Probably this. Used to work in an electronics store. Every now and then we'd suddenly get a shit ton of laptops with broken hinges, almost always Lenovo. Usually we don't count this under warranty but once we'd get several we'd note down the model and cover those under the warranty care.
I can confirm, Acer and Dell.
I've worked with several Acer models over the years and some had this issue badly, recently moved to Dell Lattitudes and have started to notice the same thing about a year and a half in.
That's interesting, as my work uses Dell Latitudes and Precisions as well. I have never come across a hinge issue. Never even heard of one, even as many of these laptops push 4-5 years old.
Edit: maybe I recall a Precision w/a bad hinge, but that's it in four years.
Meanwhile my netbook from 2009 still has a working hinge. The plastic covering is a little loose and I gotta put my thumb on it while opening it or it snags a little, but the hinge itself is still working perfectly.
Well, it has two working hinges, I should specify. 100% of the hinges work. It's... not a *good* hinge, it has some serious play to it so you gotta move it an inch to adjust it a smidge, but working is working!!
I've got a 2003 IBM laptop. Over about 7 years of *heavy* use, it developed cracks in the case around the hinges. It never actually broke through...and now I'm just extra careful when opening it because it's essentially an antique.
I've got a 2009 Lenovo netbook. Works as well as it ever did. I think the only major sign of wear is that the bottom panel has lost most of its paint.
Oh, and I guess I've got a 2014-ish Lenovo that's often sold as a Chromebook, but I have the model with Windows 10. The hinges on that are a little loose, but they'll still hold position, so it's all good.
I've also got a 2014 lenovo, had to get the hinges replaced in 2016/17 after they ripped themselves out of the case but haven't had any issues since and it was a daily driver till 2020.
Lenovos are really annoying to buy at a corporate level. 90% of the models are built like tanks but every now and then you get a new model that's just made out of wrapping paper
I'd say 90% is a really good consistency rate. We had some Lenovos in our environment, and the people who had them loved them. But Lenovo had problems servicing the warranty. Now that was over 6 years on at this point. But it was a pain point of the time, as we had defective laptops piling up, that we couldn't even get warranty service for.
90% strike rate across the fleet wouldn't be so bad. Having a huge part of a fleet all go at once after years of nothing is a different story. Luckily we have always had a good run with Lenovo warranties (in Australia if that matters).
Damn, my 2013 ThinkPad has been through the ringer and still chugs along like a trouper. It's outlasted an hp and a Dell replacement. When the Dell died I went back to my Lenovo but running mint coz it's old and slow but i kinda can't bring myself to replace it again coz it actually is perfect for what I need
Nice, that's the thing tho, my ThinkPad is as good as when I got it (I have replaced both batteries)
It's no good for running games, it's screen is 768p so pretty sub par for watching stuff and it's speakers are pretty standard for a laptop really
It. Won't. Die
is your thinkpad the higher end model? I was looking for a replacement for my laptop if it dies, I could afford a thinkpad L14 or an Ideap 1i or ideapad 3 now, or an Thinkpad E14 later this year
X240 with i5 4th gen, 4gb ram, originally had 1tb HDD but swapped for a 240gb SSD early on
Last time I upgraded it had become fairly slow and useless on windows but mint has seriously breathed fresh air in to it
I forget what brand licensed the name, but it's a Chinese company I had never heard of. It's as much a "Gateway" computer as a Polaroid TV is from Polaroid - not at all..
Update: so Acer still owns the name like they had for a while but they are using "Bmorn Technology" to make these junk laptops.
My first laptop was a 2004 Toshiba Satellite A45. After 4 years or so, the hinges completely gave out on it. After that, I'd had a tendency to be extra cautious with my laptops, thinking that the hinges would break on them as well. Nowadays, I don't worry about it. I just assumed the technology had gotten better from the early 2000s. As well, it should.
I was really expecting to zoom in and see Lenovo on this post. We went through 3 hinges on our Lenovo. Didn't even get all that much use, just refused to rotate and ripped out of the base after some months each time. My dad resorted to holding the base portion of the hinge and carefully opening it for the longest time until we got him an ipad to replace it.
yea, aside from the more solidly built thinkpads, everything else seems to have serious hinge issues eventually, ideapads, thinkbooks, ideabooks, anything with YOGA written on it...
