“I’m not the dictionary definition of a professional sales executive, but I’m terribly enthusiastic”
While New York snatches defeat from the jaws of victory, Lee orders an intervention to persuade a laptop manufacturer to kick their glue habit
The PC Pro reviews are worth twice the cover price. Insightful and genuine opinions written by real people who’ve had their mitts on actual products. PC Pro puts this info in your hands and it’s invaluable when dodging the marketing waffle of tech manufacturers. That’s great for readers of this fine magazine, but a large swathe of the computer-buying public foolishly don’t fall into this category.
How fortunate, then, that most laptops we sell in our shop have a sticker affixed to the chassis listing headline features that are so useful for the crucial retailer-customer interaction. This is where I meet expectations and close the deal, as in: “This one says the battery lasts all day,” before I respond instinctively with “Ha! Only if you don’t switch it on.”
Perhaps I’m not the dictionary definition of a professional sales executive, but I’m terribly enthusiastic. My blasé attitude to regurgitating marketing hyperbole is purely based on the thousands of used laptops I’ve seen where the batteries are dying or dead, like Sam’s. Her Asus E410 laptop was only around 18 months old and already the battery was refusing to charge. Although the machine still functioned when plugged in, dragging a 6ft cable around somewhat negated the “Move with style” strapline with which Asus’ marketeers had won Sam’s sale.
Asus was willing to accept hard cash to replace the battery, but that would mean shipping the machine back to base. Sam’s schedule didn’t allow for the uncertainty of delays as she didn’t have access to another laptop. What was required was a quality repair done for a fair price and to an agreed timescale. Apparently, these used to be popular when we had something called high streets.
This repair required two appointments. Sam delivered the laptop for the first where I stripped it down, took some notes before waving a multimeter and BatteryMon ( pcpro. link/343batterymon) at it. Having confirmed that it was indeed a dud battery, Sam collected it later that day and returned eight weeks later for the second appointment.
The two-month gap was purely how long it took me to get a replacement battery. The Asus E410 is an uncomplicated machine, retailing for under £200 depending on spec. Inside, the largest component was a 42Wh battery, screwed down and attached to the circuit board with a 7-core cable. It was elusive. Three of my battery suppliers didn’t have anything on their books, but luckily Google offered me some extraordinarily cheap unbranded ones... which I refused as they didn’t ship with a complimentary fire extinguisher. Getting desperate, I pondered using an identical spec battery affixed with tape or Sugru but I abandoned this as I like repairs to be repeatable (lightning does strike twice) and gluing something random into the chassis doesn’t sit well with me. Also, the seven cores of the connecting cable include sense wires, and who knows if some form of softwarebased battery identification will come into play? But the decider was that Sam travels for her job. An unsecured
“Gluing something random into the chassis doesn’t sit well with me”
battery rattling in her hand luggage won’t do her any favours at customs.
Thankfully, one of our suppliers tracked a genuine Asus part battery and it arrived eight weeks later. Sam arrived as agreed and I fitted the battery. That’s it, story over, no explosions or dramatic twist.
Sam’s experience may be similar to your own, as fitting a quality replacement battery into a laptop is certainly more complicated that it used to be. Don’t fret, however, because PC Pro brings good news.
Good for EU
Last December, the EU announced a battery directive that has the potential to stop all of us going through the nonsense that Sam had to endure. Within the next few years, all battery-powered products sold in the EU must accommodate replaceable batteries. There are a few exceptions for products that have sealed waterproof housings, such as electric toothbrushes and shavers, but even these must have batteries that are replaceable by a professional. Every other device must have a user-replaceable battery.
I would pause to allow you to bathe in the hope-filled warmth of that last sentence, but there’s more. In my quest for Sam’s battery, despite knowing the answer, I contacted Asus asking if I could buy the part. “Asus UK do not sell or supply individual spare parts, whilst I appreciate this may be of some frustration there are many reasons why we do not do this.” Sadly, Asus didn’t offer what these many reasons might be, but: “We can still offer a solution in the form of a chargeable repair.” Well, that’s a weight off my mind.
Asus isn’t unique in keeping its parts cupboard locked to unauthorised repairers, but the EU directive will also fix that. The batteries inside the devices must be available as a spare part for five years after the manufacturer has put the unit onto the market. Although there’s no legislation for pricing, this is a huge step forward – or backwards to the battery-swapping hedonism of the early 1990s, you decide.
The legislation also outlaws part-pairing or serialisation, so manufacturers can no longer software-block a battery swap, which should open the market for decent third-party compatible batteries to be used to keep repair prices down. It also opens the market for not-sodecent third-party batteries, but on the plus side, a smouldering £2 battery will also be easier to remove.
According to the European Environmental Bureau, between 90% and 100% of phones, tablets, laptops, headphones and smartwatches currently on sale contain an integrated battery, and they expect that the market for integrated batteries will double by 2030, so environmental thinking has driven much of this new law.
There are clauses holding producers of batteries sold in Europe accountable for human rights and environmental abuses throughout their supply chain, combined with targets for carbon footprints and clean energy. By 2031, 95% of the nickel and 80% of the lithium used in battery manufacturing must be recyclable, and there are additional targets for the reclamation of other
REEs such as cobalt and graphite. The plan is for this to become law by 2027. It will only apply to new products placed onto the market, but given the long development times of some technologies, many manufacturers may already be back at the drawing board. This is all very positive news.
Risky repair
While we’re talking about right-torepair (R2R), you may recall that in June 2022 New York state passed a ground-breaking bit of legislation known as the Digital Fair Repair Act. The idea was that manufacturers selling electronics within New York state (approximately 20 million citizens) must make tools, parts and instructions available to both independent repairers and consumers. The New York legislature passed it by 147 votes to two and caused wild celebration for the army of advocates, environmentalists and supporters who had been swatted away for years, trying to get some form of R2R legislation passed.
