I’m Praying Dell Finally Releases Its Ultra-Repairable Laptop

They’ve been working for years on a deeply ambitious concept. Fingers crossed

I’m a huge fan of “repairable” laptops.

As you probably know, our digital tech produces mountains of ghastly e-waste — over 59 million tons a year, by one estimate. A lot of this is propelled by the remorseless trend towards ever-skinnier laptops. As they’ve gotten more and more slender, their components have been increasingly glued together, and designed to be difficult — if not impossible — to replace.

I’ve repaired (or tried to repair) tons of laptops, and over the years it’s gotten harder and harder. Many laptops are designed with incredibly finickity, easily-breakable clips that are designed for quick assembly, but not for ready disassembly.

There are glimmers of hope, though! In 2021 we saw the launch of laptops by Framework with truly modular designs: Their components are designed to be easily snapped in and out of place, making for what I called “gloriously fixable laptops”. A year and a half in, Framework seems to be going strong, so thus far it looks like they’ve shown there’s a significant market for repairable machines.