Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025

Lenovo is forecasting that the vast majority of its devices will be repairable by 2025 – as will the repair parts themselves – but it is not intending to specify where customers should have their kit fixed. Talking on stage at the Canalys EMEA Forum 2023, Luca Rossi, senior vice resident at Lenovo and president of its …

[Peter Gathercole]

T series Thinkpads used to be some of the most repairable laptops around. Not only were parts available, but the repair and maintenance manuals were in the Internet, and for free.

I don't know about the board schematics, but if you have access to replacement boards at a reasonable price (which Apple don't make available) then board level fixes are less important, and can be handled in a return channel for replaced parts. This way you can fix a system quickly by replacing the board, and have the old board returned for re-work.

I think Lenovo lost their way a bit (as did all of the laptop makers) when they tried to out-Apple Apple. If it's true, this is a welcome return to previous form.

[Ian Johnston]

All the IBM Thinkpads, and may of the early Lenovo ones, were wonderfully repairable. Not only manuals online, but videos showing how to do all the tricky bits. I've had an R40e and X30/31/32s to bits with no problems at all.

[Lurko]

The old Thinkpads were of course all down to IBM and that heritage carried forwards for a good few years before they could ruin. Everything I've encountered with the Lenovo name on since has had strong hints of being outsourced to some cheap assembly bandit (and possibly the design as well), and consequently unreliable and unserviceable. I'm sure there's happier experiences, personally I won't now touch anything from the brand, and this latest promise hasn't changed my view.

[Anonymous Coward]

Criticizing Chinese era lenovo on ElReg...

...is asking for downvotes

[bonkers]

Re: Criticizing Chinese era lenovo on ElReg...

I love Thinkpads, and own five of them.

All except the P50 - where the 90W supply is a gigantic slab, and the 60W supply will not allow the computer to charge and run at the same time !

This is an appalling design decision, the PC needs to be fully shut down or else the 60W supply does nothing at all.

I can see why they did it, the PC might take 80W peak, and this would overload the 60W charger - but it's not beyond wit to design the power system so that the battery can "help out" on peak loads whilst mostly charging - it should be a design requirement.

I don't know what other models are broken by design like this, but please Lenovo, don't ever do it again.

[katrinab]

Re: Criticizing Chinese era lenovo on ElReg...

I have my 16" MacBook connected to a 67W charger rather than the 100W charger that shipped with it. If I max out the CPU on it, the battery will start to discharge, but then it will charge again once I've finished whatever it was I was doing.

[cyberdemon]

Re: Criticizing Chinese era lenovo on ElReg...

On one model that my company bought, it had a 120W brick and a USB-C port..

It would refuse to charge OR run even with a 100W USB-PD, even tried a USB-C-to-lenovoplug adapter, it recognised both but refused to use it, with the shitty firmware displaying an unhelpful message that a 100W charger is not sufficient, please use the 120W brick instead

The company sent both laptops back because of that. Complete idiocy on Lenovo's part.

[Justthefacts]

Re: Criticizing Chinese era lenovo on ElReg...

Not Lenovo fault, rather *your* fault for believing a bunch of PR about USB-C. USB-C is not universal. Rather, it is simply unlabelled which components will work together, and usually unguessable. Sorry, you have been sold a pup by USB-C, and the faster you understand how badly you have been misled, the better.

In this case, consider the situation that Lenovo must design for: say customers want to charge when it is very cold, maybe -10C. Batteries don’t like being charged when cold, and get damaged. So, must Lenovo implement a battery self-heating circuit, which is the normal solution? Well, really in practice no. Because the thermal mass is low, and with a 120W charger it will self-heat anyway in seconds unless it’s really cold - below the sticker number.

But wait a second, what if the consumer connects…..a 10W charger? Then maybe it doesn’t self-heat fast enough, and the battery gets damaged. This is ridiculous, Lenovo can’t add cost requirement to implement an extra heater circuit for when the consumer uses pathetically weak equipment.

Then, they need to figure out how inadequate the charger must be, before this is a problem, and charger should be ignored. 20W? 30W? Yeah I know 100W should be fine, but what *exactly* is the dividing line? Lenovo engineer will have to put some number in the config file, what number will it be? You want Lenovo to institute an f’ing *test campaign*, across temperature, and life, and battery variability, to decide what the one number will be, of “how weak is the charger”. This is going to cost tens of thousands, if not more. And if they get it wrong, it’s a public relations disaster, and whole bunch of customer returns. For a *charger* that used to cost pennies.

