PSA: Don't buy Lenovo

[GTaudiophile]

I was thinking about a new Thinkpad Yoga 14 when the 2nd gen comes out in May but now I dunno. I format/reinstall as soon as I unpack a laptop anyway. Heck, since it ships with Win8, Lenovo should PAY ME to take it off their hands. POS!

 

[NuclearNed]

Doesn't matter where I get a machine from, first steps are always reformat and reinstall from my own media.

this

 

[JEDI]

......

 

[nboy22]

I bought the Lenovo Y510p a year ago - http://shop.lenovo.com/il/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y510p/

It has been a really solid laptop so far, no overheating issues like what I've seen with Compaq/HP products. I did a lot of research beforehand and it came up as one of the top gaming laptops that wasn't crazy expensive. I am a motion graphics and 3D artist so I use it all the time for work too, and it keeps up pretty well with all of my tasks. I spent $1000 on it, and it came with dual graphics cards, 16gb ram, 1tb hdd, and an i7.

Haven't had to deal with support, and I'm on the original OS that came with the machine. All the companies nowadays seem to inject their BS bloatware into the computer, but I just uninstalled it and everything has been great since then.

The only gripe I have with it are that the mousepad firmware and/or hardware is pretty terrible and registers clicks that never happened. The battery life isn't great but then again I didn't expect it to be in such a high-powered laptop.

My girlfriend and I have owned multiple HP/Compaq laptops over the years and every single one of them either overheated themselves just sitting there idling, or had the infamous nvidia graphics card issue that seemingly plagued lots of HPs. I don't think I could ever see myself buying another HP product if I can help it. Their printers have really taken a downfall as well and their drivers are pretty terrible.

 

[Uppsala9496]

Have a laptop for work with that horrible touchpad and keyboard layout.

When I work remotely from home I just citrix in and use my own machine. Haven't turned the work laptop on in at least 6 months. Just too frustrating to type/navigate on.

 

[tortillasoup]

The people who complain about Apple's prices are too myopic to see past only hardware prices. I know with any of my Macs, I do not have to talk to Indian customer support. I can also drive to a local store and receive excellent customer service from an American.

but it's not a good value. Also I'm really surprised at the amount of hate for Lenovo. I've had pretty good support with their devices and I didn't find too much "crapware" loaded on their machines. I mean I guess you can call "features" such as Dolby Home Theatre, Soft key functions, touchpad software and "energy management" stuff as "junk" but I don't. Yeah I'm not happy with the memory foot print of all the crap that starts up, sucking up about 1.5GB of ram on my Windows 7 machine but what can I do?

I'm using a Z585 and while the HDD is a Samsung/Seagate HDD that is prone to failure and I'm about to replace it later this week, I don't really blame Lenovo specifically as a lot of OEMs use Seagate/Samsung drives. I've had to use HDD regenerator twice on this laptop to get the HDD to work properly again and that second time made me nervous enough to google the HDD to find out that my specific model HDD will eventually crash the drive heads into the disk.

 

[ch33zw1z]

I own a Lenovo Edge 14". it's been a solid laptop. I've never had the pleasure of calling support.

 

[ultimatebob]

I loved my old Lenovo T series, but then I never had to call tech support for it.

It died a horrible death caused by a naughty cat and a big glass of water.

The Dell XPS 15 that replaced it is an unreliable piece of junk. I had to make three hardware service calls on it in a year, and Dell's consumer tech support is horrid.

 

[Ns1]

but thank god it's not a macbook amirite?

 

[mmntech]

ThinkPad was one of the most reputable PC laptop brands for the longest time. Then that spyware scandal broke. Shows how quick it can be to ruin even a gold plated a reputation.

I switched to Apple about 5 years ago, and haven't looked back.

I've been using Apple laptops for ten years. They still make the best IMO. Though I'm not a fan on the recent direction they've been heading in. What with the hot snotted batteries and this single USB/charge port nonsense. Also that BS that disables TRIM on non-Apple branded SSDs in Yosemite.

 

[ch33zw1z]

You forget the Apple slogan: Assimilate.

If you want DIY, then Apple isn't for you.

 

[chubbyfatazn]

People bitching about Lenovo's shitty customer support... call IBM instead. They still do support for Thinkpads, and they've always been great to me. Either they 2-day ship me the parts I request or if I have to send it in I get it back in <= 5 business days. Usually 4 business days in my experience. Shipping (2-day for stuff they send you, next-day for stuff you send them) and packing materials always paid for by them.

<- ~20 Thinkpads since 1997. Will never touch a non-X/W/T-series Thinkpad, the others are just Thinkpad wannabes.

 

[AznAnarchy99]

My work just bought 30 Dell laptops. Two DOAs. 5-6 had some really bad build quality. Bezel around the screen was not sealed correctly.

If you have the money, just get a mac and bootcamp it.

