Apple and Lenovo Have the Least Repairable Laptops, Analysis Finds (arstechnica.com) 57
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Apple earned the lowest grades in a report on laptop and smartphone repairability released today by the consumer advocacy group Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund. The report, which looks at how easy devices are to disassemble and how easy it is to find repairability information, gave Apple a C-minus in laptop repairability and a D-minus in cell phone repairability. For its "Failing the Fix (2026): Grading laptop and cell phone companies on the fixability of their products" report, PIRG analyzed the 10 newest laptops and phones that were available via manufacturers' French website in January. [...] Apple leads the list of laptop repairability losers, largely due to it having low disassembly scores. Apple, along with Dell and Samsung, also lost a full point for being members of TechNet and the CTA. Lenovo had the second-worst grade with a C-minus. Like Apple, Lenovo had low disassembly scores.
It also lost 0.5 points for failing to properly post PDFs explaining the French repair scores for some of its newest laptops sold in the region, as required in France. This is especially noteworthy because Lenovo got an F in last year's report for missing this information on at least 12 laptops. At the time, Lenovo director of communications David Hamilton provided a statement to Ars saying that the missing information was "due to a backend web compatibility issue that temporarily prevented the display of repairability scores on our Lenovo France website" that was "widely resolved." However, it appears that over a year later, Lenovo still isn't providing sufficient information to meet France's requirements
"While Lenovo has improved somewhat with their compliance with French consumer law by providing more repair score PDFs on their website, we urge the company to resolve this multi-year issue," this year's report says. PIRG's report concluded that "laptops are pretty stagnant in terms of repairability" across many of the eight most popular laptop brands in the US. However, Proctor noted to Ars that consumers' access to parts, tools, and information that vendors have has improved, but improvements around ease of disassembly "take longer to realize." He also praised vendors' efforts to release more repairable designs, such as Apple's MacBook Neo. For its repairability index, PIRG weighed physical ease of disassembly most heavily, while also considering the availability of repair documentation, spare parts, spare-parts affordability, and other product-specific criteria. It then adjusted company grades by deducting points for membership in trade groups that oppose right-to-repair laws and adding small bonuses for manufacturers that supported right-to-repair legislation.
Acer stood out as the only laptop vendor that avoided the 0.5-point trade-group penalty, since it was not listed as a member of TechNet or the Consumer Technology Association.
It also lost 0.5 points for failing to properly post PDFs explaining the French repair scores for some of its newest laptops sold in the region, as required in France. This is especially noteworthy because Lenovo got an F in last year's report for missing this information on at least 12 laptops. At the time, Lenovo director of communications David Hamilton provided a statement to Ars saying that the missing information was "due to a backend web compatibility issue that temporarily prevented the display of repairability scores on our Lenovo France website" that was "widely resolved." However, it appears that over a year later, Lenovo still isn't providing sufficient information to meet France's requirements
"While Lenovo has improved somewhat with their compliance with French consumer law by providing more repair score PDFs on their website, we urge the company to resolve this multi-year issue," this year's report says. PIRG's report concluded that "laptops are pretty stagnant in terms of repairability" across many of the eight most popular laptop brands in the US. However, Proctor noted to Ars that consumers' access to parts, tools, and information that vendors have has improved, but improvements around ease of disassembly "take longer to realize." He also praised vendors' efforts to release more repairable designs, such as Apple's MacBook Neo. For its repairability index, PIRG weighed physical ease of disassembly most heavily, while also considering the availability of repair documentation, spare parts, spare-parts affordability, and other product-specific criteria. It then adjusted company grades by deducting points for membership in trade groups that oppose right-to-repair laws and adding small bonuses for manufacturers that supported right-to-repair legislation.
Acer stood out as the only laptop vendor that avoided the 0.5-point trade-group penalty, since it was not listed as a member of TechNet or the Consumer Technology Association.
Reliability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Surely how often repairs are needed should be taken into account? Anecdata time: 26 years without a fault in any of my laptops (they're Apples, but I hear Lenovo and other brands can be quite reliable as well) or either of the desktops. No iPhone (since 3G) or iPad that I've owned has ever gone wrong either.
Previous Dells and other cheaper brands that I owned last century weren't so reliable for me and I would have cared about repairability.
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Not quite what I meant, but your point is valid. I was more meaning that discussing repairability without also considering reliability isn't as informative as it could be.
Re:Reliability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reliability does not negate repairability...
