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Same with Lenovo Ideapads. One hinge broke in mine 2 months after I got it. It got fixed under warranty, they replaced the whole section of the laptop, both hinges. Now 1.5 years later the other hinge broke, I will have to either live with it or eat the costs. The engineering is absolute garbage, and it's too bad, because the specs/price ratio for Ideapads is pretty much the best.

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Exactly.

Specs/price is one thing. Dell was a clear winner in that department. But when something like a hinge breaks, or a fan starts wailing, or some other structural part of the system fails, the "specs/price" ratio suddenly does not mean much. Because it's non-trivial to salvage the parts that still work, the ones for which you got a good deal.

With Dell or Lenovo, one might say we're not paying for the hinges and such. But that stuff has to work too or what's the point? You can't take those parts you were paying for out and move them around easily.

Someday maybe we'll be able to build our own laptops or "ultrabooks" like one can build a mini-ITX.

This is what I hope comes by way of 3D printing.

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