[Beta-7]

It's interesting how the ThinkPads used to be the tech person's™ laptop of choice because of their repairability and extendability, but nowadays most tech people (at least in the professional setting) are using Apple's MacBooks which are the opposite when it comes to repairability and extendability.

[gruez]

Sounds like the demographic of "tech person" changed. It used to be mostly hardliners back in the days of the thinkpad, but now it's filled with moderates who don't really feel too strongly about repairability and extendability.

[samatman]

I was around in the heyday of the ThinkPad, and this is (mostly) backward.

It was always the standard kit of the stereotypical scruffy Linux hacker, but it was mostly just a really good laptop. The connoisseur's choice, reliable, repairable, and IBM would come to you and fix it on the desk if you paid them.

A lot of that demographic have switched to MacBooks or one of the many ultrabook-type laptops of a similar design language, and what's left is the crew who valued the ability to hack on the machine.

They were always there, but they're most of what's left.

[fsagx]

  It was always the standard kit of the stereotypical scruffy Linux hacker

the T40 was the first laptop w/linux combo that I found where everything just worked. Ubuntu 10.4 in my case.

[mattarm]

I'm not sure "repairability" was the real reason thinkpads were popular. They were clearly better on a lot of criteria, at the time. I think the competition simply caught up, and the Thinkpad line simply doesn't have as much to distinguish it from the pack now.

[blowski]

I consider the likelihood of needing to repair or extend it within a 6 year lifetime, and I believe the Macbook has by far the best reputation in that regard.

[ok123456]

Bing: Macbook Butterfly Keyboard Failure.

In reality, modern Macbooks have a horrible reputation for repairability and engage in dark patterns to stop you from getting your device repaired even when it is an option.

[blowski]

Counter-point. The company I work for has about 50/50 Macbooks vs Lenovo. We have about 1000 staff, and I've seen similar rates in a company with 5000 staff.

Macbooks

* 2% fail in first 12 months

* 20% need replacing in 3 years

Lenovo:

* 20% fail in first 12 months. (Surprisingly high number fail out of the box)

* 80% need replacing within 3 years

I don't want a laptop that's easy to repair as much as a laptop that doesn't need repairing.

[dehrmann]

Which Lenovo lines? Their price points and build quality are all over the place.

[numpad0]

Is that because MacBooks are more tolerant of damages, rather than being resistant? I've seen photos of MacBooks with deformed bodies still operating normally. Same don't happen often with other brands.

[cbm-vic-20]

As a "tech person" who did a lot of travelling in the late 90s / early 00s, the Thinkpad T series was the workhorse not only because of the repairability (corporate IT teams could easily maintain them) but as an end user, I loved the Thinkpad due to its durability. They were built very well- mine took a lot of abuse while being shoved under airline seats and being bounced around in luggage, having an occasional coffee spilled on them, etc.

Other laptops of the time were absolutely flimsy: Dells, and HP laptops of the time were particularly cheap-feeling, had hinges that broke, had driver issues, and overall didn't have the high quality feel of the T series.

My company has recently transitioned away from the T series to a different brand, but I'm holding on to my T480 until it dies or I quit.

[notjulianjaynes]

> I loved the Thinkpad due to its durability.

Typing this on a T480 which 2 years ago, I accidentally dropped, while open, screen-first onto concrete from height of about 6 feet. There's a little dent in the bezel, but that's it. Still going strong.

I am peeved about the USB-c port not being a replaceable module though. I can still charge through the Thunderbolt/Dock port, but the other one no longer accepts a charge from any cable/brick combo I've tried.

[RF_Savage]

Sadly the high speeds required for many things that people now use USB for make simple connectors or wires infeasible inside a compact machine. Can't push gigabits over anything cheap and compact.

[bloep]

Modern ThinkPads are unfortunately also not very repairable. Replacing the USB-C port on the X1 Carbon is a 1 hour Job. The RAM is soldered on. Replacing the keyboard requires disassembling everything. Replacement parts are prohibitively expensive because Lenovo keeps the prices high. It's still better than Apple though.

[samatman]

I think it's simply that the advantages of either of those features have become less compelling.

No one actually wants to repair their computer, although it's nice in the abstract for repair to be easy when it's necessary. I value reliability quite a bit, which is why I was unwilling to buy a second laptop with butterfly switches, lucky for me Apple didn't force me to make a hard decision. I also value being able to bring a broken machine to trained professionals, with the expectation that they'll repair it.

Fixing a broken laptop interests me about as much as fixing a broken toaster oven.

Extendability was valuable when RAM and hard drives got cheaper faster than CPUs. It's still frugal, at least, to get just a little of each, and pay market rate for the upgrade, rather than the Apple rate.