Again, fuck that shit. The battery nominal point is 120W, then ship a 120W charger, write 120W in the config file “otherwise report error” and move on.

USB-C PD is a total shitshow. I’m glad the penny is starting to drop.

[Anonymous Coward]

No. Laptops just got thinner because that is what people demanded. So socketing components became basically impossible.

Laptops will start getting thicker again if they are to become more repairable.

Never really understood the trend for thinner laptops. Doesnt really make a lot of sense...lighter...perhaps...but thinner?

It is possible to have a thin repairable laptop, but being thin increases the complexity.

The VAIO P series were insanely thin...but they were also very modular...and also an absolute bastard to disassemble and reassemble because the tolerances were extremely unforgiving.

[johnfbw]

Thinner laptops?

Did many people really want them much thinner? Most laptops don't leave the home or office. I've owned and used many and other than the 17" ones been heavy I've always wanted performance over smaller (some even get so thin they look flimsy)

[Spanners]

Re: Thinner laptops?

Did many people really want them much thinner?

I have never cared about thickness. I like them lighter but that has nothing to do with weight.

With phones I definitely dislike them getting thinner. The first thing I do when getting a new one is to buy a "wallet case". This has the advantages of making them easier to hold, protecting them and somewhere to put my driving licence & library card.

No. Making kit ever thinner is from marketing departments who misunderstand the actual point of what they are interfering with!

[John Brown (no body)]

"T series Thinkpads used to be some of the most repairable laptops around. Not only were parts available, but the repair and maintenance manuals were in the Internet, and for free."

That's still the case, on the whole. I only see enterprise class kit, and most of it is pretty easily repairable, full parts/repair manuals available to all, plenty of Lenvo created videos on YouTube demonstrating the parts replacement process. Where things have changed from the IBM days is primarily in the consumer grade kit and to an extent in the enterprise kir where, for example, on some of the cheaper models the RAM is on the system board, possibly with no expansion SODIMM socket, but most will at least have one SODIMM socket for expansion or all the RAM is SODIMM. Other than that, it's all on the system board except the WLAN, the SSD and maybe, the WiFI card. A few, for design reasons rather than repairability, may have small expansion boards for, eg USB and/or Ethernet. Primarily cost-cutting measures in term of manufacture which, to be fair, they ALL do, so to stay competatve, an OEM pretty much has to follow the crowd whether they want to or not. As for parts repair, when new parts are sent out from Lenov, sometimes they are marked up as factory repairs, so those where it's economic to re-work the board, they already do that. I've never seen Dell or HP parts sent out marked as repaired, but maybe they are just less transparent about that.

Having said that, I'm fairly confident they will not be releasing board schematics and/or any board level components as sparers. Consumer repairs will be pretty much as they are now, replace entire modules, eg system board, battery, LCD panel, SSD, keyboard, maybe RAM and not much else, the assumption being that 99% of consumers will have neither the skills nor kit to replace a broken USB port on a system board. That will remain the job of repair centres. On the other hand, if we are going back to easily replaceable batteries in their phones and tablets, that's good news :-)

[katrinab]

Yes I get that a normal end-user isn't going to want to fix a broken USB port themselves, but a repair shop should be able to buy the appropriate parts, keep them in stock, and offer USB port repair as a service to these normal end-users. A £50 or £100 charge will be mostly labour costs and profit for the repair shop, but it is still a lot cheaper for the end user than buying a new laptop, and much better for the environment.

[Ozan]

Thing is you cant out-Apple Apple.

[Spanners]

@Ozan

The more Apple-y it is, the less I want it anyway!

[Catkin]

I have "fond" memories of taking my X230 to bits in the middle of nowhere because the cooling fan packed in. The documentation was excellent and immediately obtainable (no mucking around with support, just put the model number in and get the service manual). It's still going to this day.

[Tom Chiverton 1]

Too late, we're only buying Frame.work from now on, which does all this already.

[steviebuk]

Was trying to get that at work but no one would commit to them.

