Lenovo’s new ThinkPads score 10/10 for repairability

I 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.

> 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-...

Do 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.

This 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.

> 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.

I 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.

Nice 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.

I'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)

I 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.

Lenovo (and their subsidiary Motorola) seem to be on a consumer friendliness streak

This 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.

If 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.

Yikes. 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.

And 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?

The 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....

> 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.

I 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.

For me, ThinkPads won't be "back" until they have at least swappable batteries.

> One of the biggest repairability wins: fully modular, individually replaceable Thunderbolt ports.

I think I'm going to cry...happy tears. :')

Sure they might be repairable now, but after Superfish I can't trust Lenovo.

What matters next is parts supply at affordable prices — like car manufacturers do.

The 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.

Do they still block third party PCIe (eg, wifi) devices in their firmware?

Aren’t these the guys that preinstalled a root certificate to MITM you ads? Not something that can be casually forgiven.

> 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?

They'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.

Shocking. 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.

Nice, also my thinkpad required a full dismantle to change the keyboard, so I am rightly pissed given it's a premium product.

they'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.

This 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.

I haven’t seen anyone use one for years. I thought they killed it long ago.

I 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.

Are these still a Chinese brand? Lenovo changed hands a bit so IDK now.

What about P series?

Shame 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.

Since 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.

I love my Thinkpad!

Hooray! Now can we get a decent OS for them?

(No, not Windows.)

(No, not Linux.)

Does 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.

Damn, 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.

No thanks. I don't like all their awful plastic. Make it from metal and glass.