[HN Gopher] Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repair...
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Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025
Author : mikece
Score : 179 points
Date : 2023-10-05 14:04 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| autoexec wrote:
| Friendly reminder that Lenovo has repeatedly shipped laptops
| infested with malware and backdoors
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Security_and_privacy_in...)
| sometimes doing so in exchange for money. They've also hidden
| malware in UEFI so that even reformatting your hard drive
| wouldn't help.
|
| In one case, after they were found out they first claimed "we
| have thoroughly investigated this technology and do not find any
| evidence to substantiate security concerns" and only after it
| started being reported by more and more news orgs did they
| finally admit to what they'd done and release instructions on how
| to fix it.
|
| Sadly, those instructions removed the bloatware, but left the
| vulnerability it introduced in place giving users a false sense
| of security, and only after they were caught out for _that_ in
| the press did they finally release a "removal tool"
|
| The wikipedia page doesn't even list all their offenses or the
| most recent events. See also :
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-patches-uefi-vulnerabil...
|
| Repairable or not, use Lenovo at your own risk.
| imglorp wrote:
| Would the UEFI malware affect a non-windows OS installed on
| that machine?
| freedomben wrote:
| It definitely could if they wanted it to. I'm less worried
| about that because of the threat of PR blowback that helps
| keep them in check, but if it's really important to you then
| you should probably avoid Lenovo. Frame.work is quite a nice
| option.
| happymellon wrote:
| No, and that's due to 2 reasons.
|
| 1. The malware was a rootkit for Windows
|
| 2. Windows has an interesting "feature" that will blindly
| auto-install software that is embedded in a certain location
| in the BIOS. If a rootkit is placed there, Windows will
| always try and install it.
|
| It's bad for Lenovo, but it's also bad that Windows has this
| anti-feature.
| valleyer wrote:
| Wow. Could you point us to more technical information about
| this "feature" of Windows? I'm hoping someone has reverse-
| engineered it somewhere, but I'm not finding anything with
| some brief Googling.
| lights0123 wrote:
| No need to reverse engineer it when it's fully
| documented: https://download.microsoft.com/download/8/a/2
| /8a2fb72d-9b96-...
| vondur wrote:
| I have a motherboard from Gigabyte that will prompt after
| the first boot in Windows to install some of their
| software.
|
| https://arstechnica.com/security/2023/06/millions-of-pc-
| moth...
|
| With my motherboard you can deny the install at least.
| nope96 wrote:
| Re: #2 - The UEFI bloatware/rootkit checked the Windows
| version: if you used Windows 8 or up it used the "feature"
| called "Windows Platform Binary Table", but Windows 7
| didn't have that, so for Windows 7 it overwrote CHKDSK.EXE
| with a Lenovo loader on every reboot. So, yeah, they were
| overwriting OS binaries on disk, not just relying on WPBT.
| (But no reports of binaries being overwritten on on Linux)
| isoprophlex wrote:
| agreed, i was about to comment "but will these 4 out of 5
| devices allow removal of the lenovo crapware?"
| verdverm wrote:
| Same reason I left Verizon for Fi, avoidance of their
| bloatware. Couldn't imagine going back to a phone with apps I
| cannot uninstall (like Amazon & NFL apps, seriously, I don't
| care about sportsball at all and haven't used Amazon in more
| than 6 years)
| chx wrote:
| this is just propaganda
|
| that was consumer side Lenovo laptops, IdeaPad and the like 7+
| years ago. They learned their lesson and even there don't do it
| any more.
|
| This didn't affect ThinkPads.
|
| Every time Lenovo is mentioned someone brings this up and I am
| thoroughly sick of it.
| demandingturtle wrote:
| How is this propaganda? Either it's true or it is false. You
| haven't said or proved this is false. "consumer side" still
| Lenovo. "They learned their lesson" and so have we. "7+ years
| ago" it still happened The only propaganda is coming from
| you.
| rnk wrote:
| Hey chx, got a response to the details listed here?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Not chx, but note that none of the linked articles mention
| Thinkpads.
| hfsh wrote:
| Sure, but nobody but chx even brought up Thinkpads in the
| first place.
| autoexec wrote:
| All of these links do though and they include examples of
| more hard coded passwords, more Lenovo spyware, and more
| insecure Lenovo software that exposed users to threats:
|
| https://www.theregister.com/2018/01/26/lenovo_thinkpad_fi
| nge...
|
| https://www.computerworld.com/article/2984889/lenovo-
| collect...
|
| https://www.crn.com.au/news/thinkpad-vulnerable-in-
| latest-le...
|
| https://www.pcworld.com/article/633410/up-to-100-lenovo-
| lapt...
|
| https://www.itpro.com/security/vulnerability/369491/lenov
| o-p...
|
| https://github.com/Cr4sh/ThinkPwn
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Well that would do it then.
| autoexec wrote:
| History is not propaganda. Lenovo repeatedly sold out their
| customers, lied to them, and put them at risk of everything
| from spying to remote code execution. They've more than
| earned their reputation and it _should_ haunt them every time
| they are mentioned.
|
| _Maybe_ after several decades have gone by without incident
| I might consider that they 've changed their ways, but I sure
| wouldn't count on that happening.
