[706f6f70]

I'm amazed that there is no mention of the sheer repairability of these devices.

I don't think I will ever encounter a laptop line that is generally so user-accessible. A couple of regular screws and you pop the case. A few more and you can replace the entire keyboard. The hard drive was held in by a single screw in most models and you could easily swap it in without even popping the entire case. The RAM had it's own bay that you could access by removing a single crew. The Ultrabay mechanism was also a huge nod to the design philosophy of making the user feel like the hardware was his/hers to do with.

It's incredibly sad to me that we've abandoned that for the sake of "thinner". I wish I had a legitimate use for older hardware so I could justify picking up one of the IBM-era Thinkpads from eBay and just maintain it into perpetuity. Like the cars of yesteryear that you could mend with some string and a brick. Sure they're not "sexy" and it won't get me likes, but it's actually mine.

[8draco8]

Unfortunately they are going away from that. X280 the same as X1 series do not have easily swapable battery (you can still replace it but you have to get inside of the machine). X280 also don't have Ethernet port even tho there is a room for it. They are replacing SD card readers for useless microSD card readers. X280 have also soldered RAM with no expansion slot. Thinkpads was and to some extend still are great machines, but Lenovo is slowly going in to all glued together, non fixable direction

[lorenzhs]

It's a compromise. You can still get a T480, which does all the things you list afaik. But I'm glad that I can also get an X1 Carbon, which is much thinner and lighter. These things aren't achievable without making some compromises. And for how integrated they are, they're still incredibly repairable. Here's the hardware maintenance manual for mine (X1 Carbon 5, last year's model): https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/x1_carbon_5th.... It includes instructions how to replace virtually every part in the machine. Broken screen? Fried mainboard? Broken TrackPoint? This is how you replace it.

The more annoying change (imho) is how hard it's become to replace the keyboard. That used to be really easy, remove a handful of screws, slide out the keyboard, and unplug the connector. Now it requires disassembling the entire machine, at least for the X series.

[blattimwind]

> It's a compromise.

The X200 weighed 1.34 kg, the X280 weighs 1.27 kg. What a massive weight reduction indeed. Totally worth ditching all upgrading possibilities.

Reminds me of Apple ditching the 3.5 mm jack with the pretence of making devices thinner and lighter, when neither happened.

[8draco8]

X260 and X270 size wise was virtually the same and yet had 2 batteries, all the port, docking port and many more goodies. I am in the market for small yet versatile laptop that is easy to travel with and can be used even on a plane. 12 inch form factor of X series was always perfect for me. T series is simply to big.

[yifanl]

I still use my t440p, and my dad still uses a t61 (!) as our respective daily drivers. I've upgraded the drive to an SSD, and slotted in some extra RAM for mine, since it's so easy to upgrade by design.

From a consumer point of view, they're great machines. But from the seller's point of view, I can see why they want them to be harder to repair. I probably won't be upgrading for another few years, why should I? The whole trend of planned obsolescence is becoming more and more obvious. I hate it, but it was the obvious outcome.

[_emacsomancer_]

And presumably that unfortunate trend will continue. Unless enough of their big business customers protest loudly, and I don't know to what degree such customers still care about these things.

[BrentOzar]

> The Ultrabay mechanism was also a huge nod to the design philosophy of making the user feel like the hardware was his/hers to do with.

At first I agreed with you, reminiscing that I really loved Ultrabay customizability - switching between a battery when I was on the road, a CD drive to load software when I was in the office, and a hard drive when I needed to archive stuff.

Today though, in the age of fast bandwidth, all-day batteries, and USB, I'm struggling to think of what I would do with an Ultrabay. The closest I can get is that I could use a battery on the road, and a space-saver empty bay around town, but...that's what external batteries are for these days. The more I think about it, the more I think the fondness for Ultrabays only makes sense in the 1990s/2000s, but there's a good reason they're gone.

[knaik94]

I have an extra hard drive in mine. It means it's basically hot swappable too.

[organsnyder]

I extended the useful life of my T410 by doing the same thing. I had a spare SSD lying around, so I put it in the ultrabay to bring my total SSD storage up to 768 GB.

[amiga-workbench]

I'm still running an X201t with no intention to upgrade. One of the last machines in that sweet spot of having a sensibly designed keyboard, no trackpad and an IPS display.

I recently had to swap out a keyboard on a 2012 era Macbook and its very clearly highlighted just how good I have it with this thing.

[userbinator]

The fans were also easily accessible for cleaning after removing the keyboard/trackpoint assembly, which can be done without removing any other part of the case. They also made the keyboard cable just long enough that you can still operate the laptop with its keyboard half-out (to observe the fans/etc.), and it still folds neatly into place.

Like the cars of yesteryear that you could mend with some string and a brick. Sure they're not "sexy" and it won't get me likes, but it's actually mine.

