Laptop makers stalled on repairability improvements The right to repair movement has gained momentum, yet laptop makers have largely stalled on improving repairability. The Public Interest Research Group, a US-based non-profit that's long been part of a coalition of repairability advocates, said in its 2025 Failing the Fix report that the latest generation of smartphones became …
IMHO, Dell deserves a dishonorable mention. Not only has the quality of their laptop hardware dropped precipitously, but I discovered with my recent work-issued Precision that the battery is not readily customer-replaceable. This really sucks because the battery lasts maybe two hours on a good day, and that's with a reasonably new battery. Once it starts to degrade, I can probably look forward to the battery life dropping below an hour, and replacing it will probably be a nightmare of myriad tiny screws and possibly glue. People complain about phones, but the movement to non-swappable laptop batteries is a much greater crime.
Fortunately this six-year old Latitude is still doing fine; a handful of screws to get the back off (which I approve of) and two (three?) screws and one plug on the battery. Note: the replacement battery didn't come with a spare cable; I had to use the original. Memory and disk (NVE) are both easy to replace, with just one screw on the storage.
The older I get, the more I dread replacing any of my (techno) possessions with new shiny...
Hard to replace batteries on laptops have been a common feature for years.
Been a while since you had a new laptop, hasn't it? And yes, it sucks. Not to mention the upteen screws, of various sizes, that you have to loosen just to remove the back cover. After having to remove the little sticky black dot covering them.
Not even exaggerating.
But wait, it gets better! In some laptops, replacing the battery will actually brick the laptop.
Good times.
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"Hard to replace batteries on laptops have been a common feature for years."
Everybody started copying Macbook Air and making thin laptops. Until then the chunky battery was in most laptops was held by a couple latches, but the thin laptop designs of course required the battery to be much flatter as well and needed to be secured under the bonnet.
I have some history with repairing HP laptops and HP has consistently published good service manuals for their laptops with complete part numbers and illustrated instructions. They also have a Youtube channel with lots of videos where laptops are disassembled completely. The parts are not glued inside the laptop, the only adhesives are used in sticking the display panels to the bezels.
I've stumbled upon Lenovo and Dell service manuals as well, look to be on par with HP manuals.
The report says that the manufacturers have stalled on improvements but what exactly is expected - everything held by latches with zero screws? Removal of a "kingpin" causes all parts to detach?
"In some laptops, replacing the battery will actually brick the laptop."
Why aren't you naming and shaming such abominations?!
The IBM Thinkpad service manuals were the best, as was the IBM Thinkpad parts system; HP and Dell aspired to similar levels.
All however, suffer from the same problem; parts get upgraded, so whilst you may have an original part number, finding out the revised version (which probably fixes the problem that caused your part to prematurely fail) is non- trivial.
> Lenovo's still pretty good.
There are two different Lenovos. The ThinkPad is still an OK machine, tho not a T060. But Lenovo also whores their brandname on a series of student-class machines, which have unexpected limitations and crappy repairability. (However I did get one in 47 hours from WalMart and it got me through my ZOOM. Types like a greased pig on 'ludes, but who types?)
Oh hell to the no, Lenovo are shite up and down the range.
Pretty much *every* manufacturer has at least two quality levels in their catalogue, the PC World level HP pavilion, Dell Inspiron plastic fantastic shit and then the stuff intended to last a few years but at a more realistic price.
Among my pile of junk useful tinkering stuff is a HP Elitebook G2. The entire base is one big single hatch held on by a sliding locking lever, and gives you access to pretty much everything in an instant apart from the heatsink.
The entire machine can be disassembled with just Philips and T8 drivers, plus a flathead for nudging the SSD bracket out of the chassis which is the only crap bit of design. All nice and easy to work on, and very serviceable.
I had the misfortune to do a teardown on a fried Elitebook G6 at work a while back. No sliding hatch, but at least the screws on the underside were captive. Further access however was awful - couldn't even remove the fan without unplugging the display cable routed over the top of it....!
Apparently the newer ones are even worse.
Winner for awful however had to be a 2010 era cheapo Acer that required the screen hinges to be removed so you could get the motherboard out......
I've got an old Apple II-CX round here somewhere - the whole machine can be taken apart (including removing the motherboard) without using a single tool.
I've also got a couple of MacBooks, which aren't so easy to get into, but I do like the fact that they are small and light! I have opened them once to clear dust and (lots) of cat hair out of the heat exchangers, but that was easy enough with a small Torx driver.
I found out that part of the reason is the tendency of manufacturers to 'cheap out' and use the system battery for CMOS.
This can result in bad things (tm) should the main battery get removed, though it seems that the 'fix' is to plug a 5V regulated
power supply into the USB which feeds just enough juice for the memory not to die, worked for me at least.
Also a good idea to disconnect battery BEFORE changing RAM or doing anything, it takes 2 seconds with a spudger and
prevents so much hassle later on.
Another hassle I ran into here is proprietary RAM sticks and WiFi cards, the 'reason' for this complete madness is that manufacturers
don't want folks changing parts without going via official channels and also for regulatory compliance,
Though you'd think that swapping *identical* cards between units would work, it doesn't.
Wi-Fi card model handcuffs have nothing to do with regulatory compliance, as there is no requirement to make a computer refuse to work if a non-whitelisted Wi-Fi card was to be installed.
Why would the FCC or other regulatory body care if an approved Wi-Fi card was swapped with another approved Wi-Fi card anyway?
It's solely about screwing over the user and profiteering from forcing the user to purchase a replacement card at an inflated price from them only.
Thankfully many people have written BIOS patches to disable that antifeature and better if you install a free replacement BIOS like GNUboot, that antifeature isn't implemented.
