12 ms·
Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability
- otterley 8mo agoHooray! Now can we get a decent OS for them? (No, not Windows.) (No, not Linux.)
- al_borland 8mo agoTempleOS?
- otterley 8mo ago*snort*
- Terr_ 8mo ago> LPCAMM2 memory that’s fast, efficient, and easily serviced [0] Today I Learned about LPCAMM2, which is refreshing, seeing soldered-on memory always felt like some kind of slide into disposable barbarism. [0] https://www.ifixit.com/News/95078/lpcamm2-memory-is-finally-here https://www.ifixit.com/News/95078/lpcamm2-memory-is-finally-...
- kristianp 8mo agoLooks like the T14 Gen 7 is the first T14 to have a CAMM socket. The previous model has SODIMM DDR5-5600, more power hungry? Prior to that it was the more expensive P1 Gen 7 that had LPCAMM2. Regarding the T14 and T16, I'm frustrated that in my market (AU), they don't sell better screens than 1920x1200. I'd like to have a brighter 3k or 4k screen. The LPCAMM2 seems to be limited to the Intel models, according to the pc mag article. https://www.pcmag.com/news/lenovo-thinkpad-t14-gen-7-hands-on-mwc-2026 https://www.pcmag.com/news/lenovo-thinkpad-t14-gen-7-hands-o...
- accrual 7mo agoI'm excited to see a CAMM socket on a Thinkpad. I remember reading about CAMM a few years ago and thinking "wow looks futuristic, when will I start seeing it in hardware I care about?" and that day finally arrived.
- ehnto 8mo agoIt did worry me though, as I had also never heard of it. Is it highly available like more regular DIMM or SODIMM ram? That is usually my concern with things like the modular ports and replaceable keyboards too. By the time I actually need to replace anything it could be 10 years from now, could I actually source these parts easily? Regardless, that is a excellent problem to have compared to other less repairable laptops. I have been running my current laptop for 10 years, by the time it's unrepairable I might switch to this.
- idle_zealot 8mo agoIf this model of laptop is produced in high volume, at minimum it means that dead ones can be used for parts to cobble together a smaller number of functional ones. Well, unless it turns out that a design flaw means a few parts in particular are almost always the first to go...
- accrual 7mo ago> Is it highly available like more regular DIMM or SODIMM ram? I imagine it will be kind of like USB-C. It's new and uncommon for a few years until suddenly everywhere you look has piles of it. Edge connector RAM may one day be looked back on as "old style memory" like SIPP and DIPP is now.
- varispeed 8mo agoI thought the issue with the soldered on RAM wasn't the fact that it was soldered, but that manufacturers would use chips that are not easy to source and in some way serialised. So even if you got larger chips, you would still have to figure out other parts to swap that tell the CPU it's 32GB now, not 24GB.
- doubled112 8mo agoBeing soldered on is a huge issue to 99% of people and businesses wanting to repair or upgrade something. I don’t have the tools or skills to replace soldered on memory chips when they fail. Nobody at my place of work does. Nobody was doing that type of work in a warranty centre I worked in either. I’d need to buy an entire motherboard which will much more expensive, and likely more time consuming, than swapping a couple of memory modules.
- bigtex 8mo agoIn the almost 30 years of using Mac’s at home and various desktop pc’s in the workplace I don’t think I have ever seen ram fail. Replaced plenty of old school failed disk drives however.
- doubled112 8mo agoLucky. Working in repairs I was only seeing the ones that didn’t work, and I’ve seen failures of just about everything. It probably skews my experience. One time upgrading workstations, 4 of the 20 Corsair kits were sent for RMA. Those aren’t great odds. I would guess that soldering them to the board reduces the points of failure, the slots can and do fail. However, I’ve also seen soldered components coming off as the cause of failures, but it is usually a part that gets hot combined with a design flaw.
- opan 8mo agoFailing RAM is rarer than it seems from posts online. My theory is that it's so easy to test for that everyone says to do it even if it's unlikely to be your problem. It reminds me of people who needlessly recap (replace capacitors) everything in hopes of it fixing a problem, often not even bothering to test each cap or exhausting other options first. IME dirt/corrosion/oxidation (often solved by cleaning) is a much more prevalent problem than bad caps. After that, solder that needs reflowing is still a more common issue than bad caps. That being said, I really did have one bad stick of RAM once in my life, and it really does cause strange seemingly random problems.
- bmenrigh 8mo agoYeah I learning about LPCAMM2 memory was far more interesting than the repairability score.
