Yikes. Has iFixit jumped the shark? An AI generated press release on behalf of Lenovo, who is (from my perspective) essentially paying them for good PR? And this paid relationship - Lenovo paying iFixit - isn’t disclosed until the very last line of the article, so you have to first read 1500+ words of AI slop?
That made me start looking into their scores. The Thinkpad E14 Gen 7 gets a 9/10 despite soldered ports, a pile of easily breakable plastic clips, a flimsy plastic case, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly. To me that sounds _worse_ than the M5 MacBook Pro, which scores 4/10 (soldered storage unlike the E14, easily replaceable ports, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly.) I would personally rather have replaceable ports than non-soldered storage, but putting my personal preferences aside, I think it’s hard to argue that difference between the two is worth going from a 4/10 to a 9/10.
That made me start looking into their scores. The Thinkpad E14 Gen 7 gets a 9/10 despite soldered ports, a pile of easily breakable plastic clips, a flimsy plastic case, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly. To me that sounds _worse_ than the M5 MacBook Pro, which scores 4/10 (soldered storage unlike the E14, easily replaceable ports, and a riveted keyboard/top case assembly.) I would personally rather have replaceable ports than non-soldered storage, but putting my personal preferences aside, I think it’s hard to argue that difference between the two is worth going from a 4/10 to a 9/10.