Lenovo fails for not providing shoppers sufficient laptop repairability information.
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MacBooks lagging behind PC rivals when it comes to repairability: Report
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We needed a study to know Apple is at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to repairability ease?
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No shit.
I know there's nothing that's meant to be replaced in my MBA and that's unfortunate. When I'm done with it, I'll just trash it.
I threw some spare RAM and a $30 SSD in my mom's old laptop the other day to breathe some new life into it. It took 2 minutes and two Phillips screws.
I know there's nothing that's meant to be replaced in my MBA and that's unfortunate. When I'm done with it, I'll just trash it.
I threw some spare RAM and a $30 SSD in my mom's old laptop the other day to breathe some new life into it. It took 2 minutes and two Phillips screws.
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You mean when everything is soldered or glued together it's difficult to repair?
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Would have been nice to have included reliability data as well- the best laptop is the one that keeps working.
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If that's the case, I have a $400 Acer laptop from 2010 that still turns on and runs Lubuntu. It's slow as molasses and I wouldn't use it as a primary machine anymore, but it's still the same parts from 15 years ago, no replacements.
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I'd rather have a repairable macbook than a not-repairable macbook, but I wish studies like this one would factor in the rate of repairs required. The last macbook I had that needed any kind of hardware fix was a 13" core2 duo macbook from 2010 (bad RAM). Every macbook I've had since then has operated fine well beyond the time when I decided I wanted a newer model (4+ years from each one). I did manage to dodge the butterfly keyboard fiasco though.
It's a good thing Dell and Acer score better on repairability. In my (admittedly limited) experience they seem to need at least one component replacement a year to keep working.
It's a good thing Dell and Acer score better on repairability. In my (admittedly limited) experience they seem to need at least one component replacement a year to keep working.
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My experience with replacing my new Thinkpad's touchpad indicates otherwise. Lenovo provides detailed maintenance and repair manuals describing how to replace every field-replaceable component, and lots of videos demonstrating exactly how to do so. There's also a seriously comprehensive parts store with every component you might plausibly need available at reasonable prices. (And for some reason, everything receives free fast shipping and arrives in retail-quality packaging.) So yeah, no complaints from me. I wonder if this is specific to Thinkpads, though; maybe it's not representative of cheaper Lenovo laptops?
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The worst trend in laptops is the switch to island style keys buried behind the motherboard. This is usually done with a plastic subframe with heat staked rivets holding in the keyboard membrane and a thin backer plate. The only reliable way to replace the keyboard on these is to replace the palmrest which makes up the bulk of the frame on most laptops.
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It's easy to know.
Apple computers are actually very easy to repair "with the right parts and tools".
That last part is very important. When I was a certified Apple Tech years ago, I found Apple laptops very easy to repair. It's parts availability and guides that makes Apple hardware difficult to repair. Plus, they glue the batteries to the chassis, so replacing a battery is replacing the keyboard, trackpad and the surrounding metal.
I always found it frustrating how simple and well thought out Apple laptops were for repairing... if they didn't make it impossible via software locks and not making parts and tools easily available...
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Lenovo does a great job with providing repair guides and parts for most if not all their models. However there's a big gap in repairability between Thinkpads and their lower end laptops. I'm left wondering if the Lenovo models chosen in this report are from their consumer lines or if they include Thinkpads. I would think the same goes for HP and Dell too.
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Agreed and maybe included data about warranty repairs too
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0ZoCYXmF0Q
. I mean I guess it's a good thing ASUS laptops are accessible because you have repair them all the time... (Writing from my $600 Mac Mini because my $2000 ASUS laptop is busted again...)
Let's face it. It's always going to be easier to repair a loud bulky hunk of plastic than it is a quiet svelte metal machine. There are going to be tradeoffs for the shit Apple manages to pull off with such small devices.
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I bought a modest Lenovo gaming laptop back in 2021, when I was living in Tucson. One of the key caps came loose 8 months later and I couldn't reattach it. The warranty repair was to dispatch a technician from Phoenix (1.5 hrs away) who replaced the entire keyboard assembly.
Certainly helped me see part of the appeal of Framework's systems.
Certainly helped me see part of the appeal of Framework's systems.
