Lenovo also owns the Motorola phone brand, and they’re going to adopt/allow GrapheneOS. I think they know how to grab customers right now, and I honestly like it.
They were also the first OEM to support steam deck on their handheld (beside Valve).
It’s Lenovo reading the room (well, which is unusual), rather than worrying about the consumer.
It’s still a big corpo and line must go up.
Nice to see this is turning out to be a net positive though.Motorola has been kinda crap for years now, not supporting their android phones with updates, etc.
Hopefully this is a new leaf for them.
Isn’t Lenovo that dodgy company that did the China stuff though? Hopefully they’ve been bought by someone else since then.
It’s Lenovo reading the room (well, which is unusual), rather than worrying about the consumer.
It’s still a big corpo and line must go up.
Nice to see this is turning out to be a net positive though.
Just a lil nitpick: article is by iFixit who is a Lenovo business partner. So perhaps less objective than one might hope.
It seems to me that Lenovo’s repairably is more affected by that iFixit partnership than the opposite. I don’t see anything factually wrong or suspicious in the article.
Nevertheless, a conflict of interests is possible.
I agree, but like others have said, it bodes well that they’re open about this in the article
I use iFixit’s guides all the time, so I would hope that their score isn’t affected by it. I’ve seen them as being fairly good at their role.
As someone who has changed a laptop keyboard before.
That picture says it all.
Picture’s worth a thousand expletives.
Picture’s worth a thousand expletives.
This is true, but they’re also not wrong that fully-modular USB-C ports is an absolutely huge win. It’s one of the biggest things when it comes to laptops these days.
That was where I went “holy hell”. Wearing out ports is something I am constantly quite scared of when plugging things in. Especially things like cables when they want to twist vertically, but the port is horizontal, and, well, it’s a thick cable, so…
It’s unlikely that fact will change the repairability of the devices. They risk too much by posting biased and false information on that end.
It’s unlikely that fact will change the repairability of the devices. They risk too much by posting biased and false information on that end.
One thing to highlight: T-series Lenovo laptops are mainstream business products shipped at a huge scale.
This is not a small-scale experimental product for the tinkerers. This may define the biggest laptop segment if it works out well. It might be the first time in a while that something like this hits such a huge market.
wtf are you talking about? this isn’t “hitting the market”, this is staple of the thinkpads for ever.
These particular models are about to be released, hitting the market. With all renown Lenovo got for good long-term support, this is their most repairable product as of yet.
this is their most repairable product as of yet.
thinkpads were always repairable, that and durability is their number one attribute. you present it as if it were somehow new thing.
Even though they were considered repairable, they are now better than ever at that, and they require as little expense as possible to replace certain parts.
I don’t know what’s so hard about that. They had it good, they made it better.
there isn’t really anything revolutionary described in the article (maybe with an exception of these detachable ports).
i have no idea how much things got worse in the last few years, so it is possible they are fixing something they broken lately, but again, presenting it as something new, when it is in fact something that thinkpads were known for since the last ice age and is why people are using them, is just strange to me.
it is really on the level of “omg you guys, did you know that ferrari is doing really fast cars?”
They got scared by Framework sucess
Well, good…
Though reparability is a good part of it, another would be a concrete commitment that the form factor of various things will be consistent generation to generation, that Gen 8 boards will fit into a current laptop.
I kinda doubt Framework’s success, no matter how large by niche manufacturer standards, even reaches Lenovo’s sales on a bad day.
Good that they’re (apparently) changing though.I kinda doubt Framework’s success, no matter how large by niche manufacturer standards, even reaches Lenovo’s sales on a bad day.
Good that they’re (apparently) changing though.Lmao
Happy for them, I’m sure the 100 people that still can afford computers will appreciate it.
Ripper job on Lenovo’s part; I’d give them flack for using LPCAMM2 instead of SODIMM but honestly, it is ultimately the better choice for laptops and it’s totally cool to see it instead of soldered RAM.
