I love how the LPCAMM2 slot and module looks on this board, almost futuristic/cyberpunk. Thick outline to mark it on the PCB, arrows pointing to screws, stamped metal heatspreader (reminds me of RDRAM), QR code, angular footprint, big "MEMORY" label affixed.
Cool how memory converged on the same grid-of-pins solution as CPUs.
I'm not in a refresh cycle, but I would seriously consider this platform having used the older X series, and found them workhorses. I destroyed an X30 keyboard and the replacement was fast and easy. Bringing that experience into the modern era is a good thing.
One thing which worries me, is how easily the Qualcomm core platforms run novel OS because I don't see indications they are avoiding blob dependency either in the core, or in peripheral control. It will probably be fine if you run the Lenovo tailored linux release, but if you want to run a BSD or something else you might find either you're on a slower path, or you have less battery life, or you simply can't drive some devices. (I am a user not a kernel/devicedriver developer so if I misunderstand blobbyness and why things like wifi cards often don't work please don't hate me)
But for hardware replacement? This is ace! I like the other sources which people use too, but Lenovo has a worldwide warranty, and has agents almost everywhere so your ability to be on-the-road, pick up a phone, quote a number and get a part is significantly enhanced. (in my experience)
Nice very cool. Unfortunately, the blog post looks like it's been generated by an LLM.
> Going from a high score to the highest score isn’t usually about making minor tweaks. It requires fighting for every small, boring, consequential decision—the ones that determine whether a repair isn’t merely possible or practical, but within easy reach.
The last time my ThinkPad 755C was in the way and shuffled around as part of re-arranging, it still booted up.
The only other device I've owned which might have that sort of longevity is my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 (which I quite miss for its transflective display).
Really wish the Lenovo Yogabook 9i was in the ThinkPad line and that it had a Wacom EMR stylus....
If you are ever bored, maxing out a T440p, T430, or T480 is a fun exercise and not very difficult nor expensive. CPU, RAM, SSD, coreboot, modern LCD panel, Liteon keyboard. Load with Linux, BSD, OpenCore.
This is great. I’m still rocking a nearly 10 year old T470s. Great machine with Linux on it, still snappy enough- Tailscale is there when I need to do serious work (on my desktop at home!)
I replaced the batteries a few months ago and it was painless.
This is great and should be applauded, but repairability is but one aspect of many in a good laptop. I wonder if other aspects had to suffer to achieve this, and if they did by how much. The answer to that question could make or break the laptop for many users.
Shame the keyboards have a copilot key. That doesn't sound so bad until you see that the thing emits a key chord, not a scancode, making it annoying to remap. But you can.
The most annoying part is that the key matrix isn't set up to 3-key rollover with the copilot key like it would be for a real modifier key. (I'd assumed they'd just keep the matrix they used when there was a modifier in that spot. Nope.) Consequently, some key combinations, e.g. ralt-rcontrol-spacebar, don't work. Press them, nothing happens. Infuriating.
This commitment by Lenovo must have been driven by customer demand -- in this case, the IT departments. I wonder how much of that demand may be attributed to questions about comparisons to Framework. Even if Framework is not mainstream, it has mindshare among the IT-crowd.
I love this. T14 gen 7 was the first NB I a actually bought for myself, and it's great to know that USB-C ports can just be replaced that easilly without soldering and that it was designed from the start with repairability in mind. Non-A USB ports is something that always ends up failing.
I have the ThinkPad p16s AMD gen 2. What it lacks in name it makes up for with being the most headache-free computer I have ever had (including a Macbook).
Everything works pretty well out of the box, it never really overheats, Linux support required basically no effort with NixOS, the keyboard feels pretty nice, the screen is bright and easy to read, and fortunately I bought it when RAM prices weren't insane so I got the 64GB model.
I haven't tried repairing it yet but considering how well it's been working I'm not even sure I'll need ever need to. If this laptop gets stolen, I will likely just buy another ThinkPad, I'm a complete convert.
I switch from ThinkPad to Framework because they couldn't send me a replacement keyboard. They want me to send the keyboard back to get a refund but I never receive it so... I never did get a refund.
