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Comment by seanmcdirmid | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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).

> 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.

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