Lenovo ThinkPad Stack, a New Take On Modular Mobile Peripherals (hothardware.com)

MojoKid with word of The Stack, a new peripheral product from Lenovo that has a ThinkPad logo emblazoned on each component, writing In a nutshell, this is Lenovo's take on a line of peripherals that all work with one another and stack together via a custom connector. It applies the modular computing concept to the world of peripherals, which could be an ideal place for a set of modular products to actually make an impact in the market. The Stack's initial four products include a wireless router, a 1TB USB 3.0 hard drive, a Bluetooth mic + speaker combo unit, and a 10,000mAh battery pack / charger. The foursome is sold for just under $390, though each component can be purchased separately as well. The sheer size and weight of the package is impressive. While it's appropriately dense, it can fit into even the smallest saddle bag, taking up minimal room in a frequent flyer's carry-on. In testing, the Stack's individual components offered respectable performance results as well.

Comments

Speakers + magnetic HD == uh oh

[Jeremi]

I hope they've verified that nothing bad happens when you stack the speakers module directly above or below the HDD module and then play music at top volume for a few hours :)

Re:Speakers + magnetic HD == uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever tried to erase data from a hard drive with a magnet? There's a reason physical destruction is often used when high security is required. There are commercial degaussers available, but playing music on a loudspeaker isn't going to do a thing.

Re:Speakers + magnetic HD == uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

The article refers to a mechanical drive which is subject to errors as a result of vibration. I think the poster was referring to the coupled mechanical vibration from the speakers, not the magnetic field.

Re:Speakers + magnetic HD == uh oh

[Half-pint HAL]

I hope they've verified that nothing bad happens when you stack the speakers module directly above or below the HDD module and then play music at top volume for a few hours :)

And vice versa: I wonder if the noise-reducing microphone is specifically tuned to reject the vibration noise of the rapidly spinning plates (which frequently spin up/down, don't forget) that it will be physically coupled to.

Re:Speakers + magnetic HD == uh oh

[Aighearach]

Sure, but OTOH if the purpose of the device is to hold data for use in presentations, then slightly lowering the life of the drive is meaningless. There would never be unique data on the drive. You don't even need a backup, because you're just delivering documents to the field for use in the presentation, but those documents are already primarily located in another place, and backed up normally.

As a consumer device I would agree with the concern, but as a business device it sounds like a small detail relating to TCO that should be considered. In most cases tech businesses will want to put together their own setup with better drives, but this looks reasonable for something that an average PHB or SOHO worker can throw in the trunk, and whip for presentations whenever put on the spot or when a potential sale is detected.

Re:Speakers + magnetic HD == uh oh

[arglebargle_xiv]

I hope they've verified that the stack isn't running Lenovo's bug-riddled value-add software, otherwise you'll end up sharing your HDD with the whole Internet, not just your speakers and keyboard.

Huh??

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this even do anything?
I'd like this port on my laptop so I could stick a USB HD to it, cables are annoying.
But what's the point of adding speakers to a router?

Re:Huh??

[unixisc]

Precisely!!! If they were stacking peripherals, couldn't they have tossed in a printer, or better yet, a 3-in-1?

Re:Huh??

[Aighearach]

But what's the point of adding speakers to a router?

The point is that you're in the office of a client business, and don't have access to your own VPN. You need your own router to connect to the local site's guest access, connect to your own stuff, and then you need a speaker to play that content. The presentation material might be on the HD in the device, it might be remote, or you might actually be running demo software that connects to your VPN.

If you're a consumer, you would never need this as a package; you'd want discrete components and you'd leave your router at home.

cool idea but without a punch

[ThorGod]

It's all stuff you could get elsewhere or should already have in the machine. Wake me up when it's an actual, full computer.

Re:cool idea but without a punch

[sunderland56]

It's a cool idea, but not at all a NEW idea. Silicon Graphics IRIS 4D series, circa 1990.

Am I reading this wrong?