Batteries will always degrade and need replacing, unless you intend to replace the entire unit when the battery degrades.
Physical damage (eg smashed screen, spillages in keyboard etc) can always occur irrespective of how reliable a device is under normal usage etc.
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I'd want:
- Trivially replaceable battery. This means no glue, and ideally means a standardized battery approach to maximize chances of buying a replacement one down the line.
- Putting ports on a separate board than the CPU and ram and such. Physical damage comes to ports, especially charging ports. Having this delegated off board minimizes risk of having to replace something expensive.
- Replacable keyboard and screen. Again, at high risk of damage and should be replaceable
- Removable storage. If your ma
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> - Putting ports on a separate board than the CPU and ram and such. Physical damage comes to ports, especially charging ports. Having this delegated off board minimizes risk of having to replace something expensive.
This, 100X. I learned the hard way not to trust USB-C for anything critical (like charging) because compared to USB-A and standard barrel-style charging ports, it's trivially easy to break. Like trip-over-a-charging-cable easy. And if, as it is with cheaper laptops, including, alas, Lenovo's
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That's the point... you can't easily replace the battery or the cracked screen (you can, if you wanna spend 2+ hours removing screws and carefully prying it open using a heatpack), so you toss the thing and get a newer, "better" one... same with cellphones, they're all made to be landfill after a year or two.
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I had an issue with a relatively new MacBook Pro not long ago, where 2 out of the 3 USB-C ports stopped working. I took it to a repair shop and they said it was basically impossible to repair the ports without replacing the motherboard, and that it would be much more cost-effective to replace the whole laptop.
Ports go wrong all the time. I've had three charging ports fail on iPhones (fortunately, those ports are fixable at an independent shop for about $50, although the Apple "geniuses" will quote you $30
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In my own experience in over 30 years is the same as yours, except they weren't Apple devices.
Most Thinkpads Quite Repairable (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Most Thinkpads Quite Repairable (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't find actual details on *which* models they looked at.
If you look at the non-ThinkPad Lenovo laptops... They are complete shit for repairability.
The ThinkPads on the other hand tend to be very very good.
But other issues make me wonder about their competency in writing the report. Notably they give Lenovo a "lobbying penalty" for being a member of a group that fights right to repair but gives Motorola a pass for not being in those groups.... Lenovo and Motorola are the same company, and they don't seem to realize that.
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If you look at the non-ThinkPad Lenovo laptops... They are complete shit for repairability.
I'm typing this right now on a Yoga that I'd previously replaced the touchpad and upgraded the NVME on. Yeah, the back of the laptop is partially held on with those obnoxious plastic clips, but if you don't know how to carefully release them with a guitar pick, then you have no business mucking about inside consumer electronics in the first place.
The only thing I'd really complain about is the soldered RAM, but that's been an industrywide trend for awhile now.
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Re: Most Thinkpads Quite Repairable (Score:2)
Yeah, the case was a bit annoying and scary to open, but all it took was one YouTube video and a prying tool. Not that hard. I replaced the speakers and battery, both were very easily done and I could by the parts at a reasonable price after the five year warranty period.
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Yeah...
The good ones are designed for repairability, because that's done by field service technicians.
Not only is literally every part replaceable, they provide a detailed list of which parts will and won't void the warranty and the warranty ones are a surprisingly small list. Things like replacing our even removing the SSD don't do if you don't have on site repair, or are very untrusting, you can return the laptop without the data on it for repair and reinsert they SSD when you get it back.
Oh also, and thi
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Yeah, but what is probably the most-repaired component, the keyboard, is riveted in and the plastic rivets are melted in place.
It sucks.
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On laptops like the ideapads, yes.
I have not seen a ThinkPad where they did this with the keyboard. The commenter was specifically talking about Thinkpad.
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Ahh, yes, it was an Ideapad.
Lenovo charging ports soldered directly to MB (Score:3)
Most Thinkpads have customer removable units: drives and keyboards. Generally, the batteries are not glued in. There are no security screws. Mine is a P15 Gen 2. Lenovo's repair videos: https://support.lenovo.com/us/... [lenovo.com]
That's all great, but the biggest issue with Lenovos for the last 4 - 5 years is that the USB-C ports burn out, and they're absolutely not something a consumer can replace themselves, because the ports are soldered directly to the fucking motherboard. This has been a problem for years across multiple Lenovo models [reddit.com], and if your laptop is out of warranty, your only option is to shell out $100+ to a repair shop that can perform microsoldering.