- orev 8mo agoWhen CAMM was announced, they (Dell) mentioned that one of the reasons for soldered RAM was due to electrical tolerances not being met anymore with regular DIMMs at the speeds they were reaching. CAMM was designed to avoid this, and ensures that each trace has the same length so there aren’t timing issues. I’m no expert but it sounds plausible to me. From a manufacturing perspective, it makes sense that they’d want modular RAM so they can configure them at point of sale instead of having to manufacture multiple motherboards with only RAM sizes being different.
- trinsic2 8mo agoYeah I read about that too. Makes sense as faster cpus demand faster responses from ram and the timing has to be right. I think it came up with a gamers nexus video on the steam machine.
- aitchnyu 8mo agoCan we expect laptops with removable memory modules to stay on top of AI workload benchmark?
- accrual 7mo agoI love how the LPCAMM2 slot and module looks on this board, almost futuristic/cyberpunk. Thick outline to mark it on the PCB, arrows pointing to screws, stamped metal heatspreader (reminds me of RDRAM), QR code, angular footprint, big "MEMORY" label affixed. Cool how memory converged on the same grid-of-pins solution as CPUs.
- ggm 8mo agoI'm not in a refresh cycle, but I would seriously consider this platform having used the older X series, and found them workhorses. I destroyed an X30 keyboard and the replacement was fast and easy. Bringing that experience into the modern era is a good thing. One thing which worries me, is how easily the Qualcomm core platforms run novel OS because I don't see indications they are avoiding blob dependency either in the core, or in peripheral control. It will probably be fine if you run the Lenovo tailored linux release, but if you want to run a BSD or something else you might find either you're on a slower path, or you have less battery life, or you simply can't drive some devices. (I am a user not a kernel/devicedriver developer so if I misunderstand blobbyness and why things like wifi cards often don't work please don't hate me) But for hardware replacement? This is ace! I like the other sources which people use too, but Lenovo has a worldwide warranty, and has agents almost everywhere so your ability to be on-the-road, pick up a phone, quote a number and get a part is significantly enhanced. (in my experience)
- alabhyajindal 8mo agoNice very cool. Unfortunately, the blog post looks like it's been generated by an LLM. > Going from a high score to the highest score isn’t usually about making minor tweaks. It requires fighting for every small, boring, consequential decision—the ones that determine whether a repair isn’t merely possible or practical, but within easy reach.
- mceachen 8mo agoAt the same time, at least to me, the text reads like a transcript from one of their YouTube tear downs.
- pjjpo 8mo agoThere are those times we may be seeing the source of LLM language training. I had the same reaction of sounding like one but agree it's likely not.
- aleph_minus_one 8mo agoI, as a non-native speaker, don't associate this with LLMs, but with corporate advertising texts.
- idle_zealot 8mo agoThey're basically the same thing. Machine language, just generated by a different kind of machine, one social, the other a transformer model.
- 0x38B 8mo agoOne of the worst places are company "About pages". I've come across new products, some linked here; interested, I click through to the "about us" page, only to find meaningless marketing fluff that tells me zero about the people behind the product. That's a signal to me to close the tab and move on.
- dismalaf 8mo ago
- WillAdams 8mo agoThe last time my ThinkPad 755C was in the way and shuffled around as part of re-arranging, it still booted up. The only other device I've owned which might have that sort of longevity is my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 (which I quite miss for its transflective display). Really wish the Lenovo Yogabook 9i was in the ThinkPad line and that it had a Wacom EMR stylus....
- SV_BubbleTime 8mo agoAre these still a Chinese brand? Lenovo changed hands a bit so IDK now.
- __patchbit__ 8mo agoGeopolitics might've forced Lenovo to rebrand in India from China. A recent move saw India's leader break with BRICS to flag with West Asia Israel
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 8mo agoNice, also my thinkpad required a full dismantle to change the keyboard, so I am rightly pissed given it's a premium product.
- stkdump 8mo agoYeah, I was shocked that a keyboard replacement of my company issued X1 is basically a full teardown. When it was time to replace my private laptop a year later, I opted for the L-series, which is much better in that regard and also much cheaper. Keyboard replacements are a pretty standard thing for me, because I don't like my local layout and if you limit yourself to buying with the layout you want, you can only go to Apple or Framework nowadays.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 8mo agoI went with Framework this time, I use linux so I love that if I have a problem with the wifi card on my laptop, I can just replace it
- SV_BubbleTime 8mo agoI tried so hard to live framework. Now I barely like them. Too many concessions, but the price just sucks. Of the four I bought for employees. Two have had serious issues.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 8mo agoWhat kind of issues? That is concerning. I love that they have way less thermal throttling than the X1 I had before
- stkdump 8mo agoI don't like betting on newcomers. While they may have some good ideas that improve the industry overall, there is a lot of long-term learning that newcomers can't yet benefit from. That usually leads to silly mistakes and quality problems. The useful aspect of newcomers is the credible threat they pose to the old guard of taking a portion of the pie away if they don't innovate. But I don't feel like spending my own money on that.
