Anybody totally not happy with Lenovo? (at work)

[foghorn67]

I used to be a huge IBM Thinkpad fan, and later a Lenovo fan since I thought they would continue the strategies and philosophies that they had together when one was the supplier.
However lately, I am about to make an abrupt change in opinion.
-Their model line and their peripherals fractured beyond recognition. For example, we must provide 3 different docking solutions.
-They have a huge supply problem. Or a huge problem with distribution and shipping. Or they hate us, so it takes weeks and weeks for an order.
-Their sales reps are mis-informed by their own management.
-QA process is absolute crap. We are having frequent failures at burn in. One batch had about 25% not pass.
-Build quality went downhill. Gaps in the seams are inconsistent. I wouldn't mind this normally, but on top of everything else, it's not inspiring any confidence.
-Drivers suck.

 

[LOUISSSSS]

how do you know 25% didn't pass?
are you basing all your info on a single computer or a handful of them?
check out notebookforum to see which brand is among the highest quality these days. i've had my x200 for almost 2 years now and its been nothing but trouble free and high quality computing.

 

[GeekDrew]

We buy (almost exclusively) Dell-brand equipment at work. I dislike them more and more as time passes.

- I really dislike the build quality on almost everything Dell -- my personal ThinkPad X200 is built 500x better than my Latitude D830.
- Same situation w/ the docking stations recently happened w/ the Latitude D-series to Latitude E-series change.
- With the exception of one single rep, I've found that all of Dell's reps are either incompetent or micro-managed into oblivion. It's easier to just use the Premier website.
- The Premier website sucks. More than I can possibly describe.
- More frequent driver issues
- Supply issues. I waited over 2 months for a bunch of PowerEdges. Average lead-time for an OptiPlex is around 2 weeks.

I know that we're talking about different companies here... just pointing out that I'm having nearly all of the same issues w/ Dell that you're having with Lenovo.

Oh, and for the record, I'm not necessarily a Lenovo fanboi. The drivers for my X200 haven't been great either.

 

[CurseTheSky]

It seems every laptop / notebook / netbook manufacturer has its down side these days. I've personally seen some really great units from both Lenovo and Dell (as well as Sony and Asus), and I've seen some that made me way to stay far, far away. Not as much with Lenovo, but certainly with Dell.

The fact that Dell's reps need to bounce you to ten different departments (and usually 4 different states and 6 different countries in the process) just to get a question answered blows my mind. That has literally (ok, maybe very slight exaggeration) happened to me on at least three or four occasions. I will say that some of their "premium" laptops, such as the now-extinct XPS line, are well built. Their lesser laptops such as Studio and Inspiron, not so much. I can only speak for their older business models, which I wasn't very impressed with. Their drivers section is half way decent, though.

 

[Emulex]

This. is why you use a channel reseller (lenovo,hp,etc except for dell). they handle your problems.

If you are one customer who buys $2M in laptops a year (every year) versus a company that buys 20-200M a year - who is going to have more clout?

Small price to pay (1-3% margin) to have superb service.

Lenovo puts too much junk on their laptops (thinkvantage stuff) man. It's gone from okay to insane lately. They need to go back to the basics.

 

[foghorn67]

how do you know 25% didn't pass?
are you basing all your info on a single computer or a handful of them?
check out notebookforum to see which brand is among the highest quality these days. i've had my x200 for almost 2 years now and its been nothing but trouble free and high quality computing.

Unlike you, I make sure I know what I am talking about.
They didn't pass our own burn-ins.

 

[foghorn67]

This. is why you use a channel reseller (lenovo,hp,etc except for dell). they handle your problems.

If you are one customer who buys $2M in laptops a year (every year) versus a company that buys 20-200M a year - who is going to have more clout?

Small price to pay (1-3% margin) to have superb service.

Lenovo puts too much junk on their laptops (thinkvantage stuff) man. It's gone from okay to insane lately. They need to go back to the basics.