Later, Framework send me a laptop in 1 week and later a replacement screen in less then a week. It's been 3 years ago now.
Yikes. Has iFixit jumped the shark? An AI generated press release on behalf of Lenovo, who is (from my perspective) essentially paying them for good PR? And this paid relationship - Lenovo paying iFixit - isn’t disclosed until the very last line of the article, so you have to first read 1500+ words of AI slop?
That made me start looking into their scores. The Thinkpad E14 Gen 7 gets a 9/10 despite soldered ports, a pile of easily breakable plastic clips, a flimsy plastic case, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly. To me that sounds _worse_ than the M5 MacBook Pro, which scores 4/10 (soldered storage unlike the E14, easily replaceable ports, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly.) I would personally rather have replaceable ports than non-soldered storage, but putting my personal preferences aside, I think it’s hard to argue that difference between the two is worth going from a 4/10 to a 9/10.
Hey, I head the editorial team at iFixit and honestly appreciate the feedback. Totally fair to suggest we should've flagged our relationship with Lenovo at the head of the article. It's a tricky thing, to figure out how to message our business relationships with companies when we're also scoring their devices. I've added a fuller note about our business relationship with them to the beginning.
What Lenovo pays us for: They send us devices. We score them and report internally on their repairability. Lenovo has actually made their repairability snapshot reports public, so you can see some of the documents we've given them, for instance: https://www.ifixit.com/Document/sunTY6dbbJvOMRjP/Repairabili...
What Lenovo doesn't pay us for: Any particular score (they've worked really hard for the 10/10). This blog post/press release.
There are other companies paying us for similar services, and most of them do not get 10/10s or glowing coverage on our site. Companies don't get any extra credit for working with us instead of providing repair in another way.
To be clear, our repairability scoring is an objective system that involves engineers taking apart dozens of devices in each category to calibrate each scorecard. Making a new scorecard takes us hundreds of hours. Giving a score to a product using that scorecard is also a time-consuming human thing, disassembling a product, building out a disassembly tree (like the one in the snapshot I linked above), turning the process into something legible to our spreadsheets.
M5 MacBook vs. ThinkPad E14 Gen 7, the ThinkPad wins on modular storage, modular memory, battery replacement is dead simple, it’s easier to get inside, and you only need a Phillips screwdriver and a pry tool for most common repairs. A lot of the concerns you bring up ("easily breakable," "flimsy") are matters of durability. We generally prefer clips over glues, and we didn't find the clips to be unusually breakable in our testing. Durability matters, but we try hard to separate it from repairability in our scoring. Assemblies and soldered ports absolutely played into why the E14 Gen 7 didn't get a 10/10.
Re: AI-generated prose... we do indeed use LLMs to support our small team of human writers when drafting content. That said, we don't publish anything without multiple humans reviewing. In this case, we were thorough in our human fact checking, but I agree we missed the mark on style.
Hi Liz, I appreciate you coming here to comment, and the modifications to the article. I also appreciate the public documents.
Looking at the differences between the M5 Macbook Pro vs E14 Gen 7 I still don't quite feel that the scoring is fair. It is true that the battery is more difficult to replace and the memory/storage are soldered in the Mac. However, the soldered ports for the Thinkpad are a pretty big downside. I bet that if you surveyed regular users, they would be more likely to prefer replaceable ports to upgradeable memory/storage. The battery replacement also does not seem terribly difficult on the Mac; most of the repair guide is about Apple's neurotic use of torque drivers and adhesive activators. If you are happy with the build quality and durability of modern Thinkpads, these steps are entirely unnecessary.
I suspect a substantial factor in the scoring is Apple's fasteners - the drivers for which, of course, are now in every electronics repair kit in the world, not to mention typically included for free with replacement parts on Amazon. Is this really worth a substantial hit to Apple's scores?
> We noted a similar lack of modularity on the Wi-Fi module, where repairs or upgrades will be impractical at best.