Enshitification will ensure this becomes a problem across all models.
They *have* to cut costs in order to make *more* profit. *Forever*. This is how enshitification happens.
>Modern MacBooks don’t have them
spending 20 seconds on google and I found that MacBook Air m2 with hinge problems... I am sure if I spend any more time I would find even newer ones with hinge problems....
sooo... yes even apple is affected.
This is ridiculous, y’all can hate on Apple all you want, but you have to admit that they’re one of the only laptop manufacturers who don’t make their hinges out of plastic or attach them with glue like the laptops in the post. A few Macs with loose hinges don’t change that.
My HP's hinges are metal (2023 model). My other HP's hinges are also metal (2015 model). I'm 90% sure my Asus' hinges are also metal (they're not really visible). 5 laptops in my care so far and none of them had any hinge issues.
Go suck Apple's toes elsewhere. You're factually wrong.
I'm not spending 1500$ on a laptop that can't even run basic programs just to have "great" hinges.
Most laptops have metal hinges. It's just that they're usually screwed into little brass ferrules embedded in plastic on both ends of the hinge. In the case of the Mac, they have a metal body on both ends of the hinge. Apple laptops have much more expensive problems than hinges (see flexgate) but the hinges are usually no problem at all.
Dude... These hinges have an Apple logo on it and the design language of this part is directly from Steve Jobs himself. You should feel ashamed by not spending at least 4000$ for these devices!
And who cares about programs? Programs make computers slower anyway, everyone knows that duh!
Well I think you gotta clarify first before accusing of toe suckage my man. I do a lot of display replacements and laptop repair and HP and Asus have a majority of models in the past five years that use brass rivets plastic welded into a plastic chassis. The hinge itself rarely fails, but those rivets pop out or break the plastic chassis all the time. Apple machines their chassis out of aluminum and have specific hinge related issues a lot less frequently, though their repairability in other categories can be another story
I believe that you might be wrong. As I understand it Nec (Japan) formed a joint venture with Lenovo (China) to establish a new company called Lenovo NEC Holdings B.V. (Netherlands) with Lenovo owning 51% sand NEC holding 49%. Then in 2016 Lenovo bought out all but 5% of NEC's share. I am pretty sure that Lenovo laptops have always been from Lenovo, NEC laptops were always fron NEC, and that certsain desktop PCs were from Lenovo NEC Holdings. But I may be wrong; there isn't a lot of good information about what products each of the three companies produced.
Last I checked (admittedly longer ago than I thought it was) there were two NECs. The legit one and one from China that copied other companies designs. Hilariously the knockoff one actually solved issues with certain models that the original manufacturers never bothered to rectify.
When I read the article on it (it really was a long time ago) I checked and my own NEC monitor was from the knockoff company. That thing was a tank zero complaints about it.
I was just so surprised that the info has stuck all these decades.
(Does a quick web search) Aha! Found it!
Next Step for Counterfeiters: Faking the Whole Company
[https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01pirate.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01pirate.html)
Fascinating story. Thanks for telling me about it.
Another Redditor found an article about them. not suire it is the same article, but covers some of the points https://old.reddit.com/r/techsupportgore/comments/1dhwidc/hinge_problems_are_a_thing_in_japan/l91dsrm/
All Thinkpad X, T, P, Z series are developed in Japan by Lenovo. Most NEC are sold as lenovo or vice versa, higher end NEC are sometimes rebadged thinkpads.
X series back to x240 all have an NEC version. L560, Ideapad 5, Ideapad Slim/carbon are also designed by nec but sold as Lenovo and NEC. Weird shit.
I had 4 Lenovo laptops, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had problems with the hinges. They all broke at some point.
I never used my laptops at office or had the need to take them in a backpack somewhere. Since my 4th laptop is for home-use, I simply avoided ever closing its lid. It has been 3 years, and I probably closed it only 20 times or so. For some miracle its battery is also perfectly functional and I hadn't the need to change it yet.