This is something I've also stopped caring about. It's just easier to get the machine I expect to need up front. When I want more machine, used MacBooks have a robust market, so I get a new one and sell the old one.

I enjoy soldering and wiring up little hacker machines, though I'm not good at it, but that's a hobby. It's emphatically not something I want to do in order to resume my professional work.

There's still a whole swathe of ThinkPad users who like the interface, use 'exotic' ports, are maintaining old motherboards which work fine for them, more power to them. It's not surprising to see normal coders using a machine that just gets out of the way.

[rejectfinite]

>Extendability was valuable when RAM and hard drives got cheaper faster than CPUs

As someone who runs local VMs on Windows, this is still true. I would like 32GB RAM and 1-2TB SSD storage locally.

>It's not surprising to see normal coders using a machine that just gets out of the way.

Tinkpads still do this? My first is my work machine, a T490s about 2 years old? I haven't done anything to the hardware itself. No repairs or opening up needed.

[samatman]

Fortunately, we don't need to explain why no one is buying ThinkPads, because people still are. My laptop is specced at 64GB and 4TB, fwiw.

I'm content with explaining why they aren't as popular, since they so clearly remain a good choice for a smaller group of developers. I don't know anyone using a ThinkPad who isn't enthusiastic about it.

[yourapostasy]

That’s likely more a function of the OS’ “It Just Works” factor than the hardware, and Apple’s grasp upon that factor is increasingly fragmenting and growing more tenuous because mobile form factor products and profits have taken leadership focus off of the overall product ecosystem experience.

The ascendancy of Macs in technical staff ranks commenced simultaneously with the ascendancy of Linux in the datacenter. The Windows tooling to integrate with Linux wasn’t as smooth as Macs. Back in the Dark Ages, about half of the battle IMHO came down to Cygwin and similar weren’t as nice as Terminal.app and Homebrew. And Terminal.app was a better ssh client than PuTTY. Back then if your backend heavy iron lived on Linux, then the overall development experience was simply lower friction on a MacBook Pro.

This has changed these days, of course. macOS’ low-friction edge is narrower now but a lot of what remains like mobile power and video management continues as especially challenging areas for Windows and Linux. VS Code is doing a lot to decouple developers from their hardware.

[mattarm]

> That’s likely more a function of the OS’ “It Just Works” factor than the hardware...

That is exactly my observation. When the good power Mac laptops came out a lot of my ThinkPad Linux laptop using co-workers jumped ship. Number one reason stated: battery life. Number two reason stated: suspend works reliably. Number three: it is POSIX/UNIX-ish enough that it is familiar and I can do my job.

[yourapostasy]

> …and I can do my job.

Apple came close to capturing developer mindset at that time. Carting around a Unix workstation in a laptop, and if you spent the money to max out its memory, be able to simultaneously emulate a small Windows laptop at that time was a game changer for those who could leverage that kind of power.

Unfortunately Intel started slipping and Apple couldn’t really push laptop boundaries as much soon after.

Apple’s new architecture opens up that possibility again by decoupling from Intel, but I’m not sure Cook’s vision sees the advantages of a 128GB RAM MacBook Pro.

[legitster]

It's kind of like old-school car mechanics vs young techs. Old school guys would often do fab work on the spot (welding, cutting, etc) but only have a few different models to deal with and no certifications. Most shops these days just focus on swapping parts.

[dartharva]

When Thinkpads have turned out to be pretty much the same in those terms, you might as well just use the cheaper and more durable product. Apple at least has more confidence in its lines than Lenovo (who wouldn't bother defering drastic changes at the whims of MBA "market researches") does.

"Business" laptops have all gone down in a race to the bottom in my opinion. If you want to see innovations in the laptop space today, Gaming laptops is where it's at.

[rejor121]

This is pretty much true. Unfortunately this comes with the downside of high heat from the video card , but I suppose if you buy a gaming laptop for the sole purpose of business, that wouldn’t be a problem.

There are many gaming laptops that are more serviceable than business laptops. However, they also tend to be heavier.

It’s a trade off I guess

[Kamq]

> However, they also tend to be heavier.

Sure, but 95% of business laptop use is sitting on a desk somewhere.

The other 5% being carried to/from a couple of conference rooms and/or a car.

[de_keyboard]

I made this switch personally. The newer "compact" models from Lenovo do not work as well with Linux as the classic ones. If you want a compact, reliable unix-like laptop then Apple is really the best (for now).

[rjh29]

You're downvoted, but not entirely wrong. My T14s had issues with suspend and the TrackPoint moving by itself, both took about 6 months to fix. Linux support is generally great, but I wouldn't recommend buying brand new releases of hardware until the kernel/userland has had a chance to catch up to it.