[mattventura]

A device released in 2015 with a pricetag of nearly $400 with modern goodies such as 802.11ac still only has 100mbps ethernet?

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[BarbaraHudson]

It's not even a device - just parts of a device that, with other parts, can make a computer. Buy a laptop instead - you'll get all the missing bits, like a screen and keyboard, and portability.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[darkain]

Not just 10/100 without gigabit... This thing has USB 3.0 and no gigabit! Even USB 2.0 is basically half-gigabit speeds. Totally agreed, what's the point of something this expensive in this day in age with this major limitation? If we wanted a cheap limited toy, we've already got Raspberry Pi and plenty of over low powered tinker toys for far cheaper.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[tlhIngan]

A device released in 2015 with a pricetag of nearly $400 with modern goodies such as 802.11ac still only has 100mbps ethernet?

It's not as shocking as you may think - we were looking at getting a few laptops as loaners when people travel - nice modern Skylake ones with i7 processors. We actually found some decent machines with decent screens and processors and all that. We were just about to place the order when we noticed the Ethernet was... 10/100. This was a non-starter as we required gigabit (what, was this 2000? You used to be able to assume everything had gigabit) - when you're syncing Android code trees that have tens of gigabytes, getting full gigabit speeds is essential for it to take a reasonable amount of time.

At gigabit, we can sync from scratch in about 20 minutes. It would take hours at 10/100.

In the end, we didn't place the order - we're still evaluating a bunch of other laptops to find one that's relatively light and powerful and has gigabit.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[Half-pint HAL]

On the other hand, keeping individual device speeds done helps prevent users killing the network. I know, traffic management can be done digitally, but having 10/100 instead of gigabit on the device is basically fool-proof, and if you're running an office of 200 non-technical users on a single network connection, there will be a significant minority of fools in there that think it's OK to download stupidly large files in the middle of the working day.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe someone who *NEEDS* a "stupidly large file" for work and now has to waste half a day or more waiting for it to download.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[Aighearach]

Yeah, you are reading it wrong, you're comparing it to general purpose devices when it is a special purpose business tool that doesn't benefit from internet connections faster than 100mbps. This is not a backup router for your subnet, this is a portable device that only has a router so that it can connect to VPNs from different places without having to be mucking around reconfiguring your laptop for each site you visit.

$400 is practically free, for a business tool. What does a portable projector cost? If it isn't worth buying for a presentation, it isn't worth doing a site visit to give a presentation. ;)

802.11ac is important because want to support current expected protocols, and this also increases range. 100mbps ethernet is the same format and fully compatible with 1gbps ethernet, and the 100 will be more reliable with ad-hoc wiring or in an electrically noisy environment. If it had 10mbps ethernet it wouldn't actually impact the likely use cases at all. The network is for powerpoint, youtube-quality video, or database access for demo software. Probably the reason it is 100mbps is that they stopped making chips that only do 10mbps.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[Aighearach]

USB 3 is for data storage, which benefits from faster speeds. Network speeds faster than 100mbps are unlikely to be useful during a business presentation. You'd have a different device if you needed that, this one is for being able to give presentations on a whim by the client. The sort of thing that usually stays in the trunk of the rental car.

If you wanted a toy, you'd buy a cheap consumer toy like the Raspberry Pi. This is a business tool and would really suck as a toy. Almost any $20 toy is going to be more fun. Don't buy this for a gift.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[Half-pint HAL]

Then you have the wrong equipment and your buyers have sold you short.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[mattventura]

If $400 is free for a business tool, then surely a $402 gigabit version would also be free.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[tlhIngan]

On the other hand, keeping individual device speeds done helps prevent users killing the network. I know, traffic management can be done digitally, but having 10/100 instead of gigabit on the device is basically fool-proof, and if you're running an office of 200 non-technical users on a single network connection, there will be a significant minority of fools in there that think it's OK to download stupidly large files in the middle of the working day.