We tried the ones we have accounts with, and they are not being helpful because they are waiting on stock as well.

 

[Emulex]

buy a topseller model - not CTO to avoid delays. new models always have problems but CTO even more so

 

[foghorn67]

buy a topseller model - not CTO to avoid delays. new models always have problems but CTO even more so

That might be the problem. But I'm not sure. I helped coordinate a small portion of a huge Lenovo refresh last year. We never had a supply issue.
And at my current workplace, we are ordering the same stuff. Just in a different scale.

 

[Emulex]

if you order a common model like topseller and have extra ram or image put on by the distributor they can forecast and have quick turnaround. your reseller can lock the stock for the base model and any accessories and ensure your ship date is met; including imaging.

if you customize direct from lenovo its just a cluster (and same with other brands). any kind of shortage can hold up alot of orders and since you can't ask them how much complete stock they have and put it on a hold in china - you wait. and wait.

 

[Bilsko]

I can't speak from the experience of a Hardware Admin...but my single-user experience with my X60 Tablet (3 yrs old now) is exceptionally good.
I'm looking at the X201 that they've just launched as a replacement and am a bit concerned that they're not offering the Intel SSDs as part of the configuration, but otherwise they appear to be offering the only i7 based ultra-portable (<13", < 3lbs) out there.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I find all clones have these problems. One of the things I hate the most is how everything is so proprietary, and keeps changing. Docking stations are a good example of this. Seems every time a new dell model comes out, you also need a new docking station. These need to be made universal. It's ridiculous really.

 

[hypn05]

Lenovo has two product line: Ideapad and Thinkpad.
Thinkpad continuous IBM product, and I think it's still one of the best (for work), very durable.

 

[Emulex]

dunno my old x300 has a samsung SLC so i assumed they stuck with samsung like dell.

now that Seagate and WD are players this should open up more for channel.

 

[coolVariable]

How about you add the following to the list:
- just blatantly lies in their specs (e.g. SATA2 which is limited to SATA1 speeds, missing Expresscard 34 adapter, sound mixing issues, ...........)
- built quality is sub par (tablet bezel problems anyone?)
- does not provide actual installation media (IF at all they provide recovery media which come with all their CRAPware)
- their pricing structure is worse than the pricing structure of cable companies (try getting a straight price from them without being ripped off; there is so many discounts, coupon codes and discount purchasing plans ... it is disgusting. the only thing missing is their phone sales people asking for a bribe.)

 

[Emulex]

yeah the hp elitebook is nice - very little crapware - like the hp workstations - i was just astounded at how much crapware they put on them Lenovo these days. but if you are going to have us image your sysprep'd ghost images direct from channel then i suppose you can do a clean install of what you want or not.

businesses (corporate) do not buy using coupon codes - they buy with volume and special pricing. the Crapware is the main thing.

their ingrained power management kept turning the wifi on battery down to minimum power - of course that sucked - o/s was already loaded. apparently with XP downgrade you can not have the same level of "power" granularity as vista/win7.

I dunno i guess you get what you pay for. hp costs more but if you are buying hp servers and desktop and printers you could probably roll your cumulative company volume towards more discount.

 

[foghorn67]

if you order a common model like topseller and have extra ram or image put on by the distributor they can forecast and have quick turnaround. your reseller can lock the stock for the base model and any accessories and ensure your ship date is met; including imaging.

if you customize direct from lenovo its just a cluster (and same with other brands). any kind of shortage can hold up alot of orders and since you can't ask them how much complete stock they have and put it on a hold in china - you wait. and wait.

Not sure if we addressed this but we go through a major distributor buying top seller models. And they have the same issue we do.

It's getting so bad, we see a wavy keyboard or a crappy misfitting bezel, we just take pics of it and return it. How in the hell is this passing their own standards. I have a T30 (loaned it to a friend), work with a T61, and the new models don't compare in build quality.

