Are built in batteries the new thing for laptops now?

Just got a new laptop this week (Lenovo Ideapad 330) but was real bummed to find out the battery is built in with a screwed on back pannel covering all the internals instead of a more modular setup like my old HP laptop had that made accessing battery, RAM sticks & HDD much easier. I gotta say, I’m not a fan of this ‘restricted access’ setup newer laptops seem to be adopting to make it harder for us to replace or upgrade parts seemingly giving the factory warranty more power over us.

I am somewhat relieved to see it uses standard Philips head screws in the back instead of some tamper proof screws. That makes accessing the internals more plausible but I’m a bit hesitant to pop the thing open at the risk of damaging anything on the inside. Hate to have to use a flathead screwdriver to pop open the back which would further risk damaging the laptop. I am curious to know what the internals of the back of the Ideapad 330 looks like so if I do make any mods or reapers I know what to expect so if anyone post a pic if you can it would be most helpful.

Not sure on the difference between the 330 and the 330S but you might be able to find something with similar keywords.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Lenovo+IdeaPad+330S+Teardown/112444

Found this pic on the windows central forum. I'm like 95 percent sure this is an image of the internals for my laptop It looks like I can remove the battery by popping out the ribbon cable attaching the battery to the motherboard hopefully nothing else is soldered to it. Really wish it was a removable cartage style battery like the older laptops.

Depending on the design you'll either pull the plug off the board straight up or slide the connector out. Pretty sure with those they slide out. I used to repair laptops daily, they're not as delicate as you might initially think. Lenovo's in particularly are fairly easy to get into.

That picture might be it, that is exactly what my Ideapad 320 looks like. It is as simple though as remove the screws and use a flat head to pry open the laptop shell. Just make sure after pulling all the screws to remove the CD ROM.

On the upside the Lenovo's are better then many of the Dell's I work with. On so many of the Dell Latitudes I have to pull the keyboard out to remove 3-4 more screws to get the bottom plate out.

DMGrier said:

That picture might be it, that is exactly what my Ideapad 320 looks like. It is as simple though as remove the screws and use a flat head to pry open the laptop shell. Just make sure after pulling all the screws to remove the CD ROM.

On the upside the Lenovo's are better then many of the Dell's I work with. On so many of the Dell Latitudes I have to pull the keyboard out to remove 3-4 more screws to get the bottom plate out.

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HP's and Toshiba's are worse, but yeah Dell keyboards are a pain.

Really? I have never had the pleasure of opening up an HP or Toshiba. About a year ago I made a switch for my company from Dell to Lenovo. We seen about a 40% failure rate in the HDD's on the Latitude E5570 line and about 50% of our E5550 suffered from battery swelling. Gave Dell a call and as per them, "Well we don't have any active recall's on those line of laptops".

A lot of HP's rip themselves in half by design with how the hinges are made. They will literally rip themselves out of the base with even normal wear and tear after a year or so. Prying them apart to work on frequently would break clips or scuff the edges. Toshiba's are just cheap plastic everywhere. Dells at least have a good design usually.

Is that issue present even with HP's enterprise class machines? We considered HP but something told me to stay away so we landed on Lenovo.

DMGrier said:

Is that issue present even with HP's enterprise class machines? We considered HP but something told me to stay away so we landed on Lenovo.

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Nah their enterprise ones are much better, I'd still take a Latitude or ThinkPad though over a Probook. My boss rolls HP for our hardware and I frequently give him crap about it.

This is what I'm talking about, both older and newer designs on their Pavillions and Envys put a lot of pressure on the hinge to pull up from the bottom and push against the top to over time split them. Can't find very many good pictures but this gives you an idea. Even on their newer slimmer designs it's still the same.

Good enough pictures for me. This is good to know, I occasionally will help the staff at my work with their personal computers. I might turn down any HP's coming my way...

Wow. I've never had those kind of hinge problems on my old HP Pavilion laptop from 09. The only hardware issues I've had with mine is a loose charger port & the right button on the trackpad got stuck in. Seems like the one in the pic was abused unknowingly. From the look of the pic it seems that you were opening & closing it fast it while the back of the laptop was hanging slightly off the edge of a surface which is not good for it. Best to keep it on a flat even surface where all the edges are on the surface & open it slowly & gently especially with new laptops.

Krieger said:

Wow. I've never had those kind of hinge problems on my old HP Pavilion laptop from 09. The only hardware issues I've had with mine is a loose charger port & the right button on the trackpad got stuck in. Seems like the one in the pic was abused unknowingly. From the look of the pic it seems that you were opening & closing it fast it while the back of the laptop was hanging slightly off the edge of a surface which is not good for it. Best to keep it on a flat even surface where all the edges are on the surface & open it slowly & gently especially with new laptops.

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If you're careful with them yeah they're fine but it's inherently a shitty design and doesn't last as long as it should.