|
| Here's them still not having learned their lesson in Feb of
| 2021 https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/03/lenovo_indelible_
| adwa...
|
| Here's them still not having learned their lesson in April of
| 2022 https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-patches-uefi-
| vulnerabil...
|
| Today, I wouldn't trust this company to make an alarm clock
| (https://blog.talosintelligence.com/vulnerability-
| spotlight-h...) let alone a laptop.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| My Lenovo android tablet started installing adware suddenly,
| more than a year after purchase. This was a clean device with
| a single program and the adware came with.. Lenovo ads.
|
| Yeah I think it's fair to say Lenovo is still no good here.
| miohtama wrote:
| Lenovo got fined for $3.5M for installing spyware that
| hijacks HTTPS connections, so it's a bit stretch to call it
| propaganda
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-receives-3-5m-fine-
| for-...
|
| When a company engages to such deceptive business and
| outright illegal business practices, there is little reason
| to trust them for a decade or two until we can be sure
| everyone who worked there by the time is gone.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _until we can be sure everyone who worked there by the
| time is gone._
|
| That seems a little extreme. I always maintain a skeptical
| eye, but most corporate leaders have an eye for profits and
| PR, and their personal integrity/moral compass doesn't play
| a large role in their decision making. As long as it's
| bad/risky PR for Lenovo to do stuff like that, the
| incentives are on our side. Always be watching though, and
| I personally favor vendors who have good track records.
| BossingAround wrote:
| Well... I can look at it from the other perspective; in
| my previous org, the director came like 15 years ago from
| Oracle, and his ideas, management style, and goals were
| very much aligned with what you'd expect Oracle was like
| 20 years ago. It took firing him and two managers below
| him to turn around the org, despite adopting new
| practices, new ideas, working in completely new
| directions, etc.
|
| I wouldn't completely discard the idea to be honest.
| freedomben wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, that does make sense. Humans are
| creatures of habit and the way we are brought up is a
| strong lean on us in future decision making. Changing
| philosophies can be very hard
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| > They learned their lesson and even there don't do it any
| more.
|
| If I did this, I'd be learning my lesson in prison for 20
| years.
| infogulch wrote:
| To add a reference, here's a reproduction of my comment on a
| discussion of Lenovo from 4 years ago [1]:
|
| I want to emphasize how bad the TLS MITM malware was (adware is
| too nice a term): they installed a TLS MITM attack by adding
| _the same CA public key to the trust store of every non-
| business device they sold_ , and then proxied all internet
| traffic through an on-device MITM proxy that _contained the
| private key to that CA_. Yes you read that right: _every device
| with this malware_ had the public _and private key_ used to
| _decrypt the TLS traffic of every other device with this
| malware_ , effectively exposing every user to have all of their
| traffic both decrypted and MITM'd _again_ by anyone who tries.
| This train wreck was malicious _and_ incompetent.
|
| I don't consider this a technical failure, this is a fatal
| business failure: either nobody in Lenovo reviewed this
| software integration from a privacy and security perspective,
| or they did review it and the business deal overruled the
| security team's ability to veto it, or they're so inept that
| they didn't notice how bad it was. In any case, this indicates
| an organizational dysfunction so severe there's no way I can
| trust Lenovo with my personal or business security again.
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22194428 | Lenovo now
| shipping Ubuntu on high end workstations in the US
| [deleted]
| JTbane wrote:
| Also the build quality of Lenovo laptops have gone down so much
| it's appalling.
| baz00 wrote:
| Yeah this. Keyboard is shite on the new T14 gen 3. Horrible
| to use.
| sbuk wrote:
| I swear the trackpad on my work-issued one takes 5 minutes
| to warm up before it is useable. It is quite possibly the
| worst laptop I've ever owned, and I've had a Vostro and a
| 2018 Macbook with the dodgy keyboards.
| bityard wrote:
| I used to be a Thinkpad fanatic due to nice build quality and
| good Linux support.
|
| But in the past few years, I have taken to just buying Dell's
| midrange business laptops. The build quality can vary by
| model but they are cheaper, ubiquitous, have great support
| while in warranty, and Linux always runs just fine on them if
| you pay attention to the hardware you're buying.
| vondur wrote:
| I purchase the business version of the ThinkPads and the
| warranties are fine. In fact, HP, Dell and Lenovo use the
| same company in my area when they send out technicians to
| work on them.
| baz00 wrote:
| Oh man fuck Dell. I get through one every 9 months at work.
| Absolutely the worst laptops I've ever used. Precision
| series.
| RajT88 wrote:
| What model? I've been pretty happy with Dell machines at
| work. Happy enough I bought an older model refurb for 200
| dollars shipped, which fits the chargers and docks and
| such I had lying around from work.
|
| Model: Precision 7520 Cpu: i7-6820HQ Memory: 32gb Gpu:
| Nvidia Quadro M2200 4GB Storage: 500gb SSD Display: 15"
| 1080p
|
| Pretty good specs for the price. Serviceable for
| older/lower requirements games. Pretty bulky machine
| though.
