The Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 looks like a typical premium ThinkPad clean, compact, and built for professionals. But under the surface, this 14.5-inch workstation hides a design choice that betrays the ThinkPad legacy: a non-replaceable keyboard fixed with plastic rivets.
Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 breaks from modular tradition
For decades, ThinkPads were praised for their repair-friendly construction. While modern designs have slowly moved away from full modularity, Lenovo’s business laptops especially models like the T14 and L14 still offered easily swappable keyboards. A few screws, a quick slide, and you were done.
The Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 removes that convenience entirely. Lenovo not only ditches the top-loaded keyboard design in this model but also takes it a step further the keyboard has no screws securing it at all.
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A keyboard you can’t replace without damaging the device
Dig into the chassis, and you’ll find plastic rivets instead of screws securing the keyboard. Removing these rivets damages the palmrest or the keyboard frame. As a result, users can’t simply replace a faulty keyboard they’ll need to swap out the entire top assembly.
Here’s what makes this change problematic:
- No keyboard screws just plastic rivets
- Replacing the keyboard = replacing the palmrest
- Increased e-waste and higher repair costs
- Breaks with ThinkPad’s repair-friendly heritage
- Not disclosed in product marketing
This design may make manufacturing cheaper or assembly faster, but the trade-off hits users directly especially IT departments managing large fleets of laptops.
ThinkPad buyers lose a core feature without warning
Lenovo doesn’t advertise this downgrade. To most buyers, the Lenovo ThinkPad P14s Gen 6 looks just like any other business ThinkPad. Unless you’ve disassembled one or read teardown reviews, you’d never know the keyboard is permanently fixed.
For businesses and professionals who value repairability, this is a dealbreaker hiding in plain sight. Worse, it sets a precedent for future models to follow the same path.