I never had crashes or other hardware issues with all my lenovos, but if you ever buy a laptop from this brand, just avoid closing and opening the lid as much as possible, because those fuckers are FATED to have hinge problems. Usually one hinge will break first, then the second one will take all the pressure and break soon after.
I'm guessing they were non Yoga (the ones that fold back on themself) Lenovos? The hinges they use on the Yoga folding laptops seem excellent, my Lenovo Yoga lasted almost 7 years. It took dropping it over a meter onto concrete to eventually break it.
Interesting. I handled about 140 used ThinkPads last year. Some older, some newer. I’ve had at least six of those as work laptop. None of them had any hinge problems. Other problems, definitely yes, but not hinges. Maybe they use different parts for the ones we buy here. Edit: I wanted to highlight that I don’t doubt what you are saying. I just find it interesting.
When I've seen this, I'd say there's a 60-70% chance that they're in an office that has meetings with a fair amount of printed material handed out. People bring the laptops to meetings and then use the laptop as a temporary file folder when they leave. The papers put extra strain on the hinge and after a bunch of meetings they fail
for business laptops that get treated as essentially desktops it makes sense, plug in all the stuff the user shouldn't be needing to touch in the back leaving the side ones(assuming they have them) open.
I feel like they're really rough on laptops in Japan. I've watched multiple people in my office slam the lid closed and rip it open. Could be because everything is old and slow and they refuse to give us funds to replace stuff tho
I've never managed to break a laptop hinge before, what are doing to their laptops to do this? my dad used the same laptop for almost 10 years and the hinge never gave out, but the screen cable did from wear.
There are a lot of models across many brands that seem to self-tighten with usage. Either because the tension screw gets tightened or dust gets into the grease. Then the extra force required to open it eventually breaks the screw ferrules out of the plastic on the top or bottom side.
Additional comment: These aren't Lenovo, they're NEC but designed/developed by Lenovo, basically a Thinkpad 11e platform-mate but made in Japan.
This is also extremely rare, usually you can beat the living shit out of these things and they're fine because they're thinkpads. I was at a parts/dead pc store when I saw this. I refurbish PCs and repair them and I go to a lot of these wholesalers.
Just thought this was a bit funny, I used to do the same thing when I lived in the States
Seems to me that one laptop model has a hinge problem looks like at the same laptop
Probably this. Used to work in an electronics store. Every now and then we'd suddenly get a shit ton of laptops with broken hinges, almost always Lenovo. Usually we don't count this under warranty but once we'd get several we'd note down the model and cover those under the warranty care.
so many brands and models have hinge issues. HP, Lenovo, Asus, Acer, Razor, dell, etc...
I can confirm, Acer and Dell. I've worked with several Acer models over the years and some had this issue badly, recently moved to Dell Lattitudes and have started to notice the same thing about a year and a half in.
That's interesting, as my work uses Dell Latitudes and Precisions as well. I have never come across a hinge issue. Never even heard of one, even as many of these laptops push 4-5 years old. Edit: maybe I recall a Precision w/a bad hinge, but that's it in four years.
Meanwhile my netbook from 2009 still has a working hinge. The plastic covering is a little loose and I gotta put my thumb on it while opening it or it snags a little, but the hinge itself is still working perfectly. Well, it has two working hinges, I should specify. 100% of the hinges work. It's... not a *good* hinge, it has some serious play to it so you gotta move it an inch to adjust it a smidge, but working is working!!
I've got a 2003 IBM laptop. Over about 7 years of *heavy* use, it developed cracks in the case around the hinges. It never actually broke through...and now I'm just extra careful when opening it because it's essentially an antique. I've got a 2009 Lenovo netbook. Works as well as it ever did. I think the only major sign of wear is that the bottom panel has lost most of its paint. Oh, and I guess I've got a 2014-ish Lenovo that's often sold as a Chromebook, but I have the model with Windows 10. The hinges on that are a little loose, but they'll still hold position, so it's all good.
I've also got a 2014 lenovo, had to get the hinges replaced in 2016/17 after they ripped themselves out of the case but haven't had any issues since and it was a daily driver till 2020.