| baz00 wrote:
| 5550 - two complete thermal failures. 7670 has blown up
| two $400 docks, won't charge half the time, blue screens
| once a week, weighs a ton, gets hotter than satan's nuts.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Wild! I have not at all had any of those issues, and I've
| had at this point 9 different Dell machines for work or
| play in the last ~10 years, all laptops. I'm typing this
| on a Latitude 5421.
|
| Granted - My work has been heavy on memory but light on
| CPU, so perhaps I'm not applying enough deadly heat.
| baz00 wrote:
| Do you live in the arctic circle?
|
| TBF their monitors are good. I have two Dell P2723QE's
| and they are absolutely great.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Midwest US where it gets both plenty hot and plenty cold.
| esalman wrote:
| Tell me about it. Our company was recently acquired and
| they are swapping out Thinkpad P1's with Dell precision.
| Protest was no use.
| gambiting wrote:
| Same. I've got a work Precision 7670 in top spec,
| literally a PS7000(!!!!!) machine, and it overheats
| within 5 seconds of being under load, the CPU hits 100C
| and throttles down _hard_. It 's equipped with a 3080Ti
| but it's the same story - the GPU overheats and throttles
| down to 200MHz, so anything you play is just a stuttery
| mess. And it's not surprising - inside it there are 2
| heat pipes going to two small fans with only one air
| outlet. Even my "gaming" MSI laptop with half the spec
| has much beefier cooling, it can run its 3070Ti under
| full load indefinitely. Not to mention their PS400
| thunderbolt docks that work maybe 50% of the time.
| baz00 wrote:
| Same hardware. Absolute turd. Also the screen on mine is
| the OLED one which is so reflective I can't see anything
| on the screen other than my own reflection. Who designed
| that POS!
| jtwaleson wrote:
| Disagree! I've been using Thinkpads since 2004 and was a bit
| obsessed with them around 2010 and almost had a museum with
| old machines I bought on eBay. I had two 701cs's butterfly
| models etc. Every model I've had was much better than the one
| before in almost every way. There's a lot of nostalgia with
| the older models, but man, compared to what we have today
| they were unusable and you would not carry something like
| that around! Super heavy, easily scratched rubber paint, bad
| plastic.
|
| Now a lot of things I miss a lot. The modularity, latches,
| ThinkLight, the upside down Thinkpad logo on the outside
| shell (oriented correctly towards the user, not the other
| people in the room), 7 row keyboard, good Fn keys
| functionality like media keys. The T400 that I regularly
| stood on to impress people how sturdy it was. But all of
| these things cost a lot in terms of weight and size (except
| the logo which was just copying the change that Apple made).
|
| Just so you know the context: these are the machines I used a
| lot. T42p, R60, T400, T440s, T470s, T495s, T14s Gen2
| (current).
|
| If you respect the sturdiness vs. form factor trade-off, I
| believe build quality has gone up with every machine I
| bought.
| verdverm wrote:
| This is why I bought a https://frame.work and am a happy
| customer. Will do business with them again
| AraceliHarker wrote:
| "(Lenovo) said people buy new smartphones every other year but
| became accustomed used to buying new PCs every six or seven
| years. The industry needs to do better at motivating people to
| buy new devices"
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/05/microsofts-panos-panay-expla...
| vacuity wrote:
| Now Lenovo can join smartphone manufacturers and Google on the
| as-successful-as-drug-empires stage! Seriously, increasing
| profit for the sake of profit is a terrible goal. We as
| consumers need to be less susceptible to the marketing hype and
| demand to have only technology that serves us.
| ta1243 wrote:
| Seems to be plenty of decent second hand machines. I'm typing
| this on an ex-corporate T470 I got for PS250. Spend another
| PS120 replacing the battery and pushing upto 32G of ram
|
| (I actually bought 3 of them, one for my son and one for my
| S.O. Those didn't need to last for hours at a time so they're
| on original battery+memory and work great)
|
| I know it's in the industries interest to force E-Waste, but
| it's not in the public interest.
| orthoxerox wrote:
| They are stopping to buy new phones every year too. Modern
| midrange phones already have every feature you really need, a
| standard user-replaceable battery would probably kill the whole
| upgrade cycle.
| dmoy wrote:
| What I want is a frame.work equivalent repairable and parts-
| replaceable smartphone. I know it's not practical right now
| because the commodity and consumer-purchaseable parts that go
| into a framework laptop don't exist for a smartphone analog
| right now, and the phone would probably be unacceptably large
| for most people. But I'd buy it if I could just replace the
| flash myself every 3-5 years, battery every 2-3 years, etc, and
| have security updates.
| timenova wrote:
| Project Ara [0] was exactly that, but unfortunately Google
| shelved the project.
|
| It would be really nice to have such a phone though!