I'm the current owner of a T14s (gen3 AMD) and the non-replaceable wifi chip has been my biggest pain point with it. I'm somewhat disappointed to see them give this 10/10 score with that problem unresolved.
according to lspci it's a Qualcomm QCNFA765 and it works great under Linux...until you suspend the machine. after it wakes up from suspend, it will only stay connected for a few seconds to a minute before dropping the connection and re-establishing it.
I've replaced wifi chips in other Thinkpads I've owned, so I naively assumed this would be the same as well - just swapping out the M.2 card. but no such luck, it's soldered in place.
I ended up using systemd to rmmod-then-modprobe the ath11k_pci module when the system resumes from sleep. this is annoying because it adds a delay of several extra seconds before the machine is ready to use, but none of the "smaller hammer" workarounds I attempted worked at all.
Do folks have any security concerns with Lenovo? An IT leader at a medium-large US bank recently told me they won't use Lenovo due to security risks from Chinese firmware (or something to that effect, referencing and older incident I don't recall). I've only seen such policies with defense players ten or so years ago.
That said, I've owned them personally for 10+ years, so looking for objective thoughts outside repairability as the article covers.
59 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 73.7 ms ] threadToday I Learned about LPCAMM2, which is refreshing, seeing soldered-on memory always felt like some kind of slide into disposable barbarism.
[0] https://www.ifixit.com/News/95078/lpcamm2-memory-is-finally-...
Cool how memory converged on the same grid-of-pins solution as CPUs.
One thing which worries me, is how easily the Qualcomm core platforms run novel OS because I don't see indications they are avoiding blob dependency either in the core, or in peripheral control. It will probably be fine if you run the Lenovo tailored linux release, but if you want to run a BSD or something else you might find either you're on a slower path, or you have less battery life, or you simply can't drive some devices. (I am a user not a kernel/devicedriver developer so if I misunderstand blobbyness and why things like wifi cards often don't work please don't hate me)
But for hardware replacement? This is ace! I like the other sources which people use too, but Lenovo has a worldwide warranty, and has agents almost everywhere so your ability to be on-the-road, pick up a phone, quote a number and get a part is significantly enhanced. (in my experience)
> Going from a high score to the highest score isn’t usually about making minor tweaks. It requires fighting for every small, boring, consequential decision—the ones that determine whether a repair isn’t merely possible or practical, but within easy reach.
The only other device I've owned which might have that sort of longevity is my Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4110 (which I quite miss for its transflective display).
Really wish the Lenovo Yogabook 9i was in the ThinkPad line and that it had a Wacom EMR stylus....
I replaced the batteries a few months ago and it was painless.
* "This isn't X. It's Y"
* "Some sentence emphasizing something. Describing the same thing with different framing. Describing it a third time but punchier.
* The em-dash of course
* A hard to describe sense of "cheesiness"
I only hope the models get good enough to not be so samey in the future.
It sounds like repairability means dividing device into smaller not repairable parts and make extra money off of it.
For instance, can I get those replaceable ports on Mouser?
Repairwashing.
The most annoying part is that the key matrix isn't set up to 3-key rollover with the copilot key like it would be for a real modifier key. (I'd assumed they'd just keep the matrix they used when there was a modifier in that spot. Nope.) Consequently, some key combinations, e.g. ralt-rcontrol-spacebar, don't work. Press them, nothing happens. Infuriating.
By elevating ThinkPad T-series above other laptops by reputation, do iFixit weaken their notion of objective repairability ratings?
Whereas Lenovo laptops (non Thinkpads) from 2007 and 2021 are very solid nearly unbreakable.
Everything works pretty well out of the box, it never really overheats, Linux support required basically no effort with NixOS, the keyboard feels pretty nice, the screen is bright and easy to read, and fortunately I bought it when RAM prices weren't insane so I got the 64GB model.
I haven't tried repairing it yet but considering how well it's been working I'm not even sure I'll need ever need to. If this laptop gets stolen, I will likely just buy another ThinkPad, I'm a complete convert.
Tossed Kubuntu on it and every single piece of hardware was found and worked right out of the box. The hardware linux support has been fantastic.
Feels like the old A31p in practical grunt but thinner and easier to maintain.