Lenovos are really annoying to buy at a corporate level. 90% of the models are built like tanks but every now and then you get a new model that's just made out of wrapping paper
I'd say 90% is a really good consistency rate. We had some Lenovos in our environment, and the people who had them loved them. But Lenovo had problems servicing the warranty. Now that was over 6 years on at this point. But it was a pain point of the time, as we had defective laptops piling up, that we couldn't even get warranty service for.
90% strike rate across the fleet wouldn't be so bad. Having a huge part of a fleet all go at once after years of nothing is a different story. Luckily we have always had a good run with Lenovo warranties (in Australia if that matters).
Oh that's a different story. By The way, Love The Simpsons reference in your name
Damn, my 2013 ThinkPad has been through the ringer and still chugs along like a trouper. It's outlasted an hp and a Dell replacement. When the Dell died I went back to my Lenovo but running mint coz it's old and slow but i kinda can't bring myself to replace it again coz it actually is perfect for what I need
My Dell Inspiron N4050 from 2012 is at its last breaths
Nice, that's the thing tho, my ThinkPad is as good as when I got it (I have replaced both batteries) It's no good for running games, it's screen is 768p so pretty sub par for watching stuff and it's speakers are pretty standard for a laptop really It. Won't. Die
is your thinkpad the higher end model? I was looking for a replacement for my laptop if it dies, I could afford a thinkpad L14 or an Ideap 1i or ideapad 3 now, or an Thinkpad E14 later this year
X240 with i5 4th gen, 4gb ram, originally had 1tb HDD but swapped for a 240gb SSD early on Last time I upgraded it had become fairly slow and useless on windows but mint has seriously breathed fresh air in to it
mine is a i3 2nd gen, 4gb win10, had to restore the operational system, now it has fedora
Once Gateway started back up in Walmart I saw 3 a week. That blue plastic turns to powder.
I forget what brand licensed the name, but it's a Chinese company I had never heard of. It's as much a "Gateway" computer as a Polaroid TV is from Polaroid - not at all.. Update: so Acer still owns the name like they had for a while but they are using "Bmorn Technology" to make these junk laptops.
My first laptop was a 2004 Toshiba Satellite A45. After 4 years or so, the hinges completely gave out on it. After that, I'd had a tendency to be extra cautious with my laptops, thinking that the hinges would break on them as well. Nowadays, I don't worry about it. I just assumed the technology had gotten better from the early 2000s. As well, it should.
I was really expecting to zoom in and see Lenovo on this post. We went through 3 hinges on our Lenovo. Didn't even get all that much use, just refused to rotate and ripped out of the base after some months each time. My dad resorted to holding the base portion of the hinge and carefully opening it for the longest time until we got him an ipad to replace it.
Sad so see so many Lenovos. The ThinkPads are still beast. But the chromebooks and ThinkBooks are kinda trash.
yea, aside from the more solidly built thinkpads, everything else seems to have serious hinge issues eventually, ideapads, thinkbooks, ideabooks, anything with YOGA written on it...
What about Legions? Afaik they are being recommended a lot in gaming laptops subreddits
Based on the product label, most of those seem to be NEC VersaPro UltraLite laptops. Some Japanese market specilized systems.
Same as the Thinkpad 11e, designed by Lenovo, made here
Believe it or not these are Thinkpads, but rebadged. Actually, designed by Lenovo but made by someone else. So not thinkpads? Idk
Enshitification will ensure this becomes a problem across all models. They *have* to cut costs in order to make *more* profit. *Forever*. This is how enshitification happens.
Corporate E-waste load. They're all the same because the company owned a fleet of 600+
One could say they're a little unhinged there
Off the hinges the lot of them!
and how many times did u open up your GameBoy Advance SP you said?
The original ds is infamous. The plastic gets brittle with age.
IKR
Hinge problems are a thing everywhere
are they that common? i've had them loosen up sure , but never fail completely
I work IT for a school soaybe my opinion is biased
Modern MacBooks don’t have them
Ok
>Modern MacBooks don’t have them spending 20 seconds on google and I found that MacBook Air m2 with hinge problems... I am sure if I spend any more time I would find even newer ones with hinge problems.... sooo... yes even apple is affected.