Most offices have internet speeds that are way less than 100Mbit. Usually in the 10-50Mbit range. And 200 non-technical people generally means the internet is not a huge priority as it would be for say, a technical company that interacts with customers through the internet.

So no, having 10/100 does absolutely zilch for users downloading large files over the network link. All it does is prevent them from accessing large files on the fileserver in a timely fashion. At gigabit speeds, a 1GB file can be transferred in a few seconds, which expands to a minute or two over 100Mbps.

At best, it may prevent a user from taking down the core switches should something go crazy and they spew packages at gigabit speeds (or say, a network loop).

Hell, modern WiFi is often faster than a lot of office internet connections.

Re:Am I reading this wrong?

[Aighearach]

If there is one for free, and one for $2, and they have the exact same capabilities, you haven't convinced me that it is worth even $2.

The reality is that when you're trying to add higher frequencies in a small device like this, it can actually end up being months of redesign by a whole team. And the product isn't even proven. The nonsense people speculated about interference between the radio and the speaker is silly, but managing interference within the circuit can be difficult with gigabit switching speeds. You will likely have to worry about the exact layout of the board traces. You will likely have to take up the time of some senior engineers for that. If the feature has no value, would cost $1 more just in parts, and $250,000 to develop... I just don't see the business case. Especially when, there is no use case for that. 100mbps is way faster than fast enough for an individual host with their own dedicated router and switch, and it doesn't create any difficult requirements for the board designer.

The reason that 100mbps is too slow for general office use is entirely that you have multiple hosts on the same subnet, and ethernet efficiency goes down when utilization goes up. If you're at 50% capacity you're already wanting to upgrade. If it was a token ring or similar at 50% capacity it would have the exact same throughput as it did at 1%. Individual ethernet hosts are perfectly happy at 100mbps unless they are a server. There is no use case described for this device where you could even get to 50% capacity.

Perhaps if they incldue a GPU or more...

[mikael]

Can you stack GPU boards in a SLI configuration?

10/100M Ethernet

[fustakrakich]

How lame can you get? Put in gigabyte networking and a SSD. Then it might be worth the money.

hmm

[retchdog]

it's cute enough that i'd want it to work, but i have trouble thinking that it will, outside of a niche business traveler segment.

let's price it independently and be generous: $30 for the battery; $70 for an external 1TB spinny; $50 for the speaker; ~$100 for a good portable multiband router, for $250.

i guess if i really needed all of those things (who needs a portable wifi router these days?) and didn't already have any of them, i might consider paying the extra if the proprietary ports with exposed perpendicular pins (wtf?) wouldn't get crudded up or damaged, which of course they will. even worse, they might come with endcaps which you will lose and then feel bad about losing.

Re:hmm

[mlts]

Those pins are the biggest weakness. Especially if this device is designed to be used while on the road (with being tossed in a suitcase with all the lint, dist, and who knows what else in the suitcase that can corrode or damage those contacts.

I am reminded of the Motorola Atrix and Atrix 2. Great technology, allowing one to use their phone as a bare-bones Linux desktop with the adapter. However, when Motorola tossed that technology, nobody else supported it, so at best it is useful as a mention for historical reasons, if that.

Same thing with this device stack. It looks interesting, but the connector needs to be designed better to handle the rough/tumble life on the road. I'd almost say they should have gone with a blade/enclosure setup, because with that, the individual slots devices would reside could be protected with a closable/lockable cover.

Re:hmm

[gmack]

A much bigger weakness will be Lenovo's desire to DRM the crap out of it like they already do with their wifi cards and batteries. I had to hack the bios on my
Lenovo laptop to make it boot with an "unauthorized wireless card" and since then they have gotten worse. My friend's laptop refused to charge until he removed the battery management crapware they installed that expired a perfectly good battery and the laptop itself refuses to charge third party batteries. I will never buy another Lenovo product and that's even before that root certificate indecent.