- kev009 8mo agoIf you are ever bored, maxing out a T440p, T430, or T480 is a fun exercise and not very difficult nor expensive. CPU, RAM, SSD, coreboot, modern LCD panel, Liteon keyboard. Load with Linux, BSD, OpenCore.
- stuxnet79 8mo ago> nor expensive With OpenAI completely destroying the component supply chain in 2026 I think this requires citations
- nine_k 8mo agoDDR3 was not so much affected as DDR4 or DDR5.
- nine_k 8mo agoI had al of these. The CPU is the weakest component here, and only T480 supports 32 GB RAM. (Typing this from a T14 gen 1.)
- thrtythreeforty 8mo agoI've got a T480s that has 40GB of RAM (32GB SODIMM + 8GiB soldered). Works fine. Is the T480 different?
- kev009 8mo agoMy T480 running NetBSD: [ 1.000000] total memory = 65411 MB
- nine_k 8mo agoT480 has 2 RAM slots and S has soldered RAM and 1 slot. OTOH unofficially T480 (not S) can work with two 32 GB SODIMMs. I did not try that. (I wish the AMD-based thinkpads supported ECC RAM. Ryzen 7 mobile CPUs technically allow for that.)
- drillsteps5 8mo ago
- WD-42 8mo agoThis is great. I’m still rocking a nearly 10 year old T470s. Great machine with Linux on it, still snappy enough- Tailscale is there when I need to do serious work (on my desktop at home!) I replaced the batteries a few months ago and it was painless.
- cbenz 8mo agoSame here. The only problem is that I "only" have 24Gb of RAM. I wish I could upgrade but it's a hard limit. And keyboard quality seems to have been degrading over the years since 2020. Is this new model good in terms of keyboard?
- Markoff 8mo agoYou can have more than 32GB RAM in T470s (btw. I'm using T480s with 40GB RAM) https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bibx3p/t470s_supports_single_32gb_module_samsung/ https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/bibx3p/t470s_supp...
- abdullahkhalids 8mo agoI have a T470. I have changed the screen (after I dropped water on it and shorted it), changed the batteries after 5 years, increased the RAM, and added an M2 drive. All of these were painless operations. Couldn't be happier with my purchase.
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoSame. And it's still fast enough for almost all 08/15 Tasks if you replace Windows with Fedora
- petepete 8mo agoI use my 2019 X1C 7th Gen daily and it's been the best laptop I've owned by a mile. Never skipped a beat. I immediately switched it to Fedora and everything worked out of the box except the fingerprint reader which started working a few weeks later after a firmware update (also handled effortlessly/perfectly within Gnome - and it still gets updates!)
- cosmic_cheese 8mo agoThis is great and should be applauded, but repairability is but one aspect of many in a good laptop. I wonder if other aspects had to suffer to achieve this, and if they did by how much. The answer to that question could make or break the laptop for many users.
- Daz912 8mo agowhy are you so negative?
- varispeed 8mo agoProbably because this is not repairability, but rather dividing device into smaller not repairable parts that can be replaced by purchasing parts from the manufacturer at inflated cost.
- system2 8mo agoIs there any laptop that you can replace individual pieces of the motherboard? Laptop motherboards are all the same.
- varispeed 8mo agoWith a steady hand and good hot air station you can replace anything you want. Problem is getting the replacement chips.
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoMuch worse compared to other laptops where everything is soldered and glued together and you have to throw the whole thing away when something fails
- cosmic_cheese 8mo agoAll the repairability in the world is moot if the laptop isn't good enough to sell itself on its other merits. If it turns out to be hot and loud or have poor battery life for example, that's going to steer many to buy elsewhere.
- p1necone 8mo agoDamn, everyone is using AI for copyediting now aren't they? Once you notice the patterns you see it everywhere. * "This isn't X. It's Y" * "Some sentence emphasizing something. Describing the same thing with different framing. Describing it a third time but punchier. * The em-dash of course * A hard to describe sense of "cheesiness" I only hope the models get good enough to not be so samey in the future.
