What decides how long a laptop lasts?
Whether you can replace the parts that wear out. Every battery loses capacity as you charge it, storage fills up, and software wants more memory every year. A laptop that lets you swap those keeps going. One that doesn't gets replaced.
Repair cafés typically see laptops at 6 years old, and they fix more than half of them. Two faults are the hard ones. A screen fault gets fixed only about a third of the time, and a laptop that's dead or losing power about a quarter of the time.
Repair figures come from Open Repair Data, which logs repairs at volunteer repair cafés: 16,296 laptop repairs, 5,429 of them with the laptop's age.
Which laptop brands last?
HP has the best repair record. Repair cafés fix 64.4% of the HP laptops they see and write off 11.8%, the lowest share of any brand we rank. Lenovo is next at 60.9%. Asus, Dell, Acer and Apple all land between 54% and 57%.
So why isn't there an HP here? Two reasons. A third of HP's records are software problems, the fault that gets fixed most often, against 15% of Lenovo's and 12% of Apple's. And a brand's record covers every laptop it's made for years, while you're buying one model now. iFixit gave most of HP's 2017 to 2021 EliteBooks 9 or 10 out of 10, but we couldn't find a score for a newer HP laptop, so we can't vouch for one you can buy today. The two ThinkPads here score 9 and 10.
Framework has too few repair records to rate yet.
Brands need 100 or more records to be ranked: HP has 2,504, Lenovo 1,588 and Apple 1,120. Fix rates less than 3 points apart count as a tie.
What we looked at
We judged each laptop on four things:
The battery. Can you replace it yourself, and how hard is it?
Memory and storage. Can you upgrade them later, or do you have to buy enough up front?
Repairability. iFixit's score where there is one, and which parts the maker lets you replace.
Repair records. How each brand's laptops do at repair cafés.
Disclosure: Some product links on Sundr are affiliate links. If you buy through them, we may earn a small commission. This doesn't influence our analysis. See our full affiliate disclosure.
Which laptops last?
Lenovo ThinkPad T14 Gen 7. Best for Longevity - Repairability: 10/10 (iFixit) · Durability: 10/10 - Price: ~$2,281 · Check price on Amazon
The laptop to buy if you want to keep it. iFixit gave it 10 out of 10. The battery comes out without tools, and iFixit lists the memory, SSD, keyboard and USB-C ports as replaceable. Lenovo also has the second-best repair record of any brand we rank.
Trade-offs: The models we link on Amazon have a basic 1920 by 1200, 60Hz screen. It's a work laptop first. The amazon.ca model has a smaller 256GB SSD, which you can swap later.
Framework Laptop 13. Most Upgradeable - Durability: 9/10 · Parts: sold by Framework - Price: not sold on Amazon · See it at Framework
The laptop designed to be taken apart. Framework says every part is replaceable with the one tool in the box. Memory and storage are standard parts you can upgrade, and Framework sells spares, including keyboards and the plug-in port modules. iFixit gave the first Laptop 13 a 10 out of 10 in 2021.
Trade-offs: It isn't sold on Amazon, so we don't track its price, and we earn nothing on the link. iFixit's teardown of the first model found a weak spot: the USB-C sockets behind the plug-in ports are soldered to the mainboard. And Framework has too few repair records for us to rate.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14. Best Premium Laptop - Repairability: 9/10 (iFixit) · Durability: 9/10 - Price: ~$2,098 USD · Check price on Amazon
Redesigned for 2026 around repair. iFixit gave it 9 out of 10, and HotHardware found the battery, SSD and wireless card user-replaceable and within reach once the bottom cover is off.
Trade-offs: The memory is soldered, so buy all you'll need. It costs more than the T14 Gen 7. If the price above is in US dollars, it's amazon.com's, about CA$2,950: when we checked, amazon.ca's lowest offer came from a third-party seller at far more. Check Lenovo's own Canadian store too.
MacBook Air 13" (M5). If You Need a Mac - Durability: 8/10 · Repairability: no iFixit score yet - Price: ~$1,790 · Check price on Amazon
The honest pick for macOS. It has no fan, so there's nothing to clog with dust or wear out, and Apple rates the battery at up to 18 hours of video streaming.
Trade-offs: It's the only laptop here without an iFixit score; we haven't found one for this model. iFixit called battery repairs on the previous Air tough but doable. You choose the memory and storage when you order it, so buy what you'll need for years.
Our top picks are side by side on DurableFinds.
Durability scores are our editorial ratings, not measurements. Repairability scores are iFixit's.
What breaks on a laptop?
Of the faults we can sort, software problems are the most common and the easiest to fix. Hardware faults are the ones that end laptops.
- Software: the most common fault, fixed 72% of the time.
- Battery and charging: fixed about half the time. A battery you can replace yourself turns this into a parts order.
- Screen: fixed 34% of the time, and 23% of screen faults end with the laptop written off.
- Dead or losing power: the worst odds. Only 24% get fixed, and 47% are written off.
So pick a laptop whose battery and storage you can replace, and look after the screen.
Fault types are sorted from volunteers' notes by keyword, so they're approximate. About half the notes don't name a fault we can sort. Software covers notes about slowness, crashes, start-up, updates and passwords; dead or losing power means the note says only that, with no other clue. Software: 2,938 records; battery and charging: 1,343; screen: 1,153; dead or losing power: 361.
What should you look for when shopping?
A battery you can replace. It's the part every laptop wears out. Check the maker's service manual or iFixit before you buy.
Memory you can upgrade, or enough of it. If you can't add memory later, as on the X1 Carbon, or you pick it when you order, as on the MacBook Air, buy what you'll need for years.
An iFixit score. iFixit scores laptops on how easy they are to take apart and repair. See its laptop repairability scores.
Before you replace one, check what broke. If it's software, the battery or charging, the odds are good: repair cafés fix 72% of software faults and about half of battery and charging faults.
Compare Brands
See how these laptop makers compare on repair records:
- Laptop brand reliability rankings. HP, Lenovo, Asus, Dell and more, ranked by repair success rate
- HP vs Lenovo laptops: which brand is more reliable?
- Apple vs Lenovo laptops: which brand is more reliable?
- Dell vs Lenovo laptops: which brand is more reliable?
- Dell vs HP laptops: which brand is more reliable?
- Asus vs Lenovo laptops: which brand is more reliable?
- Should you repair or replace your laptop?