Ideally they’d bring back the old keyboard layout based on the T25, but that’s more or less nitpicking at this point. The Powerbridge battery system would be cool to see make a comeback and a swappable WIFI module would be cool (they kinda brush is off in the article but I think replacing and upgrading the WIFI module would be a nice thing).
My personal problem are the speakers; although ever since getting my hands on an M1 Pro MacBook I’m kinda spoiled in that regard.
It looks like the AMD model still comes with SO-DIMM. Was hoping for AMD + LPCAMM2 + repairability, but I guess you can’t have everything yet.
Seems like the AMD models are always more of an afterthought to lenovo; when I bought my P14s Gen 5 the AMD version still was based on an older chassis design compared to the all new intel design
I was wondering what they meant when talking about the WiFi chip. Is it replaceable but just annoying to get to or is it soldered to the board? I thought typically WiFi chips tended to be one of the few replaceable parts.
It is soldered to the board
Does 10/10 mean it’s got RAM and drives accessible without needing to disassemble the whole fucking thing?
Nice to see both aren’t soldered onto the motherboard, but we’ve still gone backwards in the last 20 years.
without needing to disassemble the whole fucking thing
well you still need to take the bottom cover off
We’re so back
Literally. Repairability used to be expected.
Could they please cooperate with Framework and create Universal Joints?
At a guess, such cooperation would undermine Lenovo’s profit margin and would thus be a non-starter for them.
Enter government regulation, to pinch corporations by the ear and drag them to doing what’s right for society.
I HATE the idea if you can’t make money off it, even if would make the world 10x better for everyone, companies won’t do it. Shareholders gotta eat!!
This its why capitalism is failing. Shareholder profit is a fundamentally unsustainable incentive.
Sorry to be pedantic but strictly speaking “shareholder profit” isn’t the issue with capitalism because that would include worker-owned cooperatives which are not causing the same problems.
The issue is the legal obligation of a private or public company to make an increase in returns for shareholders year on year.
This is why decisions like downgrading quality, design by committee to appeal to focus groups, everything becoming a subscription service, and firing staff to reduce wage overheads in the last financial quarter exist.
Because it’s easier for the company directors / C-level executives to make these decisions which make line go up, rather than try to justify to shareholders why a steady or small dip in returns is necessary for longer term investment and growth.
This is compounded by the shortsightedness of companies only planning quarter to quarter then governments + central banks basing all economic decisions on GDP figures.
Because the easiest thing to make national line go up is to give tax cuts to the owning elites for them to shuffle even more money around in the stock and commodity markets, they buy up all the assets of the working class, the middle class, and the governments selling them off.
But funnily enough, centralising all the apparent wealth in the hands of a few silver-spooned arseholes is not a basis for a functioning society.
Hot take because Line Must Go Up is being blamed on "For the Shareholders!" lately, but:
It’s not just publicly traded companies. Private companies have greedy C-suites too.
Idc.
Do it.
I’ve been a ThinkPad user for about 4 years now, got a second-hand T470s running Fedora. It’s been an amazing experience! I’m not one for brand loyalty, but (so long as Lenovo doesn’t fuck them up) ThinkPads will always be my first choice for a laptop.
I’ve been wandering the laptop desert for a few years now. Lenovo, Dell, System76, Framework, StarLabs.
I’m currently on a Dell Pro 13, but the keyboard really sucks and the hardware isn’t fully Linux compatible.
StarLabs had keyboard issues and terrible battery life.
Framework seems like Linux was an after thought. Their HiDPI display isn’t fully Linux compatible.
I recently got my parents an X13 and everything just works. Camera, Bluetooth, graphics, display. All good.
I prefer 13in screens, but I’ll take the repairability of the T14 gen 7!
I didn’t know that about Framework HiDPI displays
Yeah I like Lenovo in general too! I have an Ideapad rather than a Thinkpad, but this is my second Lenovo and they’ve both lasted for ages, never had any weird problems, played nice with Linux etc.
Return of socketed mobile CPUs when?
Won’t laptop manufacturers need to get CPU manufacturers to produce socketed mobile CPUs again?
