Repasting a MacBook

I love "the process was quite friendly" coupled with "two of the connectors broke when I looked at them and one costs hundreds of dollars to replace".

Kind of a thing that isn't uniquely difficult if you've ever worked in a laptop before, hard if you've never done it.

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The ZIF connectors for those fans aren't different or much more fragile than the ones in most other laptops.

The adhesives on certain cables tend to trip people up a bit with causing them to pull more than they should and damage things.

Gently working under and releasing the adhesives on those fan cables with the spudger (or a fingernail) before you even start trying to move/unplug them will work a lot better for not tearing things than grabbing them with tweezers will.

The TouchID cable is fragile. Still shouldn't be any serious risk of breaking if you know to treat it with caution, but that would always be the one to take the most care with and watch the most closely while you're working around it.

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The secondary challenge is pretty much just making sure you have all the cables out of the way when you're putting the board back in, because you've got a dozen or more that you need to watch the positioning of and/or tape out of the way.

I changed/replaced a bunch of things in my ThinkPad T14 without any issues, it's very easy, it is clearly made to open up and update. I wouldn't dare to do that with my MacBook Pro.

That "made to open up and update" aspect is exactly why I switched when my 2013 (Retina) MBP crapped out. I had just spent $300 CAD to replace the battery, which involved the glued-together mess of battery, top case, keyboard and trackpad. So when the charging circuit died on motherboard right after, I was not keen to spend much more to just get back to baseline. They wouldn't even countenance the idea of my giving them more money, so that I could get a board with more soldered-on RAM.

Switched to a P50 with twice as much RAM, and that's just one socket of four. Since upgraded to the max, with bigger SSD, it's still a beast.

Compare with Apple's use of glue and special screws, when Lenovo provides detailed service manuals on its web site.

A disk broke in my thinkpad under warranty. I told them I preferred to change it myself because I needed the computer. They just sent the new disk and I did it by myself.