Could you fix your laptop if it breaks? And I mean physically fix it with tools, not just install some driver updates. According to an industry report, you might be okay if it’s an Asus or Acer model. But if you’re using a recent laptop from HP, Apple, or especially Lenovo, you’ll have some serious issues getting it up and running again.
That’s according to the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) Education Fund, which commissioned a report (spotted by Ars Technica) analyzing repairability for both laptops and smartphones available to US buyers. While smartphones are getting easier to repair with better options for screen and battery replacement, the PIRG report says that improvements on the laptop side have been slow and inconsistent.
The fiscal year 2025 edition gave Lenovo an “F” score, the lowest among major manufacturers. But there are some details in the data that might give you a little hope if you bought a laptop from the world’s leading PC manufacturer by volume. The PIRG gave Lenovo an abysmally low score because the company submitted only one laptop model that’s also available in the US to France’s repairability index, upon which the data is based. That one model actually scored a 7.3 out of 10 for the test, 7 for the heavily weighted disassembly portion, which isn’t terrible.
Framework
The French repairability index, a system that the PIRG compares to mandatory gas mileage testing on cars, will be replaced by a consolidated European system by the time next year’s report comes out. That should mean far more data available for both consumers and researchers, and hopefully a little more consistency for the PIRG report. But in the meantime, a lack of data from Lenovo means it gets a default failure. Last year’s grade for Lenovo, based on an also-low 6 models, was 5.5. That’s only above one major manufacturer, Apple, which scored a terrible 4.3 for its laptops for fiscal year 2024.
For the latest set, everyone but Lenovo had either 9 or 10 models to assess, and Asus averaged 7.2 while Acer scored 7.1. Asus also got the highest rating for disassembly at an impressive 8.3. Apple showed some laudable improvement in the latest report, rising from a 4.9 to a 6.6 disassembly score. Not counting Lenovo’s disqualification, HP and Microsoft scored the lowest, with 5.9 and 6.5 grades, respectively. Both are modest improvements over last year’s scores.
Repairability is not the same as upgrade options, which are still generally limited to RAM, SSD, and sometimes a network card, and only on laptops that even offer user-accessible slots for those parts. If you want the ultimate in desktop-style modular upgrades, you should check out Framework’s laptop designs. Intel has also suggested some modular laptop options that would increase both repairability and upgradability, though these recent proposals haven’t gone into production for any finished laptop designs yet.