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Has Lenovo Taken the Top PC Manufacturer Spot From HP?
angry tapir writes "Lenovo has taken the crown from Hewlett-Packard to become the world's top seller of PCs, research firm Gartner said in a study released this week. Lenovo took the top spot during a quarter in which PC shipments dropped overall due to a weak economy and pressure from mobile devices. Of the top four PC vendors, only Lenovo was able to grow its shipments. Its PC sales increased by almost 10 percent to 13.77 million units, giving it 15.7 percent of the market, Gartner said." Not so fast, says analysis firm IDC. They say that HP is still in the lead but Lenovo is very close.
With that profit margin? Try never.
At least that's what I learned when the word "Microsoft" is in any of their reports. I would assume that it is that way with everything else too... They're like the Fox News of the tech industry -- it's all about who pays the most.
Because Lenovo has never tried to (knowingly or not - I couldn't tell whether it was intentional or just mindboggling incompetence) screw me out of using a warranty I'd purchased by claiming they had no record I'd ever purchased anything from them. Granted, that's because I've never purchased anything from Lenovo, but I don't -yet- have a reason to never purchase anything from them ever again, like I do with HP.
we'll be forced to stop calling them PC vendors? its a touch offtopic but worth mentioning. A sound argument can be made that these arent personal computers at all. Each one is mandated to include windows 8, which is basically just an app store. its designed to become obsolete in 2-4 years, and several systems like UEFI and trusted computing prevent the user from ever considering their computer "personal." The "locked down" OS model is already being baked into consumers at the mobile device level and having seen sales in such devices supplant them,PC vendors are likely to file in lock-step to try and match this advantage. Of course you'll get workarounds for businesses much the same as we get them for redhat/centos/ubuntu when we order servers, but the average person to which "personal" applies in PC is probably going to get shafted.
you could also argue the numbers for sales are entirely irrelevant as anyone interested in a real "personal computer" is buying the parts and building it themselves.
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Now now, "high-end" is too strong of a word for what apple makes. They send expensive boutique computers with a generous markup, but the hardware is far from high-end.
A few years ago I would have agreed with you, but thinks like the iPad 3's screen or the Retina MBP were pretty unrivaled when they were released. In return, you get gouged pretty good on things like RAM or storage upgrades that are bog standard tech.
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As somebody pointed out, they're both really lousy at PCs and sell predominantly to corporate clients. They both use Chinese/Taiwanese components cobbled together in Chinese Factories and then ship them over here. One owns the rights to the old IBM brand and the other owns the rights to the old Compaq and DEC brands, so what's the difference?
Completely anecdotal, but I think there's quite a difference. Between my wife and I, we've gone through 8 ThinkPads over the years--IBM and Lenovo. My father-in-law has probably used/owned at least a dozen as an employee and self-employed consultant. Other in-laws, too many to count.
Why so many? First, we're spoiled Americans and like to upgrade every 2 or 3 years. Second, we've found them to have decent resale value. And third, we keep going back to IBM/Lenovo because we rarely have issues with them. To borrow a phrase, they just work.
Meanwhile, the one small company I worked at that bought HPs for everyone, about a third died within a month. And my family--who for some reason asks me for advice every time they buy a new computer, but never takes that advice--has gone through countless HPs, Toshibas, Dells, Acers, etc. and has had issues with every singe one of them.
Maybe it's different for desktop PCs, but for laptops, notebooks, netbooks, etc, I'd pay cash out of pocket for a ThinkPad before I'd use a free HP. The time and aggravation dealing with issues isn't worth the money I'd save.
That is in the top 10 'manufacturers'. While everybody has cut corners over the years HP, Dell, and others went too far. With falling prices in the lat 15 years even the poor can afford top quality systems. People are realizing that Dell and now HP are shipping crap. IBM/Lenovo has been going downhill all along although the difference is the company has made sure to release slightly better quality products than the rest. So it is no wonder people are going Lenovo.
Personally I would not buy Lenovo. They ship systems with digital restrictions and I'm not willing to work around those restrictions just so I can run my choice of GNU/Linux distribution. ThinkPenguin's the way to go now these days. They've been working hard to improve the cooperation between free software developers and chipset manufacturers. There current generation of laptops is amazing and they are working on a new USB N adapter that should work better than anything thats come before (not hard to do considering all USB N adapters on GNU/Linux are crap or dependent on non-free software- there is one older G chipset that works well although no longer readily available- ThinkPenguin did stock up on it before the chipsets demise so GNU/Linux users should be able to get them for a while).