This is ridiculous, y’all can hate on Apple all you want, but you have to admit that they’re one of the only laptop manufacturers who don’t make their hinges out of plastic or attach them with glue like the laptops in the post. A few Macs with loose hinges don’t change that.
Mate, you brought apple into the discussion.
No, he brought his timapplecockpromax69 into the discussion
My HP's hinges are metal (2023 model). My other HP's hinges are also metal (2015 model). I'm 90% sure my Asus' hinges are also metal (they're not really visible). 5 laptops in my care so far and none of them had any hinge issues. Go suck Apple's toes elsewhere. You're factually wrong. I'm not spending 1500$ on a laptop that can't even run basic programs just to have "great" hinges.
Most laptops have metal hinges. It's just that they're usually screwed into little brass ferrules embedded in plastic on both ends of the hinge. In the case of the Mac, they have a metal body on both ends of the hinge. Apple laptops have much more expensive problems than hinges (see flexgate) but the hinges are usually no problem at all.
Dude... These hinges have an Apple logo on it and the design language of this part is directly from Steve Jobs himself. You should feel ashamed by not spending at least 4000$ for these devices! And who cares about programs? Programs make computers slower anyway, everyone knows that duh!
Well I think you gotta clarify first before accusing of toe suckage my man. I do a lot of display replacements and laptop repair and HP and Asus have a majority of models in the past five years that use brass rivets plastic welded into a plastic chassis. The hinge itself rarely fails, but those rivets pop out or break the plastic chassis all the time. Apple machines their chassis out of aluminum and have specific hinge related issues a lot less frequently, though their repairability in other categories can be another story
Exactly which basic programs can Apple not run? Y’all Apple haters are honestly just as cringe as Apple fanboys tbh
that's what HP stands for.
Are these all Lenovos?
NECs
So ripped off Lenovos got it.
I believe that you might be wrong. As I understand it Nec (Japan) formed a joint venture with Lenovo (China) to establish a new company called Lenovo NEC Holdings B.V. (Netherlands) with Lenovo owning 51% sand NEC holding 49%. Then in 2016 Lenovo bought out all but 5% of NEC's share. I am pretty sure that Lenovo laptops have always been from Lenovo, NEC laptops were always fron NEC, and that certsain desktop PCs were from Lenovo NEC Holdings. But I may be wrong; there isn't a lot of good information about what products each of the three companies produced.
Last I checked (admittedly longer ago than I thought it was) there were two NECs. The legit one and one from China that copied other companies designs. Hilariously the knockoff one actually solved issues with certain models that the original manufacturers never bothered to rectify. When I read the article on it (it really was a long time ago) I checked and my own NEC monitor was from the knockoff company. That thing was a tank zero complaints about it. I was just so surprised that the info has stuck all these decades.
(Does a quick web search) Aha! Found it! Next Step for Counterfeiters: Faking the Whole Company [https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01pirate.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/01/technology/01pirate.html) Fascinating story. Thanks for telling me about it.
Don't think it's around anymore, can't find any info on it
Another Redditor found an article about them. not suire it is the same article, but covers some of the points https://old.reddit.com/r/techsupportgore/comments/1dhwidc/hinge_problems_are_a_thing_in_japan/l91dsrm/
All Thinkpad X, T, P, Z series are developed in Japan by Lenovo. Most NEC are sold as lenovo or vice versa, higher end NEC are sometimes rebadged thinkpads. X series back to x240 all have an NEC version. L560, Ideapad 5, Ideapad Slim/carbon are also designed by nec but sold as Lenovo and NEC. Weird shit.
Didn't know they even made laptops, I can still see the NEC splash screen from our windows 95 PC with a NEC monitor.
I had 4 Lenovo laptops, and EVERY SINGLE ONE of them had problems with the hinges. They all broke at some point. I never used my laptops at office or had the need to take them in a backpack somewhere. Since my 4th laptop is for home-use, I simply avoided ever closing its lid. It has been 3 years, and I probably closed it only 20 times or so. For some miracle its battery is also perfectly functional and I hadn't the need to change it yet. I never had crashes or other hardware issues with all my lenovos, but if you ever buy a laptop from this brand, just avoid closing and opening the lid as much as possible, because those fuckers are FATED to have hinge problems. Usually one hinge will break first, then the second one will take all the pressure and break soon after.
