- cross-posted to:
- technology
- cross-posted to:
- technology
Interesting, Lenovo must have a wide spread over their product range, then … at least quite a few of their products are amongst the top scorers on iFixit repeairability scores … changing the keyboard on my IdeaPad was a different story, though 😅
The Thinkpads are typically quite easy to work on. Lenovo’s consumer grade laptops are mostly disposable junk though.
Well, depends on how brave you are …
I’ve replaced the keyboard on my IdeaPad Flex 5 … removing plastic rivets and replacing them with superglue isn’t fun but it’s holding up great so far …
One of the display hinges crumbled (or, rather, the plastic mount it was screwed into), I repaired it with heavy-duty epoxy … the screen is held in the bezel with adhesive clay.
The laptop has been heavily used over the last 4 years, including many on-stage shows … so I wouldn’t call it unreliable, and it was ridiculously cheap for what it is … so I wouldn’t call it junk …
It was the same way with the Dell Latitude and Inspiron lines. The latitudes were stupid easy to work on, but more expensive and business focused. The Inspirons were trash.
Anecdotes from an independent repair shop owner / operator.
I very rarely encounter reparability issues from Lenovo devices. I’ve worked on the full range down to Chromebooks and all the way up to high-end ThinkPad workstations. Parts are generally available, if not from Lenovo then on the aftermarket. They have repair documentation on their site. There are cases where the memory is soldered, but that is not something that is unique to Lenovo.
From my perspective, the least repairable devices end up being the LG and Samsung laptops. Parts are much harder to come by, which means that when they are available they’re usually quite expensive. Their designs are hostile to repair, documentation has not been readily available, they haven’t used modular memory for about 10 years now.
Microsoft’s Surface lineup has historically been real bad for repair, it’s not until recently that they’ve been turning a new leaf. Their logic board designs are so unusual that even component level repair becomes a huge pain compared to others.
What about this then
Ifixit - Lenovo’s New ThinkPads Score 10/10 for Repairability
I swapped the battery in mum’s leonvo with minimal fuss. Same as most hardware issues - found a youtube and followed it.
Lenovo Thinkpads ≠ IBM Thinkpads. They steadily got worse and worse. My T495 broke down really fast and didnt turn on anymore. Easy to replace some parts but hard to replace the rest





