4 ms·

The title is a mischaracterization of what was said: >More than 80 percent of our devices will be able to be repaired at the customer, At the customer not by

The title is a mischaracterization of what was said: >More than 80 percent of our devices will be able to be repaired at the customer, At the customer not by the customer. What they mean by this is that a skilled (and probably approved) technician would be able to carry out a repair on-site. I think it's actually a much more reasonable approach - devices should have a first-class vendor supported route for repair. Outside of that, obviously people should also be free to have a go and repair the device themselves, but there's obvious reasons why that should be at arms-length from the vendor. Personally I already have an X1, I bought it for work, I have the full 5 year support package and it's great, I think it's a totally reasonable compromise. I'm an engineer using this device for work, I don't expect to be cracking it open and fixing it myself when something goes wrong, and I don't expect my employer to tolerate my not working because I don't have the correct tools.

themoonisachees 3y ago
The distinction is really important. This means that Dell for example is already at this metric, as all their laptops are opened with a few screws and their repair tech just swaps boards and sends the old one for RMA. But in practice this also means that given parts availability, the devices can be successfully fixed by consumers. as an IT guy who worked in a lab full of dell laptops, i sometimes did the odd repair and dell would just send me the part overnight, i'd swap the part and put the old one in the box and a courrier would pick it up day of. Say what you will about the quality of their computers, but their repair program is extremely efficient for the consumer, and because they won't spend too much money training proximity technicians, they engineer their products to be easily fixable.
Netcob 3y ago
It's definitely much better than Apple, which will put a lot of work into preventing anyone but themselves being able to repair Apple hardware. If a third-party technician gets the means to repair a laptop, without any pseudo-franchising shenanigans, that's worth a lot nowadays. Still, if they want something to brag about, they should imitate Framework...
- hedora 3y ago
  Is it better than Apple though? He says 80% will be repairable by customers or channel partners. Apple is probably well above that already. They already offer repair service for their phones, tablets and laptops. Also, when I stopped paying attention to thinkpads (due to them botching a warranty repair) ~100% were repairable. You could get schematic diagrams, etc. Dropping that to 80% is a huge regression.
  - rd07 3y ago
    Well, Thinkpad is not the only product of Lenovo
jabroni_salad 3y ago
The gentleman who said that is Italian, is it possible that he just uses a different variety of English and the phrase didn't mean what you think it means? He also said: “Batteries, SSD, many things will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste,” To me this implies a general improvement for repairability by anyone that knows how to crack the chassis. 'will not any longer' is also an interesting word choice. I would avoid getting lawyeristic with anything not in a written edited press release.

themoonisachees 3y ago

The distinction is really important. This means that Dell for example is already at this metric, as all their laptops are opened with a few screws and their repair tech just swaps boards and sends the old one for RMA. But in practice this also means that given parts availability, the devices can be successfully fixed by consumers. as an IT guy who worked in a lab full of dell laptops, i sometimes did the odd repair and dell would just send me the part overnight, i'd swap the part and put the old one in the box and a courrier would pick it up day of. Say what you will about the quality of their computers, but their repair program is extremely efficient for the consumer, and because they won't spend too much money training proximity technicians, they engineer their products to be easily fixable.

Netcob 3y ago

It's definitely much better than Apple, which will put a lot of work into preventing anyone but themselves being able to repair Apple hardware. If a third-party technician gets the means to repair a laptop, without any pseudo-franchising shenanigans, that's worth a lot nowadays. Still, if they want something to brag about, they should imitate Framework...

hedora 3y ago
Is it better than Apple though? He says 80% will be repairable by customers or channel partners. Apple is probably well above that already. They already offer repair service for their phones, tablets and laptops. Also, when I stopped paying attention to thinkpads (due to them botching a warranty repair) ~100% were repairable. You could get schematic diagrams, etc. Dropping that to 80% is a huge regression.
- rd07 3y ago
  Well, Thinkpad is not the only product of Lenovo

jabroni_salad 3y ago

The gentleman who said that is Italian, is it possible that he just uses a different variety of English and the phrase didn't mean what you think it means? He also said: “Batteries, SSD, many things will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste,” To me this implies a general improvement for repairability by anyone that knows how to crack the chassis. 'will not any longer' is also an interesting word choice. I would avoid getting lawyeristic with anything not in a written edited press release.