I am looking for a new computer and am considering a Tuxedo Laptop. Do you know how easy they are to repair and upgrade? I enjoy my Fairphone too much to her an unrepairable Notebook.
If your focus is repairability/upgradability, a Framework laptop may be the better choice.
Hmm IFixIt doesn’t have a repairability score for that one
https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability
They do have guides for RAM and SSD replacement, but that’s the bare minimum.
Maybe look into the repairability index from the EU as well, maybe they rate it?
Depends on your upgrade plan
Changing RAM, SSD, battery is easily done on my Pulse 15 (Gen 1) at least
They are built on a third party frame, in my case a „Clevo“. The only difference to standard notebooks is that they take care of all the drivers and select parts for Linux compatibility.
Compare the model you want to the Clevo products. Perhaps you’ll find it there.
I got a Framework now, much better in my eyes.
The experience with my Tuxedo Infinitybook Pro 14 v4 (also a Clevo chassis) is bad. I probably won’t consider buying from them anymore. They had some marketing jargon on its store page saying something like “easy repairability, upgradable parts are readily accessible” or the likes. Also, they sell a barbones version (which I bought), which IMO should imply at least no hassle installing ram and ssd. However, I ended up breaking the connector on the motherboard to the keyboard LED on my first attempt at opening the laptop (I was using Tuxedo’s own video tutorial for it). According to them, the only way to repair that was to replace the entire mobo - replacing just the little socket was apparently not an option - kind of an Apple-like policy if you ask me. If, like me, you have waited for 3 months for your new laptop, you’ll probably think twice about sending it right back and waiting another three weeks.
To open the thing, 12 screws need unscrewing, and the keyboard needs to be popped out from its frame by inserting a screwdriver from the underside (the procedure which I didn’t perform quite carefully enough), while its LED cable still connected to the mobo, which only then you can unplug.
To replace the battery, which I recently did, the motherboard itself needed to be displaced, I had to unplug a number of connections. In short, installing new/replacing old parts in this laptop is the hardest I’ve seen in any laptop I owned so far.
Add that to reluctant service, several bugs and 3 months delivery time (they upgraded me to a slightly better chipset for free), not an experience I want again.