Lenovo exec promises 80% of its devices will be consumer-repairable by 2025 | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo exec promises 80% of its devices will be consumer-repairable by 2025

theverge.com

130 pointsgoplayoutside86 comments

The title is a mischaracterization of what was said:

>More than 80 percent of our devices will be able to be repaired at the customer,

At the customer not by the customer. What they mean by this is that a skilled (and probably approved) technician would be able to carry out a repair on-site.

I think it's actually a much more reasonable approach - devices should have a first-class vendor supported route for repair. Outside of that, obviously people should also be free to have a go and repair the device themselves, but there's obvious reasons why that should be at arms-length from the vendor.

Personally I already have an X1, I bought it for work, I have the full 5 year support package and it's great, I think it's a totally reasonable compromise. I'm an engineer using this device for work, I don't expect to be cracking it open and fixing it myself when something goes wrong, and I don't expect my employer to tolerate my not working because I don't have the correct tools.

The distinction is really important. This means that Dell for example is already at this metric, as all their laptops are opened with a few screws and their repair tech just swaps boards and sends the old one for RMA.

But in practice this also means that given parts availability, the devices can be successfully fixed by consumers. as an IT guy who worked in a lab full of dell laptops, i sometimes did the odd repair and dell would just send me the part overnight, i'd swap the part and put the old one in the box and a courrier would pick it up day of. Say what you will about the quality of their computers, but their repair program is extremely efficient for the consumer, and because they won't spend too much money training proximity technicians, they engineer their products to be easily fixable.

It's definitely much better than Apple, which will put a lot of work into preventing anyone but themselves being able to repair Apple hardware. If a third-party technician gets the means to repair a laptop, without any pseudo-franchising shenanigans, that's worth a lot nowadays.

Still, if they want something to brag about, they should imitate Framework...

Is it better than Apple though?

He says 80% will be repairable by customers or channel partners.

Apple is probably well above that already. They already offer repair service for their phones, tablets and laptops.

Also, when I stopped paying attention to thinkpads (due to them botching a warranty repair) ~100% were repairable. You could get schematic diagrams, etc.

Dropping that to 80% is a huge regression.

Well, Thinkpad is not the only product of Lenovo

The gentleman who said that is Italian, is it possible that he just uses a different variety of English and the phrase didn't mean what you think it means?

He also said: “Batteries, SSD, many things will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste,”

To me this implies a general improvement for repairability by anyone that knows how to crack the chassis. 'will not any longer' is also an interesting word choice. I would avoid getting lawyeristic with anything not in a written edited press release.

80% of products is a little vague - even if 95% of Lenovos product SKUs were consumer repairable that could still mean that all laptops and tablets aren't - they make a lot of rack/server/storage/network products.

> https://www.theregister.com/2023/10/05/lenovo_pc_boss_4_in/

"On repairability, we have a plan that by 2025 more than 80 percent of the repair parts will be repaired again so that they they enter into the circular economy to reduce the impact to the environment."

He added: "More than 80 percent of our devices will be able to be repaired at the customer, by the customer or by the channel and we are enabling this with a design for serviceability kind of approach."

This means that "batteries, SSD, many things, will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste."

I’m optimistic.

> "batteries, SSD, many things, will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste."

Not a lot of servers have sealed batteries or SSDs. It definitely sounds like more consumer/user oriented devices. Servers are already very modular and field serviceable.

Too bad that 80% of what Lenovo makes is not really worth buying, especially the low-end stuff. Hopefully this repairable 80% includes the other 20%.

So finally the end of the locked id's requiring a custom bios to get things working?

Lenovo Thinkpads were already on the side of repairability, but that declined after the Apple cargo-culting that began around the time of the T470. The T480 had dual batteries, 1 removable and 1 internal. The T490 was even more enshitified with only 1 internal battery and a lower runtime.

I really miss the replaceable battery of my old Thinkpad. I had high regard for Lenovo for a long time, but somewhere around 2017 or so (wasn't buying laptops that often, I'm not sure what year it started) they really declined, and now Thinkpads feel like cheap plastic crapware with low customizability and a bunch of locked down components.

What frustrates me is that I bought 3 of them after they started to decline because I trusted the brand so much. My consecutive disappointments is one of the main reasons I no longer trust corporations or branding anymore.

Switched from a T420s to a T480s and now I really don't know what's next because I definitely lost any trust in Lenovo

Framework laptops?

I'll likely get a framework as my next laptop. I'll accept the lack of a trackpoint, but at least i'll get a laptop i can trust for some years to come.