Re:hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

I got leery of Lenovo when there was pushback from various US government institutions about their products. Yes, AFAIK, they are buyable by the government... but with the "mistakes" they keep making, I really don't trust them.

I still miss the Thinkpad name. I remember when the IBM Thinkpad was a quality product, highly respected by anyone in the business sector. These days, it is different. The business-level Dell Latitudes are excellent, don't come with crapware (although you can enable LoJack for Laptops as well as permanently disable it), and the HP products are similar (again, business products, not consumer level.)

What would I use for a laptop these days? Some white box brand like what System76 makes, or a MacBook Pro. They are not cheap, but the chance of finding an extremely broken backdoor or something like Superfish is an acceptably low risk.

Re:hmm

[Zero__Kelvin]

". I had to hack the bios on my Lenovo laptop to make it boot with an "unauthorized wireless card" and since then they have gotten worse."

Changing a BIOS setting from Secure Boot to legacy mode isn't "hacking the BIOS", even over on digg.com You are also confusing Trusted Computing with DRM. DRM has nothing to do with driver signing.

Re: hmm

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the BIOS on ThinkPad machines prevents booting if non-approved cards are connected to the internal ports. Though I thought this was relatively common with laptops.

Re:hmm

[gmack]

You have never tried this have you? If you add a third party wireless card to a Lenovo laptop, it fails the boot before it ever gets to the OS level. I had to take the card out and flash with a custom bios image and then put the card back.

In fact, the only part of what I said that was even close to OS level software dependant, was the battery expiry. My friend's laptop won't even charge a third party battery if it's off.

Re: hmm

[gmack]

No, the BIOS on ThinkPad machines prevents booting if non-approved cards are connected to the internal ports. Though I thought this was relatively common with laptops.

From my experience far it's common to HP and Lenovo but not Acer or Dell. I'm sure there is a more complete list of who does this somewhere.

Re: hmm

[gmack]

In fact, that's what made me so angry about it. Before that, somehow I had always ended up with Dell laptops and I simply upgraded my wireless card every year or two and I didn't even know that locking the internal ports was a thing so I didn't know to even check for it.

Re:hmm

[AK Marc]

I swapped the 3G wireless and WiFi wireless cards in my Lenovo and saw no issues. They do lock down drivers for security, but I had no problem with loading up the new cards, once I properly loaded the manufacturer drivers. I was planning on going from my current E530 to a new Y70. Maybe it's different across their different lines, but the Thinkpad E530 had no issues with 3rd party wireless and RAM (I never swapped the battery. 3+ years, and still working well, and never found anyone who made a larger capacity batter, including Lenovo). http://www.newegg.com/Product/... 17.3" touchscreen and 960M, not many in that category, most gaming laptops don't do touch screen. But we got a tablet-like http://au.pcmag.com/acer-aspir... for cheap on sale and liked it, and having a touch screen, so wanted to go touch-only going forward. I can't find anything with a 17.3" or larger touchscreen and a 960m or better video card anywhere else, at any price, and the Lenovo Y70 is only about $1000 on sale.

Re: hmm

[Aighearach]

IME this is only on machines that don't have an advertised internal port, but they implemented their optional add-ons using some Mini-PCI variant. Generally the "workstation replacement" class of laptops will have an advertised expansion port that is to standard, and the others wont.

This is a valuable security feature for people who want secure business laptops for travel use. The PCI card could be replaced surreptitiously during various stages of transport, leading to data theft or much worse, infiltration of your intranet when you return to the office. This removes the risk from non-State actors, and even most State actors. Only the highest profile targets would have a defeat device that carefully and narrowly targeted.

Obviously on a personal computer, or for a small or non-secret business, this is an anti-feature. But on a business laptop? Feature. Plus, the days of needing that port for non-wireless expansions are long past; everything else uses either USB or bluetooth.

