Many modern laptops don't have replaceable batteries, which often ends up forcing you to buy a new laptop when its battery starts malfunctioning, despite all the other internal components work perfectly fine. Lenovo aims to fix this issue with its latest ThinkPads by partnering with iFixit to incorporate easily user-replaceable parts (via TechRadar).
Not only will the battery be replaceable in these new ThinkPads, but you can also replace the laptop's Wi-Fi module, SSD, RAM, and even the display. You won't be able to swap out the CPU unless you take out the motherboard, but despite this limitation, iFixit gave Lenovo's new ThinkPad a repairability score of 9.3 out of 10.
This move from Lenovo lines up with the company's environmental goal of reaching a net zero carbon footprint. Introducing laptops with replaceable parts will likely decrease laptop sales, but Lenovo seems to have placed the positive environmental impact at a higher priority than a negative impact on sales.
Specs of Lenovo's sustainable ThinkPads
Users can replace or repair a lot in Lenovo's ThinkPad 14 Gen 5 and ThinkPad 16 Gen 3 laptops, especially with the help of repair guides and videos. But the laptops ship with pretty great specs to start.
With an expected retail price of $1,465, excluding taxes, the ThinkPad 14 Gen 5 features a 14-inch 2.8K display, a PCIe Gen 4 SSD with up to 2TB of storage, up to 64GB of RAM (two SODIMM modules), and either an Intel Core Ultra processor with vPro or an AMD Ryzen 8040 processor with integrated GPU/NPU. It'll also be equipped with Wi-Fi 7 and up to seven ports.
The ThinkPad 16 Gen 3 is surprisingly only $20 more, with an expected retail price of $1,485, despite boasting a major display upgrade. Along with its 16-inch 4K OLED display, this laptop is also equipped with Dolby Atmos speakers and only Intel CPU options.
Both laptops will feature the ThinkPad line's signature TrackPoint system, the swapped position of the Ctrl and Fn keys, and a dedicated Microsoft Copilot button. Then, each laptop has an elongated lip on the top of the display that makes the laptop easier to open with one hand. Two noise-cancelling microphones and a 5-megapixel camera are contained within this elongated lip as well.
These two new business laptops from Lenovo are expected to be available shortly in May 2024. And once they're here, we might see these laptops outlast the competition by quite a while and potentially influence other laptop manufacturers to adopt the same idea.
