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Comment by simonjgreen | Hacker News Reader

Respectfully, nothing about that applies to a laptop. This has been well proven over the years, that with good forethought and making parts available laptops can be highly repairable.

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The display unit is nothing an enduser should replace. Does every user know how to handle the delicate display and how to carefully install the LVDS cable? In most modern cars you cant replace the windscreen with cameras, heating wires in your backyard without the calibration software. You can try it, but you will fail.

So what you are saying, is that it is all designed to be impossible to fix without special equipment and exquisite motor skills?

Displays are absolutely end user repairable if the end user has experience. Allowing an end user to perform repairs shouldn't mean the repair should be doable by every single end-user.

If that was the case we wouldn't be allowed to replace AA batteries.

Take a look at the framework laptop for how accessible replacing parts on a laptop can be if you put even a little bit of effort into it. Most people are entirely capable of the manual dexterity, they just lack clear instructions, or things artificially require specialized equipment and software and more fiddly, difficult, and risky steps because it's either not a priority or it's actively a priority to discourage it.

Don’t be ridiculous. I replaced screens on (old) Thinkpads and a Framework and it’s literally a 5 min job, no experience needed. Both have excellent repair documentation. With Framework you can replace any component in that time frame. No, really. Some years ago, with Thinkpads you didn’t even have to disassemble the machine for many components… eg. you pressed a button and the lappy ejected the hard drive.

I know quite a few non-techies who replaced their phone screens themselves. That’s been unexpected and impressive to me. Honestly, you can get unlucky, but in my experience, electronic components are surprisingly resistant to abuse.

Sure, if everything is soldered or glued down it‘s intentionally hard to self-service, but that’s also down to your consumer choices. There is nothing inherently unserviceable.

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