I did the same thing and although it seems like a trackpoint is essential, trackpads are really good now and there isn't a huge difference imo.

Aren't there heat issues? I really like their models but I am already annoyed from the heat of my t480s (using it on the sofa a lot)

Mine gets a little hot, but as long as you don't block the vent it's fine. I have one of the early 11th gen ones.

I have the same story with Optima car batteries.

They held my laptop in repair for almost three weeks to get a replacement keyboard, then tried to charge me over £1000 GBP (near the cost of the laptop) to replace the mainboard citing "water damage". The laptop was fine except for the keyboard.

I'm getting a Framework next and will never buy a Thinkpad again.

This is classic Lenovo. No one knows how shit they are until you have to deal with their repair services.

The trick you see is to buy 2 of them off a 3rd party seller with damaged boxes and stick one in the cupboard. This costs the same as buying 1 new one directly usually. You can usually recoup a fair chunk of the cash by selling whatever dead one you end up with.

(Got 2x T14 gen 3’s for £700 each)

I've used Lenovo (and IBM before them) for over 20 years and have never had to deal with their repair service.

I did upgrade my t470 (more ram, bigger external battery), which was a bit of a pain removing the case, but did the job.

Ouch. Forget that. I had on-site repair with parts for 3 years. Had one repair during COVID due to a blown charging circuit. They had it for a month and replaced it.

Out of warranty, I stocked up on parts from AliExpress. Need a spare CPU fan? I think I have 6. ;@]

I miss thick laptops and phones. I'd gladly pay for just "a higher tier phone but twice as thick/bigger battery". There are few more rugged phones but mostly bottom end specs...

Apple made the same promises.

Now we have software-remote-locked parts which, when replaced, won't work unless Apple approves them. [1]

I bet laptop manufacturers are on their way implementing parts pairing, and Intel surely is happy to provide a platform for this.

[1] https://m.gsmarena.com/iphone_15_pro_max_teardown_on_ifixit_...

Consumer and businesses need to vote with their money and buy laptops from framework and others like them. It will force the others to follow suite.

Someone please help Framework sell to businesses, otherwise those of us who want but cannot buy them will have to keep buying user-hostile laptops.

They just opened "Framework for Business" recently: https://frame.work/framework-for-business

The Framework laptops are slow, power hungry, and low resolution, otherwise I would have one.

I further assume without any data whatsoever that the speakers are bad (because all non-Apple laptop speakers are bad).

Anyone but anyone has a lot of catching up to do with Apple laptops right now.

Sorry but what the fuck are you talking about

Framework has a 2256 by 1504 resolution with the last Intel processors and 55/61wh battery for the 13' version

The power hungry is debatable but that's not a framework problem, is an Intel problem

Seems that not even HN is safe from Apple fan boys

They did fix the screen (weren’t they 1080p before?)

However, the battery kwh number is less than the tdp kw of any of the 13th gen intel processors, so it may as well just hibernate when unplugged.

Also, I haven’t seen a reliable intel laptop for 12 years.

However, the Ryzen tdp kw is 1/2-1/4 the battery kwh, so it probably gets a few hours under heavy load.

I’d consider one, assuming the Linux taint bit is off. Do they run any of the BSD’s well?

> I’d consider one, assuming the Linux taint bit is off. Do they run any of the BSD’s well?

Ah, obligatory "BSD user being a twat any time Linux is mentioned" comment

>They did fix the screen (weren’t they 1080p before?)

It never was

>However, the battery kwh number is (low)

Eh, that's pretty much the standard , even macs start with 52kw

In some you see 72 and i don't really know how some companies can get 96 inside but hey

>Also, I haven’t seen a reliable intel laptop for 12 years.

There is nothing thst could change your mind

1504 tall is low res in 2023. Even my iPad is 2048 pixels tall.

For reference, 4K UHD is 3840x2160. The MBP16 is 3456x2234.

> The power hungry is debatable but that's not a framework problem, is an Intel problem

Nope, it would be my problem if I bought one.

Not pro macbooks have 1600res (basically the same)

Notebooks and tablets have different use case and distance they are used at

And while i would like 4k on everything just because we can make 4k phone screens you can't pretend 16k on notebooks

Because then i can shit on the mbp resolution because i can get a 4k dell

Business don’t care about self repair. They care about high durability and low failure rate as well as good support. They will just send the laptops back to the company to have them repaired.

> They care about high durability and low failure rate

Only withing warranty period, after that they dont care

> Apple made the same promises.

When?

100% of their laptops, tablets and phones have been repairable in-store for 15+ years.