[HMcG]

The 16” is certainly going to be at the top of my list when I need to replace my current Lenovo.

My Lenovo laptop’s guarantee, as with many laptop manufacturers, is effectively worthless as you have to ship it off for a minimum 3 weeks to get it repaired, and they will almost certainly wipe the drive as the 1st thing they do.

[43300]

So we'll be back where we were about ten years ago, since when all the major manufactures have steadily made thier devices less repairable...

My practical knowledge is mostly of Dell, where they've taken such maintenance-friendly steps as redesigning the Latitudes so that instead of two screws, two or three clips and a ribbon cable to replace a keyboard (five minutes max) it's now necessary to dismantle the thing including removing the motherboard.

[usbac]

The older Dell laptops were great. At least Dell makes the service manuals available online. And, for Dell stuff (servers to laptops), parts are plentiful on places like Ebay.

My main workhorse PC that gets about 90% of my computer use outside of work is an older Dell latitude. It was given to me because it would not power on. I bought a replacement motherboard on Ebay for $40, and it's worked great for many years now. It was a LOT of work to change, however.

[43300]

Latitudes have gone downhill since they moved from the E series to the 'unlettered' ones wih USB-C ports. More flimsy and plasticky, harder to repair, some more recent models have soldered RAM. And my particlar bugbear - USB-C for docking (since they dropped the 'E' moniker) and charging (xx20 models onwards). Drivers now needed for the docks, and USB-C plugs and connectors are nowhere near as robust as the old single-purpose docking connector on the bottom, and the 7.4mm barrel plugs. WIth them, think I only ever had one failed docking station and a couple of broken power plugs (no broken sockets). With USB-C it's a different story - plugs getting damaged or wearing out (capptive cable on power brick, so that's then scrap), extreme difficulty getting the cable module for the Dell docks (found a third party reseller who has them - Dell refused to supply them and kept advising me to throw away the dock and buy another one), and already a few damaged sockets on the laptops, one recently through the cable clearly being yanked, which bent the plug beyond use and damaged the socket. And, in another smart piece of design, the sockets are soldered to the motherboard rather than a separate replaceable module.

I've looked at alternatives, but all the major manufacturers seem to share the view that USB-C is the only option for docking and charging. I don't agree - fine for phones, but utterly crap for business laptops which get lugged around and plugged in and unplugged regularly.

[Anonymous Coward]

re. USB-C is the only option for docking and charging. I don't agree

you seem to be arguing from the position of logic and usage, but their decisions are driven purely by cost. And while I'm sure they're fully aware usb-c port is a weak point, this probably only makes them crack a joke or two about their 'bottom line going up', etc. You want a product that works, they want a product that sells.

[Justthefacts]

USB C charging is the law in EU

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/10/24/common-charger-eu-ministers-give-final-approval-to-one-size-fits-all-charging-port/

The law has been signed…..EU citizens “voted” for it. It applies to laptops too, just with a 40-month delay. But not surprisingly, laptop manufacturers haven’t got time for that crap. If they’ve been forced to do it, they will do it when model changeover, at a time convenient to them.

[TonyJ]

In the early-mid 1990's I used to repair laptops, desktop PC's and even servers down to component level.

Then over the late 1990's it slowly became to board-level and schematics weren't easily available, but in some cases if you had the skill you could still do component-level to a point.

But... the boards were sent back to the vendors (Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, IBM etc) and they repaired them and re-used them.

And it was the same with things like televisions - you had TV and Hi-Fi repair shops on every high street. I fixed my own and my folks' televisions multiple times over the years but these days they're throwaway units and it's frustrating as all hell because it's done primarily to get people to buy new rather than fix.

Give us the schematics and let us buy components so that those of us who can, have the chance to repair our own kit like we used to.

[stiine]

That becomes difficult if they are multi-level pcbs and surface mounted chips smaller than a grain of rice.

[TonyJ]

Nah not anymore. You can buy SMD solder stations from Amazon for a few tens of pounds now. Couple it with a nice light-ring magnifying glass and you're sorted.

Even back in my day, surface mounted devices such as resistors and capacitors were tiny. Not <as> tiny, I grant you, but still tiny.

[Catkin]

To be fair, a TV used to be so expensive that renting one for special occasions was something that was reasonably prevelant.