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Ara
| newsclues wrote:
| I want a thick and strong chassis, the ability to pick which
| (camera) sensors are plugged in, standardized Single board
| computers, and add in batteries. Phones should be DIY
| projects with Cheap off the shelf components.
|
| The PC equivalent.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| If only they would try to make that work. I don't vape, but
| have noticed those that do seem to take customizing their
| pens pretty seriously by changing out certain components. I
| heard someone describe it as like a Jedi building their
| lightsaber haha. I'd like to do this for a phone for sure,
| but it'd be hard to get manufactures on board I think.
| lostlogin wrote:
| like a Jedi building their lightsaber, but more
| addictive.
| strangesmells02 wrote:
| I have a sneaking suspicion it could easily be done but then
| the big smartphone dealers wouldnt have you captured on the
| new phone treadmill.
| bsmith wrote:
| What's wrong with the Fairphone?
| Uvix wrote:
| Fairphone is repairable but not upgradable.
| LeonenTheDK wrote:
| Not to mention getting one and its parts outside of the
| EU is difficult and/or expensive. As a North American I'd
| be happy to hear if this is different now.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| Fairphone 4 is supposed to come to the US.
| dmoy wrote:
| Can you replace the flash in a fairphone? (If you can, and
| at near-cost for the flash itself, then it sounds like I'll
| try to buy a fairphone)
| freedomben wrote:
| For people in the US it's not really available. Also phone
| vs laptop. While there is some overlap, I think of the two
| as different devices for different use cases.
| diffeomorphism wrote:
| So? If the reason is that the new one is far better, that seems
| fine. If the reason is that the old one broke beyond repair,
| that is not fine.
|
| Actually, question: at which point in time is it less eco-
| friendly to keep using an old computer considering power
| consumption and the fact that for the same amount of work it
| will need to use more power for a much longer time? 10 years?
| 20 years?
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Back through the 90s and 00s, I think that ~3 years was the
| norm, at least for the part of the population that even owned
| computers.
|
| But since then, there are fewer major improvements coming that
| fast. GPUs improve, but most people aren't hardcore gamers for
| whome that matters, and these can mostly be upgraded
| independent of the computer itself instead.
|
| Other than that, if you're mostly just using your web browser,
| and _maybe_ doing some spreadsheets and desktop-based email,
| what 's the point? Even if you're doing more demanding stuff
| like Photoshop, we're at a point where the app's demands aren't
| growing fast either.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| It did feel around ~2012 or so was when computer/laptop
| upgrades stopped mattering, roughly coinciding with the
| switch to SSDs from HDDs.
| lovegrenoble wrote:
| reparing and upgrading please
| g8oz wrote:
| I'd settle for them honoring their warranty.
| pmarreck wrote:
| https://frame.work/ : Already exists
| freedomben wrote:
| Prior to Framework I only bought Thinkpads (I'm a linux user),
| but framework has gotten _really_ good. They 've added a lot of
| fixes/polish from their first gen models, and I'm super excited
| for the future!
| pmarreck wrote:
| I have a Framework Laptop 16 on preorder.
|
| Removable GPU = both battery savings AND prevention of gaming
| temptation when I need to work. >..<
| duped wrote:
| This is great, but I can't trust a Lenovo device and I'm always a
| bit shocked when I see developers buying ThinkPads from a company
| that's demonstrated it can't be trusted to give you a secure
| device.
| foooorsyth wrote:
| I'm out of the loop. Is this sentiment due to Chinese ownership
| or previous mishaps? Both?
| duped wrote:
| Superfish is the big one.
| [deleted]
| jowea wrote:
| I remember the superfish incident
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo#Superfish
| intalentive wrote:
| Doesn't every CPU have a state-enforced back door? I assume no
| device is secure.
| duped wrote:
| I'm not really worried about state actors that don't have
| state sponsored industrial espionage.
| [deleted]
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _from a company that 's demonstrated it can't be trusted to
| give you a secure device._
|
| Is there a single technology company that you can't say this
| about?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Really depends on your threat model; I think _most_ companies
| stop short of shipping malware from their UEFI
| implementation. That said, I don 't think Framework has yet
| done anything questionable?
| susanthenerd wrote:
| The problem with Framework is that BIOS updates are really
| rare. I been running the 3.0.6-beta for my 12th gen for
| almost 8 months I think and the full release has yet to
| come. I bet it will never happen as they are focusing on
| AMD and 13th gen + 16" one at the moment.
| progval wrote:
| At least the 12th gen is very vulnerable to hardware access
| as you can't disable unauthenticated DMA access through the
| USB ports (it's what https://www.dell.com/community/en/conv
| ersations/latitude/dem... calls SL0). I asked their support
| and they aren't planning to fix it in the forseeable
| future.
| ireallywantthat wrote:
| Haha! Why isn't this by default? Why is this even non-default?
| [deleted]
| r053bud wrote:
| I've been running OpenBSD on my T480s for a bit now. I think it's
| an absolutely amazing machine. I love the keyboard, I love the
| physical shutter over the camera, and I love how I'm not worried
| I'm going to break it. I just ordered a replacement battery for
| it as well and it was an extremely easy process to install. Even
| though I upgraded my RAM to 32gb, I think I'm limited by my old 4
| core i7 and starting to notice it during some especially long
| compilations. Nothing too bad though...
