About 5 months ago, my laptop died. It was less than 4 years old.
It wouldn’t turn on, even with the power cable plugged in. I had no warning of the problem whatsoever.
I took it to a PC repair shop and they said it was unrepairable – There was no way to get into it because it was a sealed unit. No screws, no quick release levers, nothing.
To add insult to injury, I lost a number of useful files (I was backing stuff up but, for reasons too complicated to explain here, it failed).
So, how come my laptop was a sealed, unrepairable unit? Well, it appears this isn’t unusual. A large proportion of the laptops out there are the same. It’s deliberate. Part of the manufacturers’ business model.
Basically they want laptops to be seen like a mobile phone, a consumable: So cheap that when they fail, you just bin them and replace.
That’s perverse. Bad for our pockets, bad for the environment, bad for the world’s resources, bad for climate change.
I struggle to understand why a company would produce a device that is not only unrepairable but has such cheap components that it fails when it’s barely out of warranty. I certainly won’t be buying this company’s products again, and that should be anyone’s reaction. Unless they’re the mugs these companies think we are.
Thankfully, both Europe and the U.S. have or are bringing in legislation that enshrines the consumer’s right to repair. Products must be repairable and spares must be reasonably priced.
However, I understand that the U.S. excludes cars from this legislation, and Britain, now no longer part of Europe, excludes mobiles and electronics like laptops. Good grief.
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