Lenovo, the Treasure Hunter of Tech | Hacker News Reader

Lenovo, the Treasure Hunter of Tech

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59 pointsvinhnx47 comments

Thinkpads are truly awesome - but the problem is that lenovo is buying into the macbook hype machine without putting thought around it's design process.

for example, I recently bought a T430S as opposed to one of the newer T440 ranges. the touchpad is an abomination - and plus they soldered one of the RAMs to the motherboard. Seriously ? One of the biggest differentiators that thinkpads have is their upgradability.

I can easily upgrade the CPU of a T430 series [1] and bump up the ram to 16 gb. the newer thinkpads lose both those abilities. The Thinkpad designers have not been able to make up their minds on what they want to build - which is why we see lines like T430/T430s/T430u/T430e and T440/T440s/T440p.

[1] http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo/684625-t430-upgrade.h...

I have heard through coworker word of mouth, through discussions with lenovo engineers, that the touchpad changes have not been positively received even by the internal engineers. Pretty much everyone I've talked to (including my unfortunate fiancee who had the misfortune of buying one of these) thinks that touchpad is the worst thing since various laptop producers started going towards chicklets. I really wonder how these companies push forward despite (from my point of view) SIGNIFICANT customer pushback. Am I really stuck this far in an engineering bubble, or are things really so disconnected?

I actually like the touchpad on my T440s, it took some getting used to compared to my old T430s though...

It is really that bad. I sent a new machine back - it was worthless for me [1].

For me it is not so much the touchpad changes (I do not use the touchpad) as the lack of physical trackpoint buttons. But even when I tried the new touchpad I absolutely hated the touchpad-is-a-button functionality. It does NOT feel good, sounds horible and is far from being ergonomic. For me personally it would be best to be able to buy Thinkpads just with trackpoint + buttons, but without touchpad.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7729110

Then you have something like the X1 Carbon which compounds the touchpad issues with a wacky keyboard layout.

I can't agree enough. They don't seem to understand that they're destroying a great brand. If they want to create minimalistic MacBook-like designs, they should come up with new models. But at least some T, W & X Thinkpads should stay true to their IBM origins.

Thinkpads are workhorses. MacBooks are mostly targeted towards the consumer market. Glossy screens are just one proof of this. They are great machines. I type this from a MacBook Air. But better laptops should exist for developers. However, manufacturers seem too busy copying Apple's design cues and upgrading their enormous product lines.

The thing is they have created a gazillion other indistinguishable lines, which I presume are even junkier due to not having the head start of IBM designs.

Sometimes I question whether my recent upgrade to a T61 was a good investment. A faster processor and more than 8GiB would be nice. Power efficiency and LCD technology has gotten a lot better and I could learn to live with a shortscreen. And playing with a T431 for a short time, the changed trackpoint buttons didn't seem that bad.

Then I read articles like this and their comments and remember the reasons I generally keep my head in the sand for the technology upgrade cycle.

On a tangential, what's the deal with glossy instead of matte screens on all mainstream laptops? Is it that they're more durable and easier to clean? Do the colors look better?

They look shiny on a best buy display bench.

That's the only reason. Everyone buys the shiny thing.

It's a nuisance, but not that hard to fix with a screen film.

Color saturation is also much better on a glossy screen; matte screens will dilute colors and look less vibrant. So there is a real benefit to it, but detractors like to ignore that and pretend its just because its "shiny".

My X1 is matte, and therefore its colors aren't as vibrant as a MBP (more washed out, its easy to tell), but there are advantages to matte, like lessened glare. So it is literally a "wash."

Cannot agree enough. I have ordered the T440s and after playing 2 days with it I sent it back and started a hunt for a T430s. I was lucky to get one through a distributor where it was used for demonstration.

For me the absolute no-go was the lack of physical trackpoint buttons - as I am a trackpoint user and normally always switch off the trackpads. So on the T440s (and I believe on all the new Thinkpad series) if you switch the trackpad off you do not have buttons any more (under Linux)! WTF! And if you switch it on, then the click on the virtual buttons is moving the mouse cursor when you try to click on it! It drew me absolute crazy. Even under Windows, where the virtual button support is better, the use is way more unergonomic than before (for example you cannot anymore keep the thumbs on the buttons and click by pressure - now you have to lift and then press the thumbs). Unlike other Thinkpad users I actually like the feel of the new keyboards, but Lenovo managed even there to screw things up, with every model: On the 30s (T430) they forgot the spaces between groups of 4 F-Keys. In the 440 they have them, but they screwed up the trackpoint-buttons. And on the new X1 Carbon they do not have F-Keys anymore at all! I still do not understand how they could screw up the most distinctive characteristics of the Thinkpads (absolute best keyboards, absolute best trackpoint + accessible design).

I hope they will wake up.

Yeah, I was minutes away from buying an X1 Carbon until I saw the home and end keys where my pinky expects Ctrl to be mapped.

May I cite you in my blog? You pretty much nailed it down!