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _I 've been running OpenBSD on my T480s for a bit now. I
| think it's an absolutely amazing machine._
|
| Same. I've been buying them off-lease for many years. You can
| usually get them for a couple hundred bucks. Best non-Apple
| computers I've ever used. Keyboards are awesome.
|
| The last laptop I bought was a Dell XPS13 because research
| indicated it's a pretty popular Linux-compatible laptop. It's
| nice, but I'm going back to a Thinkpad next...
| pscoutou wrote:
| I suspect Lenovo is being motivated by rumblings from the EU.
|
| https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023...
| isykt wrote:
| I always hear about how modern laptops and smartphones "aren't
| repairable" and then I spent a week in Shenzhen.. where there
| were floors and floors of independent repair people doing
| specialized fixes to the most intricate parts. I had an old Apple
| Watch repair for about $20, only to discover that I got ripped
| off -- I could have negotiated it down to much less.
| HumblyTossed wrote:
| Repairable means I can replace most major components in my
| laptop (wifi, ram, battery, SSD, BT, etc) with nothing more
| than a torx and screw driver. No soldering, or specialized
| equipment.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Add power supplies to that list. In my experience it's by far
| the most common component to die, and sometimes it's
| hopelessly and needlessly integrated.
| freedomben wrote:
| This is obviously somewhat subjective, but to me soldering
| does not disqualify something being "repairable", unless it
| requires a proprietary soldering machine or something. What
| you're describing sounds "modular"
| tomwheeler wrote:
| When a repair requires soldering, it significantly reduces
| the number of people who can do that repair themselves. I
| can do it, but most of my non-technical friends could not,
| even though several of them could replace a hard drive or
| even a DIMM in their desktop PC.
| freedomben wrote:
| On thinking about it more I agree with you. A very simply
| soldered thing is maybe ok, but the vast, vast majority
| of soldered things are no-gos for repairs for non-pros.
| It's too easy to damage components and destroy the board,
| even if you know how to do it. If the Framework required
| soldering, I'd be very critical about it's
| repairability/modularity, so I'm being inconsistent.
|
| Conclusion: soldering is not ok for repairability
| wierd-eye-loser wrote:
| [dead]
| kevincox wrote:
| I don't think it should be required that my grandma should
| be able to fix it for it to qualify as repairable. There
| are tons of phone repair shops that do battery and screen
| swaps. I'm sure if the devices were even moderately more
| repairable and parts existed they would be happy to do a
| lot more with expert knowledge. I wouldn't mind if I could
| take my device to these shops and get it fixed. Sure, doing
| it myself may be a nice bonus but I think we can let some
| people specialize. What I don't think is acceptable is if
| only the original manufacture can source parts or perform
| repairs (if they decide to at all)
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| Shenzhen isn't a good example here. In Shenzhen you can ask
| people to upgrade your laptop's RAM by unsoldering it, but
| usually those laptops are considered nonupgradable everywhere
| else in the world.
| miragecraft wrote:
| I think when we generally talk about whether something is
| "repairable" we're referring to the ease of repair, which
| translate to the repair being affordable and makes economical
| sense so people actually do it vs buying a replacement.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Without any extraordinary effort and having only typical DIY
| skills, I have repaired a half-dozen of my family members'
| iPhones that people complain are "not repairable".
|
| To me, "repairable" means "capable of being repaired in a
| practical way". I'll also grant you the unstated "at a
| reasonable price", which for me, having a cheapskate nature,
| I've always found the repair parts (batteries, screens, and
| buttons) to be extremely reasonable in price.
|
| For people who don't want to DIY it, most every mall has a
| kiosk that will do it for 2-3x what I paid, but still <15% of
| the price of a new iPhone.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Ok how about this: "The company hasn't made any design
| choices with the express purpose of making repair more
| difficult."
| sokoloff wrote:
| I still look at the outcome. If a manufacturer puts a
| Torx screw instead of a Philips, was that choice made to
| make it harder to repair? What about a Security Torx
| instead of a Torx? What about a Pentalobe or Tri-wing
| instead of a Phillips? A Triple-Square instead of a hex
| socket? If they glue in the battery which serves to
| protect the battery _and also_ makes it more difficult to
| repair?
|
| "If it can be repaired in a practical way, it's
| repairable" seems more resilient and probably no more a
| judgment call than the design questions above.
| aeyes wrote:
| Shenzhen - where stolen iPhones magically appear on Find My
| because they are getting used for parts.
|
| It's not truly repairable if no parts are available.
| lofaszvanitt wrote:
| Just wait a few years... :D
| alpaca128 wrote:
| With "repairable" people mean repairs with freely available
| tools, parts and (ideally) schematics.
|
| Apple and others put in a lot of effort to stop independent
| repair shops from sourcing original parts or making them
| impossible to successfully replace due to hardware DRM. It is
| already impossible to upgrade some Macs with more RAM because
| they will simply refuse to boot if they find more RAM than they
| got in the factory.
| rnk wrote:
| Can you provide a reference for this? My web search didn't
| find a result.
| ClumsyPilot wrote:
| Look up Lewis Rossman, he runs a repair shop and complains
| all the time about this
| hef19898 wrote:
| And he is one of the worst eigjt-to-repair advocates
| there are, given how often he even gets the most basic
| stuff wrong when it allows to create attention.
| shinryuu wrote:
| What is a better advocate that you'd recommend
| benj111 wrote:
| It's about ease though.
|
| On a desktop pc you can repair anything pretty easily. Some
| things we wouldn't even call a repair. A new monitor is call
| just that. A new screen for a phone is much more involved.
|
| And then there's granularity.
