Hello. Many of the older thinkpads were regarded as being peak for the ability to repair and easily see into them at both the hardware and software levels.
I was wondering, what PC, if any, is similar in this regard? Aside from building your own PC ofc. Any opinions are welcome. Thank you.
The Thinkpad
Just carefully read the manual for the model you’re interested in. Switching out a keyboard on T14s Gen1 is hell, as an example.
Jesus, it’d be easier to list the parts you don’t have to remove.
And with how easy it has traditionally been to do that same replacement on ThinkPad T-series I was shocked the first time I encountered it.
holy shit, it’s not just 4 screws anymore?
The answer is that it depends on the model and that you can’t trust the T anymore, the T14 Gen3 (note that it’s T14, not T14s) is as easy as always:
https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/t14_gen3_p14s_gen3_hmm_en.pdf
Not really true any more. The build quality isn’t as good as it used to be and the upgradability has suffered too.
While I agree, it’s hard to find a cheap and reliable laptop that’s not a thinkpad. The keyboards have suffered and some of the models are harder to repair. But they’re still spill proof, tough, and have lots of ports. I don’t regret my thinkpad t14 gen 3 purchase. I might get a thinkpad t14 gen 2 soon.
The models are getting imposible to repair. Everything is plastic and isn’t designed to be taken apart. It’s lenovos fault, their build quality is crap across the line. Of all the computers I’ve fixed (which is a lot), lenovos are by far the worst to deal with
You are conflating IdeaPads and Legions with ThinkPads. Every ThinkPad model is MILSPEC and has strong ABS build.
I’m not unfortunately. I had to fix a coworkers thinkpad t14 gen 3. The motherboard failed. Then the replacement was throwing fan errors for no reason, finally went away when I updated the bios. Now its going back to lenovo because there are graphics artifacts on the screen during normal use. It being made out of slightly better plastic doesn’t mean anything, they cheaped out on everything.
What the hell is going on with a bunch of ThinkPads after the *90 series? This is not the first time I am hearing about it, and the complainers seem to pop up occasionally.
Do you poke around ThinkPad subreddit and communities to see related testimonies and solutions nowadays? Its been over a year since I kept a tab.
I don’t think I’ve been in those subreddits unfortunately. I guess Lenovo fired all their good engineers? My father has a Lenovo all-in-one. I actually cracked the screen trying to open it to upgrade the ram. To get to the motherboard you need to remove the front bezel, but the screen is just a thin panel that juts right to the edge with 1 or 2mm of space to spare. It’s a crapshoot whether or not you can undo all the plastic snaps without accidently grabbing the screen. It really is affecting every computer in their lineup
It looks like they are doing the “cheaping out” things that everyone else has done. And it is common across consumer tier hardware. Sure it may not be a computer, but my Philips trimmer met the same fate in trying to open it. It had a couple broken latches. Find as good business tier hardware you can find, is all I can say. ThinkPads atleast retain all the good traits, plus they officially allow users to open and repair/replace hardware, so they still are better than anything else by a long shot.
no fucking way chat is this real