Just over four years ago, I wrote about buying a second ThinkPad here. By their nature, laptops tend to be fragile and hard to repair. But having used that first ThinkPad for twelve years, despite having replaced keyboard, hard drive, and battery, the ThinkPad’s great keyboard seemed to justify another, even if the brand had moved from IBM to Lenovo (the Chinese guys). I was confident the IBM laptop DNA would continue in the Lenovo brand.
I was wrong!
One stupid engineering decision has canceled every reason to buy a ThinkPad. Getting technical, okay, the AC charger refreshes the battery through what is called the USB-C portal. USB-C plugs are slight and nowhere near MIL-SPEC rugged. But the Achilles Heel, however, is in the USB-C female socket inside the case of the laptop case. That socket is what's called the charger portal and its wire assembly is stupidly soldered to, of all things, the motherboard. Call it Boneheaded Engineering. Soldering this fragile assembly—with constant connects/disconnects--to the motherboard yields an inevitable hard/expensive repair.
So after a mere four years, the charging portal got dicey. Basically, I was standing the laptop on edge, positioning the charger cord just so, waiting until I got the red charger light and then backing away slowly. The laptop would charge to 100%, if the charger stayed connected. On its own, the laptop battery would discharge. What?!
My dread was one day the charger portal would be shot, nonfunctional and how do I get to my files--sort of like an HDD crash and all that grief.
Or consider what happens when dodgy electrics + lithium battery = burn the house down.
The time had arrived to ditch the ThinkPad. A few hours ago, it was out of my house, donated to an electronics recycling/repair depot.
So what am I typing on?
A thinly beautiful HP EliteBook that has a blindingly fast and silent SSD. Coupled to an AMD CPU that executes with alacrity. (Apologies to my ex-employer Intel, but, hey, what has melting Blue & White done lately?) The keyboard "feel" is spot-on; things happens with quiet, speedy competence. Sound-wise, if I gave up Lenovo’s Harmon audio, I now have Bang & Olufsen--a better choice. And importantly a durable round charger plug (beefy next to its flimsy USB-C counterpart).
What I paid for my HP wouldn't have moved a technician to open the discarded ThinkPad. I paid all of $133, free shipping, strong warranty. I knew my seller. I bought refurbished with confidence.
Image credit: freepik.com
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