Do people really repair laptops that much? (Score:2, Informative)
I don't think I've attempted to repair a laptop in 20 years. Few laptops these days are very serviceable. They are also sufficiently reliable that it's pretty rare for anything to break unless they are physically dropped.
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I don't think I've attempted to repair a laptop in 20 years. Few laptops these days are very serviceable. They are also sufficiently reliable that it's pretty rare for anything to break unless they are physically dropped.
Repair? Not really. Swap memory and drives? All the time. I upgrade memory and drives in older laptops to keep them viable a little longer. Not possible with Apples, and it seems more brands have headed that direction over the years. You sorta have to hunt to find options that allow this to happen these days.
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Sure do. All the time -- and I buy Thinkpads specifically because of their repairability and the availability of good service documentation. Have replaced display panels, keyboards and a motherboard. Memory expansions, disk drive swaps are routine. I try to get a 10 year life out of my equipment where possible.
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I've never owned a laptop that needed a display panel, keyboard, or motherboard replaced.
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https://battlepenguin.video/w/... [battlepenguin.video]
It worked great for years after that. Very different situation from more recently when I tried to fix my Dell, gave up and replaced it with a Framework:
https://battlepenguin.com/tech... [battlepenguin.com]
ThinkPad? (Score:2)
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Some have soldered RAM, and battery is often non easily removable (example T14) and you need to remove the whole back cover to service anything. But yes, you can still replace keyboard, RAM, M.2 SSD on many of them. But I wouldn't call them extremely modular.
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Note that this report might be based on perusing websites more than hands on evaluation.
That said, "Lenovo" laptops include the non-thinkpads, which tend to be *terrible* for repair-ability. For example, in many cases they don't consider the keyboard to be a part worthy of keeping replaceable without replacing half of the laptop, despite it being one of the most likely things for a user to break. You can get third-party parts that is just the keyboard, but you have to destroy a lot of plastic welds to eve
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Leaving aside Ideapads, which I don't think are intended to be the same quality, Thinkpad's modularily varies quite a bit depending on what series you get. E-series Thinkpads are (in terms of modularity and build quality) almost only slightly better than an Acer, for example, and have been for the last 7-8 years at least. One bad yank on a USB-C charging cable can result in you needing to replace the entire motherboard.
Unfortunately Lenovo's Thinkpad division is just as obsessed with trends like "thinness"
Don't forget Framework (Score:1)
I recently bought a Framework 16, and the main reason I picked it was for its user-focused repair and upgrade design.
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What percent of consumer computer buyers consider repairability when purchasing? 0.01% would be my guess.
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I had a Thinkpad. That's what the Framework replaced...
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is the Neo being considered? (Score:3)
I thought there were a lot of groups praising the repairability of the new Neo? Did they not consider it? or is it more a matter of it being a single model in a larger brand of less repairables?
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PIRG analyzed the 10 newest laptops and phones that were available in January via manufacturers’ French websites
Release date of the MacBook Neo from Wikipedia
It was first announced on March 4, 2026, and released on March 11, 2026.
Values (Score:2)
When consumer more heavily weight price, aesthetics, and weight over repairability in their decision making and vendors have an greater financial incentive to sell a higher margin new device over repair parts and bear little of the cost of disposal, it's unsurprising that devices will trend towards less repairable.
So then when the free market trends towards something counter to public good, regulation is one of the few tools to correct. And then it's unsurprising for consumer devices makers to lobby against
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In undoubted agreement about most of what you say here as market forces driving the outcome was my entire point. The outstanding points that are unaddressed was the negative externality that the incentivized planned obsolescence has on the environment, the role of government has in consumer protection against market driven adverse consequences, and inequality of bargaining power. Which all leads into an open question on the how and when to address outcomes because market failure isn't a binary and economic
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But, I'm starting to wander and am forgetting that you asked a direct question.
No. At least no
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Right now, there is no incentive to make repairable devices.
This was the point being made. There's not market incentive, but a public benefit.
Outside of that its just disagree is just on how all or nothing several of the statements are. "fancy laptop cases with modular guts you could easily swap out like batteries used to do" The design doesn't need to be fully modular, but an incentive to spend extra few cents to use a screw over glue or solder to counteract the market force of increased spend on replacement. "you're just moving the issue around since people will
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But my point about the incentive is that there isn't one on the consumer side either, and if neither the half of the public that represent suppliers nor the half that represent the consumers have such an incentive, then apparently the public benefit isn't great enough to have a meaningful impact on the
Re:Values (Score:5, Insightful)
You fail to realize that different people have different needs and priorities... and that is 100% A-OK. This whole "If this product is not the perfect product for me, Me, ME; than it is crap and should not be sold to anyone." business was tedious from the start and has gone on far too long.