- sudo_cowsay 8mo ago* "This isn't X. It's Y" I find that Gemini uses that phrase way too much.
- SilverElfin 8mo agoEm dashes aren’t an actual tell IMO. Many people use them.
- pennomi 8mo agoThere are dozens of us!
- yellowapple 8mo ago— dozens!
- conception 8mo agoIt is though if the rest of the prose is trash.
- ThunderSizzle 8mo agoJokes on you—humans write trash all the time.
- layer8 8mo agoSurely you mean: Em dashes aren’t an actual tell IMO — many people use them.
- varispeed 8mo agoDoes it mean I can buy chips that are on the boards and solder them if they go bad? It sounds like repairability means dividing device into smaller not repairable parts and make extra money off of it. For instance, can I get those replaceable ports on Mouser? Repairwashing.
- quotemstr 8mo agoShame the keyboards have a copilot key. That doesn't sound so bad until you see that the thing emits a key chord, not a scancode, making it annoying to remap. But you can. The most annoying part is that the key matrix isn't set up to 3-key rollover with the copilot key like it would be for a real modifier key. (I'd assumed they'd just keep the matrix they used when there was a modifier in that spot. Nope.) Consequently, some key combinations, e.g. ralt-rcontrol-spacebar, don't work. Press them, nothing happens. Infuriating.
- mushufasa 8mo agoThis commitment by Lenovo must have been driven by customer demand -- in this case, the IT departments. I wonder how much of that demand may be attributed to questions about comparisons to Framework. Even if Framework is not mainstream, it has mindshare among the IT-crowd.
- nine_k 8mo agoThe replaceable Thunderbolt sockets connecting to an internal Thunderbolt socket are a direct... homage to Framework.
- TiredOfLife 8mo agoFramework just made dongles be a part of case. Inside it's still soldered type-c connectors.
- opan 8mo agoLenovo has long had a separate board for the power connector you could separately replace. This is likely a continuation of that idea. I had an X220 Tablet (Released in 2011) from eBay that was sparking when I plugged it in. IIRC I just unscrewed and rescrewed the charging board and then it worked again. I guess there was some short, maybe it was loose. It would've been easy to replace just that part if it had failed completely.
- 0x38B 8mo agoFor me, Framework is super cool as a brand, both for the quality of their product and the ethos that backs it. When everyone else in the coffee shop has an apple or another brand so widespread that you don't even notice it, the gear is something different. I like that.
- huddert 8mo agoFramework is a great concept but they will die due to poor execution. If I hadn't already recently bought a Framework (and knew what I do now about them) I would've held out for one of these new Lenovos. I don't think Framework can compete if one of the established players joins the game.
- furryrain 8mo ago> There are “repairable” laptops, and then there are ThinkPad T-series laptops By elevating ThinkPad T-series above other laptops by reputation, do iFixit weaken their notion of objective repairability ratings?
- nickorlow 8mo agoLenovo (and their subsidiary Motorola) seem to be on a consumer friendliness streak
- megous 8mo agoI love this. T14 gen 7 was the first NB I a actually bought for myself, and it's great to know that USB-C ports can just be replaced that easilly without soldering and that it was designed from the start with repairability in mind. Non-A USB ports is something that always ends up failing.
- bondant 8mo ago> it's great to know that USB-C ports can just be replaced that easilly Yes exactly! To me it's surely the biggest win. It's very easy to break them when the power chord is plugged in. I'm really pleased that we will now be able to fix them without having to change the whole motherboard (which surely very few people do because of expansive and how ridiculous it sounds)
- dvorak007 8mo agoI love my Thinkpad!
- brikym 8mo agoNo thanks. I don't like all their awful plastic. Make it from metal and glass.
- ezst 8mo agoMine has a magnesium chassis, did that change along the way?
- dismalaf 8mo agoMetal and glass are overrated. Glass cracks, metal bends and stays bent... Plastic, especially high quality plastics combined with a magnesium chassis in a ThinkPad, is way more durable.
- ahartmetz 8mo agoYup. I got an otherwise really nice laptop with a metal shell... it's not very pleasant to touch. Thinkpads have cases that feel better to touch and make me worry less about dropping the thing.
- drewg123 8mo agoDo they still block third party PCIe (eg, wifi) devices in their firmware?
- deleted 8mo ago[deleted]
- opan 8mo agoThe WLAN cards are soldered now, so I don't think they need to.
