Replace Lily's laptop keyboard

PROBLEM: We need a new keyboard for Lily’s laptop because it’s running out of keys.

Lily’s been using an old Thinkpad E530 for a few years now and it’s starting to get a bit shabby :

She went through a stage where she’d pick keys off the keyboard. Sometimes all the pieces could be found and reassembled, but sometimes not. It was getting harder and harder to type anything for her and I was thinking we should probably just get her a new laptop.

But then again, a Thinkpad E530 is still a decent machine even if it 9 years old! And this particular E530 has history. I bought it secondhand for a couple hundred bucks ages ago and used it for years writing my other blog and doing some home coding. Eventually I handed it down to Max and it became his Roblox machine where it saw some solid years of gaming. He only outgrew it when he started getting into Fortnite and then it was handed down to Lily and she’s been using it solidly for years now as her Roblox and Youtube machine.

It’s usually covered in chippy crumbs and chocolate smears, the battery only holds about 5 minutes of charge and it hasn’t had a Windows refresh in forever so it takes ages to come back to life when you open the lid but… when it’s all warmed up and Lily’s in the zone, it’s still 100% fit for purpose.

A quick eBay search revealed that replacement keyboards and batteries are still available and reasonably priced so we got one of both, slung them in and BAM! we’re good to go for a few more years.