Lenovo’s New ThinkPads Score 10/10 for Repairability
Lenovo’s New T-Series ThinkPads Score 10/10 for Repairability
Repair goes mega mainstream with the launch of Lenovo’s new T-series business laptops, which earned our highest honor with a 10/10 repairability score.Jeff Suovanen (iFixit)
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Rollade
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •theparadox
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •Just in time for RAM, SSD, and HDD prices to skyrocket and make personal computers unaffordable.
I guess if you can afford one now, at least you'll be able to repair it.
dazzlingclitgame
in reply to theparadox • • •Corngood
in reply to theparadox • • •Avid Amoeba
in reply to Corngood • • •davel
in reply to theparadox • • •IndiBrony
in reply to davel • • •Ulrich
in reply to IndiBrony • • •theparadox
in reply to Ulrich • • •Once the bubble pops, assuming it doesn't take economies with it, none of the product will be compatible with consumer devices. Manufacturing will have to be reoriented back to consumer products, then those parts will need to be manufactured, then the rush of people trying to get the parts will have to pass. THEN maybe prices will come down.
I suspect the datacenters will just pivot and repurposed to rent consumers "cloud compute" and cloud subscription services and continue to fuck the entire consumer market for years to come.
But then again I now hate everything so maybe I'm just pessimistic.
Ulrich
in reply to theparadox • • •...why would it need to be?
I mean they already have been and will continue to be, yes.
theparadox
in reply to Ulrich • • •It doesn't need to, but if it were that would be the only reason I'd say prices might drop anytime soon. A glut of used consumer-compatible parts would push prices down. That or maybe if the rising Chinese suppliers manage to ramp up and find a way to enter the western market.
The price is currently high and is rising because resources and manufacturing capacity are limited. Those who own the capacity have found that providing for a small number of companies that are flush with cash and will throw money around just to ensure their competitors don't gain an advantage is far more lucrative than providing for consumers or businesses that integrate parts into consumer devices. The entire market segment is shifting away from consumer and focusing on datacenter hardware.
The longer this goes on, the further the major players will be from being able to pivot back to consumer products... and there are only major players in the memory and NAND industry. You can't just form a new memory or NAND company and
... Show more...It doesn't need to, but if it were that would be the only reason I'd say prices might drop anytime soon. A glut of used consumer-compatible parts would push prices down. That or maybe if the rising Chinese suppliers manage to ramp up and find a way to enter the western market.
The price is currently high and is rising because resources and manufacturing capacity are limited. Those who own the capacity have found that providing for a small number of companies that are flush with cash and will throw money around just to ensure their competitors don't gain an advantage is far more lucrative than providing for consumers or businesses that integrate parts into consumer devices. The entire market segment is shifting away from consumer and focusing on datacenter hardware.
The longer this goes on, the further the major players will be from being able to pivot back to consumer products... and there are only major players in the memory and NAND industry. You can't just form a new memory or NAND company and start manufacturing this stuff. It takes years and a lot of investment to build the facilities and the kind of capacity we're used to.
Edit: I've also seen a number of non-tech folks excited for cheap used datacenter memory and gpus to flood the market after the bubble pops, as if the parts were at all compatible with consumer devices. I wanted to make sure that was not part of your calculation.
Ulrich
in reply to theparadox • • •...how about cratering demand? Basically the opposite of what we have now? That's not enough?
theparadox
in reply to Ulrich • • •Ulrich
in reply to theparadox • • •theparadox
in reply to Ulrich • • •Ulrich
in reply to theparadox • • •theparadox
in reply to Ulrich • • •Please indicate the point at which we no longer agree.
- The price of consumer hardware, like RAM and SSDs, is high right now.
- Supply for consumer hardware is low right now.
- The reason that the price of consumer hardware is high right now is because supply is low.
- The reason this supply is low is because manufacturing capacity that used to be committed to consumer variants of this hardware has been converted to manufacturing datacenter variants of this hardware.
- The reason for the manufacturing shift is that, because of the AI bubble, demand for datacenter hardware is high.
- It takes time and money to convert manufacturing capacity between consumer hardware to datacenter hardware.
- This conversion also includes changing investment, R&D, and employment priorities. Companies like Micron (one of the three major/noteworthy memory suppliers in the world) ha
... Show more...Please indicate the point at which we no longer agree.
If we agree on all of the above, I'm not sure why you are confused.
If the bubble pops today, it very well may cause demand for datacenter hardware to crater, assuming they don't get creative and find a way to pivot hard toward other SaaS somehow. Since the parts are not at all compatible with consumer electronics, this would not provide an instant increase in consumer hardware supply nor would it crater consumer hardware demand.