- Guestmodinfo 8mo agoI have used not thinkpads but Lenovo IdeaPad from 2023. Very fragile. It has caused me to run many times to the repair shops. Whereas Lenovo laptops (non Thinkpads) from 2007 and 2021 are very solid nearly unbreakable.
- ahartmetz 8mo agoOnly the expensive business models of Lenovo are known for their quality. Their cheap models are as bad as any other company's.
- tombert 8mo agoI have the ThinkPad p16s AMD gen 2. What it lacks in name it makes up for with being the most headache-free computer I have ever had (including a Macbook). Everything works pretty well out of the box, it never really overheats, Linux support required basically no effort with NixOS, the keyboard feels pretty nice, the screen is bright and easy to read, and fortunately I bought it when RAM prices weren't insane so I got the 64GB model. I haven't tried repairing it yet but considering how well it's been working I'm not even sure I'll need ever need to. If this laptop gets stolen, I will likely just buy another ThinkPad, I'm a complete convert.
- thrdbndndn 8mo agoMajority of laptops works "pretty well out of the box".
- system2 8mo agoI urge you to try HP.
- cookiengineer 8mo ago^ this comment is more relevant than people might think. HP regularly deploys broken BIOS updates and literally bricks your laptops. Happened in 2023 I think 7 times that year, and one time even right in the next week. Our IT got so fed up and ditched any HP laptops because of it.
- userbinator 8mo agoNever update your BIOS unless you have a specific bug that needs fixed. I remember a Thinkpad BIOS update ended up destroying both undervolting and overclocking, and required a "chip-clip" programmer to revert.
- wtallis 8mo agoThat advice doesn't hold up very well when in recent years we've had multiple instances of a BIOS update being necessary to deal with the problem of "the CPU gets fed too high a voltage and dies prematurely". That's happened to both Intel and AMD desktop CPUs. It's a real problem that BIOS updates for consumer systems never come with a meaningful changelog, so evaluating whether a particular update is a good idea or not is basically impossible.
- _ache_ 8mo agoI switch from ThinkPad to Framework because they couldn't send me a replacement keyboard. They want me to send the keyboard back to get a refund but I never receive it so... I never did get a refund. Later, Framework send me a laptop in 1 week and later a replacement screen in less then a week. It's been 3 years ago now.
- carefree-bob 8mo agoWhat do you think of the build quality of your Framework? Have you had any issues over the last 3 years?
- kiddico 8mo agoI'm rocking a framework 13" intel 12th gen still and I love it. The only issue I had was being part of the few that got a batch of bad hinges. I didn't know there was a replacement program I could have used and just replaced them myself with the heavier hinge option. At this point I have every expansion port thing they offer and keep them in my bag. My laptop can have any I/O I want :) pretty cool.
- SV_BubbleTime 8mo agoHmm, framework 13 and Linux… loves nothing more than to drain while off. I’m getting really annoyed by that
- klooney 8mo agoAre there non-Mac laptops that still support real sleep? I'm worried about replacing my beater XPS.
- pixelmelt 8mo agoThey have a support article on how to fix this!
- jcul 8mo agoI get about 2, max 3 hours battery on my intel 12th gen framework 13. I generally have it always plugged in, but it's not great.
- owenversteeg 8mo agoYikes. Has iFixit jumped the shark? An AI generated press release on behalf of Lenovo, who is (from my perspective) essentially paying them for good PR? And this paid relationship - Lenovo paying iFixit - isn’t disclosed until the very last line of the article, so you have to first read 1500+ words of AI slop? That made me start looking into their scores. The Thinkpad E14 Gen 7 gets a 9/10 despite soldered ports, a pile of easily breakable plastic clips, a flimsy plastic case, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly. To me that sounds _worse_ than the M5 MacBook Pro, which scores 4/10 (soldered storage unlike the E14, easily replaceable ports, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly.) I would personally rather have replaceable ports than non-soldered storage, but putting my personal preferences aside, I think it’s hard to argue that difference between the two is worth going from a 4/10 to a 9/10.
- internet2000 8mo agoiFixit makes sense when you think of it as a content mill made to sell overpriced screwdrivers.
- opan 8mo agoThey are actually very nice screwdrivers. I had a cheaper no-name set before and ended up stripping screws a lot more often. I got their Mako kit and it's worked great the last 4 years or so. If you ever do work on old game consoles I would especially recommend it. Has the bits for the consoles and the games. Game Bit for GameCube, SNES, GB(C) games, Y bit for GBA and GBA games, security Torx for Xbox 360. The only times it falls short are for very recessed screws like on a Rock Band drum kit, you need a long dedicated driver to fit in there, I think anything with a socket tends to be too thick.