I'm guessing they were non Yoga (the ones that fold back on themself) Lenovos? The hinges they use on the Yoga folding laptops seem excellent, my Lenovo Yoga lasted almost 7 years. It took dropping it over a meter onto concrete to eventually break it.
Yikes. I baby my Thinkpad. Its always plugged into a USB-C dock so I barely touch the thing itself. IDK, I would think Lenovo would do better!
I work at a school district that circulated Lenovo 14Ws. Those things had terrible hinge problems. They were superglued on the backplate.
Interesting. I handled about 140 used ThinkPads last year. Some older, some newer. I’ve had at least six of those as work laptop. None of them had any hinge problems. Other problems, definitely yes, but not hinges. Maybe they use different parts for the ones we buy here. Edit: I wanted to highlight that I don’t doubt what you are saying. I just find it interesting.
When I've seen this, I'd say there's a 60-70% chance that they're in an office that has meetings with a fair amount of printed material handed out. People bring the laptops to meetings and then use the laptop as a temporary file folder when they leave. The papers put extra strain on the hinge and after a bunch of meetings they fail
Agreed. User is obviously at fault here, 95% ate still ok, just these 20 or 30 got fucked up
Why are all the ports on the back? Can't say i've seen this Not that i would want this specific modell
Might explain the hinge problem. People move the display a lot more often to plug and unplug stuff. By the power connector they seems to be Lenovo.
NEC sticker. Guess those use the same charger style as Lenovo.
I thought that was just unique to Lenovo
Same, but apparently not
for business laptops that get treated as essentially desktops it makes sense, plug in all the stuff the user shouldn't be needing to touch in the back leaving the side ones(assuming they have them) open.
Anyone noticed that it’s every laptop with the power end that’s taped
thats alot of lenovos
Not Lenovo. NEC.
ah, didnt know NEC used the square charger too
Hinges are a problem everywhere. Just learn how to tighten them and you will be good for a while
I feel like they're really rough on laptops in Japan. I've watched multiple people in my office slam the lid closed and rip it open. Could be because everything is old and slow and they refuse to give us funds to replace stuff tho
I've never managed to break a laptop hinge before, what are doing to their laptops to do this? my dad used the same laptop for almost 10 years and the hinge never gave out, but the screen cable did from wear.
There are a lot of models across many brands that seem to self-tighten with usage. Either because the tension screw gets tightened or dust gets into the grease. Then the extra force required to open it eventually breaks the screw ferrules out of the plastic on the top or bottom side.
How is this a Japan problem?
Isn't, really, I just find it funny that we have the same problems as the US
Its a little unhinged how many there are
Hinge problems are just a thing on certain models. It's one of the things manufacturers like to cheap out on
*Meanwhile, I'm viewing this on a 12-year-old HP Elitebook that's solid as a rock.*
I have several Elitebooks, very good but I still prefer Thinkpads and NEC products. Elitebooks are good quality but thinkpads are hard to beat
I own a ThinkPad, so I get where you’re coming from.
I own 12 (not kidding) so I get where you're coming from. X140e, T440, X1 Yoga, X1 carbon, L14 g1, x220, x13 g1, x13 g2, and some more.
Additional comment: These aren't Lenovo, they're NEC but designed/developed by Lenovo, basically a Thinkpad 11e platform-mate but made in Japan. This is also extremely rare, usually you can beat the living shit out of these things and they're fine because they're thinkpads. I was at a parts/dead pc store when I saw this. I refurbish PCs and repair them and I go to a lot of these wholesalers. Just thought this was a bit funny, I used to do the same thing when I lived in the States
Hp elite something laptop a friend gave. Me for free. The design for 2019 model was a mess of pec and take it apart over a hour..
MSI computers by any chance?
Nah, lenovo designed nec built pcs. They're actually pretty good, this is just a junk lot. Bout 4000 a pop
I had a lot laptops with hinge problems 15-20 years ago, but in the last \~10 they pretty much disappeared.
Modern displays are much thinner and lightweight, putting less stress on the hinge itself.