If the crash is bad enough, some of the businesses that pivoted to B2B/datacenter hardware may fail or have to be bailed out by their governments. Even if they all survived, fewer consumer product businesses exist in the market to sell to consumers and they have fewer product lines in development. Companies like Micron, who abandoned their established brands and/or relationships with resellers or partners that would use their parts in consumer products, will need to rebuild those things. Manufacturing would need to be converted, updated to the latest consumer hardware needs, taking more time and money.
It would take quite a while to rebuild consumer hardware supply. Without that supply, demand will not be met and prices will be high.
Ulrich
in reply to theparadox • • •Some of it has. Not all of it (except for Micron).
It doesn't have to. It seems we both agree that server hardware demand clearly impacts consumer supply, and yet for some reason you seem to think this is a one-way street?
And yet, they did it, very quickly, and will do so again when the market shifts again.
theparadox
in reply to Ulrich • • •These aren't typical conditions. There is a world of difference between "Yo, here is a truckload of money. Give me all your RAM for the next two years!" (AI right now) and "We need to align our capacity to the current needs of the market in order to not flood the market with product we can't sell." (normal conditions).
Look at the memory market before this AI shitshow. It's cyclical as the fabs try to match demand without flooding the market. It typically takes several quarters to ramp capacity up and down, causing shortages and then oversaturating the market because they can't do it fast enough. Returning to that kind of production is also likely to be more difficult than it would otherwise be to adjust while already in it. There are so many unknowns in this wild situation. How much DRAM should they commit to making?
Anyway, I'm not even a business person so what the fuck do I know. I'm getting tired of this conversation. It would be great to be
... Show more...These aren't typical conditions. There is a world of difference between "Yo, here is a truckload of money. Give me all your RAM for the next two years!" (AI right now) and "We need to align our capacity to the current needs of the market in order to not flood the market with product we can't sell." (normal conditions).
Look at the memory market before this AI shitshow. It's cyclical as the fabs try to match demand without flooding the market. It typically takes several quarters to ramp capacity up and down, causing shortages and then oversaturating the market because they can't do it fast enough. Returning to that kind of production is also likely to be more difficult than it would otherwise be to adjust while already in it. There are so many unknowns in this wild situation. How much DRAM should they commit to making?
Anyway, I'm not even a business person so what the fuck do I know. I'm getting tired of this conversation. It would be great to be optimistic, but that's not something I'm capable of right now. Best of luck. I hope it pops and prices plummet.
Orygin
in reply to Ulrich • • •The hardware being built right now is not usable by consumers. What would you do with a raw HBM chip? You can't put it yourself on a gpu, nor on a ram stick.
Want a gpu? I hope you have a 3k Watt power supply to handle one of them.
They are not making consumer products anymore. Only data centre tier hardware.
Gone are the days of buying hundreds of Gb of ram and older xeon cpu from decom' servers, a cheap motherboard to tie it all together.
None of that will be usable by us pleb.
Even when the AI bubble pops, all hardware manufacturing will still be making datacentre grade hw, and either won't go back to consumers, or it will take months to pivot the factory.
Ulrich
in reply to Orygin • • •HugeNerd
in reply to theparadox • • •Oh stop it. Plenty of used computers are perfectly fine. There isn't a single thing you need done that can't be done with a 15 year old PC. You don't need "agentic AI" to generate horse slop in your home, you don't need terabytes of pirated content you can't watch anyway, you don't need video games.
We live in the golden era of thrifting PCs and disconnecting from the slop and nonsense of modern computing.
theparadox
in reply to HugeNerd • • •skuzz
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •And yet still not as serviceable/durable as older ThinkPads. They don't even have water spouts in the keyboard/chassis like the older ones. One could dump a beverage on the keyboard on the older models and it would route through the keyboard->chassis->even the docks had water routing ports so it would just keep traveling mostly harmless through to underneath.
Nor batteries externally removable like used to be.
Not a bad step though by any means, and great to see this return to user-serviceability.
Props though, on the removable RAM. Given the need for shorter circuit paths for higher performance RAM these days, that looks a bit of clever engineering.
TheTechnician27
in reply to skuzz • • •This would be a major sacrifice to form factor and would be strictly detrimental to 99.999% of users. Regarding benefits outside repairability, basically nobody in 2026 is going to think to carry around a second, fully-charged laptop battery. Regarding repairability, you might have to replace the battery once during the laptop's lifespan, and the procedure is extremely straightforward.
