I need to upgrade my laptop and one of the things I’m looking for is repairability/upgradability. I’ve been told thinkpads are good in this respect, how true is that? In terms of replacing batteries and memory, at least. I’m also looking at the frameworks, but those black friday deals are looking alright at lenovo.
With that in mind, any particular series of thinkpad (L, S, whatever) I should look for? I’m hardline against nvidia but is there a reason to pick AMD over Intel (or vice versa)? They both are privacy nightmares, right? And there is no “good alternative?”
Honestly, this used to be the case, but the past couple of years Lenovo is going back to their old ways of sub-par upgradability, and sub-sub-par support across models for Linux. I believe the P-series is the current most compatible line.
You might want to consider getting a slightly older refurb you KNOW is very compatible versus a newer one, because it’s a crapshoot. Make sure to avoid any models with soldered memory (they specify on their site), and if you’re buying a modern AMD model, do some research and make sure they haven’t crippled any features in the BIOS.
If you’re not completely sold on Lenovo, look at getting a Framework laptop. It’s the most upgradable and repairable laptop of any kind out there.they also just started an outlet online store where they are selling last-gen models at deep discounts that you could upgrade to current Gen when the time comes.
Good luck!
Hey thanks, this outlet store thing may be just what I need! I wanted a framework but didn’t want to take out a second mortgage on my house! Lol that’s why I was considering Lenovo, black friday deals that I assume aren’t going to be on frameworks (but I’m still gonna check fri/mon) but are on the lenovos.
Why not framework? Thinkpads were good but I doubt the new ones follow the same principles.
Can you get a used framework for $200?
If you’re willing to repair it I’m sure you could
Go with T-Series not with E or L. Better quality of materials, comes with better warranty (you can get up to 5 Years), longer spare parts availability, and usually you can replace more by yourself.
I’d also like to add that between 20 series and 80 series would be the best for build quality (and reasonable performance).
True! T series or P series are much better made. I’d also advise heading over to Lenovo support site and checking the service manual for any machine you’re interested in, just to make sure that the features you may want to upgrade are upgradable.
I’ve noticed Lenovo doing a lot of SOC style systems ala Apple where your RAM is one and done. It’s mostly been on the thin/light segment but…
My biggest complaint has been the fact that they don’t put the USB C inputs on a daughter card. I don’t know what the cost savings is, but I literally had two machines that users had killed the USB on that spent close to 10 months waiting on parts for a warranty repair.
It used to be true. Lately though they’ve been getting less repairable and the build quality has been getting worse too.
Framework outlet is a great idea. I’ll add that I recently came across deals from Dell selling an XPS13 from 2020 for $449 and MSI selling an Intel powered laptop (no discrete GPU, almost office laptop) for $399. The older Thinkpads will be reliable though
I have a T580 with nVidia graphics. Repairability is great. You can find a manual with step-by-step instructions for every part online.
But the thermals in that thing are awful. Especially on Linux and doubly so with the GPU. It has some stupid on-lap detection which heavily throttles the system to not burn the user. Up until a few years ago there wasn’t a driver for Linux so it always defaulted to on-lap-mode. But even worse, the GPU has some hardcoded 70° limit and it throttles down to the lowest clockrate when it reaches that. And it reaches that quickly because CPU and GPU share a heatpipe.
Nowadays I just run it on the integrated Intel graphics on Wayland and it’s great. But it would be cool if I could use the GPU that is at least theoretically able to run Doom 2016 at 30 fps. But practically it struggles with Quake 3.
It’s just a shame that you probably won’t know about these kinds of problems on a new laptop because people only notice them after a few months to years.
Got an E14, easiest laptop to open ever (at least compared to the HPs and Toshibas I had the pleasure to own)