|
| Can that broken usb port be replaced or does it require a new
| motherboard.
|
| Your $20 Apple watch repair has 2 components. The parts cost
| and the labour cost.
|
| If the repair takes 2 hours by a skilled technician that's
| going to cost more than a 5 minute job that anyone can do. And
| in first world countries, it's probably labour that will
| dominate.
| internetter wrote:
| Going full circle on that thinkpad line, are we?
| bubblethink wrote:
| Just remove soldered wifi and wwan whitelists from current
| thinkpads. The rest is already good enough. Intel trying stupid
| shit makes sense, but lenovo has started soldering wifi on AMD
| laptops too.
| southernplaces7 wrote:
| Given all the well documented "don't trust Lenovo" comments here,
| anyone have anything specifically negative to say about any other
| brands in particular? Genuinely curious. For example, Asus, Acer,
| Toshiba etc?
| d3w4s9 wrote:
| Well, maybe start with allowing users to swap RAM sticks first
| instead of continuing shipping those disgusting laptops with 8GB
| soldered RAM. For most of their consumer laptops (with the
| exception of gaming laptops), it's basically impossible to
| replace RAM sticks. Nowadays even ThinkPad lines are increasingly
| doing this.
|
| I can get why this is done for thin and light laptops. But not
| everyone needs that. I am completely willing to have 200g added
| to the weight of a laptop to get replaceable RAM.
| baz00 wrote:
| Step 1: stop soldering USB-C ports to the boards on your thinkpad
| line as they are NOT replaceable and will end the entire machine
| if damaged. That is the aforementioned T14 gen 3 in the article.
| benoliver999 wrote:
| Oh it's funny you say that, I have a T495 and one of the USB-C
| ports has stopped working.
|
| Luckily there's another one I can charge from but it really
| feels like a ticking time bomb.
| baz00 wrote:
| Yeah my ex wife threw something at me and broke the only
| USB-C on my old T470. Fortunately it has an old charge port.
| dmbche wrote:
| I don't do a lot of hardware, but they really aren't ? You
| couldn't remove it and solder another connector in it's place?
| CaveTech wrote:
| Nope, and it's more and more common. I had to trash a $2k
| monitor due to faulty USB C connector. They require full
| board replacement.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| Assuming you can find the part "full board replacement" may
| not be as bad as it sounds for a monitor. Your main point
| still stands though, ideally a faulty connector shouldn't
| require to replace anything besides the connector itself.
| bkallus wrote:
| What stops you from desoldering the bad connector and
| soldering on a new one?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| SMD rework _sucks_ if you 're not used to it.
| baz00 wrote:
| It sucks if you are used to it!
| baz00 wrote:
| Usually no. If you damage the connector it tears the traces
| off the board irreparably. If it doesn't do that then there
| are two rows of pins which need to be resoldered. One row is
| under the connector. It is near impossible to solder those
| properly without non trivial equipment. Usually if you get a
| repair they solder only one pair of pins to the board and
| that means your USB connector only works plugged in one way
| up.
|
| This is one reason amongst many that I'm not a particularly
| big fan of USB-C
| jollyllama wrote:
| I'm guessing it was 5/5 as of 13 years ago.
| buzzlite wrote:
| On my EU wishlist is a law mandating standard form-factors for
| laptop batteries (and chargers). All batteries must be user-
| replaceable without tools and interchangeable with those from
| other manufacturers. There can be 4 to 5 different form-factors
| to address the various sizes and power-profiles of laptops.
| Batteries must have standard voltages and amperages but OEMs can
| differentiate themselves on other factors like mAh capacity,
| longevity, etc. Kind of like AA, AAA batteries but appropriate
| for laptops. Any laptop that doesn't conform to the standards
| should be hit with a 50-euro enemy-of-the-planet/douchehat tax
| (rather than an outright ban). The industry is already there
| since most laptops are designed by ODMs like Clevo and Compal.
| The last 20 years has provided little evidence of innovation
| happening on batteries and chargers in the budget segment. All
| the custom chargers and battery sizes are designed purely to
| force incompatibility on customers- for planned obsolescence, to
| reduce competition and charge more for after-sales support. Such
| a law would stop this practice by OEMs of engineering planned
| obsolescence into their bottom-tier cookie-cutter clevo-crap but
| still allow companies like Apple to "innovate" on vanity metrics
| like slimness. An industry consortium or committee (like W3 for
| the web or the 4G/5G committees) can be setup to propose new
| revisions to the standards (if required) once every 10 years (not
| lesser).
| nfriedly wrote:
| Probably 10 years ago, my brother installed some new RAM in his
| Lenovo laptop on Christmas day, after which point it refused to
| turn on - with either the new or old RAM. We contacted Lenovo and
| they sent someone out to our house about 2 days later to replace
| then entire motherboard. (They installed the new RAM, and the
| laptop worked great after that.)
|
| It left me with the impression that Lenovo had questionable
| quality / end-user repairability, but excellent support (as long
| as it's still under warranty!)
| pianoben wrote:
| Levono service is the best I've experienced. Anecdotally of
| course - when my tower PC that I bought in 2019 started
| crapping out this year, they sent a repair person to my home
| several times, each time replacing parts without question,
| including a $4K graphics card (which turned out to be the fix).
