Soldered USB-C ports are a step backwards for the laptop industry 

"...I'm in a fucking Subway, cut me some slack..." Dead XD

Even apple have modular USB c ports ! , I couldn't imagine saying the word modular and apple in the same sentence

to be fair- making the USB C charging port modular wouldn't be THAT hard. The HP Spectre X360 does this - and has been doing for the past 3 years - so it's possible.

The later models of the square charger were also soldered, see the 260/370/x380. Sadly.

This is less an inherit issue with usb c and more how they build them, i see usb c as a win for repair, in my experience the cable will be the first thing to break for most folk, so having a single standard instead of special snowflake connectors is a win for me.

USB-C is the best thing in the world. That's why the EU adapted it. On the otherhand. It should have a replaceble connector.

Agree, old ThinkPad rule. I use t420 and it just won't die. Only new laptop worth considering is framework.

I switched from X220 to X390 recently and tbh, USB-C charging is my favorite thing about it. Opens up a whole new world of compact 3rd party adapters instead of the usual Thinkpad cinderblock chargers, plus I can use the same charger for my phone as well. It really should have been on it's own separate board with a little flex connecting it to the mainboard though. The port already feels pretty loose on mine. It's definitely not as robust and solid as the X220 either. I was thinking of getting a Framework but the value of a $150 ebay thinkpad still can't be beat, even if they're not as solid as they're used to be.

I’ve worked at a place that gave out thinkpads to employees, had a lot of them with dead USB-C ports and some of them smelled like burning.

USB Type C are hyped up by tech youtubers, influencers, AND Apple, so that's why manufacturers put it for everything even if they don't do it properly

Shout-out to my old ThinkPad X200 for outliving my Lenovo Z50-75. Now if only my x200 can take more than 4GB RAM...

As someone trained in 3D animation I learned real quick to be thrifty like this. I sold the first pc I upgraded to my boyfriend and he still uses it to game without issue. It's 13 years old and runs windows 10. Also still using my adobe suite cs6 before they went to subscription, never feel like it's missing anything really.

Wanna know how doesnt solder their USB-C ports to the board of their laptops? Apple, of all companies they make it on any easy to replace flex cable. But you know everyone wants to talk about how bad Apple is without even acknowledging the terrible practices other companies employ to make it hard to repair your device.

Around 2020 my company sent me a Brand New Lenovo thinkpad and within a Year, the Display breaks. They were going to just throw it away but I kept it and used it as a cheap HTPC which worked okay for maybe another year until either the GPU or Display Port crapped out. I salvaged the RAM, M.2 SSD and Kept the USB-C Power cable because it charges phones like a Beast!!!

I have a 2018 T580, and it’s my DAILY driver. Still have yet to buy a docking station for it.

Love turning a 15 minute replacement into a 90 minute re-installation!!

Dell has replaceable USB-c daughterboards.

thank fuck my ideapad still has the circular changer with a beafy cable so i don't have to use the backup usb-c on it.

Your voice trembling at 2:28 shows how emotionally disturbed you are about shitty designs.

I have a T520 and I LOVE it, nothing like what they produce today.

This is the first time I've seen an American repairman on RU-vid. I totally agree with you about the power input. Even the other inputs and outputs should be interchangeable.

Former X220 owner, current E580 owner here. I feel a new hair turn gray each time I unplug my charger.

i was in a discord server with some people and they bascially cursed me for saying that barell jacks and other custom charging plugs are better than USB-C. clearly they know nothig about technology.

I have an old old genuine true IBM thinkpad. One made before IBM did the worst move ever and sold their quality machines to a non-quality company. The laptop was acquired used and the person before me but screws through the keyboard and the darn thing still works. It doesn’t have a battery because it died many years ago the charging brick cable is all frayed up but still works. Many connection slows are all lose but still works. And no hinge problems. This is back in the day when processors were just single core. That’s how old this laptop is. Here is the thing. I took it out the other day. Turned it on and the ancient laptop came to life and loaded up windows XP. Took a long time but with the specs you can’t complain the elderly laptop was giving it all it’s got. I’m holding on to this treasure for dear life. So one day before it’s my time to leave I can show the world what a real laptop used to be like. Never giving up this laptop. It would take a huge amount of money and even then id still have to think about it.

I own a T530 and a T540, I 100% agree with you! I come across customer laptops all the time that are soldered and I simply wont touch them, not worth the hassle. Speaking of hassle, you should touch on the HP laptops with a single DIMM slot on the BACK SIDE of the motherboard with no access other than to un-layer /unscrew everything and flip the motherboard over to access the RAM slot. Models like that, on the crucial website, wont even acknowledge the RAM is upgradable lol.

Mum says to watch the pro fanity you naughty boy

Usb c is great and looking for a good charger for the yellow port is a pain. Those proprietary chargers (not the ports) are hella expensive to replace (I got a P51) It's not type C's fault Lenovo went for soldered connectors instead of modular.

