Do folks have any security concerns with Lenovo? An IT leader at a medium-large US bank recently told me they won't use Lenovo due to security risks from Chinese firmware (or something to that effect, referencing and older incident I don't recall). I've only seen such policies with defense players ten or so years ago.
That said, I've owned them personally for 10+ years, so looking for objective thoughts outside repairability as the article covers.
Would that not be a concern for most computers? Aren’t most of these motherboards manufactured in China (or at least close proximity to China? Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Malaysia, etc.)
But older Thinkpads (not sure about newer (~5 years old) ones, certainly not brand brand new models) have great support of alternative firmware such as coreboot and libreboot, other projects that disable Intel ME and the like.
It's the firmware that is made in China that's problematic, not where the motherboard is soldered. Framework assembled there, too, but use open source coreboot firmware. Doesn't get any better than that.
Almost every upgrade of firmware for my Lenovo laptop is CVEs recently. I have no doubts they share that with their government and keep some backdoors opened.
That said, I've owned them personally for 10+ years, so looking for objective thoughts outside repairability as the article covers.