Okey, so Lenovo issn't going to make any more Thinkpads geared toward the mobile tech / science / IT crowd... To me the x280 seem like an utterly useless device to bring with on an expedition, for someone working with stationary tech (eg. wind turbines, radio masts), (re)building infrastructure at any remote place in the world, security professionals on audit, anyone in a data-center or even your regular big business IT-department who might be working anywhere but their desk for a full day.
they basically took away any reason for anyone but a copy pasting, github-glued developer curating their profile out of starbucks, who can't quite afford the x1 carbon, to buy this abomination of a x2xx laptop.
Because that's all the x280 is. A not quite as expensive x1 carbon with one less thunderbolt port, one less inch of real estate and they couldn't even bother to do something about the bezels to give it a single tangible advantage (footprint) over the upcoming carbon (which most likely is going to rock the same chassi as the 2017 model).
guess I hoped for too much when I hoped for a refresh that would keep the strengths of this solid series. That would ship with the 8xxxx cpu series, maybe spor: a 13" display on the same (or even slightly smaller) footprint, maybe ditch the 2.5 inch bay for actual dimm slot based dual channel memory.