[Dave K]

Yep, a dumb move. Businesses don't care how pretty a device looks, they want it to offer decent performance, survive several years of daily hammer and be easy and quick to fix if anything breaks. In a previous job I was Dell certified and have lost count of the number of keyboards I swapped out in under 10 minutes. Un-clip the top bezel, 3 screws and a cable and off it came. Most other components (RAM, SSD, even the fan) could be changed in a few minutes as well.

I'm very glad I don't have to fix them these days when you have to dismantle the entire thing to replace a simple part, just because it "looks a bit sleeker". It's the same thing with batteries, when they clipped into the back/bottom of the laptop, replacing a failed one could even be handled by the user at a remote site with a few basic over-the-phone instructions. Now? Replacing them involves screwdrivers, tiny cables, an IT visit and a whole heap of work.

[TonyJ]

"...keyboards I swapped out in under 10 minutes. Un-clip the top bezel, 3 screws and a cable and off it came. Most other components (RAM, SSD, even the fan) could be changed in a few minutes as well..."

When I bought my current Dell laptop in early 2020 (and purely by chance beat the rush to get them and the massive delays/cost increases), it was from their factory refurb site so basically get what is configured.

The keyboard supplied was not backlit so I procured one that was.

And fuck me - it would have to be the first thing built into the chassis with everything built behind/under it. I literally had to strip out the entire guts of the thing to get at the keyboard and then rebuild it.

And all the time I was cursing under my breath at the stupidity of the design, asking myself precisely that - what happened to a couple/three screws and popping it off? Idiotic and I cannot see any justification for doing it. It doesn't add rigidity or prevent e.g. liquid ingress. It just makes life harder for a repair engineer.

[Bebu]

So we'll be back where we were about ten years ago

《So we'll be back where we were about ten years ago》

On what reflection what in the last decade has been an improvement? SFA I suggest.

Not that 2013 was brilliant but the utter crapiness of the last few years just makes it appear so.

[Anonymous Coward]

repairable, yes.

Shame they're not upgradable though.

X13 I'm looking at you.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: repairable, yes.

I'm not sure any of the Lenovo laptop line is upgradable any more other than some still having one or maybe two SODIMM sockets and, in most cases, the SSD is upgradable. None have options to upgrade CPU or GPU, and to be fair, I think that applies to all laptop OEMs these days. If any current models have socketed CPUs I've not seen one in years!

But yeah, the X13 is a bugger with only soldered on RAM, ditto the T14s (basically the same device), but not the Intel based T14

[Marty McFly]

Integrated & System-On-Chip designs

"Repairable" will only mean so much as components continue to shrink & consolidate. The instructions will probably end up being:

1) Remove case. Set aside for later.

2) Discard everything else

3) Install case on replacement part

[Handy Plough]

Is this in response to the utterly shite build quality they've been churning out the last few year?

[Anonymous Coward]

you call it shite, they call it an environmentally friendly, post-re-recycled post-human-produced-waste. Which benefits them twice, i.e. lower unit cost and more regular replacement. But this is pure coincidence, of course.

[ttulinskySoCal]

+1 for "post-human produced waste" in the context of previous comment.

[Anonymous Coward]

Haven't batteries, SSDs and DIMMs always been user replaceable in laptops? I would hope this is more about LCDs, keyboards and USB sockets.

[Roopee]

You've clearly not looked at a recent laptop for a few years! I think Apple started the trend with the MacBook Air, though it actually started much earlier with e.g. soldered RAM on the Asus Eee.

[m-k]

well, there are still SOME laptops (I'd venture to say, maybe at least half on the markets) where you can swap ssd and battery, in rarer cases, wifi module too. RAM - almost never.

[Roland6]

Not seeing so many in recent vendor offerings.

Gone are the days where say HP laptops (2017 vintage for example) had a pair of slide catches revealing the user swappable components: HDD/SSD, WiFi card, RAM, DVD drive, keyboard (attachment screws), battery…

Although even then, there were some constraints dictated by what the device was shipped with.

I have laptops which were shipped with an NVME HDD with an empty space for a sata HDD but no connectors or caddy to permit usage of the space..