There's actually quite a lot of classic car enthusiasts, not necessarily on this site but still significant. It mostly depends on what people you associate with.

[michielr]

I'd love to chime in here and specify that this extends to almost every part of a ThinkPad. I had a screen hinge break on my T430, €7 later the replacement hinges were on their way. Replacing them took about 30 minutes and a Philips head screwdriver. Love these machines!

[cbm-vic-20]

> It's incredibly sad to me that we've abandoned that for the sake of "thinner"

I suspect they don't want to let customers add memory or storage space down the line, especially from a third party hardware vendor- they want that memory and storage money for themselves. And if your laptop breaks, they don't want you to attempt to repair it- they want you to just buy a new one.

[rchaud]

Regarding repairability, the mid-2000s Dell Latitude line (D600, D620, D630 etc) had similar repairability as well. I worked at my college's IT helpdesk back then and the repairs were easy to make for even student employees whose only reference points were the Dell Service Manual and a couple of training sessions.

I am curious to know if that is still the case.

[kitsunesoba]

Late 2000s Latitudes and Precisions were extremely repairable, too. I have an old Precision M4400 that’s had around a third of its parts swapped out at one point or another and it’s a real dream to work on. Having also worked on a T60p, a T61, and a T400, the Precision was by far the nicest of the four to repair.

[SmellyGeekBoy]

I've owned and fiddled with ThinkPads since the 486 days and my previous laptop was a Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E530. The screen resolution was 1366 x 768, but after some research I found that a W530 screen could be fitted which offered 1920 x 1080. It was literally a straight swap that must've taken less than half an hour.

[tjoff]

Wasn't that pretty much standard in the old days?

Many keyboards just had a latch and then you could remove the keyboard without using any tools. Thinkpads was just slower to get rid of that than the most of the brands.

Miss it dearly though. Pretty much all my devices are forced to be obsolete because of non-replaceable batteries.

[ken]

Apple used to be as good as anyone at this. You could take the keyboard off a PowerBook (to upgrade the RAM) just by sliding a couple tabs: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/PowerBook+G4+Titanium+DVI+Keybo...

[escherplex]

the old days Still have a couple of T500s and a T510 which function as good as new and primarily are used for running specialized apps in parallel with other machines. SSD swapouts followed by Mint or Win7 installation were easy. Swapping out the optical drive for an HDD using a caddy adapter when needed couldn't be easier. Keyboard drain holes for spillage are a nice touch and should be universal. Replacing the CMOS battery (looks like a capacitor) is a bit surgical and could have been more ergonomic but readily doable (note BIOS settings before replacing). Wonder if the new high-end Lenovos are as well engineered.

[wott]

I don't know...

I had only heard praises like yours on that subject, but I have a T410 and I am really not happy about the access:

* plenty of screws,

* same-looking screws with different length (I won't disassemble it one more time now, but I think that's the case),

* bloody clips that WILL break sooner or later,

* disassembly is neither super intuitive nor obvious,

* I simply could not figure out how to reach some places (like the jack I wanted to fix or change).

It is not better in that respect than the random Compaq I used before, rather worse in fact. The only positive is that the plastic ages better than the old Presario's, which got hard and brittle, so small bits regularly broke when I disassembled/reassembled it.

I had great expectations that the T410 would be better because of the praises I had read, but in fact it was a little bit worse, so I was quite disappointed.

[amiga-workbench]

My T43 had a legend on the bottom that told you which length screw to use in which hole, it was pretty fantastic.

[criddell]

It's not just about being thinner, it's about not flexing and feeling so bouncy. New laptops may be less upgradable, but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware? On the other hand, the benefits of a smaller, sturdier machine are experienced every day.

[craftyguy]

> but how many end users ever upgrade their hardware

Far fewer now, since laptops have become un-upgradeable. ~10 years ago it was fairly common for folks to take their laptops to, e.g., the Geek Squad to have memory upgraded, or to install a larger hard drive. I worked at one such place for ~3 years in the early 2000s, and the laptop upgrade business was booming.

[hakfoo]

The machine I'm typing this on is an X230 Tablet. I bought it used, dropped in a second 4Gb DIMM and a SSD. It took literally minutes longer than to do the same tasks on a desktop, mostly because you had to remove the old HDD from the caddy.

[tomjen3]

I am typing this on a (keyboard attached to) Lenovo P51, which has a user swapable m2 disk (and space for one more, plus an SSD), user upgradable ram, user swappable battery and I can install a SIM card, should I want to.

The only thing I can't do, which I could on my last thinkpad, is to add a 9-cell battery.

[agumonkey]

~repairability, don't forget that IBM software support processes caused some things to be near impossible hard. Like swapping drives or wifi chips.

Other than that they're quite neat.