Apple's not really that 'high end'. They're making sure they release or announce stuff a day before the competition. That's the extent of it. If you want high end you really need to look elsewhere.
And third, we keep going back to IBM/Lenovo because we rarely have issues with them. To borrow a phrase, they just work.
I've owned an HP (more than ten years ago), a T42 Thinkpad from the time that Lenovo was taking over, and a new T520. The HP was OK, if a bit fragile. The T42, as you say, just plain works. Damn near bulletproof, never a problem -- and it's been in heavy use for seven years.
The kindest thing I can say about the T520 is that it's flaky. Cores randomly, sometimes before it's done POSTing. The wireless networking is up and down, up and down -- unless it's just plain down. It's the kind of intermittent behavior that you can't get warranty service for because it never reproduces when the technician tests it.
I bought the T42 because I knew literally hundreds of engineers from semiconductor companies who put hundreds of thousands of miles on theirs every year and they did, indeed, just plain work. And that's just what it did for me until it got too long in the tooth to handle the current workload. But if I could get a halfway modern laptop with the quality of that T42, I'd scrap this Lenovo POS for it in a hartbeat.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
PC sales not holding up at current levels does not = the pc is dead. Not by a long shot. I expect much greater decline in pc sales as the "websurfing" crowd switch. People who use computers for work, engineers, geeks, etc will still be using pc type systems for a long time to come. It does mean high volume low quality manufacturers such as HP have something to worry about if they don't change their current business model.
There's nothing special about Retina displays. They're not a new technology or anything like that, it's just a marketing label applied to displays with a certain pixel density. Nobody was competing on PPI before that because the market didn't care. It was only after Apple applied their marketing whammy that people started asking for it.
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I don't care if HP computers are made from magic; the bloatware that they come with is intolerable and that stupid cheap "\|" key they put as half of the left shift key is rage inducing.
A while back I gave my family a very short list of computers that I would help them with. HP is not on that list. They buy something off the list and they are on their own. Sign number one that a computer company hates their users is when they put that crap Norton Trialware on the computer.
People keep blah blahing about a Post-PC world coming due to tablets and smart phones. I say it all started to die the day that some MBA came up with the business model of selling a computer really cheap and then trying to screw the customer with all he money / time sucking bloatware.
Another good example of where HP went wrong was with their printer drivers. I print maybe once a month. Thus I don't want the driver running full time in the background. It should be about 3 megs of software that takes my document and prints it. I don't need to manage the print jobs, redirect them, manage supplies, or anything else. These should be optional programs that I could install on say a machine that prints all day long. But no they want me to download 200megs of crap that then installs all kinds of document management crap. This just drives me to make sure that I buy an older used printer that has drivers built into the OS.
I always laugh at those pictures of Jumbotron screens where a Norton AV subscription reminder has come up mid game but that is not so much the fault of the Jumbotron people as it is the greed of companies like HP.
But this crap is now creeping into smartphones. Rogers even put McAfee AV on his Android smartphone.
I've bought many laptops, and thinkpads, even recent ones, are still clearly the best laptops on the market.
Great build, great keyboard.
Pricey, but has all the best hardware possible, and it works well on linux.
Everything a demanding software engineer might need.
All of them. They remain useful until they are completely broken, thrashed, just worn the fuck out dead.
That's why they are doing well. I pay a lot for mine, run them hard, and when they are behind the curve, they get cycled home for various things, until they finally just don't work, and that process is generally painless too.
I like the matte black finish. It's not sexy, but it endures way better than the shiny, "please don't scratch it" finishes on so many machines do. Maybe starting out a little less sexy has it's advantages. Black is damn cool in my book, and there is always that little brightly colored something on the machines, sort of like a great tie on an otherwise boring business suit. Perfect.
The keyboards are a bit noisy, but I like that too. Always have. I can type and type and type until the buttons are all worn, and they just keep going great, no worries.
Heavy little buggers, if you buy the more powerful ones. If I need to clock somebody with my laptop, Lenovo is there! No worries, and I can probably post to Facebook after doing it too.
Linux is well supported across most of the machines. I love that. A Think Pad was the first machine I ran OS X on too. Worked amazingly well, and was faster than the Mac I ended up getting soon after. Gotta admit, the touch pad on the Mac is better tho, but not by much. Some Think Pad touch pads need to be worn in. Once that has happened, they work much better. Weird.
By and large, I leave most of the value added software on the machines. It works well. HP is noisy, Dell just horrible, etc.... I get a competent disc burning kit, defrag tools, etc... Nice package that actually has some real value. On my latest machine they even tossed in the nVidia 3D licenses. Didn't know that, until I connected up to a new TV for some 3D CAD tests. Nice!! That's $14.99 for most of you out there.
