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Comment by dvduval | Hacker News Reader

So that begs the question, how repairable are Chromebooks?

That would depend a lot on the manufacturer. I would imagine that enterprise-targeted Lenovo Chromebooks, like Lenovo Windows laptops, are probably easier to repair than unibody metal consumer-targeted devices like the Pixelbooks.

The board level components (memory, CPU, etc) are not individually replaceable as the boards are designed by Google, not the OEMs.

This all assumes that you are not paying for repair labor, however. For very inexpensive Chromebooks, The repair technician's time may cost more than a whole new device.

Disclosure: Chrome OS engineer, but my positive opinions about Lenovo devices are my own.

My local school district provides Lenovo chromebooks to all 2nd - 12th graders. They are easily repairable and Lenovo has a self maintainer program which allows the school district's technicians to become Lenovo certified and perform warranty service themselves. This means quicker turn around and reduced price from Lenovo since they don't have to pay for warranty repair labor.

Seems like a great arrangement. I wonder if one could even use a program like that to train more "hands-on" (vs. academically oriented) high schoolers as a step towards technician careers.

Sort of like how many people who ended up in the corporate IT support/management field started out working as computer lab support techs in college, or before that, kids who worked in the high school auto shop (remember when those existed?) sometimes ended with good careers in auto manufacturing.

I always read about employers who have a hard time finding good technicians.

The school district still offers many "hands-on" career training including auto repair, many construction trades, EMT, firefighter, HVAC, multiple health technician fields, culinary arts, welding, tv production, digital animation, and several more. In addition they have a Cisco networking and a computer technician curriculum. At the end of the computer technician program the students should be able to get their CompTIA A+ and Network+ certificates. All of these programs include practical instruction with local businesses.

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