"Which tend not to securely reattach…"
I now have an array of really thin double-stick tape to work on modern tech. I don't double stick batteries back in and only use a thing foam so the batteries are held in place once the thing is all back together. If the battery is ever in danger of being dislodged, the fall has already killed off the device.
• It is cheaper to build
• Make more profit by forcing customers into expensive repairs
• Make another sale when the customer does not want to pay for an expensive repair
• Can make something smaller by not worrying about repairability
• CEO is a Trump supporter
Anything else ?
What do you think ?
Perhaps what is needed are some reference machines, from the various manufacturers, reminding them that they did once produce repairable machines, from my experience:
Compaq Armada E500
Thinkpad T60
These obviously being designed to be repaired quickly by field engineers, or competent users.
In general practically anything (business grade) pre 2020 made it trivial to do simple replacement/upgrades of: RAM, HDD, CD/DVD drive, battery, keyboard. Beyond these,motherboard was always a little tricky due to the CPU heat sink being attached by adhesive pads, which really should be replaced rather than reused.
Of course Google wants you to keep using their kit. If you move away from their ecosystem, they don't have as clear of a look into all of your data.
Getting inside something like Apple's latest can be a real puzzle, but once your are in, there isn't a lot you can do. It's risky to replace soldered on RAM and NAND (storage) chips unless you have plenty of practice and the right equipment. I'm nervous about my iMac. I bought it with cracked glass for $25 but at some point the Fusion drive is going to die and once I take the glass off to fit a replacement, it's not going back on. I have an external drive for Time Machine backups on a constant basis, JIC. At some point I should be able to find an inexpensive donor that has good glass but has failed some other way. In the mean time, it's a screaming deal for a 27" 5k iMac. The RAM is accessed by a little door in the back so I've cranked that all the way up.
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Because, in a world where basically nobody does that, people might still want to know how easy it will to repair some things. At the level we're at now, one of the most important questions for me is, when I want to replace the disk in the laptop, is it soldered in or not, is it a standard part or not, is there a bunch of adhesive or a fragile part in my way or not, none of which have anything to do with schematics for some other board. In fact, should Apple choose to release schematics showing what parts are on their board, schematics that, although they don't release, others have already created, it wouldn't help the fact that their storage is soldered on and not replaceable even if you obtain identical chips because, if you don't write certain data to it first, the computer won't boot. That's why repairability scores are a thing. It's not odd in the slightest. I assume this is another example of you asking for perfect or nothing, but although I'd like perfect too, I sometimes live in a world where that isn't an option and I still want to know about my imperfect options.
Spill coffee on your keyboard and then discuss what "expensive" means. On a Framework, you unsnap a couple latches and the keyboard can be lifted out. Replacements are around $50. I had an HP Omen and spilled stuff on the keyboard. The keyboard was not removable or repairable. There goes the whole laptop.
You are only ONE accident away from paying for a Framework.
Yes, It's more expensive. But the question you need to ask is more expensive than what? Replacing a laptop prematurely because you spilled a drink on the keyboard?
My family has done that with several laptops. The keyboard is often welded to the plastic of the case. Replacement parts are not available. Now you're looking to replace the whole laptop.
With a Framework, you unlatch a couple of slides and then the whole keyboard lifts out. Unsnap it, and snap in a new one for $60 and you're back up and running again. I'm not advertising for them, I'm just a satisfied customer.
I'm also a happy Framework user, but before we get too enthusiastic, the keyboard is not watertight. If just the keyboard got hit in that disaster, your description of how easy it is to replace is correct. If the drink made it through the keyboard onto other parts, that is going to be a more expensive repair. There's at least some chance that the keyboard might catch all of it, but it is possible for liquid to leak further.
That is one of the downsides, though there are some cheaper options than the most modern units with latest-generation processors. They have a refurbished program in some countries which makes cheaper models or, if you are worried about the quality of refurbished parts, you can buy an older generation mainboard and an empty laptop and put them together, getting new parts but at a lower price because you might be using an 11th or 12th generation Intel processor instead of the latest available generations. They're quite well-priced in comparison with the high end from most manufacturers, but you're right that there is usually a mid-range option from many manufacturers which can give you a reasonable spec for less. I think it will probably pay for itself in a longer life, but paying up front for that isn't for everyone.
I'm hoping that this, along with several other downsides such as global availability, will improve as more people buy the machines. They do have an announcement scheduled for next week, which I expect is just going to be newer processors, but maybe they will have other interesting updates.
My MacBook Air slid out of a case I had for it and fell onto ceramic tile floor 4.5 feet (or 1.37 meters). I was tired and and hadn't noticed my failure to zip the case properly. The fall bent the MagSafe cord connector so that wouldn't work when I tried to reconnect the computer to the charger. Attaching a spare cord solved that. No damage.to the computer when the mag-safe connector broke free in the fall. There is much to be said for right to repair but being build solidly enough to handle the unexpected accident is also nice. I'm not sure if the two goals are entirely compatible. But I know I am happier not having suffered any damage than being able to order a new screen to replace a broken one for example.
Agreed. But I'd take that over soldered on storage and memory, so you have to predict what you might want during the lifetime of the machine and pay inflated prices as well. Compare prices for different variants of a Macbook for example, and you find that Apple's storage and memory chips cost quite a bit more than you'd think someone the size of Apple could negotiate from their suppliers. In other words, part fo the reason for going "non-upgradable" is to force people to buy more than they need now, from Apple, at inflated prices - instead of upgrading things as needed, at prices that have almost certainly dropped significantly by the time you need to do it.
My current Macbook was the last model with removable storage - and it'll be the last one I ever buy (unless Apple have a damascene revelation and change tactics.)
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