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Lenovo's New PCs and Laptops
pimpimpim writes "WebWire is reporting that Lenovo has introduced their 3000 line, a budget line of PCs and notebooks." From the article: "Researchers, scientists and product design teams from China, Japan and the U.S. combined Lenovo's heritage in enterprise and consumer PC technology to design an optimal computing experience for small businesses. The Lenovo 3000 product line features several new desktop and notebook models with the latest processor technologies in a new silver chassis."
You were great while it lasted.
Look back in a year or two and see how many of the think* lines remain, my bet is one or two models of each just to keep the enterprise's whith competent it managment, and the cheap ones for the rest.
/* FUCK - The F-word is here so that you can grep for it */
C|net had a story on this a while back too, and with pictures. Can't help feel that these are not going to offer the rock solid reliability that IBM's are/were known for.
Windows is like decaf - it tastes like the real thing, but it won't get you through the day.
Remember when GM and Ford used to positively dominate the US car market, until the Japanese came in during the 70s? Datsun absolutely destroyed muscle car sales, and Honda made the econobox a reality.
Fast forward today, and now we have Dell, the GM of cars (ubiquitous despite questionable styling and quality), with nowhere to go but down, in the face of Chinese manufacturers like Lenovo who have inherited IBM's great tech, and have the workforce and facilities to make new machines for rock bottom prices.
As a Mac user, I tend to find super-cheap computers just disgusting, but I can't help but look at Lenovo's upcoming N100 with envious eyes.
Take off every sig. For great justice.
More info and pics on the new Lenovo's.
No Track Point?
I've been a ThinkPad fan for a while now and just bought some new ones for my wife and myself. I really hope Lenovo keeps up the quality that they (thinkpads) have been known for. Time will only tell, I guess. I'll be looking for reviews and user comments on these new systems... let's hope they don't become just another Dell shitting out crappy, cheap computers...
---John Holmes...
I thought the article was maybe way out of date for a moment when I read this bit about these laptops,
and these bits about the desktops,WTF?! Why not Turions for the laptops, or Intel's new dual-cores? Why not hint at later models using dual-core Turions? And will the laptops have 17 inch screens? I couldn't see it, nor find it with search. Why 754 sockets for the desktops - why not 939's?
I'm sorry, but I have to say that I don't think too highly of these "new" models.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Wife just got a brand new T43 from work - and I gotta say that it absolutely blows my Inspiron away in terms of weight, performance, heat management and most especially 'solidity' (despite being lighter). Heretofore they've done well with what IBM gave them, hopefully this isn't where they start fucking up.
--Ryv
News needed on \.
Adverts need not apply.
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I wish they would bring it back already!
I loathe those Alps trackpads. There is something about them that makes them hard to use - once you disable tapping (so you can't mistakenly drag stuff around when you lift your finger by accident) and get over the fact you can't use them with anything but a finger press (I get the impression they work by heat, but I would rather it was more like a stylus or touchscreen so I could use my fingernail) and the scrolling stuff while SO useful, doesn't work in such a small space with 10% of it taken away for the scroll spaces.
The little nipple was a life saver. It also saves a lot of space on the laptop! If you
want to cut the size down it's perfect.
Of course you can't use the nipple AND the keyboard at the same time in the same way. There is evidence that having your wrist on the laptop to use the nipple + buttons is kind of ergonomically dubious (it sure makes my wrists hurt). And if you hate the trackpad you'd use a mouse anyway (one of those cute little ones with the retractable
cords no doubt)
I wish Tablet PC would have taken off more. I hope Apple are really bringing something to market that works, and it's not just a rumour. Why can't someone make a 12" Tablet PC with a lanyard with a bit of plastic on the end like the Nintendo DS has? That would be so perfect..
-- Matt (lamenting the lack of decent portable user input devices in the world)
They took the trackpoint out. End of story.
"Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies." -Thomas Jefferson
They took out the trackpoint, switched to an awkward front-loading cd drive, shrank the keyboard and didn't use
the latest cpus.
This doesn't look like an ad for lenovo to me. This looks like an advertisement for apple.
I believe it's the first one released by Lenovo that IBM didn't offer. Fantastic computer. Very Linux friendly, nice keyboard, built like a tank. Hihgly recommended.