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I worked for IBM for a number of years, and still know some of the IBM techs that repair Lenovo laptops. Lenovo laptops are highly repairable as per the original IBM design principles; you just need to know what FRU/CRU to order for replacement. Lenovo also publishes the procedures on how to replace parts. If Lenovo failed this is would be because of the language issue, not actual repairability.
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My Framework Laptop is nice and sleek metal, about the size of a MacBook, and incredibly repairable.
It's just an engineering thing. ARM SOCs need soldered RAM for best performance, so I don't consider that too much, but at least don't solder the NAND SSD to the mainboard. Hilariously, there's a special port on Apple mainboards that are specifically for data recovery in case the mainboard dies and a tech needs to extract data from the NAND chips. And of course, it's an Apple proprietary tool you need to make that port work!
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When I went shopping for a couple of new laptops recently, I was finding most sources saying Lenovo was one of the better laptops for build quality in that price range (sub-$1200). I suppose if I have to pick between "probably won't fall apart" and "if it falls apart, it's kind of a pain to fix", I'd choose the latter.
I still have a Lenovo Yoga 900 laptop from about 10 years ago that refuses to die. Various bits have chipped off and cracked, but the thing just keeps on ticking.
I still have a Lenovo Yoga 900 laptop from about 10 years ago that refuses to die. Various bits have chipped off and cracked, but the thing just keeps on ticking.
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henrythefool
Smack-Fu Master, in training
I work in consumer electronics repair, and this ranking is absolute garbage. Literally more deceiving than insightful. It’s very clear it is was developed by averaging the manufacturer’s self reported ranking on a French government index rather than, say, actually taking apart and repairing a bunch of laptops, or asking people who actually repair them.
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Is Thinkpad being separated out from Lenovo generally? Or maybe it's just swamped by other Lenovo models? Because I believe Thinkpad laptops have a ton of assembly/dissassembly and replacement information on each model.
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ThinkPads are the business models, and in my experience are highly servicable. Lenovo has even done away with a lot of the glue seals and stuff and gone back to just screwed together frames while still keeping the device thin.
I believe these rankings are for the consumer line, like the IdeaPad, which may not receive the same scrutiny in design, likely in an effort to save cost that is then passed along to the customer when the device needs service.
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While obviously having the major producers is important, it'd be really nice to have some smaller ones like System76 and especially Framework. Especially with Framework, probably 11/10 repairability score on everything. Make it very publicly obvious that you CAN make a quality laptop that is excessively repairable, even upgradable, and doesn't always need to end up as a lot of waste.
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Lenovo Thinkpads are arguably the most repairable laptop, apart from Framework's offerings. But maybe everything else in Lenovo's lineup is a glued-together mess.
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That makes me feel a lot better about spending $25k on new Thinkpad laptops for the whole company this morning.
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henrythefool
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Apple's actually come a long way - they publish service manuals publicly on their support site, will rent you tools, and sell their most common repair parts (batteries, displays, keyboards, speakers, etc) OEM through third party sites like selfservicerepair and mobilsentrix. They even stopped gluing in most batteries! (although, you could always get those out with a little alcohol and elbow grease).
Now, the prices they charge are absolutely mind melting, with something like a macbook display costing more than an entire used macbook, but that's a different complaint.
edit: typo
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Put me down as another one that loves the ThinkPad series precisely for their ease of repair. I have dealt with a lot of T and E series over the years, most of what I do are upgrades or repairs due to a Faculty member dropping a laptop down the stairs etc and have never had issues with getting parts or documentation, even in Canada!
In comparison, we stopped purchasing the Dell lower end "business" class of laptops due to them being a nightmare to get parts, or how much a pain in the butt they were to repair. Don't get me started on having to deal with our local Apple store for repairs out of warranty.
In comparison, we stopped purchasing the Dell lower end "business" class of laptops due to them being a nightmare to get parts, or how much a pain in the butt they were to repair. Don't get me started on having to deal with our local Apple store for repairs out of warranty.
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I agree. I have a Framework 16, and it's great, but it seems like almost everyone who sees it is surprised that such a thing even exists, and has never even heard of Framework.