- lenaivo 8mo agoThank you for saying it. There was somehting nagging me after a while. Even the quotes from Lenovo read as being AI generated, which begs the question if the quotes are real or paraphrased of factual at all.
- 8mo ago
- evil-olive 8mo ago> We noted a similar lack of modularity on the Wi-Fi module, where repairs or upgrades will be impractical at best. I'm the current owner of a T14s (gen3 AMD) and the non-replaceable wifi chip has been my biggest pain point with it. I'm somewhat disappointed to see them give this 10/10 score with that problem unresolved. according to lspci it's a Qualcomm QCNFA765 and it works great under Linux...until you suspend the machine. after it wakes up from suspend, it will only stay connected for a few seconds to a minute before dropping the connection and re-establishing it. I've replaced wifi chips in other Thinkpads I've owned, so I naively assumed this would be the same as well - just swapping out the M.2 card. but no such luck, it's soldered in place. I ended up using systemd to rmmod-then-modprobe the ath11k_pci module when the system resumes from sleep. this is annoying because it adds a delay of several extra seconds before the machine is ready to use, but none of the "smaller hammer" workarounds I attempted worked at all.
- chrisss395 8mo agoDo folks have any security concerns with Lenovo? An IT leader at a medium-large US bank recently told me they won't use Lenovo due to security risks from Chinese firmware (or something to that effect, referencing and older incident I don't recall). I've only seen such policies with defense players ten or so years ago. That said, I've owned them personally for 10+ years, so looking for objective thoughts outside repairability as the article covers.
- kemotep 8mo agoWould that not be a concern for most computers? Aren’t most of these motherboards manufactured in China (or at least close proximity to China? Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.) But older Thinkpads (not sure about newer (~5 years old) ones, certainly not brand brand new models) have great support of alternative firmware such as coreboot and libreboot, other projects that disable Intel ME and the like.
- SamuelAdams 8mo agoReminds me of the film Armageddon 1998, where the Russian astronaut had some complaints: <in reference to hardware buttons in the spaceship control panel> USA astronaut: "This is an American aircraft, you don't know the parts" Russian astronaut: "Ah, American parts, Russian parts... all made in Taiwan!"
- justaj 8mo agoPerhaps, but lots of (older) Thinkpads are supported by Libreboot, so that cuts down on the binary blobs significantly.
- cromka 8mo agoIt's the firmware that is made in China that's problematic, not where the motherboard is soldered. Framework assembled there, too, but use open source coreboot firmware. Doesn't get any better than that. Almost every upgrade of firmware for my Lenovo laptop is CVEs recently. I have no doubts they share that with their government and keep some backdoors opened.
- 8mo ago
- a-dub 8mo agothey've been the framework laptop since before there was a framework laptop. worldwide onsite service response times and parts availability are top notch as well.
- userbinator 8mo agoI agree with the other comments here saying that it smells of AI-generated marketing puff-piece --- ThinkPads have always been very repairable, with the official service manuals published (which is more of a guide to disassembly/reassembly, but that's sufficient especially given the availability of (leaked) schematics). Older Dell Latitudes are not too bad either.
- ed_mercer 8mo agoThinkPads have definitely not always been very repairable. The t480 was the last solid option, and it went downhill from there.
- opan 8mo agoSpecifically the T14 had half or fully soldered RAM for the first several gens. Gen 5 restored the socketed RAM. T440p was the last with a socketed CPU. We've lost a lot of power user features over the years, but ThinkPads still tend to be better than most modern alternatives.
- wraptile 8mo agoThe best part about ThinkPads is the refurbished market that'll get you modern dev machine that'll work for you like a horse for years for 300 usd.
- sipjca 8mo agoPicked up a T14s in Shenzhen for ~$250 US and it’s a screamer. Best thing for sure
- wraptile 7mo agoPaid over 2,000 usd 2 years ago for t14s and even then it was worth it, now it's almost 10x cheaper. Incredible machine though refurbs often have the lower end of configurations and with soldered ram etc it's not possible to upgrade. This new modular thinkpad will be crazy for refurb market, I wonder how is Lenovo going to prevent that eating into their sales. This probably means that corporate bulk purchases are majority of their sales and they don't fear to canibalize themselves which makes you wonder why they switched to soldered ram - incredibly unpopular move - at all.
