Technology

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.

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.

They even state it them selves in the article, so it is not like they are trying to hide this. Also they say that this is not the end all be all of reparability, which IMO should merit not then getting a 10/10 but idk what their metrics are.

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.

As someone who has changed a laptop keyboard before.

That picture says it all.

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.

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.

There's a difference between 'repairable' and 'upgradable.'

Absolutely! I've got a Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5 (laptop/tablet thingy).

I've upgraded/replaced the ssd - no problem.

Unfortunately, this laptop has an issue with the keyboard: the left section/panel intermittently stops sending inputs. Meaning, keys like escape, a, w, shift, l-control - just stop (even in the bios). I'd read that they keyboard "collects" static which causes problems with certain sections of the keyboard.

I thought I'd see how difficult it would be to replace the keyboard. I watched a teardown video, and of course you need to remove everything... but I lost it when, the person in the video used a heat gun to melt "plastic rivits" that connected the keyboard to the motherboard case. Then with the replacement keyboard needed to remelt the plastic rivits.

This laptop is not repairable. In fact, I swore I'd never buy another Lenovo again as a result. ... but if their focus is on making them repairable (~~and their recent partnership with GrapheneOS~~ edit: oops, that's Motorola and GrapheneOS) - I might be eating crow tonight.

The "upgradability" part in a small laptop is questionable to me, anyway.

The GPU is really compromised in that chassis, as having it in a slot compromises cooling big time, and limits how much power it can use. And while I love upgradable RAM for the CPU... it'd be better if they used faster CAMM modules. Many other brands have upgradable SSDs/WiFi.

Swappable ports are awesome, no question.

...But honestly, I'd rather have a smaller chassis, bigger GPU and better cooling right off the bat, like a Zephyrus chassis. And have it reparable, and make the whole motherboard standardized/swappable, but not compromise the chassis so severely by making it modular.

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!

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.

They're usually also well supported on Linux, and even sell them with Ubuntu and Fedora pre-installed. Generally not a terrible brand.

Depends on what features you value. Just raw specs? Some HP garbage will cost probably half what a comparable T14 costs.

2-3 years used? That ThinkPad is probably the same price or cheaper thanks to companies retiring leased machines.

First, you have to define "comparable". These are Enterprise-grade laptops. Their class includes the Dell Latitude and HP Elitebook. It doesn't include anything you will ever find at Best Buy. It might be tempting to do so, since your visible specs like CPU and RAM are the same. But they really aren't the same.

Within their class, Lenovo has (for over a decade) been noticeably more expensive than their counterparts. Roughly $100-150 more per unit for the T4x0/T14 vs a Latitude 74x0 (now Dell Pro) or an Elitebook 840.

Current prices are: HP Elitebook 8 G1i 14 - Core Ultra 5 236v, 16GB/512GB, $1249

Dell Pro 14 - Core Ultra 5 236v, 16GB/512GB, $1659

Lenovo Thinkpad T14 Gen 6 - Core Ultra 235u, 16GB/512GB, $1809.

All have integrated graphics.

I don't think the detailed specs/pricing for Gen7 (what the article is about) has been announced yet. I would expect it to be in line with previous generations, since their 9/10 repairability score was.