My own laptop needs and priorities are light weight and long battery life. For my use case, those two stand above all other considerations by a fair margin. And if repairability suffers in order to shave off a half-pound or to gain another hour of battery life, so be it. So obviously, I'm on a MacBook Air. It is the right laptop for ME.
It sounds like you have different needs and priorities than I do. So that MacBook Air is probably NOT the right laptop for you. But you know what? That is ALSO 100% A-OK.
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Yeah that's exactly what I said, less repairable devices are unsurprisingly market driven. I am agreeing that people, including you, want light weight devices. Likewise manufacturers want to sell more units when devices break. To state my position then that "it is crap and should not be sold to anyone." is quite the strawman. I don't advocate for banning those devices at all, only on the desifgn incentives. Likewise repairability is scoped more in this article quite a bit more than device design, including
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I am getting really tired of people not understanding that there is an ultimate Truth. I can see it, I don't know why you can't.
(sproing!)
CAPTCHA is grenade... and that is what I just tossed. ;)
laptop repairing vs desktop repairing (repairing v (Score:2)
imo, I consider repairing meaning soldering and replacing capacitors. even with desktops, I don't think many people did that, they would replace parts, like a PSU. with laptops, you can't even replace parts.
Oh the irony (Score:1)
At least one of the late-1980s/early-1990s Mac desktops and at least one IBM* enterprise-fleet-targeted desktop were designed for very fast in-the-field repair by corporate IT staff. By repair I mean "unscrew the case, replace the faulty component, screw the case back together, and get the customer back up and running ASAP."
I personally saw computers from both companies that had ONE screw, not counting customer-installed security screws/locking devices. Everything else was held in place by latches, fricti
Why I haven't bought a recent Apple laptop (Score:1)
* No reasonable RAM upgrade path
* No reasonable storage upgrade path
* for some models, difficulty replacing battery
I would love to get something like the Apple Neo laptop if I knew I could extend its life to 8-10 years by upgrading hardware at the 4-5 year mark at a reasonable cost and replace the battery as needed at a reasonable cost.
Without those options, I'm looking at non-Apple hardware, which means a non-Apple OS and not being in the Apple ecosystem and not giving Apple the revenue stream that goes wi
Lenovo laptop keyboard mounts designed by sadists (Score:2)
Those Lenovo laptop keyboard mounts were designed by sadists.
They literally have plastic rivets that are melted in place and you need an X-ACTO knife to remove them, then kinda hope your new keyboard will stay in place with hot glue.
I'm happy with my System 76 laptop (Score:2)
Just a couple weeks ago, I replaced the battery in my 6-year-old Lemur Pro. Not very hard, and now it's great at holding a charge again.
Yes, getting this thing in 2020 cost me 2-3 times as much as today's new Macbook Neo, but I needed a machine I could rely on, that wasn't designed as though I'm the manufacturer's adversary.
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Why repair it yourself... (Score:2)
Lenovo not repairable? (Score:2)
I find the scoring hard to believe. Perhaps it has been years since I've looked and things have changed.
Apple and Microsoft last I remember were overly enamored with solder and glue. Doesn't Apple have some kind of whitelist/hardware signature thing requiring specialized tools just to replace components? Lenovo stinkpads had been screws from what I remember major components were serviceable.
About a year ago I went looking at one of the Dell rugged laptops (dual hotswap batteries, customizable ports) ulti
Lenovo P15v touchpad (Score:2)
I just put a new touchpad in my Lenovo P15v and it was an ordeal. First of all, Lenovo doesn't have the part (not the original, nor the two alternative parts they list) , so I went with an aftermarket replacement part that is working like crap and I will have to replace yet again. The repair is was what I consider a major repair job. Had to fully remove the entire mainboard, which means thermal paste needed to reassemble, etc, in order to replace the touchpad, which is a mechanical part that will wear out
Normal Users Don't Care (Score:2)
The average laptop buyer has no need to have an easily repairable laptop. They don't do repairs themselves. They take it to the Apple Store or Best Buy or wherever. So for 99% of buyers of these machines, it's a non-issue.
Not surprised, the size of components reduced (Score:2)