With an external battery, you end up with a laptop that's not only substantially thicker, but which – because it's stuck with a large battery either on the back or on the bottom – likely has worse airflow.
Notably for this repair, there are seven captive Phillips-head screws (seen plenty of hexalobular etc.), you can just use your fingers to remove the base cover (seen plenty where you need/want a pry tool), removing the base cover already removes the battery's
... Show more...This would be a major sacrifice to form factor and would be strictly detrimental to 99.999% of users. Regarding benefits outside repairability, basically nobody in 2026 is going to think to carry around a second, fully-charged laptop battery. Regarding repairability, you might have to replace the battery once during the laptop's lifespan, and the procedure is extremely straightforward.
With an external battery, you end up with a laptop that's not only substantially thicker, but which – because it's stuck with a large battery either on the back or on the bottom – likely has worse airflow.
Notably for this repair, there are seven captive Phillips-head screws (seen plenty of hexalobular etc.), you can just use your fingers to remove the base cover (seen plenty where you need/want a pry tool), removing the base cover already removes the battery's screw(s), and most importantly, you just pinch to disconnect instead of lifting a fragile connector off the board. Swapping the replacement external battery once you have it is probably about 30 seconds; this is about five minutes – practically no difference accounting for how infrequently it'll need to be done. There's an exception for people with a physical disability like Parkinson's, but if you can phone a friend, the process is straightforward enough for basically anyone else to do it on your behalf.
Edit: On a whim, I decided to look to Framework for a comparison. It's worse there for battery replacement.
As far as I can tell, the T14 is the easiest battery replacement you're going to find being sold today. If you're able-bodied enough to use a screwdriver and it not being external is somehow still a serious concern for repairability, I don't know what to tell you.
Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7 Battery Replacement
iFixitfuckwit_mcbumcrumble
in reply to skuzz • • •Uh, have you ever replaced the motherboard on older ThinkPads? You have to tear the entire machine apart and it's a 30+ minute job. Around the time they removed the water spouts they switched to the bottom opening instead of top opening and replacing the main board went down to a 10 minute job. Even just replacing the thermal paste on some older machines required full disassembly.
They may not have water spouts that let you pour a gallon of water through the keyboard, but they do have plenty of plastic shields that prevent water from going further into the computer. If you knock over your soda your computer will probably be fine.
ms.lane
in reply to fuckwit_mcbumcrumble • • •So they made it easier to kill the motherboard and also easier to replace it.
Any you're trying to paint that as a good thing instead of greed?
Ulrich
in reply to skuzz • • •...hhhhhwat
recklessengagement
in reply to skuzz • • •anachronist
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •Chronographs
in reply to anachronist • • •methodicalaspect
in reply to Chronographs • • •fuckwit_mcbumcrumble
in reply to anachronist • • •Did you go to their parts website? They sell parts for even their shitty(er) laptops.
hp.com/us-en/parts-store/
anachronist
in reply to fuckwit_mcbumcrumble • • •Sure the parts I needed weren't available. Which is probably the problem with these iFixit scores. They should really wait for the laptop to be a few years old and then look and see if the stuff that's actually breaking on the laptop are actually repairable with the parts available.
For this particular laptop even though it had a really good iFixit score, I couldn't even buy a new touchpoint nub (or whatever HP calls it). The old one completely disintegrated but the nub was different than other HP laptops, so the ones I tried to buy (even for other elitebooks) wouldn't fit. The nub the laptop needed simply wasn't available anywhere.
cone_zombie
in reply to anachronist • • •dosse91
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •paper_moon
in reply to dosse91 • • •☂️-
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •sherlock
in reply to ☂️- • • •☂️-
in reply to sherlock • • •HiddenLayer555
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •First time I've seen CAMM memory in a real product. Pretty cool, but not sure if I prefer it to traditional DIMM slots though.
But the removable ports are a fucking godsend. So sick of a broken port making an entire motherboard unusable.
Honestly the only thing more I can ask for is for the battery to be on the outside of the case (like old school laptops) so you can replace it without opening it which not everyone is comfortable with doing. Otherwise this is really good. The only thing stopping me from buying this laptop is the fact that my current 6 year old Lenovo still works perfectly after I replaced the battery (honestly Thinkpads have always been pretty repairable, this is going above and beyond).
coltn
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •Lunar
in reply to ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆ • • •really wish they'd bring this kind of repairability back to their yogas; the upcoming T14s 2-in-1 gen 2 is still as locked down as ever.
the X41T to X230T was peak creative workstation and i'd kill to have something like that with modern internals. or hell, even the P40.