On a side note, why do you have a cam pointing at the subway cash register. I was waiting for lupe to show there and I realized the video ended

Shout out to framework. If my charging port breaks I just swap the module out and unless I've released the magic smoke it'll still work. I'm still tempted to send in a framework just as a softball to annoy him.

ok, i NEVER heard of replaceable charging ports, that is actually really really cool

I have Thinkpad L470 7 years old and new Dell Latitude. 7 years old Lenovo even now after so long has better battery then new Dell. And Dell is using USB-C charging port.

watching this because i have run into this problem for the 2nd time and my Lenovo warrenty has expired. extremely frustrating gonna have to learn how to microsolder the component myself

I think this is somewhat of a bad take. We are all using USB-C for basically anything electronic. You can't really blame a port which is a massive win for convenience because of bad implementations from manifacturers. It's a shit design when the charging port is directly connected to the motherboard instead of having its own little sub-PCB or such. Dunno, there could be many other ways to design a charging port without having a tendency to fry the connector. It's not USB-C's fault.

Shame about the terrible design. If you have to use one of these laptops, you could get magnetic USB-C adapters with fast charge support. Of course, that won't help you if your port is damaged already

Your company's tech support will probably have a bunch of replacement ports (an some other parts) on hand if they are deploying a bunch of the same laptop. Boom-bang, an hour job at most (including getting to another building and back). With this company have to keep an employee with hot air soldering skill on staff (rarely needed skill in tech support) or image laptop on a new (or temporary) one and scrap it or send it off for repairs.

Who the hell thought soldered ports was a good idea?

Gaming laptops are a far better options now and have been for over a decade. Upgradable, repairable and performant. Especially the clevo's which had 4 ram slots + 4 drive slots since 2014, along with options for upgradable desktop cpu's, swappable batteries, etc. And their cooling systems are able to handle high amounts of workloads. And if you think this soldered port problem is bad, wait till you see the customer ripoff's chip makers pull on laptops.

Can't wait for someone to come up with "Lenovo DONOTTHINKpad" for the new models...

I'm so glad you've finally opened your eyes about Lenovo crap

yup, I have E14 and within 4 months of usage screen started getting keyboard marks and they don't include it in the warrenty. it's just bad design.

Another none fan of Lenovo. Let's goooo

my question is why are the ports dying so much in the first place? is USB-C just an awful plug type for charging for laptops? or is this laptop just dogshite? lol

I call this planned obsolescence. This is on purpose, the old connector standards were simpler to deal with and replace in case of failure or damage, these current models are following this ridiculous trend. I don't know for sure, but definitely for these reasons, I don't care about Lenovo, they are currently regressing, and other companies have a tendency to copy this. It's a total shame and disrespect, besides the fact that USB Type C is a nightmare to carry out repairs or replacements, a lot of work.

It's not that usb c is at fault here. Lenovo is the one using crappy usb c ports. My work dell laptop has a type c port and my phone also uses a type c port with both of them being sturdy and i only have to carry one small charger for both of them. My phone (xiaomi) is almost 4 years old and the c port is still good. My personal laptop however ideapad gaming 3 has a type c port with no charging though and you can just tell by looking at it that the port is crap its made of really thin material and soldering just makes it worse.

I'm new, and I love my T530, its my school laptop, the things a tank.

Soldered, yeah.. I've replaced many power plugs that were on a small daughter board. Often you'd have to tear apart most of the laptop though.

0:04, I want to die. 😂

that is not a new thinkpad, all thinkpads after 2022 come with 2 usb-c ports which both charge.

I came here to see if you can solder

I have a personal Lenovo idea pad and and a work think book. My idea pad has the best of both a barrel jack and a usbc pd the other one has 2 usbc which is such a pain in the ass, the usb c charger pops out really easily if i move it a bit.

Did you mean a millimeter? An extra centimeter of lip looks like it would be a ton for that model

i changed gpu on my xps m1530 with a freaking iron

I mean, I agree modular is way better. But if you can fix it with a soldering iron, it’s okay. There’s way, way worse designs than that. Like, it doesn’t even reach the top 100. LOL. Unless you’re talking about the fact that they tend to easily die. Then I get it. Plus, as side note, a standard like USB Type C for charging is a godsend. I don’t have data but I bet it’s way more common the charger going bad than all the USB Type C charging ports.

Are there any new laptops that you recommend based on repairability?

That's why you go to psrefs and search for a device with a dedicated charging port. USB c is nice to have while visiting a college before a hot session to use her/his adapter while intentional touching happens.

got a 9 year old P50 and it still works great!

Even older IBM thinkpads had keyboard indents on the screen. I know that as I worked as a post-lease reseller and we had usually a thousand of thinkpads from T60 to something like T430 and all in between in each delivery we had to process.

dude u so funny af ... shut up 🤣💔

Just got a t480. It has a faulty usb c 😎

Thanks for your frank and experienced advice. With so much fun and learning, I have excuse your French, dude.👍

I blindly bought myself a C+ grade $80 ebay thinkpad without knowing jack shit about the model/year. Modular yellow plug 🤘 shes been a tank, shat on the performance that my '11 MacBook pro that was petering out after years of me trying to duct tape and paperclip that fucker together. Shes been rocking mint (xe or whatever the ultralight distro is called) and solely runs the automation and inventory on my coffee roaster 👍

"It can be replaced without replacing the motherboard" All you need is a cheap 2 in 1 hot air rework station and some flux. BTW....I am moving to Massachusetts from Pittsburgh PA. I will be opening a place in Holden. I do component level repair including reballing chips and liquid damage.