| That warranty is worth its weight in gold and I happily
| extended it.
| amalcon wrote:
| It's interesting because Thinkpads (back when they were IBM
| branded, but still manufactured by Lenovo) were probably second
| only to Apple's build quality at the time. Just anecdotally,
| but these days, I even trust Dell's build quality over theirs.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| "Questionable quality but excellent support" 100% describes my
| experience. The mobo in my Lenovo laptop has died, like, three
| times at this point, but they'll send out a technician to my
| house to replace it within a day or two. -\\_(tsu)_/-
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _It left me with the impression that Lenovo had questionable
| quality_
|
| I have 5 old Thinkpads, all still operational. Some are now 10+
| years old, and have been passed on to children. They've been
| through hell and still work. They are the toughest laptops I've
| owned, and they have repair manuals to boot. Nearly everything
| is replaceable.
| iteratethis wrote:
| Don't remember the model, but a Lenovo of a family member had a
| broken Wi-fi card, just when it was 2 weeks out of warranty. No
| goodwill from Lenovo, they estimated repair costs a significant
| fraction of the price of the whole laptop. Plus my family member
| would not have his laptop for 2 weeks, whilst he needs it for his
| business.
|
| So I tried to do it myself. Studying official materials, repair
| videos, the like. The important thing I learned is to get exactly
| the correct Wi-fi card because the laptop (the BIOS I guess)
| rejects any other type not on the "allow list".
|
| So I ordered it and connected it, which was easy enough. Still
| rejects it.
|
| Also, the laptop shipped with a wrong keyboard layout. Which my
| family member reported directly after purchase but Lenovo refused
| a return.
|
| At work I also have a company issues Lenovo. It keeps prompting
| for firmware updates. The last time I applied it, it crashed the
| entire machine and it took me days to get it in working order
| again.
|
| Your mileage may vary but to me these are Russian roulette
| machines. Fragile, full of arbitrary limitations, shit software,
| worse support.
| rgreekguy wrote:
| Back to the future!
| PumpkinSpice wrote:
| Isn't this a bit of a no-op for Lenovo specifically? I've been
| using Lenovo-made laptops for years, and never had trouble with
| DIY repairs - replacing keyboards, screens, batteries, adding
| RAM, etc. Their devices are pretty modular and DIY-friendly.
|
| I wish they made charging plugs easier to replace, as these
| inevitably get damaged after 1-2 years, but that's really the
| only complaint I can think of. Is the situation different for
| other device types, or are they just trying to score an easy (if
| deserved) PR win?
| freedomben wrote:
| No. Some lines are definitely better than others (like I only
| buy the T-series now), but some are on the same level of Apple
| minus the hardware DRM
| redder23 wrote:
| They are all just reading the room and they see what is coming.
| They just do this because they are scared of right to repair and
| other laws and regulations and they will not be ready for it. So
| what they do is start early. They also see it as a selling point
| of course just with rise of public awareness, the success of
| Framework ... so even without any laws the move for sure is
| towards devices that are better repairable.
| bfrog wrote:
| My x220 is endlessly repairable already,what happened was they
| went the wrong direction in that regard shortly after.
| [deleted]
| Run_DOS_Run wrote:
| Lenovo's repairability of their products has unfortunately
| dropped a lot and I hope they take it seriously and get back to
| the quality they used to have. I own several ThinkPads from the
| last 10 years. The older models were all very easy to repair.
|
| I definitely won't be buying the new models anymore. I can live
| with the fact that socketed CPUs have been replaced with soldered
| ones due to aesthetics (thinner laptops), but soldered RAM is
| where my pain threshold is reached.
|
| I still believe that quality products must be repairable. I
| consider everything else to be cheap, throwaway products. No
| matter how much money "premium brands" charge for their junk with
| glued battery, glued SSD and fixed RAM in recycled aluminium
| packaging.
| beebeepka wrote:
| Is this move in anticipation of upcoming regulations? That has to
| be it, right?
|
| Lenovo is fairly competitive in the 700-1500EUR market but the
| thin and light models have soldered ram. Not great when they sell
| you single channel with zero ability to add more sticks on some
| models. It's not as terrible now due to ddr5 but still leaves bad
| taste.
| fumar wrote:
| Too bad the hackintosh days are nearing an end. One of my
| favorite computers ever was an x230 with IPS screen running
| MacOS. It had a great keyboard, sensible small size, and
| swappable batteries.
| neogodless wrote:
| Anecdote:
|
| My employer recently bought me a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro. Due to
| concussions and general flicker sensitivity, I don't do well with
| 60Hz screens, and I prefer AMD CPUs. This one came with a 240Hz
| screen. Overkill!
|
| But... Bluetooth was unreliable. Every few hours, it vanished
| from Windows as if it didn't exist. A moment of sleep and wake
| was enough to bring it back, but it was still annoying to lose
| mouse and headphones unexpectedly.
|
| Two support calls, but all they did was reinstall a bunch of the
| driver updates I had already reinstalled (and they installed
| Geforce Experience because Vantage said it was available.)
| Unsurprisingly, none of that fixed the issue. The next step was a
| factory reset and/or replacement, which would've been a big PITA
| because of time I already spent doing setup. And it still might
| not have solved the issue.
