Apple and Lenovo Build the Least Repairable Laptops, and That's a Policy Problem

There is a quiet war being fought inside your laptop, and most consumers have no idea it's happening. A recent analysis has found that Apple and Lenovo produce the least repairable laptops on the market, a finding that lands at the intersection of consumer rights, environmental policy, and the growing right-to-repair movement that has been gaining legislative traction across the United States and Europe.

Repairability, in this context, is not just about whether a determined technician can crack open a chassis. It measures whether ordinary people, or independent repair shops, can access replacement parts, follow comprehensible documentation, and swap out components without voiding warranties or triggering software locks. By those standards, Apple and Lenovo consistently fall short, while manufacturers like Framework and Fairphone have built their entire brand identities around the opposite philosophy.

Apple's design language has long prioritized thinness and aesthetic cohesion over modularity. The result is a lineup of machines where batteries are glued in place, RAM is soldered directly to the logic board, and proprietary screws discourage casual disassembly. The company has made some concessions, most notably its Self Repair Program launched in 2022, which theoretically allows consumers to rent tools and purchase parts. But critics have noted that the program remains cumbersome, expensive, and limited in scope. The MacBook Neo, referenced in the analysis as a step in the right direction, suggests Apple is at least reading the room, even if it hasn't fully changed course.

Lenovo's situation is somewhat different. The ThinkPad line, long beloved by enterprise users and repair enthusiasts for its relative openness, has gradually drifted toward the same sealed, soldered architecture that defines the broader premium laptop market. The business logic is straightforward: thinner devices command higher prices, and modularity adds millimeters. When the market rewards sleekness, engineers optimize for sleekness.

The environmental consequences of low repairability are not abstract. The Global E-waste Monitor has reported that the world generated 62 million metric tons of electronic waste in 2022, a figure projected to reach 82 million metric tons by 2030. Laptops are a meaningful contributor. When a single failed battery or a cracked hinge renders an otherwise functional machine economically unworthy of repair, it accelerates a disposal cycle that ends in landfill or, at best, imperfect recycling streams that recover only a fraction of embedded materials.

This is where systems thinking becomes essential. The decision made in a design studio in Cupertino or Beijing does not stay in that studio. It propagates outward: to the repair technician who loses business, to the consumer who buys a replacement two years earlier than necessary, to the recycling facility overwhelmed by devices that were never meant to be disassembled, and ultimately to the mining operations that must extract fresh lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements to feed the next product cycle. Each design choice is also a resource policy, whether or not it is framed that way.

Legislators are beginning to connect those dots. The European Union's Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation is pushing manufacturers toward longer product lifespans and mandating that spare parts remain available for years after a product's release. In the United States, over two dozen states have introduced right-to-repair legislation in recent years, and the Federal Trade Commission has signaled that it views repair restrictions as a competition issue, not merely a consumer inconvenience.

The success of Framework Computer, a startup that has built a modular, fully repairable laptop and attracted a devoted following, is instructive. It demonstrates that there is genuine consumer appetite for repairability when it is offered clearly and competitively. Framework's existence also exposes a market failure: the reason repairable laptops are rare is not that consumers don't want them, but that the incentive structures facing large manufacturers push relentlessly toward lock-in.

When a manufacturer controls the repair ecosystem, it captures revenue that would otherwise flow to independent shops. When software locks tie components to specific serial numbers, it ensures that even willing repairers must return to the original manufacturer. Repairability, in other words, is not just a design philosophy. It is a business model decision with downstream consequences for competition, waste, and consumer autonomy.

The second-order effect worth watching is this: as right-to-repair laws tighten globally, manufacturers who have built repairability into their architecture from the start will face far lower compliance costs than those scrambling to retrofit openness into sealed systems. Framework is not just selling a laptop. It may be selling a preview of what regulatory pressure will eventually require of everyone else.