This guy is way out there
It's sad but the Track Point is pretty much gone. Consumers basically are saying that they don't want them. What hapened? Three things:
1. The early Track Points had a few issues. This really isn't that big of a point because most of these were fixed rather quickly and also the fact that the notebook world was still trying to find a truly usable pointing device. This was the era of trackballs and even the pop out mouse.
2. The Track Point III was functionally solid and very usable. Around that time many non-IBM manufactures started making knock offs (I'm pointing mainly at Compaq and Toshiba) that were even worse than any of IBM's original shipping ones. Joe Average's first contact with the Track Point style device was on one of these and they did not take kindly to them. This is when it became common to hear the caps called erasers. It should also be noted that the knock off Track Points had no fine control and oils on people's fingers would disolve the knock off caps and cause them to be a gummy mess. IBM never had these problems.
3. Vendors such as Dell started using a dual Track Point and touch pad design. Sadly, IBM followed. While IBM's pointers were still good and the knock off's were reaching maturity, the issue with the dual design was that the buttons could not be placed for comfortable use and still accommodate the touch pad. Also, issues with the touch pad simply existing such as misreads while typing and accidental double clicks were prevalent if the pad was used or not. Some systems could have the touch pad disabled through BIOS or drivers but the hand cramping issues would eventually drive away even the Track Point faithful.
I remember seeing Lenovo's ads during the super bowl and they clearly showed Track Points (without pads) so there still are new systems shipping with a decent configuration. As someone who has played marathon games of Starcraft and Quake using one and who considers the Track Point to be one of the finest non-mouse pointing devices ever created this fills me with some hope for the future.
You used to buy a Thinkpad and *know* it'd be a high quality and durable machine. It might not've been on the cutting edge speed-wise, but you got the best support in the industry. I have a 760XD, a 310ED, and a 600E that still run like champs.
Like another poster said though, we'll have to wait and see about Lenovo.
I have a couple older TPs at my office and they are rocks, they have outlasted any laptop we have ever purchased. I am not sad to see the trackpoint go though. I could never get used to that, it always felt like I was sexually assaulting the laptop.
Compared to Dell, these are still overpriced for the features offered, but there are a slew of budget PC makers, not to mention that your local ma and pa computer store could setup a better system for the same money.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
Nothing of the sort. Everybody I have ever seen using ThinkPads for a long time is pretty much addicted to the thing. All of the new combo trackpoint/touchpad units at my clients' have the touchpad permanently disabled. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the wants of consumers but with IBM licensing policies to other makers and later, their eventual efforts to adopt the "don't stick out of the crowd" mentality of marketing drones. "Sameness is good. Conformity makes money. Choices confuse customers." etc.
Everybody I have ever seen using ThinkPads for a long time is pretty much addicted to the thing.
They aren't addicted, they've just been forced to use it for so long that they no longer remember how much better a touchpad is.
Slow Down, Cowboy! It's been 60 minutes since you last successfully posted a comment.
Right. That is why when offered, by all the combo pointer system ThinkPads in the last 3 years, the "thrilling", "exciting", "superior" joy of having one's palms move the mouse all over the screen while typing and rendering the "palm-rest" area ... well "unrestable", not to mention all the fun of having to move your hands back and forth between the pad and the keyboard all the time, the "orgasmic" experience of having to lift one's finger repeatedly as the accuracy of the touchpad runs counter to its sensitivity, they all promptly disabled the flipping things. So much for being forced.
I'm going to have to weigh in on the side of the trackpoint. I suppose I've never been forced to use a touchpad for any long period of time, so perhaps I might come to like it as much.
I suppose using a trackpoint has a longer training period to get accustomed to using it. But I suspect that a trained touchpoint user is much more accurate than a touchpad user. I could play a FPS with a touchpoint if I had to, but I can't imagine doing it with a touchpad.
Oh, and I absolutely hate the tapping-is-clicking function of touchpads. I didn't want to click on anything, I just wanted to move the damn cursor!
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Incite and flee.
Not only are they using bottom of the line parts, but their specifications and pricing matches *exactly* Gateway's, Dell's, and Acer's bottom of the line. There is no differentiation in price or parts here, they are a perfect match with subtle deviations like 400Mhz instead of 533MHz RAM in their desktops.