Lenovo is promising this for customers or channel partners. Apple doesn’t have much of a sales channel, so the promise is similar to current in-store practices at Apple.

I don't consider "replace half fucking motherboard coz a connector or chip got bad" to be called "repair"

Apple devices are "repairable" if you consider replacing an entire car engine for faulty spark plug as "repair"

That was not my experience. The Ive-era "impossibly thin" MacBook Pro I had at work a few years ago developed a swollen battery. The local Apple Store had to ship it out for repair.

That machine later failed again and its replacement subsequently had a problem that required putting in a new logic board, which also required them shipping it off, so I was without a computer for about a week each time.

Although there are two Apple Stores within a 15-minute drive of my house, neither of them could handle a pretty straightforward repair on site.

> In 2006, the State Department bans Lenovo computers from their network. After MI5 identified “backdoors” and vulnerable firmware in Lenovo products, their computers are banned from the intelligence networks of all Five-Eyes countries: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States.

> The military isn't taking chances. In 2008, Marines stationed in Iraq stopped using Lenovo tech after discovering data was being transmitted back to China. The U.S. Air Force replaced $378 million worth of servers purchased by Lenovo

> Lenovo faced uproar when it emerged in 2015 that it had hidden an advert-delivering program made by Superfish on hundreds of thousands of computers

> “More than 80 percent of our devices will be able to be repaired at the customer,” Lenovo executive Luca Rossi told the Canalys EMEA Forum 2023, according to The Register.

> “Batteries, SSD, many things will not any longer be sealed into the product but will be available for the customer to be to repaired on site and then save a lot of waste,” he reportedly said.

I guess something's something.

Laptop like it's 1995-2014 all over again.

It's not like you will be able to upgrade the CPU. Even RAM isn't mentioned.

I never got how we all just accepted non-user replaceable battery devices with phones, laptops, and tablets. The main reason why people replace those devices is the battery. Its so eco of them.

Because the repairable laptops were Thinkpad-class devices which weighed quite a bit and had fucking terrible touchpads.

When slim Ultrabooks (or whatever they were called) started appearing, those of us who actually use our laptops like a laptop (i.e. we take them places) loved how thin and light they were. Imagine fitting more than just your laptop into a backpack!

It's perfectly possible to have slim ultrabooks with replacable batteries. We used to have phones with replaceable batteries that were thinner than than even current gen laptops.

The hell do touchpads have to do with this? Besides, the T430 had one of if not the best touchpad I ever used.

The question was: how did we accept this change? Answer: laptops that were non-repairable were far better in various ways.

Now we've got good at all those things, the next step might be reintroducing owner-replaceability of batteries etc, but there's no point pretending a lot of people didn't prefer the advantages of the sealed ones.

We don't, or we didn't all accept it. It was forced upon us, due to the masses not giving a f. The masses are just so uninformed, that they would rather throw cash out every 2 years (if not shorter) to buy a new device. The manufacturers of course like that behavior and reinforce it. The sheer masses of uninformed people create a huge incentive for them to continue this way.

In the past, I replaced the keyboard on (if I recall correctly) an x260. This involved a 30-minute tutorial on unscrewing several dozen differently sized screws, taking apart the device in its entirety from the bottom, removing the motherboard, removing more body fixtures, and finally pulling the keyboard out. Through the bottom.

Recently, I looked up the process for doing the same on the x13 gen 2, released fairly recently.

https://download.lenovo.com/lts/RTPW12C0/FOF/RTPW12C0-ThinkP...

You take two screws out of the bottom and the keyboard pops off. That's it. Fucking incredible if I do say so myself. Especially considering they achieved this WHILE ALSO making the device thinner and sleeker. It's a nice surprise to see some things becoming -more- repairable.

Behold: A thin Thinkpad X220 with a nicer screen, better battery life, and a worse keyboard.

X220 has the best laptop keyboard I've ever used, has anything matched it since?

Big discussion a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37778771

Hello Guys! I'm a founder in the electronics repair space. I have been building XiRepair.com since highschool. We are in the trenches when it comes to conversations with OEMs surrounding the reparability of products. I did a recent talk that is published on https://jonathanjstrange.com/the-future-of-repair/ regarding the future of electronics repair. If you are interested in this subject I highly suggest you give it a read. Also hit my inbox if you have any questions regarding this fast evolving industry. @JonathanStrange

So are they going to be reversing their trend of soldering the ram? Most of their laptops have soldered ram now.