Mind you just taken delivery of a new Dell business laptop, glad I went for the 16GB RAM, 1 TB SSD version its all soldered in and so no future upgrade possible, even though the Dell spec sheets give maximums much larger than installed. So instead of standardising on one laptop platform and adding stuff to suit particular user needs, I have to order in anticipation of future user needs, a much more wasteful approach…

[Anonymous Coward]

repairable

what's missing from the list is RAM.

In theory though, I would applaud (batteries no longer sealed? I'm SHOCKED! If it wasn't for my (sound) suspicions of the 'meaning' and 'intentions'.

On one hand...

- 'upgradability' WOULD drive me to buy one brand or one model over the other, BUT,

- on the other hand, the chance I would ACTUALLY upgrade are practically nil

- from lenovo perspective (this is my impression, might be completely wrong) corporate clients are not interested, given the cost of upgrades would easily be higher than swapping for new (improved!) kit

- designing and implementing upgradable components is cost, and Lenovo is not a business taking risks.

- designing and implementing upgradable components is even more cost, if you want to continue peddling manufacturers' obsession with 'thiiiiiin' (though not light).

[karlkarl]

This is fantastic news!

I tend to not be religious about brands but ThinkPads tend to be the only decent things these days.

Framework is looking promising but I do worry about buying in large bulk and future sourceability.

[nautica]

...and you're PROUD of your GOAL of 80% "repairability" by 2025‽ Your figure used to be 100%.

"Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025."

Regression in "repairability" is a curious thing, indeed; but then again, so is the move towards ever-lower-quality software and operating systems, and subscription-based everything.

I own five Lenovo laptop computers; all built before 2016 and all are used for serious daily work. All five are 100% repairable--and the reason why I own them, and will continue to do so.

...And just in case you didn't get the point, "Lenovo PC boss", your "goal" of 80% by 2025 will be far less than what your criteria was ten years prior--and one of the main reasons Lenovo had such a good name.

[ttulinskySoCal]

To be fair to Apple, though their products are not repairable, they do last longer. I.e. they remain usable longer. In my experience.

[karlkarl]

Not for me. I am consistently disappointed with the lifespan of Apple hardware.

Particularly frustrating that the outside seems like a nice solid chunk of metal that will stand the test of time, but then the insides are just a fragile gluey mess.

[katrinab]

My mid-2010 MacBook Pro still works. It is on its third battery, and the Core 2 Duo is definitely showing its age. You can Hackintosh a reasonably up to date version of MacOS on it, but you are better off installing something like Linux Mint on it.

[bonkers]

Battery safety

I totally applaud what they're doing, but with one serious concern:

OEM-manufactured Laptop batteries and chargers are amongst the safest and most reliable consumer electronic devices on the planet. They are like fridges, we trust the fridge to never catch fire, we just do.

The risk of midnight fires in living quarters is very serious indeed, but is almost entirely eliminated by stringent controls on the design, manufacture - and tamperproof nature - of sealed battery packs and chargers.

Allowing the possibility that some of the population might be inexpertly repaired - even a tiny fraction - completely ruins this risk.

It will mean that we all need to switch off at the wall before going to bed, and the laptop won't be fully charged in the morning.

I don't think that batteries/chargers can be repaired or remanufactured to the same level of safety as new parts, not in any way that could be underwritten.

So, regrettably - due to their energy density and risks - they need to be ground-up and recycled after their 5-10 year design life. I'm only talking about batteries, and possibly mains supplies.

This is the only way I can see to maintain their "fridge" status as infallible devices.

I'm very happy to be proven wrong - but I'd like to inspect the proof rather carefully, if I may.

.

[katrinab]

Re: Battery safety

Repair in this context means replacing the battery..

Back when you could pop open the cover and put a new battery in, I don’t think there was much of a problem with battery fires.

Third party chargers from eBay are a problem, but they are already a problem.

[Spanners]

Re: Battery safety

Back when you could pop open the cover and put a new battery in

I preferred it when the battery wasn't inside.

There was a sliding catch at each side underneath and the battery could just be lifted off. Total time for replacement was between 15 and 20 seconds!

[HMcG]

Re: Battery safety

Which also enabled being able to carry a 2nd charged battery . Design had gone backwards from a practicality point of view.

[HMcG]

I would be more inclined to believe some of this marketing spiel if they were currently selling replacement parts on their website. But since they aren’t, I’ll take it with more than a pinch of salt.