The fact that you can’t buy the cable needed to unbrick a Chromebook, and have to solder it together yourself from Google’s schematics is ridiculous.
Chromebooks are straight up hostile towards attempts at repairs, maintenance, or upgrades. It’s wild, they really went the extra mile towards rampant consumerism.
It’s not ridiculous it’s designed that way
It can be designed ridiculously
Du hast mich gefragt
huh?
Ich will, dass ihr mir vertraut
Stech Bratwurst in dein Sauerkraut
Seht ihr mich?
Ja hahahahaha
I bet you can get it on Etsy.
Buy Framework laptops, these have amazing repairability and upgradability, as well as good Linux compatibility. They even offer ChromeOS options, if you ever need a Chromebook.
If you upgrade the motherboard, you can actually 3d print or buy a $60 case and use the old motherboard as a desktop.
edited for clarity
Yeah it’s really cool. Also works very well with an external Gpu.
I mean can’t you just plug it into a monitor and then use it as a desktop?
Yup - as someone else pointed out I wasn’t clear in what I said. If you buy a new mobo to upgrade your laptop, you wind up with an older mobo that sits there. You can then actually use the old mobo as a desktop computer as long as it has ram and an SSD. The form factor and IO were designed with this functionality in mind.
Ok gotcha that’s badass.
Yes, but open contacts aren’t that nice ^^
Yes, the point they’re making is that if you upgrade the laptop components, you can use the old components as another PC
Ohh yeah, I literally work as a field technician fixing computers for some of the big companies. Literally the only computers that make me & my competitors go insane are Chromebooks. Hardware is ok at best. Software is absolutely HELL though.
They’re the non rechargeable ecigs of the laptop world
You mean the “disposables”, even though that’s a misnomer. Many of them require a charge one or more times throughout their shitty little lives.
I used to be a field technician doing that and repairing printers. May the roads you drive be safe and your lunch choices to your tastes.
I’m curious what about the software is hell as a technician? I was under the impression that the ChromeOS part being normally unmodifiable by the user would lead to fewer problems. Is there something about it that makes it worse than a comparable Windows or Mac computer?
What’s wrong with the software? They are client web devices and with crostini you can develop at a pinch. But they aren’t meant to be laptop/desktop replacement.
Oh boy i sure do love you have to hack into the bios just to install a usable os on the only truly mass market linux laptops
Mrchromebox is doing the Lord’s work.
shockedpikachu.jpg
I can only go by people like Luis Rossman on Mac stuff, but I’ve done my fair amount of Chromebook repairs. Granted it’s been a few years, and most were dell and splash of HP/Lenovo. Hardware wise there’s not much to them, physically. Pretty easy with simple tools. However, the shimming/reloading the OS is a whole different monster. Dell was the easiest, but was still involved.
I worked on mostly Chromebook repairs for 6 months last year, and I found it to be pretty straightforward as well from a hardware standpoint…especially when there was no point in doing most repairs because it would cost more than just getting a new one.
For any OS issues, we’d simply take a flash drive and reinstall it from scratch. It’s definitely gotten easier, but holy crap could it be slow as hell lol
From what I remember, even the dell process was a testament to following instructions to the T. Having to do some steps with the battery connected, then more with it disconnected, then connected again. HP used some special screw for board locking. Lol what a wild time.
Oh yeah, now it’s all pretty standardized with like the same screws for everything.
Its no longer quite as silly with the specific steps to follow, but god, is it boring as all hell to work with too lol
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Apple and Google have long been criticized for selling devices that are deemed harder to repair than others.
Worse, PIRG believes that the two companies are failing to make laptops easier to take apart and fix.
The “Failing the Fix (2024)” report released this week [PDF] is largely based on the repairability index scores required of laptops and some other electronics sold in France.
For laptops, that criteria includes providing updates and the ability to reset software and firmware.
PIRG also docked companies for participating in trade groups that fight against right-to-repair legislation and if OEMs failed to “easily provide full information on how they calculated their products."
PIRG’s report doesn’t factor in software support timelines, but even if it did, Chromebooks’ repairability score wouldn’t increase notably since the move only brought them to “industry norms,” Lucas Gutterman, Designed to Last campaign director for the US PIRG Education Fund, told me.
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