Oh I can tell you why Lenovo replaced those ports. *MUNEH* *PLAN* *TAHITI*

Using usb c seems like a good choice to me in general, more universal which is good since the powerbricks tend to never last as long as the laptop or if you simply forget it at home. It also provides more functionality, which is nice since laptops never seem to have enough usb ports. With that said it would certainly be much better if it was on a modular daughter board. USB c is typically durable but it's still likely to be the highest wear and tear part on the entire laptop. Sure, a usb c port isn't particularly difficult to replace even with just basic soldering equipment but it sure would be better if it was serviceable by any unskilled user.

You don't understand, those screws were eating their profits, bruh.

I do warranty service for lenovo, and they do actually have a couple models with modular usb c! They are pretty rare though. My most common jobs are bad type c ports. Lenovo is usually decent about repairability, so its a real shame. (Some L series models have a tooless keyboard swap, absolutely wild)

man lenovo's consumer division laptops are the worst especially the old ones the g50 z50 whatever the hell series of laptops somebody in my neighborhood still uses a g50 several missing keys so many vertical lines on the display no battery power button is busted it's gonna snap at the hinges soon i hope he gets rid of that thing xuz it's also slow a Pentium cpu from 2014 as well with only 4gb of ram and a hard drive

Yeah, we have two Lenovo laptops at work and they are unreliable POS compared to the Dells we use. After those, we just use Dells.

I’m pretty sure HP have done modular USB-C. You’d think other companies would follow suit but every company is going the way of Apple and locking down the devices so they get to charge more for repair work.

just because it can be resoldered doesn't excuse the poor design, nobody if they knew that resoldering damages a board would ever say that. heat damages the silica, after a few port swaps or even just one you cant repair it again.

I hate usb c

I loved Lenovo up until like twelve years ago. I bought one of their gaming laptops and the hinges broke three times, two of which were back to back services. Haven’t touched one since

I’m more concerned with the comment about a 1cm bezel thickness. That would look stupid to have an almost half inch thick border around the the LCD.

If you go USB-C why make it non modular? Genuinely that causes a lot more issues down the line and ive seen this design quite a few times go horribly wrong. Sometimes i quite literally have to tear my machines or controllers to bare parts just to clean one thing or fix one thing. Hell i did it just yesterday just to clean off a joycon properly and asses the motherboard damage (to even get to it yoh gotta take almost the entire joycon apart. Its worse if you need to replsce the joystick because you gotta take the whole thing apart to even get to the joystick.

Thiccpad

Very sad

I used to have a thinkpad p1 gen 2 (bought it new for 3k usd new). The thing was useless. It was constantly overheating with the most simple tasks. Called their customer support, they where trying to do everything to not need to do the service eventhough i had next business day. They where absolutely useless. Ended up selling it while still under warranty to someone for next to nothing so i just didnt need to deal with it anymore.

And remember boys, if you wanna learn to make your girl happy, get one of these thinkpads with the red dot in the middle. that'll train your fingers right up! thank me later.

Barbra always with the milkshakes! She needs to chill.

Flux in italian meatballs.... the forbidden spice.

This is why I quit considering Lenovo for laptops

Id love an old Lenovo to play sims 1 on it again like I use to with an ibm back in the day when i was like 9 XD

Agreed but its not only thinkpads its the idealpads or should i call them shitpads they last 9 months until they can't even handle its own bios and it would barely boot into windows

USB c port is super thing, just it should be replaceable

USB4 signal integrity requirements dictate that the connector be soldered to the MB. Its that way with all brands. Only non-Thunderbolt USBC ports can be modular. Similar to soldered RAM, non-modularity is the price of higher performance.

welcome to apple world.every damn laptop now copies apple for the wrong reason.

i have x13 gen1 (intel version) and it didnt melt yet :)

😂😂😂😂

bro even on newer apple laptops the USB C ports are modular.

i would like to ask to, the greatest technician that ever lived, if the X280 is also in the "shit thinkpad" category.

I like the edupps (idubbz) autistic quotation XDDD

Thank god my Cyborg A13V gaming laptop uses a regular charger!

I also heard USB C charging chips could overheat like crazy, causing them to be cooked thus, killing the entire motherboard. I think this happened to my bros Razer Blade. Is this true?

ok for real though, is it cheaper to add type c pre soldered on the pcb design and send it over to the factory? they order it like millions right

lmao is homie really doing laptop repairs in a subway

*The greatest technician that's ever lived*

What's the newest ThinkPad that you do recommend?

T440p for life

'Stink pads" hate em

Why you hating on USB C? It's the people who are making it non swappable.