I don’t think that would be very profitable. Spending lots of money negotiating with the CPU company just for a very small fraction of customers.
Should most electronics come with no servicability at all, because most customers are not gorillas breaking products for no good reason?
The road to enshittification is paved with people telling you to just use the popular thing everyone else, calling removable media “e-waste”, or even suggesting you to just buy a pair of Raycons if you don’t want to pay for electrostatic headphones and an audiophile external DAC.
Yes please.
Yes please.
Now if I can buy it cheaper empty without microslop spyware installed on it, that would be great
Nice. Well actually I know that they offer linux preinstall when I occasionally look at their sales on their regional site time to time. It’s good to see affirmation that they will continue to offer no winslop option.
I’ve only bought a laptop from lenovo directly once, and it was horribly overpriced. Don’t know it it changed in the last 15 years since I bought it though.
Edit: for clarification, I’m not still using that one, it died many years ago.
The issue I had with my previous Lenovo Thinkpad wasn’t that it wasn’t repairable when it broke, it was. The issue was that the cost of just replacing the keyboard was prohibitively high. Higher than the cost of a new laptop. So it became e-waste.
I wonder if this will shut up the “they don’t make them like they used to” crowd.
Edit: i knew that wouldn’t be the case. It didn’t need this thread as proof.
Well they dont lol, they are super flimsy these days and most stuff is soldered on. Its good if this turns out to be the start of the return to good thinkpads, but i wouldnt get my hopes up yet.
What exactly is soldered on that shouldn’t be? If you want a processor that’s user replaceable, you should just get a PC. If RAM, SSD and the ports are user replaceable, that sounds pretty good to me.
Why should it be?
Have you ever carried a laptop on actual travel? Like sprinting across a train station to catch your connection? You’ll definitely learn to appreciate a smaller lighter laptop.
My first laptop was a briefcase. There is such a thing as a happy medium. You could design light laptops that have replaceable parts, but they don’t do that because that would give choice back to the consumer and most manufacturers whole business model is to have you discard your computer and buy a brand new one every few years.
And how is having a socketed processor going to help with that? Even in Framework laptop, you have to swap out the motherboard. And even then, a laptop will never be something that lasts for decades. Technology moves on.
I’ve got two laptops, a personal one, and one from work. They’re both Lenovo laptops.
My personal laptop can be repaired, you can slip out the battery and replace it without even using a screw. There’s actually two batteries, one is internal and does require some screws to be removed but it’s not very difficult. Anyone who wants to can easily do that. The same goes for the fan and cooler, RAM, and SSD, network card, keyboard, screen, and trackpad. There’s probably a bunch of other things that can be easily replaced that I just haven’t looked into.
My work laptop is from 2022, so it’s about 4 years old now. It doesn’t have a second external battery. Opening it up is a bit tougher, and you can’t replace things as readily.
They have roughly the same dimensions, and weigh about as much. I don’t really see the added value to me as a consumer with this newer laptop.
And even then, a laptop will never be something that lasts for decades.
My T410 runs fine.
And even then, a laptop will never be something that lasts for decades.
My T410 runs fine.
No socketed CPU, soldered WiFi chip, no PCMCIA slot.
At least it seems like the clit is still there.no PCMCIA slot.
Alright, Gramps. Let’s get you back to bed.
Predictable. Here’s a related issue, see if you spot the pattern.
And how is having a PCMCIA slot going to help with that?
No socketed CPU, soldered WiFi chip, no PCMCIA slot.
At least it seems like the clit is still there.I allready hate it. Just from looking at the pictures. Give me full size lan, i dont wabt my thinkpad wipping while typing, just so its 0.2cm thinner
It says full size rj45?
I can’t speak to previous versions of the hinge port, but as a network engineer who is constantly using it I’ve had no complaints with the one from my 2024 model.
In the early 2000s, my longest lasting laptop was an IBM T14. I replaced the battery twice and increased the memory. I retired it right before the pandemic. It lasted over 15 years.
I replaced it with another Lenovo T14. Great keyboards and comes with Fedora workstation or Ubuntu out of the box.