Maybe some remedy for you: Managed to somewhat re-enable the old "IBM" design by making the top 10% of the the touchpad insensitive to mouse movement, while still detecting _where_ you press. So I basically "emulate" three buttons at the top, while the rest of the touchpad, truly is a touchpad:

http://rscircus.org/post/72978821261/t440s-clickpad-fix-whic...

dude - that config is awesome. I have T430s which is better by far (sorry !), but here's my config to configure the touchpad sensitivity, disable two finger right click, etc.

https://gist.github.com/sandys/6030823#file-t430s-configurat...

Can you add your configs to gist.github.com as well - helps me clone it.

Sorry that I reply so late - was on travel. Go ahead and link me. And thanks for your activism to get good Thinkpads again.

All well and nice but:

What is the current Thinkpad worth its once trustworthy brand? The way to drive and keep the profits seams to be to lure customers who trusted a brand for years into buying quite frankly ridiculously manufactured surrogate products with the brand-label in the right place... well maybe turned 180 for the new coolness factor ;)

I used to own a ThinkPad Edge-I bought it when I was much poorer than I am now, and needed a decent laptop. It was nice to have a relatively cheap computer with the TP branding, but over time I came to realize that it was nothing more than a generic cheap 14 inch laptop with the TP branding.

When you consider what TPs used to be, and what people think of when they think of TPs...well, either the Edge wasn't a true ThinkPad, or Lenovo is seriously diluting the brand. See also the ThinkPad tablet they came out with.

Your first suspicion was correct. The Edge line aren't true Thinkpads at all. Even the most recent mainline Thinkpads are a significant departure from the values of Thinkpads in the past.

Fascinating story. Lenovo's rise to prominence reminds me of Haier, especially the presence of a charismatic, ambitious leadership figure not content to settle for just the domestic market. But why are there raccoons all over the article?

Raccoons are often considered to be intelligent trash scavengers.

I use their P780. I bought it for the battery and I was right the battery is beyond excellent and I am saying this based on 2 day's use with 3G ON.

But the rest of the things on that phone are either bad or just mediocre. Not to mention the bloat and poor software leave a lot to be desired and a near certainly that there's nothing post 4.2. On top of that they use MediaTek that apparently stops custom ROMs from coming into picture.

I've had 4 ThinkPads - T21, T42, R60, and now a T510 which I bought new in 2010. My plan is to buy a MacBook next time around, because when you look at price for performance, the MBP Retina blasts pretty much everything out of the water - even the T530 - Apples pricing over the last 4 years has come down, and Lenovo has stayed the same.

Typing on an ideapad Y510p - its an excellent machine. I know that phones and tablets have the seat at the head table right now, but I can't imagine not having a laptop sitting on the kitchen table. Others seem to be dropping that ball ... or at least racing to the bottom. Lenovo laptops always seem a smart choice.

Next up: How Lenovo Escapes Heat Death

I can feel the end of American economic might. Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp will not cut it. Pretty sad.

Facebook is a 10 year old company. Lenovo is a 30 year old company. Might want to give Facebook a little more time before making comparisons.

Lenovo...king of the low margin low growth PC market. The end is nigh for the Americans? When they start making real yuan, let's talk. Btw, why is business week blocked by the GFW?

It seems to me that Lenovo's modus operandi is to buy high quality brands with a great deal of goodwill from loyal customers, and then drive down costs by producing steadily more inferior products in order to soak up the difference as profit.

It's essentially a slash-and-burn strategy though. Eventually customers realize that the brand doesn't mean what it used to mean and move on. I used to be happy to pay a premium for Thinkpads because they were unparalleled in for quality and ergonomics. I've decided that my T410 will be the last Thinkpad I will own. I don't know what my next laptop will be, but I know for sure it will not be a Thinkpad.

What other examples are there besides the Thinkpad line? I would disagree that Motorola can be considered a high quality brand when it comes to smartphones. Yes, their recent X and G were really good phones for the price, but many Americans still see Android and Galaxy as synonymous, so I wouldn't say Moto is high quality.

I'm coming from a different POV from you when it comes to laptops. I'm 20 years old and started off with cheap laptops. But I've always lusted after Thinkpads and now a Yoga Pro 2 after having tried one so for me, the Lenovo brand looks really appealing. I haven't found any other hardware that appealed as much besides a Macbook.

Yoga pro 2 is great if you don't need a good trackpad. If you don't want to carry around a mouse, there is no other choice but the fruit.

Typing this from a Thinkpad with a trackpoint, I couldn't disagree more :) (though I'd as soon chop off my fingers as use the Dell version of the trackpoint).

My X1's trackpad is horrible, but thankfully it comes with the eraser mouse, which is accurate even if it hurts my finger tip. The Yoga has no such option like the X1 does, which is why I would avoid it.

Why can't just one PC vendor who can make a decent trackpad...

To the downvoters, the Yoga 2 Pro really doesn't have a trackpoint as parent implied, just the trackpad + touch.

There is a ThinkPad Yoga that does have a trackpoint though. It's different from the other Yoga models, which are in the IdeaPad line.

