I don't know if they're asking for them, but they sure seem to appreciate them and see them as "better".

At work, the standard issue laptop is some form of HP Elitebook. These have been getting thinner, and people seem to like that. We're not a tech shop, and even the IT dept. is mainly barely-technical project-managers. An 8th gen i5 would be plenty powerful for what they do, but fortunately for them we have to replace the laptops regularly because for some reason we buy them with the least amount of RAM possible (even before the prices exploded).

Anyway, at the start of the year I was fed up with the ridiculous screen quality of the HPs and other annoyances, so I got myself an Lenvo p14 something-or-other. It's almost twice as thick and much heavier than the HPs, and everyone who sees it makes fun of it.