Hello. Many of the older thinkpads were regarded as being peak for the ability to repair and easily see into them at both the hardware and software levels.
I was wondering, what PC, if any, is similar in this regard? Aside from building your own PC ofc. Any opinions are welcome. Thank you.
You can absolutely repair with off the shelf parts, dell will sell you just about anything and will probably have it in stock for years, that’s literally what they do. What they typically don’t do is conform to consumer form factors/standards.
What I mean by “off the shelf” is the shelf at your local computer store, not Dell’s shelf.
Dell enterprise series of desktops (Optiplex and Precision) are upgradeable with off the shelf parts. The CPU, RAM, SSD, GPU, Network cards, etc. The same way a regular motherboard from any manufacturer does.
For example an Intel Core 8th gen system would POST with any 8th Gen CPU, any type of DDR4 ram and would boot from any disk. You cannot upgrade an 8th gen to a 12th or 14th gen from any brand, the only proprietary properties of these systems are the case or motherboard form factor and the power connectors.
Yes, as I said in my original comment. Anything that’s cheaper for them to make proprietary, they do. It hurts consumers, and it gets them an extra few cents for every machine they ship. It fills up landfills and costs resources that could have been used more wisely. It’s corporate greed, plain and simple.