I just bought a desktop motherboard with a mini-PCIe port housing a wifi/bt dual radio card. It wouldn't surprise me at all if it doesn't support replacing that card with something else, because that isn't designed as a usable port; if you buy it without the radios, you don't even get the slot. And of course it also has real PCI slots for actual expansion. The only reason they use the mini-PCI is that designing a custom interface would be a waste of lots of money, and make the feature unsaleable.

Re:hmm

[Zero__Kelvin]

"You have never tried this have you?"

I'm typing on my Lenovo Yoga 2 running Fedora Core in Secure Boot mode . I have entered into the BIOS on literally thousand of computers installing all manner of hardware, have made custom BOISs, and have a working UEFI Virtual Machine that I built using source code from tianocore (UEFI Driver Developer Resources with EDK II), so I guess I'd have to say your guess was about as far off as humanly possible. If you had used your head you would have disabled secure boot prior to installing the 3rd party card, and then you would have been up and running in 2 minutes, unless of course you really care about Secure Boot, in which case your dog simple non-hack works just fine. .

"If you add a third party wireless card to a Lenovo laptop, it fails the boot before it ever gets to the OS level. I had to take the card out and flash with a custom bios image and then put the card back.

So now you admit you didn't hack your BIOS? You simply flashed a version that had its signature in the database then? Right-o Steve! That's Grade A Ninja Hacking their Old Chum! (And yes, I've flashed hundreds of BIOS from many, many different vendors, and have known who AMI in the 1980's so I've been at this for a while)

For those with learning disabilities, those with Aspergers, and those with just generally poor scarcasm detectors, gmack did not perform any kind of "BIOS Hacking" as he originally claimed, and was merely doing something so simple a frigging monkey could follow the directions and do; and those directions might have been in IT for a very short while!

P.S. You still don't quite seem to grasp the original point I was making, which is your issue has absolutely nothing to do with DRM! Does it make more sense to you in bold italics?

Re:hmm

[gmack]

My E520 Does not have a secure boot option.

I would love this... but standardized/open

[mlts]

I like the form factor of these accessories. However, it would be nice to have some sort of standard:

1: If the bus has to be something new for multiplexing, the connectors should have a high insertion/removal cycle rate like USB, and can handle dust and other office environmental items.

2: Preferably, use a standard bus. USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt can use the same connectors, so using that and having either an enclosure or a base unit handle power would be useful. I have seen many custom multiplexed buses. What results is that finding parts for them becomes next to impossible. At the extreme, use Infiniband.

3: Maybe move to a rack/enclosure system. This would limit the height of accessories... but having the connector in the back, only connected after being properly aligned, would provide a reliable way to remove/insert items. An added bonus is that for computers like MacBooks that only have a USB 3.1 port, it means only one power plug for all the devices and the laptop.

4: Perhaps some engineering for larger devices in the stack. Having the ability to have a disk array with 2-5 3.5" hard disks so one has a RAID protected place to stash files, would be useful.

In general, I like the idea of being able to stack devices... but I've seen this before, and usually the ports used are proprietary, and sooner or later, wind up discontinued. I'm reminded of the TI-999/4A's sidecar expansion bus as one example.

Re:I would love this... but standardized/open

[Blrfl]

The standard you're looking for is PC104 and its successors.

**SPONSORED CONTENT ABOVE**

[Anonymous Coward]

How the HELL is this news for nerds? This is at least a 6 month old product so is not flipping new..

review of said products from early August...

http://www.lenardgunda.com/2015/08/12/thinkpad-stack-review/

Re:**SPONSORED CONTENT ABOVE**

[Anonymous Coward]

How the HELL is this news for nerds? This is at least a 6 month old product so is not flipping new..

review of said products from early August...

http://www.lenardgunda.com/2015/08/12/thinkpad-stack-review/

Timothy's stellar editing should have been more than clue of that.

I mean, WTF was this sentence supposed to be?

