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by adgjlsfhk1 887 days ago
To me, the 2 most important replaceable parts are the battery and charging port. Both often barely last 5 years, and at this point modern CPUs will easily be fast enough for 10 years (Haswell is holding up pretty well still). Add in replaceable SSD (because it's a wear component and easy to make replaceable), and you probably double the amount of time before the laptop becomes trash.
1 comments

The question I’d have is how much you’re willing to give up for being able to do that battery replacement without tools: it’ll cost something in shorter battery life, weight, and size and if it’s something you’re only doing once or twice a decade it is not unreasonable to enjoy mechanically simpler system every day for years and then stop by a shop to buy a replacement and have it installed (or do it at home if you like tinkering).

The angle I would take on this is general repairability: expand the “right to repair” laws, mandate part availability on a long-term, and require everyone to pay for old batteries and parts for recycling so they don’t end up in the general trash stream, even if that means something like baking in a $50 deposit to the price of a new laptop.

I'm fine with needing a Phillips/torx screwdriver and 20 minutes. the problems start when you have screws that are hidden under rubber feet (or that go into plastic so if you unscrew it, you instantly strip the hole), battery adhesive without pull tabs and ribbon cables designed to snap if you look at them wrong.