Lenovo X1 Carbon

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The Lenovo X1 Carbon is a laptop series made by Lenovo advertised as portable, thin, durable while offering "full PC power and functionality".

This article outlines the various anti-consumer measures used in the Lenovo X1 Carbon series of laptops. Some concepts may overlap with Lenovo's general practices, a Chinese-American multinational technology company.

Hardware-vendor lockout (BIOS whitelist)

Most models of the Lenovo X1 Carbon will fail to post if the user changes their WWAN broadband card to a WWAN card that is not on the Lenovo Vendor Whitelist. If a user intends to use a WWAN card manufactured by another company, which are typically cheaper than the Lenovo factory-installed WWAN cards, the computer will not boot until the user removes the card. Evasion of these whitelists has been outlined in the Arch Linux wiki, but success is very limited.

Resulting cost for the consumer

Lenovo currently charges $298 USD to install a Quectel RM520N-GL 5G Sub6 from the factory.

Pricing options for WWAN card (Lenovo X1 Carbon gen2)

Some used options of similar modems can, at the time of writing, be purchased for $150 USD. 4G modems can be purchased for less.

Thinkpad X1 Carbon sub series

Repairability and upgradability

The 10th gen Lenovo X1 Carbon uses soldered RAM which makes upgrading it impossible. The display and the bezels of the LCD are glued together, making replacing just the LCD without replacing the entire lid complicated.