MojoKid with word of The Stack, a new peripheral product from Lenovo that has a ThinkPad logo emblazoned on each component, writing

Or Speakers + Router

[Anonymous Coward]

Or indeed speakers near an electrically noisy thing like a router.
Why exactly do you want your bluetooth speakers near your router? Wouldn't you want them near your ears? And the router near the Ethernet connection? And the harddisk near the computer?

I bet the product meeting was chaired by someone from the 80's who had a stacking hifi, and was 'inspired' by modular smartphones....

"To give you an idea of where the Stack excels, consider this example. A business-person shows up for a sales meeting in an unfamiliar conference room. To appropriately pitch, he or she needs to showcase a presentation, play a small video clip, dial a colleague in for a brief chat, and be ready to access any number of related files on a whim should the prospective client ask. "

And yet he knows the conference room has a suitable screen? (This is screenless), and how do they dial a colleague with that? Does it have 3G? So you're sure you can get a connection through the corporate firewall?

Erm.... no.

Re:Or Speakers + Router

[mlts]

Lenovo has an idea... but I would say that this is a lot more useful for computer accessories, rather than the computer itself.

For example, having a mini LED projector, SSD, GPU unit, 10gigE router (not just a switch... a router with firewalling capabilities so one can set up a demo easily), all with a decent backend bus (ISTR that USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt can use the same connector/wirings), having something looking like a small 80s hi-fi rack can be done right.

However, this tech is a novelty until multiple vendors buy into it. There have been many great technologies that are orphans, be it the Sony MP3 players which required special software like OpenMG/SonicStage to work, products like the Motorola Atrix which would have had an impact, but were killed early on, to items like Infiniband which would solve a lot of I/O problems between devices... if the protocol wasn't limited to just a few vendors. Even IEEE 1394 was a great technology, allowing one to combine networking and low level I/O on one bus... but that even died.

Re:Or Speakers + Router

[Aighearach]

Or indeed speakers near an electrically noisy thing like a router.

The speakers are bluetooth, so we know it is a digital input. If they used a metal enclosure and placed the DAC and amp near each other, then no problem. And if for some reason you want them farther apart, or you want to design a device like this with analog inputs, you just use balanced audio. It uses 2 wires, either in opposite phase (real balanced) or with a common line of known resistance (pseudo balanced). Then you put the amplifier outputs really close to the speaker inputs, and shield the wires. No problems.

If you think a router is electrically noisy... try a pro audio room! There is noise and interference everywhere! If you don't know how to make it go away by using balanced IO, shielding, and filtering, you're screwed. Most of the older analog effects pedals and stuff that big name musicians show up with, because they've been using it their whole life and it is part of their sound, that shit all spews massive noise back into the AC.

For example, old Morley Volume-Wah pedals. http://www.morleypedals.com/wv... That's the circuit diagram, that's why I chose that example because they publish their old docs. Notice that it has a power transformer with a center-tapped secondary. Now, because of their rectification tricks, they get three voltages off that, +55V, +25V and also +40V which isn't labeled on the circuit but I've measured it when modifying these guys to use some newer parts. Depending on which parts of the circuit draw more or less power, it is preferentially pulling current from one side of the secondary. The result is a bunch of noise on the AC that is multi-phase, and worse, the phase rotates according to the amount of wah effect.

But nobody cares, because all the inputs on the mixer board have bandpass filters. And it is the same for radio interference, except that the reason nobody cares is they're using balanced lines for everything if they're also using any kind of radio equipment.

The problems you describe are legitimate concerns if you're grabbing random consumer-grade devices and stacking them, but they're not likely to be a concern in products professionally engineered to be operating near each other. Especially as in this case where they're made to stack, and the interference can be managed entirely with well-placed metal chassis parts. It isn't like they would otherwise be allowed to sell radio equipment without measuring interference. ;)

As for how they deal with a screen, HDMI has largely solved that problem. You can use any screen, regardless of if it is a "computer monitor" or "television." If they don't have one anywhere in the office, they probably don't even want a video presentation. You still might need the speakers for audio. Corporate environments have provision for guest network access; indeed, giving access to visiting business people is very important. Generally, guest access is going to give you an outside gateway in a DMZ and you'll have no access to the VPN. This device is only trying to solve the parts of the problem they talk about; the other parts are already solved.