 

[WackyDan]

ThinkPad was one of the most reputable PC laptop brands for the longest time. Then that spyware scandal broke. Shows how quick it can be to ruin even a gold plated a reputation.



I've been using Apple laptops for ten years. They still make the best IMO. Though I'm not a fan on the recent direction they've been heading in. What with the hot snotted batteries and this single USB/charge port nonsense. Also that BS that disables TRIM on non-Apple branded SSDs in Yosemite.

The spyware/adware was only only in the Lenovo branded PC's. The entire Think line was not impacted.

 

[Kushina]

Um. Welcome to 2 months ago bro.

I like their machines though, their reliable and last a long time, keyboard is always great. I always do a fresh install of Windows anytime I buy a machine due to the crap that still lingers after uninstalling.

 

[Harrod]

I've got a y50 that I picked up for 849 a few months ago, I got a 4700mq i7, with 16 gb of ram, 1tb drive and a gtx860.

I did spend about an hour stripping off all of the preinstalled crap on the system though.

 

[eng2d2]

My thinkpad broke after 9 years. The fan got really loud so I attempted to spray it with oil and I also removed it to iinspect it. The laptop died after my fan inspection. Never came back on.

I bought another thinkpad but they are not available new so I got a used one.

 

[tortillasoup]

My thinkpad broke after 9 years. The fan got really loud so I attempted to spray it with oil and I also removed it to iinspect it. The laptop died after my fan inspection. Never came back on.

I bought another thinkpad but they are not available new so I got a used one.

There is a "reset" thing you can do with the power button if the laptop doesn't come on anymore. An IBM tech told me how to do it over the phone and the laptop was able to come on again after that.

I believe this is the procedure:
http://www.masnick.com/2007/09/07/t...tton-code-to-bring-dead-laptops-back-to-life/

 

[Sheik Yerbouti]

Doesn't matter where I get a machine from, first steps are always reformat and reinstall from my own media.

So much this, it hurts.

 

[mrblotto]

I got a new T530 a couple years ago. I turn it on, Win8 pops up......D:

I took out the HD, replaced it w/an SSD, and tossed Win7 on it. Been going strong since. I think the Win8 HD is still around here somewhere lol

I do agree tho, the quality has suffered ever since IBM sold the brand. Ive heard good things about ASUS but all I've ever used is IBM/Lenovo *shrugs*

 

[mrjminer]

ASUS is garbage, on all product lines they have.

We have a small amount of ThinkPad 11e. The chassis is pretty durable for the price tag. However, the components themselves have a very high failure rate. I would guess around 25-30% have had an HW issue within 7 months of purchase, possibly more. I just started about a month and a half ago so it's an estimate, but I've had to ship like 5 to their depot due to HW failure. Things like LVDS cables going bad, DC jacks going bad, HDs, keyboard, and from what I've gathered they had some issues before I arrived.

Good thing we didn't go all in with them on this model. Also, Lenovo put the function key in the bottom left where the control key is supposed to be. Manufacturers messing with keyboards pisses me off to no end

Their business line support is good. Don't know about their consumer side of it.

 

[WackyDan]

People bitching about Lenovo's shitty customer support... call IBM instead. They still do support for Thinkpads, and they've always been great to me. Either they 2-day ship me the parts I request or if I have to send it in I get it back in <= 5 business days. Usually 4 business days in my experience. Shipping (2-day for stuff they send you, next-day for stuff you send them) and packing materials always paid for by them.

<- ~20 Thinkpads since 1997. Will never touch a non-X/W/T-series Thinkpad, the others are just Thinkpad wannabes.

I've been ThinkPad since 1996 except for that one year I had an Apple Powerbook in 98. ** Disclaimer, I worked for IBM, then Lenovo... Now I'm back at IBM. ThinkPads have been absolutely bulletproof for me and I have had many to flog. Given that I traveled near 90% of the time, they held up well.

I just got the Wife a new old stock T430s. I just got an M83 tower and IBM just issued me a new W540 ThinkPad to replace my W510.

MY only complaints?

- creating your own restore media is a broken F'd up process. Not a big deal. Call them, bitch and they send you the RCD's for free anyway. (Outlet machines don't come with RCD's as an option)

- The new keyboard/trackpoint/touchpad layout on the W540 is absolute shit to a long time ThinkPad user. I might kill myself over it. The loss of dedicated trackpoint buttons, and it being offset from center is driving me nuts though... I'll adapt.

 

[TwiceOver]

The problem is that my users need laptops with an actual docking solution. So that basically leaves Lenovo and Dell. I dont' know about you guys, but Dell makes a pretty laughable business class notebook.

 

[Ns1]

The problem is that my users need laptops with an actual docking solution. So that basically leaves Lenovo and Dell. I dont' know about you guys, but Dell makes a pretty laughable business class notebook.

HP?

 

[TwiceOver]

HP?

LOLOLOL That's funny.