|
| Instead, I spent $23 on an Intel AX210 WLAN/Bluetooth chip, and
| performed the replacement (of a Realtek chip) in well under 10
| minutes. Taking off the bottom panel was relatively easy, and I
| did not see any damaged clips. M.2 and SODIMM chips are readily
| replaceable, and so was this WLAN chip. It also fixed my problem
| completely without resorting to losing a lot of time repeating my
| setup.
|
| If there's a point, it's that budget and mid-range gaming laptops
| are often quite repairable, where as thin and light / ultrabooks,
| especially those made for businesses are much less frequently
| repairable. I think the reason is two-fold... in general
| businesses will just pay for repairs, even when it means sending
| a device back. And of course smaller machines tend to get
| soldered components and optimize for size instead of access.
|
| You have to think about the compromises you're willing to make,
| or to have built into your purchases.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| >those made for businesses are much less frequently repairable.
|
| It's funny, because the most serviceable laptops I've ever
| taken apart were the old enterprise ones my dad's company used
| to issue him, where half the parts were serviceable without
| even opening the chassis.
|
| Of course, that changed recently when some fruit company
| popularized the "ultrabook" category and now every company is
| trying to sandwich every component in the 1cm span between two
| screwless sheets of aluminum.
| fortran77 wrote:
| I was very impressed with my Thinkpad X13s. I was able to open it
| up, just screws, --no glue to soften with a heatgun, careful
| spudging, or suction devices to pull things apart--and replace
| the 512 GB M.2 card with a 1 TB one.
| a3w wrote:
| I tried to replace my wireless card in my T440s. For a decade,
| Lenovo mostly forbids these upgrade via whitelisting in
| Thinkpads. Hello, other vendors...
| throwway120385 wrote:
| It seems overzealous but they might be doing this to maintain
| FCC licensing. Speaking from experience, different
| radio/antenna combinations can leak different kinds of noise
| which would prevent you from getting certification with
| certain combinations. Their laptops might be noisier than the
| competition and with the added overhead of supporting
| different WLAN and Wifi cards with the built-in antennas they
| went over the edge.
| manishsharan wrote:
| I think my T480 is the last upgradeable laptop in the ThinkPad
| T series. The newer models have soldered rams only with only
| one slot available for upgrade and just not worth the effort.
| rnk wrote:
| They forgot to add, however, "97.5% of our sales were in that 5th
| category last quarter, suck it liberals!". And we are only
| starting in the last 3 days of calendar year 2025.
| ReptileMan wrote:
| Back to the early 2000s ... it is amazing development, but why
| and how it was allowed to come to the current situation must be
| discussed and prevented from repeating.
| freedomben wrote:
| I think a lot of how we got the current situation was Apple.
| They proved that most people don't care about
| modularity/repairability, and they argued reasons why
| closed/locked-down is better (and some of those arguments
| weren't entirely without merit, despite being self-serving).
| This convinced a lot of decision-makers to go that route.
|
| I think the overall trend is still toward Steve Job's vision.
| Looking at Tesla for example, does not fill me with optimism of
| a modular/repairable future.
| pjmlp wrote:
| PC was the exception during the 16bit days, and it was due to
| IBM failing to prevent clones that it happened in first place.
|
| Most non technical users see their computers the same way as a
| DVD player.
| some_random wrote:
| Fantastic to see and I hope that this extends to upgradability
| too, it's absurd that the only way to get more storage on so
| called "professional" products like macbooks is to purchase a
| brand new one.
| hdjjhhvvhga wrote:
| There is nothing professional or unprofessional about a device
| except a name. In the old days, business-targeted devices such
| as PCs and laptops had user-serviceable parts so that the
| support could quickly replace a broken fan or faulty memory die
| and you could get back to work. These days are long gone and
| I'm sorry to say I blame Apple for a large part of it.
| bzzzt wrote:
| Yeah, how dare they design laptops not filled to the brim
| with unnecessary components? Those 'faulty' memory parts were
| often 'fixed' by reseating them, a problem soldered-on memory
| doesn't have. Broken fans were probably the cheapest
| obtainable. Those things just don't break so often anymore. I
| prefer welded shut quality stuff over a never ending chain of
| repairs.
|
| I like Apple for batteries that last longer than 12 months,
| screens with high resolution and reference color, lightweight
| housing that's not too flimsy. (just don't talk about the
| keyboards from 2016-2018 ;) )
| nicolaslem wrote:
| Lenovo, Dell and HP still have lines of business laptops with
| user-serviceable parts, space parts available, repair guides
| on Youtube...
| jonfw wrote:
| works great if your employees are onsite and you have a big
| support dept. You're going to need to have employees w/ spare
| time waiting for repairs, you're going to need to stock extra
| parts, you're going to have to hire guys with skills to do
| that work. For those of us who are remote, or who don't have
| a big IT dept, that was never a good option.
|
| I can get a brand new company macbook shipped to my house in
| less than 24 hrs if anything goes wrong w/ my machine, and
| things rarely go wrong. You can't realistically beat that
| leonheld wrote:
| Thank you Right to Repair and thank you Framework!
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