As stupid as it may sound, I really dislike laptops with 16:9 screens. That is why, together with other small things such as build quality, that I cannot seem to find anything better than Macbooks to fit my taste..
It's the most impressive laptop I've ever used. Great 3:2 screen, excellent build quality, a real touchscreen (i.e., multitouch, pen support with pressure, etc), MacBook-tier trackpad. Convertible tablet mode is far more useful than I anticipated and is nice for showing off. The new Linux subsystem is still a bit buggy but is very impressive (I was able to compile and run emacs with a GUI as if I was running Ubuntu natively, for example).
Although the Surface Book is still plagued by Windows and firmware/drivers issues, despite being insanely expensive, and it is also quite small, so its nice 3:2 screen is only as tall as a 15.6 16:9 screen, and obviously narrower -- I prefer Apple 15.4" 16:10 approach; it would probably be perfect if Apple made a slightly smaller version or MS a slightly bigger. The SB CPU is limited to dual core, too. Also the antireflet, quite essential on a glossy screen, seems inferior to what Apple uses.
I used a top-end Surface Pro as a dev machine for 6 months running Ubuntu, and it was great. Three screens, fast, powerful, portable, plus multiple vms. Only really hit the limits when compiling big c libraries or using the Android toolchain. If I couldn't use my current MBPr, I would happily use another.
I have the i5 256GB/8GB model with discrete Nvidia GPU in the base (very handy for photography / light gaming). Haven't had issues with RAM although I rarely need to run VMs, and I have a SD adapter in the base to expand the storage for TV and films and so on.
The top model has an i7 and 512GB/16GB (same dGPU). It was about EUR1000 more if I recall correctly, not worth it to me.
Not sure about hardware refresh. I've seen rumours around that they might hold off for Intel's Kaby Lake parts which would mean 2017, but who knows.
Chromebook Pixel - 3:2 aspect ratio. Best screen because of the resolution and aspect ratio. The Pixel was built for developers, hence the choice of screen. Also comes with the best keyboard and trackpad going, not to mention the best speakers (2013 version) and a rock solid build quality that makes those Apple things feel cheap. Oh, the screen is touchscreen too which helps if you are developing for things with touch screens. Price? Allegedly expensive but who cares if it actually lasts a few years.
ChromeOS is obviously unsuitable for most developers. So then, does Google guarantee that I will have no problems using my favourite Linux distro (or at least Ubuntu), including trackpad drivers, good battery life, functioning sleep mode, wireless and other usual Linux issues on not officially supported hardware?
Also, do you consider a 64GB SSD to be sufficient for a developer?
Well I don't use a Pixel but I upgraded my SSD on HP Chromebook 14 to use as my personal development laptop some years ago - still using it.
Driver support wise it takes a year plus for all the hardware to get supported in the mainline Linux kernel is what I have found. What works is to dump the distro kernel and use the latest stable mainline.