It would be nice if consumer advocacy groups like US Public Interest Research Group would make an effort to include smaller companies like Framework in comparisons like this to help educate the general public about the options that are out there beyond the big companies with big marketing budgets, and already well-known names.
As far as I'm concerned, one of the the most effective methods of consumer advocacy would be to provide consumers with an accessible supply of accurate information about all (or as many as possible) products available in a particular category, to balance out the flood of marketing that keeps the big incumbents in their entrenched positions. The best way to get the big manufacturers to make good products is to ensure that there is robust competition that will eat their lunch if they don't, but that robust competition will have a hard time surviving and growing if studies like this don't even include them.
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As an individual who has owned many Apple laptops going all the way back to the PowerBook Duo 230 and has opened and repaired every single one: Not only are the current MacBooks easier to repair for common wear items, but are far better put together and have fewer parts that can break. As physical objects they last longer than they used to, as long as one is still happy with the relative computing performance.
There were a number of bad years where Macbook batteries were glued directly onto the laptop frame and had to be removed with solvent. However, the 2010–17 Macbook Air's had batteries mounted to a handy plastic tray that was held in by 4 or 5 torx screws, and the current ones since 2019 have a similar tray mounted with stretch tape.
There were a number of bad years where Macbook batteries were glued directly onto the laptop frame and had to be removed with solvent. However, the 2010–17 Macbook Air's had batteries mounted to a handy plastic tray that was held in by 4 or 5 torx screws, and the current ones since 2019 have a similar tray mounted with stretch tape.
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With Lenovo that's not even the biggest problem. The BIOS lock they put on the motherboard means that even the few things you can replace (WiFi cards, for example) aren't upgradable... or even replacable.
Lenovo makes well-made low-end laptops for a great price but you can't maintain or repair them if they break.
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Reliability ratings:
https://www.pcmag.com/articles/best-pc-phone-and-tablet-brands-for-reliability
It’s Apple, of course. And the most repairable machine is the one that doesn’t need to be repaired.
https://www.pcmag.com/articles/best-pc-phone-and-tablet-brands-for-reliability
It’s Apple, of course. And the most repairable machine is the one that doesn’t need to be repaired.
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Was going to make a similar comment, in my experience it's much easier to find service manuals and parts for Lenovo laptops than it is other brands, especially across the range from consumer to enterprise.
That said it is just anecdotal experience with maybe 4 Lenovo devices and a handful of ones from other manufacturers I struggled more with.
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I've never had to repair a Thinkpad. They're bulletproof and have the best keyboard in the business. I don't know anything about their consumer lines. That said, I also own a Framework. Great screen, terrible keyboard.
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This article made me curious, so I fired up my 2009 MacBook for the first time in a year or two, and of course it still works, although the (removable) batteries are probably very iffy by now. Not sure what I will do with it, other than put it back on the shelf. My 2015 MacBook Pro is now my off the internet Windows machine, which allows me to avoid migrating to Windows 11, and being bombarded by ads for Microsoft services I neither want nor need, and it gets used quite regularly. If I want to risk a hernia, I could go into the basement and get my 2004 Mac Pro up here and running in 5 minutes. I still use its keyboard. So, any repairability comparison, which does not take reliability into consideration is a rather flawed metric.
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blue.lantern
Smack-Fu Master, in training
"When I was a certified Apple Tech years ago" which is why end users find it so difficult to repair because they are both legally and physically locked out from being able to replace parts. Both in not being able to legally get and use the parts themselves so they can do the repair. Even 3rd party dodgy parts to enable a device to remain functioning is better then being denied the parts, and then being forced to landfill the whole device. Having had Apple decide that 3 years is enough time to restrict even licensed apple certified repairers the legal allowance to fix the machines (as had happened to my device purchased in that window from a store before apple cleared the stock out to the landfill) I have very little faith that many apple certified repairers will risk their contract with apple to repair devices Apple deems not profitable anymore. Even worse that is still taking away from the end users, businesses & customers the ability to repair the devices themselves.
