Repair goes mega mainstream with the launch of Lenovo’s new T-series business laptops, which earned our highest honor with a 10/10 repairability score.
Ok but how long is it going to be supported? If they abandon the idea its just a particularly expensive regular laptop, even if they keep supporting it you’re locked into ThinkPads ecosystem. It’s not truly repairable until its a standard that doesn’t rely on the benevolence of a single company.
Swappable battery: I’m going to assume its a generic battery and therefore the best possible option here since I know some (a lot of) laptops have weird proprietary batteries. Point for Thinkpad.
Industry standard m.2: Even notebooks can do this.
Easy keyboard replacement: This looks like a lock in? Of the laptops I’ve seen where you can swap the keyboard, which is actually quite a few but in a really dodgy looking way, the keyboards look very different from this. Point for looking WAY easier but might take it away again if this keyboard really is proprietary.
Swappable memory: I’ll give you that many notebooks solder this in but its easy to find a regular laptop with swappable memory.
Streamlined display repairs: Much like the keyboard this looks awesome and WAY less jank than normal way you have to do it but it also looks like a proprietary part.
Modular cooling system: I don’t really know enough to say on this one, most laptops have a cooling system you can take out with similar form factors but I doubt they’d work well with random parts from other machines, then again I doubt this laptop would work well with random parts from other laptops either so your still probably locked into buying the correct one from ThinkPad.
Modular ports: This is actually pretty awesome, though again where else am I even going to get these modular ports.
Ultimately its still good, the stuff that’s already common has been made way easier and some new options have opened up for repair and replacement, I can’t really blame thinkpad for being the only ones providing this hardware when they’re the only ones making a laptop that would use it in the first place, its still an ecosystem lock in to a degree though even if its not an intentional one. It would be nice to see some competition in the space.
Yeah, it is still a laptop in the end.
More repairable than most but still a laptop.
I just had a problem with the “ecosystem” wording as this is best used to describe unrepairable pieces of crap that refuses third party parts (looking at you, Apple).
Ok but how long is it going to be supported? If they abandon the idea its just a particularly expensive regular laptop, even if they keep supporting it you’re locked into ThinkPads ecosystem. It’s not truly repairable until its a standard that doesn’t rely on the benevolence of a single company.
What ecosystem? pretty sure the “ecosystem” is standardized computer parts for thinkpads.
So to go down the bullet point list:
Ultimately its still good, the stuff that’s already common has been made way easier and some new options have opened up for repair and replacement, I can’t really blame thinkpad for being the only ones providing this hardware when they’re the only ones making a laptop that would use it in the first place, its still an ecosystem lock in to a degree though even if its not an intentional one. It would be nice to see some competition in the space.
Yeah, it is still a laptop in the end. More repairable than most but still a laptop. I just had a problem with the “ecosystem” wording as this is best used to describe unrepairable pieces of crap that refuses third party parts (looking at you, Apple).
Thinkpads had 3rd party replacement parts for the last 20 years.
Perhaps do some homework. ThinkPad have dominated in business for decades for good reason
Think-pad? Pshh, a momentary gimmick.
(My very first laptop was a ThinkPad with 256mb of RAM, 100 years ago. My current laptop is a ThinkPad with 32gb of ram)