I’m putting this in chat and not in Technology because I’m also wondering about things like clothes, appliances—basically any sort of consumer product, virtual or physical, you can think of that you feel has retained some standard of quality and has not yet been enshittified. I would start by saying that Wikipedia has not yet been enshittified, but perhaps you disagree? Post is inspired by this video.
EDIT: coyotino correctly points out that Wikipedia isn’t a product but a service; poor word choice on my part, just trying to cast a wide a net as possible here in the hopes of making a list of “things that are still good that don’t suck.” Like I said, a wide net 🙂.
I recently purchased a used Lenovo ThinkPad and I was really impressed with both the build quality and the amount of support documentation available. On the support page you can download a hardware maintenance manual which has diagrams and procedures for replacing most of the internal components, and the “self repair guide” page has step-by-step procedures with pictures, videos, difficulty ratings, time estimates and required tools. You don’t have to have a business account with them, prove ownership of a product, or even log in to access this information, it’s just available.
Inside the laptop most of the parts are modular, including things like the USB port, RJ45 port, and power switch, which are all on their own individual boards so that they can be easily replaced as needed. If you have some basic computer hardware knowledge and a few simple tools you can do most of these replacements.
These are field-serviceable laptops and they’re clearly designed and supported for that. You can pick up used ones (mostly resold by businesses that are upgrading) on eBay for US$200-300 (make sure you read the listing - some of them have had their hard drives removed and you have to supply your own). If you’re looking for a laptop that you can keep running for the next 5+ years, I recommend this.
Ah man, used one in my corporate life and loved it…moved away and independent and a friend gifted me her old laptop and I am happy in my little spreadsheet world at the end of the month.
What model ThinkPad? I’m fortunate enough to have an X1 Carbon 10th gen, although I think the battery life might not be as good as my older one, a 7th.
I found a T495 with a Ryzen 7 and licensed Win10 Pro on it. It’s a little dated but it’s frankly more capability than I really need in a portable computer, and the replacement parts are cheap.
What kind of battery life do you get?
3-ish hours with no throttling and the screen at full brightness, doing normal-ish web browsing and document work (not really using this for gaming). More if I let it throttle and lower the screen brightness.
I’ve had my Lenovo Legion for four years.
Great product, still works well. The only downside is how much I hate the plastic tabs you have to work open in order to get into the machine’s guts.