4 reasons why repairability should be the next big thing for laptops

Tech, and laptops in particular, often revolves around trends. Every couple of years, you get something new that every manufacturer tries to adopt, and if it catches on, it just becomes a standard from then on out. Right now, that’s Copilot+ and AI, but it’s been many things throughout the years.

It’s hard to predict what the next big trend will be, but if you ask me, it should be repairability and ease of upgrade. As laptops have gotten slimmer and more sophisticated, parts have been soldered on, some repair components are no longer available to consumers or even repair shops, and the industry has just trended towards making it easier to buy a whole new device rather than repair an existing one. Some argue that this is a necessity for modern laptops, but I don’t think it has to be that way. Here’s why I’m hoping repairability will be the main focus for laptop makers in the future.

4 We know it can be done

The Framework Laptop is exactly that

If you’ve been following us for the past couple of years, you probably know about the Framework Laptop, but if you don’t, you really should. This laptop embodies the exact thing I’m rooting for here. This startup company has completely designed its laptop around the idea of being repairable and upgradeable for years to come, and it’s doing things we’ve never seen before. The first model introduced back in 2021 can be upgraded with all the goodies from the latest version. You can go ahead and buy a mainboard with an Intel Core Ultra 7 to upgrade from the 11th-generation processor in the original model.

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And Framework is doing this with very little support from the industry. Laptop processors, unlike desktop ones, aren’t designed for upgrades, but Framework found a way and made it work. It does mean the design has to remain mostly unchanged, and replacing the whole mainboard is likely more expensive than just the processor, but it works. You don’t have to buy a whole new laptop anymore. And it’s not just the processor. You can upgrade the screen, webcam, ports, and even the bezel around the screen. Heck, the 16-inch module even has the option to add discrete graphics.

Framework is doing excellent work, but by itself, it won’t change the entire industry. But what it does do is show the industry what is possible. If companies want to make laptops repairable, they absolutely can. And with more engineering power and money behind it, you could probably get sleeker and more diverse designs, too. My main problem with the Framework Laptop is that it’s just a laptop, and I’d want a convertible, but if more industry players inversted into this idea, I’m sure we’d get a convertible form factor at some point.

Heck, even phones can be repairable, as Dutch company Fairphone has proven. In fact, I’ve put my money where my mouth is when it comes to phones, and I’ve been using my Fairphone 5 for almost a year, and plan to keep it a while longer. I hope the concept catches on in that market, too.

3 It’s greener

Reducing waste is much easier this way

Companies love telling us about how green and environment-friendly they are, but that can only go so far when it’s clear that you’re not really trying to reduce waste. The way PCs are designed still means you have to spend far too much money to repair a laptop or substitute a part, to the point where it likely becomes more viable to just buy a new laptop altogether. So, even if you only have one broken or useless part, you’re now throwing an entire laptop away. That’s a lot of parts that need to be recycled or disposed of in some way.

An upgradable and repairable laptop is the true way to go about it if you want to reduce waste. That’s what desktop PCs have been doing for a long time, and that’s exactly how it should be. If your screen breaks, why not just replace the screen? And when I say that, I mean replacing the screen itself, not what Apple has been trying to do for a few years where a repair technician needs to buy a whole display assembly that’s much more expensive than just buying the screen. Repairability should be as granular as possible to reduce waste as much as possible. We’ve seen comapnies like Acer try to embrace this a bit more with the Vero lineup, but it could still be much better.

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2 It’s cheaper, too

Customers shouldn’t have to spend over $1,000 on a new laptop

Everything I said above can also be applied to the simple monetary cost involved for the custom. If a part of your laptop breaks, you shouldn’t have to pay over $1,000 to buy a new laptop. Why should a customer have to spend that much at once rather than just paying a couple hundred dollars (or even less) for the part that’s actually broken.

Companies always want to make money, but doing so in a way that’s intentionally predatory towards consumers is not the way to go about it. Give users the option to repair their devices and save some money.

1 It doesn’t have to stall innovation

In fact, it can create whole other kinds of innovation

Companies would like to have you believe that the integration of hardware components is essential to making laptops move forward in terms of design and being extra compact, but that’s really not the case. Take the Framework Laptop I mentioned before. That’s a fully upgradable laptop with some incredible modularity, yet the 13-inch model is still under 16mm thick and weighs just 1.3 kilograms. It’s not like the design is stuck in the past. It’s possible to make a modern laptop that’s still fully upgradable.

In fact, designing with repairability in mind can lead to all-new kinds of innovations, finding new ways to make compact technology that’s still easy to replace. We’ve already kind of seen this with CAMM memory, which Dell has started adopting for some of its mobile workstations. These new RAM modules have a low profile and a new design and attachment method that allows them to be more compact and faster. With some investment into R&D, it’s deifnitely posible to make things more compact while still retaining repairability.

This mindset has become really ingrained in our minds, making us think that people don’t want repairable laptops. But what people don’t want is a laptop that feels old, and we’ve been conditioned to believe that repairability has to come at the cost of modernity. That’s not the case. Even without the power to change the industry, Framework found a way to make a laptop that’s both upgradable and modern-feeling, especially when it made its debut back in 2021. If more companies started building around this idea, they could achieve so much more.

We can always keep hoping

As much as I’d like to see it, I know the industry won’t change overnight. It might not even change in the next year, or the next five years. But I still believe there’s hope for technology to become repairable by default. A lot of people have been fighting for that cause, and companies like Framework and Fairphone have planted the seeds for this concept to grow. As people become more and more conscientious of the cost of technology, the pressure on companies will increase, hopefully leading to meaningful changes in the future.