 

[Emulex]

THIS. is why i rock the hp elitebook - you have nailed the topic right on the head. X301 was the last of the best of breed.

hp elitebook has been rock solid consistently. You do realize if you buy volume - you can usually have your reseller hold stock like 10 or 20 (if you guarantee to buy them) for overnights - especially when custom imaging them with acronis/ghost/whatever.

You really didn't think when lenovo(chinese) bought IBM's brand they would continue to lose money on making quality laptops

 

[foghorn67]

THIS. is why i rock the hp elitebook - you have nailed the topic right on the head. X301 was the last of the best of breed.

hp elitebook has been rock solid consistently. You do realize if you buy volume - you can usually have your reseller hold stock like 10 or 20 (if you guarantee to buy them) for overnights - especially when custom imaging them with acronis/ghost/whatever.

You really didn't think when lenovo(chinese) bought IBM's brand they would continue to lose money on making quality laptops

Are you repeating yourself just to piss me off? Our reseller can't hold stock because they haven't been able to catch up on their inventory.

--edit-lol, didn't see the last line. One would hope.

 

[evident]

i got an ideapad y530 for my GF and it's been a pretty solid laptop. However, there are no official windows 7 64 bit drivers for it, which ticks me off!!
I feel like their support page is a little bit confusing vs other brands such as dell and sony, but still better than acer.

 

[WackyDan]

i got an ideapad y530 for my GF and it's been a pretty solid laptop. However, there are no official windows 7 64 bit drivers for it, which ticks me off!!
I feel like their support page is a little bit confusing vs other brands such as dell and sony, but still better than acer.

Y530 is older, discontinued and it is consumer product which is why you probably will not see Lenovo make the investment in supporting 64 bit drivers on it. Not any different from other vendors in this aspect in regard to their older products.

That said, how many drivers are native to the win7 64bit install for that platform... In other words, what are you missing? You can probably find them right from the OEMs for the various sub-components in that system.

 

[coolVariable]

Y530 is older, discontinued and it is consumer product which is why you probably will not see Lenovo make the investment in supporting 64 bit drivers on it. Not any different from other vendors in this aspect in regard to their older products.

That said, how many drivers are native to the win7 64bit install for that platform... In other words, what are you missing? You can probably find them right from the OEMs for the various sub-components in that system.

yeah - at least ibm mostly uses pretty standard components so you can use the OEM drivers.

Totally agree though that their download/support website is one of the worst (actually THE worst IMO).
I like Dell's download/support website as far as it is sorted et al but it drives me up the wall that you enter your service tag ... and the damn website still shows you drivers for components that are not included in your configuration (mostly networking, graphics and drives).

 

[TheStu]

I recommended to my friend that he get a ThinkPad since I didn't want to be his tech support if he got a Mac. Unfortunately, I am still his tech support since a screw fell off the drive door, it arbitrarily stopped working one day (the RAM needed to be reseated, which was the single most difficult RAM work I have done on any laptop, ever), the palmrest is flimsy and hollow feeling, and the chassis flexes as you type.

My understanding from before was that when it came to quality assurance, sturdiness and build quality, you could count on Thinkpads. They (at least I recall them being so) used to be more expensive than the competition, but they were worth every penny since they could stnad up to the needs of business clients, transporting the machine back and forth daily. It used to be from my understanding that much like Macs, Thinkpads were more expensive, but worth the money since they were so well built.

It is disheartening to hear that my friend's Thinkpad might be turning into the rule and not the exception.

 

[GeekDrew]

What model is your friend's ThinkPad?

 

[WackyDan]

There were a rash of either 61 series or 400/500's that the drive cover screws were falling out on... Happens to every vendor sooner or later... Something doesn't get designed quite right, or torqued tightly enough in manufacturing.

I remember the old i series ThinkPads had issues with the ribbon cable feeding the monitor... All because the sticky tape that held the connector to the planar wasn't sticky enough or was somehow substituted by the company contracted to build them.