Later, Framework send me a laptop in 1 week and later a replacement screen in less then a week. It's been 3 years ago now.
That made me start looking into their scores. The Thinkpad E14 Gen 7 gets a 9/10 despite soldered ports, a pile of easily breakable plastic clips, a flimsy plastic case, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly. To me that sounds _worse_ than the M5 MacBook Pro, which scores 4/10 (soldered storage unlike the E14, easily replaceable ports, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly.) I would personally rather have replaceable ports than non-soldered storage, but putting my personal preferences aside, I think it’s hard to argue that difference between the two is worth going from a 4/10 to a 9/10.
What Lenovo pays us for: They send us devices. We score them and report internally on their repairability. Lenovo has actually made their repairability snapshot reports public, so you can see some of the documents we've given them, for instance: https://www.ifixit.com/Document/sunTY6dbbJvOMRjP/Repairabili...
What Lenovo doesn't pay us for: Any particular score (they've worked really hard for the 10/10). This blog post/press release.
There are other companies paying us for similar services, and most of them do not get 10/10s or glowing coverage on our site. Companies don't get any extra credit for working with us instead of providing repair in another way.
To be clear, our repairability scoring is an objective system that involves engineers taking apart dozens of devices in each category to calibrate each scorecard. Making a new scorecard takes us hundreds of hours. Giving a score to a product using that scorecard is also a time-consuming human thing, disassembling a product, building out a disassembly tree (like the one in the snapshot I linked above), turning the process into something legible to our spreadsheets.
M5 MacBook vs. ThinkPad E14 Gen 7, the ThinkPad wins on modular storage, modular memory, battery replacement is dead simple, it’s easier to get inside, and you only need a Phillips screwdriver and a pry tool for most common repairs. A lot of the concerns you bring up ("easily breakable," "flimsy") are matters of durability. We generally prefer clips over glues, and we didn't find the clips to be unusually breakable in our testing. Durability matters, but we try hard to separate it from repairability in our scoring. Assemblies and soldered ports absolutely played into why the E14 Gen 7 didn't get a 10/10.
Re: AI-generated prose... we do indeed use LLMs to support our small team of human writers when drafting content. That said, we don't publish anything without multiple humans reviewing. In this case, we were thorough in our human fact checking, but I agree we missed the mark on style.
Looking at the differences between the M5 Macbook Pro vs E14 Gen 7 I still don't quite feel that the scoring is fair. It is true that the battery is more difficult to replace and the memory/storage are soldered in the Mac. However, the soldered ports for the Thinkpad are a pretty big downside. I bet that if you surveyed regular users, they would be more likely to prefer replaceable ports to upgradeable memory/storage. The battery replacement also does not seem terribly difficult on the Mac; most of the repair guide is about Apple's neurotic use of torque drivers and adhesive activators. If you are happy with the build quality and durability of modern Thinkpads, these steps are entirely unnecessary.
I suspect a substantial factor in the scoring is Apple's fasteners - the drivers for which, of course, are now in every electronics repair kit in the world, not to mention typically included for free with replacement parts on Amazon. Is this really worth a substantial hit to Apple's scores?
I'm the current owner of a T14s (gen3 AMD) and the non-replaceable wifi chip has been my biggest pain point with it. I'm somewhat disappointed to see them give this 10/10 score with that problem unresolved.
according to lspci it's a Qualcomm QCNFA765 and it works great under Linux...until you suspend the machine. after it wakes up from suspend, it will only stay connected for a few seconds to a minute before dropping the connection and re-establishing it.
I've replaced wifi chips in other Thinkpads I've owned, so I naively assumed this would be the same as well - just swapping out the M.2 card. but no such luck, it's soldered in place.
I ended up using systemd to rmmod-then-modprobe the ath11k_pci module when the system resumes from sleep. this is annoying because it adds a delay of several extra seconds before the machine is ready to use, but none of the "smaller hammer" workarounds I attempted worked at all.
That said, I've owned them personally for 10+ years, so looking for objective thoughts outside repairability as the article covers.
worldwide onsite service response times and parts availability are top notch as well.