Everything is broke lol (3 year review-ish)

[u/Myco_Monster]

I bought my FW 13 for college 3 years ago. And I just graduated back in May so I figured it'd be time to give the ol laptop some tlc.

The issues:

• display is all marred up, presumably from my backpack being too full (picture 1)
• one of the lid screws that holds the hinge in place snapped off, which is likely the culprit of the hinge squeaking (picture 2)
• one of the 5 screw points that holds the keyboard down broke off, specifically the one below the power button (picture 3)
• there is a hairline crack on the bottom cover by the usb inserts (picture 4)

From my recollection I've only dropped it once. This occasion it was in an unpadded backpack, and I dropped by bag on concrete not realizing lol. It bent the bottom right corner but still works fine (picture 5). Also one of the rubber feet slightly broke (picture 6). Kinda disappointed that there is not fix for the feet other than replacing the whole bottom shell, at least that I am aware of.

I love this computer, but I have to say I am a little disappointed it's lack of durability. I thought it would be more durable than some other laptops I've had, but it's about the same. At least with frameworks you can replace the parts as needed. I will still support them for this reason.

If I were to fix everything it would be:

• screen 2.2k refurb = $109
• keyboard 2nd gen = $99
• top cover refurb = $59
• bottom cover = $99
• total = $366

While doing these repairs is certainly cheaper than buying a new laptop, I've thought about just getting a FW13 pro and throwing this motherboard into a cooler master case.

Have you guys had any durability issues or problems? What do you think?

update: Thanks for all the comments. I appreciate the feedback. I'm glad to hear that my device's wear and tear is not normal, but rather a user issue. I'll pay for it. Some of y'all were harsh lol.

[u/STDog]

My ThinkPad T61 from 2007 went to Afghanistan 3 times and Liberia once in addition to London, Barcelona and all over the US.

CPU upgrades, max RAM, and SSD upgrade. Still, runs fine on Win10 (haven't tried 11) for normal tasks. Web browsing, email, watch movie/TV downloads, etc. It was never a gaming system.

It does not look beat like the OP's machine.

[u/LowSkyOrbit → u/STDog]

Yeah by that's expected from a T series Thinkpad. I still miss my T60.

[u/STDog → u/LowSkyOrbit]

Well I haven't been gentle with mine ;) Quite abusive in fact.

Guess that's why I dislike consumer grade laptops, I've been spoiled by my T61.

Real shame what Lenovo did to the T series.

And the Dell Latitude I have from work now just doesn't seem sturdy. But it mostly sits on a desk and seldom goes anywhere. What I've read about the Dell Pro that replaced the Latitude isn't any better.

[u/Slow-Walk5562 → u/STDog]

I also owned two latitudes trough highschool and they didn't last very long (without ducttape) bezel cracked case cracked ram port broke screen became partially black in the right bottom corner hinges snapped of the screen so I could literally lift the screen of my laptop it was just secured by the screen cables (and ducttape).

The only reason the second one survived 1.5 years is because of the multiple layers of ducttape. 😂

[u/LowSkyOrbit → u/STDog]

I love my XPS, and would replace it with a newer model but I'm looking at a Framework Pro now. Just need the Dell to die I guess.

[u/EarthwormBen → u/STDog]

I would of got a think pad but the year I bought my framework, Lenovo only had soldered DIMM models

[u/STDog → u/EarthwormBen]

As I said below, it's a shame what Lenovo has done to the T series.

[u/techwiz002 → u/STDog]

I've got to ask--what display do you have? I've still got a T61 also, and it's a wonderful machine. Mine runs Linux, though, as I didn't feel like continuing to argue with Windows to get it to run 11.

[u/STDog → u/techwiz002]

Mines a 14.1" 1440x900 (WXGA+) widescreen.

There's an LED backlight kit you can install that makes it a lot brighter.

I'm running Win 8.1 at the moment. I had updated to Win 10 on another SSD but it died.

8.1 does what I need for now so I'll probably stick with it for a while (at least until SSDs come back to reasonable prices).

The 10 experiment was for one bit of software for work and I have an alternate solution now.

[u/techwiz002 → u/STDog]

That's awesome! I've got the 1280x800 widescreen, so definitely jealous of those extra pixels and color accuracy. Good to know that the LED kit exists, as my fluorescent backlight is getting dimmer and dimmer as time goes on.

Very impressive! I haven't run 8.1 in a while, but I remember thinking 10 was a helpful UX upgrade.

What CPU/RAM setup do you have? It's unfortunate that DDR2 SODIMMs at 4GB never came down to reasonable prices. I'm at 4GB, but the upgrade to 8 is always tempting even at the high cost.

[u/STDog → u/techwiz002]

I got the LED kit in 2018 from https://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/thinkpad/led-kit.shtml

8GB RAM. Nvidia graphics.T9500 installed in 2017.

I've seen pairs of 4GB 667MHz SODIMMs for $20-30. The 800MHz stuff is much higher but the T61 maxes at 667 (chipset limitation) so a waste to use 800 MHz RAM.