- deathanatos 8mo agoThey've also become eye-wateringly expensive. I represent pricing in $/warranty year. (If you want me to believe the product is worth more, stand by it in the form of a warranty. But if a company isn't going to put their warranty where their mouth is, well.) Lenovo used to warrant their product; my previous Thinkpad, which came with a then-pathetic (Thinkpads used to be four year warranties!) 3 year warranty, for ~$1200, or $400/warranty year. I can't mock up a purchase for either laptop reviewed, as neither are available at any price. So, we'll do the predecessor. Those start at $1300/y; that represents an increase in price of ~14% YoY … which obviously is not tracking inflation. That's enough to put smaller manufacturers who don't benefit from large supply chains, like Framework, in spitting distance. But is it comparable? The base screen is "45%NTSC", and AFAICT from the reviews, the consensus is "don't do it". The other option is an sRGB screen. The base SSD is half the size now, but it is also upgradable to 1 TiB if you fork over $. The OS can be removed now, which actually knocks $90 off the "base" price! The dGPU is just quite literally gone. And nine years later, and the RAM is still the same size, but as we all know, software definitely hasn't gotten more bloated in the past nine years. So, oddly, my current Thinkpad is down for the count right now. After 9 years, it suffered the first real HW failure: the motherboard. The first one took ~3 weeks to ship, and it was defective. The next one only took ~2 weeks, and the patient is still in surgery, so fingers crossed? My biggest repairability question: … have they fixed the power brick to not have the cable melded into the brick? The cable is what breaks, and it costs probably like $3.50, but because it's molded into the main AC/DC converter brick, you have to scrap the entire thing and Lenovo charges for those like they're made from the tears of angels. If you just make a connector there, you raise the cost of the brick a few cents, maybe a few dollars … and save $50? $60 down the road in repairs, and untold amounts of eWaste.
- epalm 8mo agoAren’t these the guys that preinstalled a root certificate to MITM you ads? Not something that can be casually forgiven.
- al_borland 8mo agoLenovo had a couple black eyes back-to-back. It was 10 years ago now, but trust takes a long time to build and can be lost in an instant. They lost my trust and I don’t see them getting it back. My first laptop was an IBM Thinkpad, and while it was a great piece of hardware, I don’t see myself ever buying another one as long an Lenovo owns the brand.
- throw5t434 8mo agoThat’s how I feel about Notepad++ they had an update which would hijack your keyboard and type a message can you open the new window.
- SV_BubbleTime 8mo ago“Trust arrives on foot, and leaves on horseback”
- throw5t434 8mo agoI recall Dell and Sony doing something similar. Maybe not with ads but had some kind of root kit. Then again, if you have an Intel processor I guess it’s already somewhat compromised.
- wink 8mo agoI would agree if I booted the preinstalled Windows even once and not install Linux the minute it arrives. Like, no, we should absolutely not forget that, but the impact for me is low, and I prefer to have the superior hardware.
- tl2do 8mo agoWhat matters next is parts supply at affordable prices — like car manufacturers do.
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoThat was always the case with the ThinkPads
- notgettingit2 8mo agoSince I have a Lenovo ThinkPad T15g, I get very recurring BSODs, for various reasons. I hate it. Windows 11 is probably to blame as well.
- markstos 8mo agoAnd then the year after this is released, will they sell you new mainboards with the rest of the laptop, so you can upgrade just the parts that need updating?
- midtake 8mo agoSure they might be repairable now, but after Superfish I can't trust Lenovo.
- pull_my_finger 8mo agoThis was my thought as well. I'm surprised people are so easy to forgive and forget Edit: a link[1] for those that aren't familiar [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfish#Lenovo_security_inci...
- throw5t434 8mo agoLooks like it only affected their consumer lines and not the ThinkPads. Didn’t Dell and Sony have similar controversies?
- chrsw 8mo agoFor me, ThinkPads won't be "back" until they have at least swappable batteries.
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoThey still do? You just need to unscrew the base plate, plug it out and the new one in
- drillsteps5 8mo agoSome people strongly prefer to have an external battery that can be swapped (as in pull a tab, remove the battery, and plug in another, which is fully charged). Older Thinkpads (T480 and earlier) had a second, smaller, battery inside that would keep the laptop running while the main (external) battery is being replaced. I've been using various Thinkpads for 10+ years and have yet to use this feature. But hey, to each his own :)
- hermanzegerman 8mo agoYes, I also prefer the 2nd external battery on my T470. But in today's market it's still one of the most simple to change batteries. And you know you can still purchase a genuine one, 4 years later for a reasonable price
- shmerl 8mo agoWhat about P series?
