India's repair culture gives new life to dead laptops

Hacker‑friendly and refurbished laptops

• Strong interest in “Frankenstein” ThinkPads and similar: upgraded boards, coreboot, deblobbed firmware, Linux‑first configurations.
• Several niche projects and shops (in India and abroad) retrofit old ThinkPads with modern CPUs/ports, but people note this scene feels fragmented and small compared to a decade ago.
• Framework, Valve, MNT Reform, etc. are cited as positive counterexamples to increasingly sealed, soldered laptops.

Value and capability of older hardware

• Many argue 8–10‑year‑old laptops are still very usable, especially with an HDD→SSD swap and RAM upgrades.
• Anecdotes of decade‑plus machines running fine for office, web, and light dev work; some explicitly enjoy old games and simpler software.
• Others note that very old machines (20 years) can feel painfully slow for modern web use.

Economics of repair in India and beyond

• Nehru Place (Delhi) comes up repeatedly: huge gap between official repair quotes and informal shops, with fast, cheap, ingenious fixes.
• Users warn about part quality and fraud (swapped components, non‑original parts), but also celebrate the craft and satisfaction of extending device life.
• Several argue India’s repair culture is driven by tariffs, high prices, and low wages; others push back, saying sustainability and craftsmanship also matter.
• Similar repair/refurb niches are described in China, Eastern Europe, Russia, and past Western experience.

Skills, tools, and learning pathways

• Commenters admire advanced rework skills (BGA, motherboard repair) and share budget tool recommendations, YouTube channels, and workflow tips.
• People describe formative childhood experiences hanging out in repair shops, dumpster‑diving, or hacking together fixes, and lament the loss of such environments.

Safety and environmental/policy debates

• Some worry about chemical exposure (lead, flux, solvents), though details are unclear; others focus more on e‑waste burning/scrapping than on repair itself.
• Big thread on making manufacturers pay end‑of‑life costs, extended warranties, and right‑to‑repair vs. the reality that any cost will be passed to consumers.
• Examples from Europe and Canada of producer‑responsibility and take‑back schemes; debate over whether heavy regulation stifles innovation or is necessary.

Cultural and societal angles

• Multiple nostalgic accounts of “nothing goes to waste” cultures versus modern throw‑away societies.
• Some frame India as “cyberpunk”: extreme inequality plus high‑tech bricolage; others see it as a model of constraint‑driven sustainability that richer countries should learn from.