Seems like Lenovo is determined to test the limits of just how many models their customers will tolerate. They're creating a new model for practically every feature instead of creating new options for existing models that are tried and true. I'd prefer they quit diluting the classic ThinkPad lines with experimental models, and up the quality on IdeaPad because they already have a value line called 3000 or something.

When I can find a trackpoint with a high res (2k+) screen I'll start shopping again.

Yes, there is one Yoga that has the trackpoint, but this is the one with the low res screen that isn't very interesting. I really want a Yoga 2 Pro, but the lack of a decent pointing system, even if it is the finger hurting trackpoint, bother me. I might just have to man up and buy an MacBook Pro.

I use a Yoga Pro 2 as my work laptop, and it has -- by far -- the worst trackpad I've ever used. You have to push hard to get that thing to click.

I have a quasi-conspiracy theory that Lenovo made the trackpad so difficult as a way to nudge consumers towards the touchscreen (the Yoga 2 is a touchscreen/laptop hybrid).

Motorola has great goodwill from feature phones day. For 20 year probably they were the top when it came to durability and quality. I have seen one of their non sturdy phones fall from 2 floors height and work flawlessly after that.

RAZR also made a killing.

I have to question whether this is actually true though. Yes, they have deviated somewhat from the design of older Thinkpads, but I think it's debatable whether they're objectively worse, for the most part. I will say that things like the capacitive F key row on the X1 Carbon are pretty clearly a bad idea, but other minor changes to keyboard layout and even the clickpad thing I would argue could be considered better if you take someone who has never used either version and train them to use both and ask which they prefer. I personally have a T440s and it's a great machine, and I exclusively use the trackpoint. Because the clickpad actually depresses like normal buttons, it's still pretty natural to use it like a more standard trackpoint with buttons.

I mean, you can't say whether if IBM still owned Thinkpad they would not be making similar design decisions in order to appeal to mass market tastes. I feel like there's a sense in the Thinkpad community that the new Thinkpads are getting steadily worse but I would argue that that's more due to ingrained preferences rather than objective facts. It's just that because Lenovo is a Chinese company it's easy to blame the perceived downfall of Thinkpad as Lenovo driving costs down.

It is largely anecdotal, but you do see a lot of the same issues come up. I bought an x220, and a year later I've sworn off Thinkpads. The palmrest has cracked - a common problem for the x220, documented on forums - and Lenovo refuses to fix it. Similarly the keyboard has turned to complete mush - whereas my old X60 keyboard still feels good as new. The entire chassis has warped over time as well, which means it doesn't sit completely flat on a surface - another documented issue on thinkpad forums. And my first battery, a 9 cell Sanyo, died after about 9 months of careful use - again a well known issue on the forums.

So this is why a lot of people perceive quality has tanked at Lenovo. IBM thinkpads did have their own problems (like bad screens), but in general were built like tanks and lasted years.

> I've decided that my T410 will be the last Thinkpad I will own.

I own a T 430. As I have no experience with older models of Thinkpad but am entirely satisfied with this laptop, I'm curious to know what exactly you think is wrong with the current Lenovo offerings.

Even if the T430 and T230 generation changed the keyboard, the Thinkpad line only tuned sour recently IMO, with the T440 and T240. They removed the trackpoint buttons, changed the layout and made upgrading a real pain: you now have to take the machine apart to upgrade the RAM/HDD.

> I don't know what my next laptop will be, but I know for sure it will not be a Thinkpad.

I bought a ThinkPad earlier this year and returned it soon after. While the keyboard was pretty damn good, the rest of the laptop felt poorly designed and fairly janky, with resources spend on image rather than good design. The buying experience shipping from China sucked as well.

I ended up going for a Dell Latitude, which feels solid all round, still has an acceptable traditional keyboard, traditional mouse buttons, a surprisingly responsive nipple, and has a bunch of clearly thought out attributes... like all the ports being on or toward the back.

True story. :) We, a company of nearly 50,000, just switched from Lenovo to Dell as our primary laptop/pc supplier. A) the new models are far inferior to the old ones, B) their pricing hasn't dropped to reflect that, and C) their lead time, even for "top seller" models, is very inconsistent.

As an owner of 4 ThinkPads, I agree their quality has decreased significantly. But I'm still locked into them because no one else offers me a TrackPoint. I very strongly prefer a TrackPoint to any trackpad, so while other manufacturers don't offer them, I don't even look at their laptops... (I'm aware that Dell does have a couple of TrackPoint models and I will look into them when I have to make my next laptop purchase).

HP EliteBooks used to have trackpoints - not sure if they still do though.

I think you need to learn a lot more about the US economy, if you think WhatsApp is representative of the world's largest and most productive manufacturing economy.

The US is the largest in: software, internet, communications, media, manufacturing, pharma / biotech, defense contracting, aerospace, energy, finance, agriculture

And somehow you think Instagram is a big deal? Laughable. Any idea how many $10 billion companies there are in the US?

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