When I read this article, I thought for sure that Lenovo was seriously undercutting the price/performance of their competitors, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You aren't even getting a slight discount. I'd say this is some horrible research by the author, who is making outrageous claims without actually verifying if what he's saying is true.
Heck, I could build and sell machines that seriously undercut the price and have much more performance than either Lenovo or these others. I myself built a machine 7 months ago that only cost me $1000, since then I've added various things I need like speakers, a better PSU, etc., and it has high end parts (i could have built a cheap PC, if i was going for budget, for a lot less):
$66 Xion Xion II black ATX midtower case w/ 450W PSU, (got me to 2.4GHz fine, not enough power cables)
$146 AMD Athlon 64 Venice 939 3000+ (1.8GHz) OC'd to 2.61GHz (can go much higher than this w/ voltage hack)
$135 ASUS A8N-SLI (1.55v, nForce4 6.66 drivers, BIOS 1013, note: have to manually change the memory timings)
$123 x2 Corsair XMS TWINX 1GB 2.5-3-3-6 unbuffered DDR400 (3.00v, Corsair recommends 2.75v for OCing)
$200 Zalman Reserator Watercooler (anodized aluminum blue, ~0.8 gallon, only use distilled, add coolant/mouthwash)
$340 BFG 7800 GT OC @ (475MHz / 1150MHz) (82.12 detonator)
$70 x2 Maxtor DiamondMax 200GB 7200RPM (~400GB in RAID 0 "Stripe")
$41 NEC 3540A 16X DVD-RW (rpc1 firmware hack; rem. riplock, unlocked speed, more formats)
$100 Antec TRUEPOWERII 550W
$200 Logitech ZS-5500 5.1 Surround w/ woofer
$350 Dell 20.1" Widescreen LCD 12ms
$30 Audigy 2 ZS GamerX
$0 Generic 1.44MB floppy drive found holding a door open.
Total $1994
For those among you who will immediately criticise me for overclocking and say I'm going to burn out my hardware and its not worth it, I have something to say. This machine has run flawlessly for 7 months, and may run a lot longer, but if it dies on me right now its more than paid for itself in performing like an $800 chip during that time. If and when it does fail, I'll just replace the chip with another cheap chip and overclock it. Also, I have an Intel 2.66GHz that has been running downstairs at 3.2GHz for a year and half with no problems on stock cooling. 'Nuff said.
By saving money I was able to drop another $1k on modifications for it that I wouldn't have gotten retail for the same price or more. I also have dropped a few hundred more to have a sexy blue led saitek keyboard, soft hand molding mousepad, beanbag wristpad, saitek x52 flightstick, labtec headphones w/ mic, logitech MX-1000 laser mouse, canon lide scanner, 8.1 megapixel camera, super joybox xbox->usb controller 4x converter, etc. Dell's top top of the line which barely matches mine (except they have a GTX card, which is just a GT with 4 more pipelines running at the same frequency as mine and would get the same benchmarks in games) is like $4200 and you won't get much of the stuff I had at $1k, and almost nothing of what I have now at roughly $2k.
My point is that I wouldn't have had the system or money I do to pull this off if I were to have dropped $600 - $2000 on crappers from dell, lenovo, gateway, or even other custom boxen from retailers. Build it yourself, pick cheap parts, overclock, and add to your system over time what you need, that's the moral I think.
Granted, I understand that laptop parts are basically locked at high prices, there isn't much getting around that. I noes, I've looked into building my own DIY. I just thought since Lenovo is owned by the Chinese government, they'd have access to dirt cheap labor and parts and would be able
Can we please not make these "Macs are more expensive" posts anymore? I mean, this is seriously old. We've all seen the articles showing that comparing like with like often comes out equal or with the Macs cheaper. Certain Mac models are more expensive than comparable Dell (or Levono) models, and vice versa. Get over it.
Spoken like a true fanboy who knows he's wrong, knows why, and just doesn't have any other rebuttal besides, "I'm tired of hearing it."
Don't shoot the messenger, pal. It's not his fault you overpaid for the hardware in a proprietary system created by a company that knows no limit in maintaining a stranglehold on its "technology." If the truth bothers you so much, perhaps you shouldn't have (over)paid for a Mac.
backwards..
Good point. Well made.
I hadn't even noticed I was doing it..
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