On the real repairability metric for end users & customers Apple deserve less then an F rating. Is there an X rating for toxic and dangerous hardware business practices? Because we were forced to support Apple's at work we still had to get new ones to work with and with many the batteries exploded with enough force to shoot & strip the screws they had at the point and deform the metal casing so severely it tore. Simply from the increased fire and H&S risk alone we then dropped support for Apple laptops and it has massively reduced costs, maintenance issues and increased productivity in the whole team. Better to drop a company with such dangerous & toxic business practices and your own business will be better for it. Switch to any linux distro on a more repairable device with features to enable health checks and regular minor quick maintenance if you hate Windows so much and there is nothing of value that is lost when dropping Apple.
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Can't speak to Thinkpads being a solid product in and of themselves, but will echo the impression of Lenovo making their serviceability quite possible. Again, only re:Thinkpads.
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blue.lantern
Smack-Fu Master, in training
Many of ours from those years had batteries explode and when just powered would prevent any use of Apple apps & system until the OS was updated (of which Apple denied updates to machines even relatively newer machines a real catch 22) so Apple effectively bricked so much of the core programs in the computer that they became expensive bookends. Do yourself a favor and look beyond the initial startup. Even then many of ours would just fail to start as soon as they dialed home to Apple as the great OS lockdown Apple created many screen of death events rendering the devices useless for any Apple related OS use. Just switch to linux and be glad you brought your devices before Apple started dropping heavily in hardware quality and repairability.
Apple is even more toxic then windows for advertsing and setting up a walled garden. There were many occasions it would actively prevent iOS devices interacting with any other programs without going through the apple store apps first so we literally brought windows and linux machines just to copy and deploy to iOS phones. Because the walled garden of Apple would heavily lock down features so you would be forced into their store and apps regardless of whether you needed or wanted to (like if windows would lock down the use of file explorer and navigating the directories via command line until you installed candy crush and a photos app that would share your pics online and you had to use both of those to transfer files between). If you think that Apples walled garden, cut off legally limited repair options and heavy store app promotion is any better then windows I would like to hear your reasoning. Esp when with windows & linux no point am I forced to interact with any of the default apps or store and it took less then a couple of hours to configure settings.
Deployments are so much faster and cleaner to implement with windows and linux distros they can in a large way be automated. So even as both a business, and an end user I am not facing the roadblocks apple put in place to prevent older machine use.
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I think there is a gulf between the Think-series which are very repairable with decent parts availability in my experience (couple of mobile workstations bought new and a few SFF desktops for shared workshop/lab beaters.
A client whose team we host bought Ideapads, and the repair process was horrible and unsuccessful.
As a general rule I would no longer buy a consumer-grade machine from any make, always an enterprise one.
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I would recommend Asus over the other brands , I have two Asus ROG laptops , one that's rocking Windows 11 24H2
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I think there are two sides to the difficult to repair Macbooks though.
Sure the gluing and most things that matter are soldered on it a problem.
BUT, because of the small number of models, clear model id system and obviously popularity of Macbooks
1. it is easy to find matching teardown videos and tutorials.
2. it is easy to find the parts
3 also: the aluminum cases are rather easy to open.
=> practical repeatability of Macbooks is higher than most other notebooks.
Sure my personal sample size of examples is small, but I have successfully swapped batteries for 2 Macbooks, but failed for an Hp notebook - the plastic case was simply not up to the abuse.
Also, how good is Apple Care? my son cracked the screen of a 4 year old M1 Macbook Air (yes bought in week one after release). Also worn down was one of the two USB-c charging slots, and the battery was a little older.
Had Apple Care, send it in because of the screen, cost AUD 150, replaced the Screen, the battery and the IO-board with the USB ports. They kept the rest (i.e. the main board including the SSD with content!), so it was clearly a repair job.
It is good as new.
Can't complain.
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That is just utter nonsense. Have you ever tried Windows 11?
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"Lenovo earned a failing score because, per the report, it "failed to provide the full French repairability index for 12 of the 13 models... available in both the US and France." Because the US PIRG was only able to score one device, Lenovo failed."
So they only reviewed 1/13 models because they couldn't find instructions in French. I agree that the French group should highlight this so the manufacture translates the materials. However the US team doing the study should have excluded it because the third party dataset is too small to make any conclusions.
So they only reviewed 1/13 models because they couldn't find instructions in French. I agree that the French group should highlight this so the manufacture translates the materials. However the US team doing the study should have excluded it because the third party dataset is too small to make any conclusions.
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