- mjh2539 8mo ago> One of the biggest repairability wins: fully modular, individually replaceable Thunderbolt ports. I think I'm going to cry...happy tears. :')
- dzhiurgis 8mo agoI haven’t seen anyone use one for years. I thought they killed it long ago.
- mvkel 8mo ago> disassembling, evaluating, and feeding back ... listened, iterated, and shipped. they didn’t declare victory and go home. They kept pushing. Not even an attempt to clear the ai smell out of this piece.
- burnt-resistor 8mo agoShocking. I quit Lenovo around 2019 after the T490 soldered stuff on and ditched the second removable battery, Apple-style. That was it for me. T480 has been pretty good and even supports an eGPU over Thunderbolt. Have to give it another look.
- pjmlp 8mo agoAnd this is why I keep using Thinkpads with Windows/Linux since 2006, even with the swith to Lenovo, I don't care about thin bezels. The models I owned, or were work assigned, upgrading mem/disk was never an issue, the device could live until it died of motherboard issues, or similar non-upgradable components.
- drillsteps5 8mo agoI did a board swap on one of the older Thinkpads. Not that difficult, and the older boards are pretty cheap...
- difosfor 8mo agoAm i the only one wondering if i could use that replacement keyboard as an external USB or even Bluetooth keyboard somehow? It looks nice and lightweight for carrying on the go with my laptop stand.
- wooger 8mo agoScreen quality, refresh rate and aspect ratio is garbage, so I do not care.
- bvrmn 8mo agoRepairability score page[1] looks like a Lenovo advert. [1]: https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-scores#Laptop-Scores https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc...
- ergl 8mo agoFrom the bottom of the linked article: > Full disclosure: iFixit has an ongoing business relationship with Lenovo, and we are hopelessly biased in favor of repairable products.
- sam_lowry_ 8mo agoWhat about sleep mode? Anyone measured power draw in sleep mode in newer Thinkpads? From what I understand, Gen 2 was the last one to have S3, and newer versions with si0x will have higher power consumption in sleep mode, right?
- akvadrako 8mo agoI don't know why you say that. I've measured Linux sleep power consumption for Lenovo and ASUS laptops over the past 10 years and S3 and si0x come pretty close.
- accrual 7mo agoI have had excellent sleep duration with a T14 Gen4 AMD under Fedora. I can put it to sleep and wake it a week later and still have >60% battery. Windows 11 was a different story - I'd find it dead after a day or two of sleeping. The "i" in Thinkpad pulses while asleep so it was easy to tell when it had switched from sleeping to drained.
- jcarrano 8mo agoMy colleague's Thinkpad had its fan fail. He ordered a replacement which arrived next day. He swapped it himself and kept on working.
- pigeons 8mo agoBut do they have a trackpoint? Yes and I'll buy it.
- culi 8mo agoTheir scorecard seems to get updated regularly, but based on current "non-legacy" scores we have: 10, Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7 and T16 Gen 5 10, Framework Laptop 12 10, Framework Laptop 16 9, Lenovo ThinkPad L16 Gen 2 9, Lenovo ThinkPad 13w 2-in-1 Gen 3 9, Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 6 9, Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 7 9, Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 3 9, Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 6 9, Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen 4 9, Lenovo ThinkPad E16 Gen 2 9, Lenovo ThinkPad E14 Gen 6 9, Lenovo ThinkPad L14 Gen 5 9, Lenovo ThinkPad T16 Gen 3 9, Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 5 8, Lenovo ThinkPad P16 Gen 3 8, Microsoft Surface Laptop 7 7, Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 5, MacBook Air 13″ (M4) 5, MacBook Air 15″ (M2) 5, MacBook Air 13″ (M2) 5, MacBook Pro 14″ (M1) 4, MacBook Pro 14-inch (M5, 2025) These seem to be all the models that have been evaluated. In older scorecard versions an HP EliteBook and a Dell Latitude have also achieved a 10 https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-scores https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc... https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R_egXm7iwR0isCt_UxcGtheFEwLj9SNhxC5DWnAqKIc/edit?gid=1327099398#gid=1327099398 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R_egXm7iwR0isCt_UxcG...
- raw_anon_1111 8mo agoI absolutely loved the fact thsr ifixit repeatedly gave a disclaimer that they had a business relationship with Lenovo - no snark intended.
- opengrass 8mo agoKeyboard still chiclet, get a 25th anniversary.
- geenkeuse 8mo ago[dead]