Funny thing is I was not a fan early on. One ended up at the house, and I started using it. By the time I got it, the machine was a bit dated, but damn if it wasn't just great to use. When it outlasted some HP thing or other, I was sold. Typically, I get a top machine for work purposes. Need big RAM / CPU, nVidia, etc... Once it's done, it goes home for micro-controller related projects. Long life cycle on these. Worth it.
And... matte finish displays that are typically nice, bright, with fine dot pitches. They've wavered a bit on these on some models as of late. Gotta be a bit picky about that, but so has everybody else. Get the better display they offer, and it's no worry.
The few times I've ordered replacement things under warranty, they shipped 'em, the work wasn't hard. Once the machine ends up at home, I find I can service it much easier than I can the HP machines, which incorporate all manner of fiddly components, glue, buttons that fail, etc... Ugh. Dell sometimes does better, and is in my mind, competitive on this front. Apple? Difficult, but then their stuff works a long time too. Fair game they are playing, but HP is just losing big on this front. Get an HP, and you better hope it works, or service might be very difficult no matter who does it.
I expected some of this to fade when IBM let go to Lenovo. Very pleased to see they've kept the bar high so far. Hoping they continue.
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I'll second the notion that Lenovo's are NOT IBM.
I worked for a company that was a warranty self maintainer for IBM, and then Lenovo Products. The difference was night and day. IBM spent stupid amounts of money to make sure that their laptops could take abuse after abuse after abuse. I've seen anything from candle wax spills to systems run over by cars that would still boot. Lenovo's QA went downhill somewhere around the T400 /R400 Series. We were averaging at least 2 R400 boards a week on just USB tabs Breaking. Then they killed the R series and replaced them with the Thinkpad Edge, which was basically a glorified consumer laptop that we could work on (Yes. The consumer line and the business line have completely separate warranty systems. You can't order consumer parts as a WSM) Edge 14's could be crashed simply by flexing the case. I almost had an Edge E520 Catch on fire because they had cheap power plugs that would crack and break off in the power plug. Both edges could be classified as Crash test dummies when it came to hard drive failures. Then the bloatware started creeping in severely with the Edge E535 to the point that you would swear it's a consumer unit.
Desktop wise, they were still pretty good but nowhere near the IBM Build Quality. Cheapened the hell out of the case, but they didn't have too many problems outside of power supplies failing. A bit overpriced on Intel but we tended to buy AMD's for labs which had a very good price point in bulk purchases.
Servers were mostly IBM's rebadged to Lenovo, with a few workstation rebadges for fun. IBM is still in this segment and we stayed with them because Lenovo couldn't offer us the same level of support. IBM still knows how to keep enterprise happy, although it's not cheap.
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As this is going to be a never ending stream of anecdotes, here's mine! I bought a Lenovo W500 in 2008, it was $1400 and has been fantastic. It had only 1 bit of pre-installed nonsense that was easy to remove, has survived a full beer going through the keyboard and 4 years of abuse. Its been jammed into bags, dropped on tile floors and crushed in car trunks, every time I though "oh fuck, its dead now" and every time it was fine. Even putting it back to factory, I did that last year, was painless. Just pressed the blue button and tell it to go back to factory spec, it took less then 20min from pressing the blue button to setting a new background. If I ever decide that I want another laptop its going to be a Lenovo Thinkpad but this one still has years of life left in it.
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I agree with you mostly, but the Lenovo W and T series is pretty solid. It may not be as solid as the T600 and T4x line, their T4xx and W5xx line is really good and blows away anything HP or Dell has to offer.
I bought two Lenovo laptops in the last six months or so (one for me and one for the woman) and I quite enjoy them. Not high-end models, just $400-450 range. The construction quality and finish seems nice, they weren't loaded down with bloatware... I have no complaints at all. The HPs and Toshibas in the same price range that the Office Depot drone was trying to push on me just didn't feel very solid. Cheap plasticy feeling. The sound system on mine (G series) is probably the best I've heard in a laptop.
I've had Dells for the last few years, provided by my company, and I really didn't have any complaints about the Latitudes either, although I'd prefer to work on the Lenovo now.
These guys monitor supply chains, and they include tables with PCs, which gives their top spot to Apple, the next to HP, and Lenovo comes in third:
http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/2012-will-bring-new-world-record-pc-shipments
And they've already made it to third place. From like dead last.
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