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Lenovo X1 Carbon
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.
Hardware Vendor Lockout (BIOS Whitelist)[edit | edit source]
Some (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[1]. 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 ArchLinux wiki, but success is very limited. The intent behind this vendor-lockout is ambiguous, and not well-documented officially by Lenovo. Lenovo currently charges $298 USD to install a Quectel RM520N-GL 5G Sub6 from the factory[2]. Some used options of similar modems can be purchased for $150 USD[3]. 4G modems can be purchased for even less[4].