To make it law, the act just needed the signature of the Governor of New York, Kathy Hochul, but this was nothing more than a formality. Hochul finally signed it off on 28 December, with certain tweaks and amendments that repair evangelist Louis Rossman described as “watered down to make it functionally useless”. Hochul has amended the bill on the basis of safety, security and “concern for the heightened risk of injury from physical repair projects”.
The themes of safety, security and risk of maiming were the traditional red flags waved by anti-R2R lobbyists until 2021. Their points may be valid, of course. Many iPhone users are too young to recall the perils of swapping a
Nokia 5110 battery, and most never saw Kate Adie’s 1986 broadcast as billions were trampled to death fleeing from the lunatic attempting to re-tension the fan belt on a Vauxhall Chevette.
Thank heavens Hochul listened to the lobbyists, saving us all from a
“Many iPhone users are too young to recall the perils of swapping a Nokia 5110 battery”
repair-induced humanitarian apocalypse. Lobbyists usually trot out this guff with the additional gem that independent repairers can’t be trusted, but the whole “repair is dangerous” rhetoric was crushed in a 2021 report by the US’s own FTC called “Nixing the Fix” ( pcpro.link/343nix), so it’s desperately sad that debunked myths have reappeared to dilute the Act.
Nathan Proctor (@nProctor), senior director for PIRG’s Campaign for the Right to Repair, tweeted that he had been sent a list of the billnobbling lobbyists and was kind enough to send me a copy. Now we don’t know exactly what Apple, Google, HP, John Deere, Sony,
TechNet and many other companies wanted in return for their lobbying...
As our lawyers won’t support any supposition on my part, all I will say is that although the effectiveness of the bill has been slashed, there are still many positives in having an R2R law that can be tweaked. Countless other countries have proposed R2R legislation, including India, which has launched a national R2R portal ( righttorepairindia.in) that’s backed by the Ministry of Consumer Affairs (representing 1.3 billion people), which has decreed that repairing phones and laptops will become a consumer right. All tech manufacturers must realise that the walls are slowing closing in and that circular economies require repairfriendly product design. Which brings me to Tom’s laptop.
Screwed by glue
Strictly it’s his mum’s laptop, but Tom uses it for Roblox, Minecraft and school work. A tiny liquid spill onto the keyboard caused some familial panic, so they turned off the machine immediately, but after several days it refused to start. The laptop was a 14in Dynabook (formally Toshiba) Satellite Pro, and seeing it opened my eyes to a design nonsense that has been hiding in plain sight for years.
The power button on many 14in machines is now integrated into the keyboard, which is a sensible move for space-saving and lowering production costs but also turns the keyboard into a required component rather than a desirable one. Tom’s spill goosed his keyboard, but Dynabook’s integrated power button removed the option of using a USB keyboard because he still wouldn’t be able to power-on the machine.
“That’s not a proper fix, anyway!” I heard someone cry. It is if you can’t afford the price of a new laptop keyboard. As I’ve covered numerous times, keyboards are now plastic rivetted into the top-cover of a laptop, so the invoice to cover the parts and full system rebuild can be sizeable. A vital part of the repair procedure is transplanting the original working touchpad into the replacement top cover. Thankfully this is always simple as they’re screwed into position and no manufacturer would ever opt for a cheaper construction option, right?
Tom’s touchpad wouldn’t shift. From a business perspective, I’ve bought the part and spent nearly an hour rebuilding; I can hardly return a working laptop without a touchpad. In a dark recess of the internet, I found the Dynabook service manual, but this was no help so I had to trust to repairer’s instinct.
Always remember that laptops are mass-produced machines designed to be banged off a production line at rapid speed, so a linear construction process is in play. Merely work out how it was done and then work backwards. I deliberately broke the original top-cover seeking the touchpad’s screws. There were none.
Using a heat bag, I warmed a small area of the touchpad and heard the distinctive slurp of glue peeling from plastic. Needing more heat, I cracked open the hot-air de-solderer, whirled it around at somewhere between 100°C to 150°C for a few minutes, and Tom’s criminally glued-in touchpad was free. Speed was critical as I’d only softened the glue (making it tacky) so it would re-adhere when I dropped it into the new top cover.
I asked Dynabook why it had taken the decision to glue touchpads into place. “The advantage of using the adhesive tape is an optimised liquid protection barrier in comparison to a classic screw design,” read its statement in reply. “The tape also enhances the feel and use of the touchpad as the haptics are improved, as well as helping keep the dimensions of the laptop as thin as possible. It’s a similar approach to the mobile phone industry, and is helping progress and innovation within the notebook industry.”
Draw your own conclusions, but I can testify that the phone industry has progressed repair in the same way that fried peanut-butter and banana sandwiches progressed Elvis Presley. All of this was because Tom’s laptop didn’t have a standalone power button. Something to throw into the mix for your next purchase.
No. Just, no...
I just have time to glance at Reader’s Drives, and this month we have Mr E of South Yorkshire who brought all four pieces of his Dell gaming laptop in for a quote. No problem removing the keyboard and touchpad from this one as they were already out, as was the screen, which had two smashed hinges and was tethered to the chassis by a single unsevered cable.
I was asked to price a new battery and the cost of putting the machine back together, but as Mr E’s budget topped out at £200, this was literally a nonstarter. I’d like to say that smashed machines like Mr E’s are rare, but I can’t. Repairs are often far more complicated and expensive that you’d imagine, so when you get your PC Pro A List winner home, treat it nicely.
“It opened my eyes to a design nonsense that has been hiding in plain sight for years”