screen, pocket USB-C hub to connect them, which also gives me a spare full-size USB port and Ethernet.
If you don't need the battery life, I suggest investigating a ?20 era Thinkpad.
The X220 is quite portable and though the screen is small the keyboard is great and the range of ports good.
The T420 is moderately portable, has a decent screen and the i7 has a discrete GPU. Works surprisingly well with Wayland these days.
The W520 is not really portable at all but has a lovely big screen, tonnes of ports, and quad-core models have 4 SO-DIMM slots so 24 GB is cheap and 32 GB doable.
For all, get an i7 model, fit 2 SSDs and max out the RAM, and the result is perfectly usable in 2026 if you're a gamer or "influencer" who needs to edit video.
Cost, £200 or so.
And there's the 701 DS which has 2 screens, a numeric keypad, and a Wacom tablet built in.
Hard to find and expensive, though.