Soldering the RAM to the board has performance advantages which must be addressed before we reverse the trend. LPCAMM promised similar (only slightly worse than soldered) performance/energy characteristics as soldered LPDDR5X and is said to be launching in 2024 so hopefully we get replaceable RAM back in 3~5 years.

They were soldering RAM on well before there were performance advantages - actually there were often performance disadvantages as the soldered on RAM was often a slower speed tier than what you could get cheaply just a few years later.

So the "lets solve that before we can swap-able RAM" argument doesn't really fly.

There are also Performance advantages to soldering the ram directly to the CPU die. So make the whole CPU with ram on it swappable then?

The industry does not accept regression.

It's okay back then cause what you described is not a regression when they happened - "a few years later" doesn't count, most people don't buy laptop for upgradability.

For the last two DDR generations, we have:

- During the early days of DDR4: (soldered) LPDDR4-3200 vs (socketed) SO-DIMM DDR4-2400

- During the late days of DDR4: (soldered) LPDDR4-4266 vs (socketed) SO-DIMM DDR4-3200

- During the early days of DDR5 (now): (soldered) LPDDR5-7500 vs (socketed) SO-DIMM DDR5-5600

Good luck explaining "ok uh our latest laptop is slower than our last generation but hey you can change the RAM after a few years and it will be faster!" to ordinary users, then.

> The industry does not accept regression

In that caae I want my microphone jack returned please, and laptops with A-sized USB ports again.

that is not regression, that is just brave.

yes, but how much of that was more that the laptop vendors for those models simply chose better RAM chips while the slower binned part got sold as mainstream modules?

What I mean is that your example might just be caused by something else not "we don't know how we can make fast ram on modules"

None. The problem is the traces and the kind of signal that has to travel on the traces, not the chips.

It's not just about upgrading, there's also the ability to replace a bad DIMM. Although upgrading is nice for the secondhand market since most laptop configurations are not the most high-end ones, and they're more likely to become e-waste if you can't make them the best they could've been.

I hope they do. There will soon be so much e-waste from entry-level devices with 8GB RAM that can't be upgraded.

Hopefully CAMM can solve the problem of RAM (replaces SODIMM)

Why do people care about soldered ram? It's so cheap, just get 64GB when you buy it if that is what you want.

Not everyone buys machines new. In ten years that laptop on eBay is stuck with that amount of RAM, limiting its use.

Definitely true. But unlike SSDs (ten years ago you'd get like 256GB, now it's more like 2TB) the ram curve is a lot more flat and it's fairly cheap to buy 32GB+ ram and imo that will future proof you for quite a while.

No, very often extra ram comes bundled only in high end configurations, so you have to buy a much more expensive i7 cpu, or you're charged an extraordinary amount (like +$1000 to go from 16GB ram/512GB ssd to 32GB ram/1TB ssd for a Microsoft Surface), or it's just straight up not available for the model you want.

And what if you want to buy used and upgrade?

Laptops without replaceable ram are disgustingly cynical e-waste and shouldn't be allowed.

Stop buying new laptops then?

CTO RAM price is SO expensive except for SV rich bubble

What will it take to consider a device repairable? Will it count if a laptop has 1 or 2 parts that can be user replaced? (Like swapping a keyboard key cap...)

What if they have two tiers of a device class. Where the base tier has 4 nearly identical models with different skus that are repairable, and a premium tier with 1 sku that is not repairable. Does that count as 80%?

Why do people balk at using a Huawei phone but have no problem using Lenovo laptops? Honest question; I've always liked the hardware.

Maybe because once upon a time, they were IBM hardware while Huawei was always Huawei.

Dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37778771

They are already repairable. The issue is getting the parts. Tho not impossible. If they make that easier it’s win win!

Anyone know 80% of what? Is that by SKUs, sold or produced device volumes, parts of products, turnover, ...?

Reject MacBook, return to ThinkPad.

At least there's some kind of effort to make devices customer repairable...maybe it will get popular and other companies also will shift to such model or production

But it was repairable in 2012, like X230. It just needs to do thing it used to do instead of a fake promise.

Cue Lenovo buying Framework within 2 years.

Unless they can also promise that their devices will be built without Uyghur slave labor, I don't see this change my position on never buying Lenovo.

Are there any technical devices that can promise that?

Supply chain issues include children mining cobalt, slave labour used in fast fashion clothing, slave labour used in producing many foods, Nestle recently admitted to having it in inlt's supply chain. And avocados financing dangerous mafia.

Basically my point is, as a consumer it's not really possible to compare two companies, say Lenovo and Acer, and see which supply chain is 'cleaner'

what would you buy instead? Halal laptops?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com