I went the other direction. Bought a Thinkpad due to how amazing they were in the past. Found that the build quality had gone way down. Was pretty disappointed as this expensive piece of hardware developed cracks on the casing within the first year.
Switched to an XPS 15 and have been very happy. Love the build quality, specs are good enough. Battery life is much better even on Linux.
Which model? We are looking into buying quite a few, and Thinkpads are the first choice here. We never had problems in the past, but I've been hearing about problems in their mid-range models. I'd like to avoid those, at the very least.
Not OP, but I got the X1 Carbon, which was (at the time) their top-of-the-line Ultrabook and believed to be their most Linux-compatible laptop.
I had a number of issues with the Thinkpad that were all relatively minor in and of themselves, but overall, I ended up switching back to the XPS 13, and I plan on sticking with this line.
I'm on my third X1C. First-gen, 3rd then 5th generation. Never had an issue with Linux compatibility. The middle one had a malfunction with the voltage regulator, promptly fixed by Lenovo. Other than that, my opinion on the X1 Carbon is stellar. I'm wary of some of the newer models, but not of this one.
Switched to an XPS 15 and have been very happy. Love the build quality, specs are good enough. Battery life is much better even on Linux.
YMMV!