And like you quoted, "... on a whim should the prospective client ask." Well, that clears that up; if they don't have any screens they probably didn't even ask to see the video. ;) If they don't allow visiting business people or consultants to access outside network resources, then they didn't ask you to do an online demo while visiting.

Lenovo?

[Anonymous Coward]

In a nutshell, Superfish. Lenovo is a dead brand to me and my sphere of influence.

Custom Connector?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

via a custom connector

Boom. Dead. If it's that good of an idea make it usable to more than just your own hardware. Why does no one ever learn from the Sony Betamax?

Re:Custom Connector?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

via a custom connector

Boom. Dead. If it's that good of an idea make it usable to more than just your own hardware. Why does no one ever learn from the Sony Betamax?

...or MicroChannel

Re:Custom Connector?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does no one ever learn from the Sony Betamax?

What was one supposed to learn? Sony went to great lengths to try to make Betamax an official standard and to license it to other manufacturers, as did JVC with their VHS.

Re:Custom Connector?!?!

[GrandCow]

Like most emerging new standards (the internet as a whole being part of the list), whichever one gets porn the first is going to be the one that wins.

Beta vs VHS was mainly won by porn. Beta refused it for the most part, VHS embraced it. The shittier tech won because guys will always be horny.

Re:Custom Connector?!?!

[Earthquake Retrofit]

"You can't look at pictures of naked women on a violin." -- Alec Hardison

Proprietary connectors

[stephanruby]

It applies the modular computing concept to the world of peripherals, which could be an ideal place for a set of modular products to actually make an impact in the market.

This is nothing new. Companies love to create modular products with their own proprietary connectors. Locking-in customers into their platform is the holy grail for them.

Never mind that this idea would probably gain lot more of traction if they actually made it an open standard, but of course, Lenovo is not going to do that. That's now how they think. Lenovo would prefer that this modular project falls flat on its face instead of opening it up to other manufacturers to use.

Re:Proprietary connectors

[Burz]

Even if they're an open design: Why, exactly, do we need different ones? This looks like a typical attempt to drive sales based on a geek-fashion buzzword like "stacking".

Re:Proprietary connectors

[Aighearach]

It isn't about lock-in, the use case is basically a modular business dongle set. You're not locked in, because the role this device fills is that of a portable dumb-terminal to display your presentations at random times/locations.

It wouldn't make sense as a standard, because the use case is really narrow. There wouldn't be enough devices sold that fit the port for it to be worth all that effort.

If there should be a standard, the first question is, what use case has broader appeal? If there is one, then once that is identified it might make sense to make an open standard for the thing that solves that problem, instead of this one.

Everything important that this is doing is already standard; wifi, routing, bluetooth speakers, external disks. The proprietary parts are just the physical plugging. There is no lock-in at all.

Re:Proprietary connectors

[stephanruby]

It isn't about lock-in, the use case is basically a modular business dongle set. You're not locked in, because the role this device fills is that of a portable dumb-terminal to display your presentations at random times/locations.

I disagree. If it requires you to buy multiple systems of the same brand, it's a lock-in.

Re:Proprietary connectors

[ksheff]

No kidding. The IBM PCjr had expansion "sidecars" that were similar to these in concept.

Re:Proprietary connectors

[Aighearach]

You can't claim lock-in without making an argument about difficulty of switching to a competitor.

Here, you can replace any individual device with a commodity generic and everything works the same. It doesn't plug, but why does the plug create lock-in? An expansion port traditionally is discussed in the context of lock-in because when you buy those peripherals then you also have to keep buying computers that have the port. So that is clear lock-in, because without the port you can't use the devices.

In this case, you only need the port for the devices of the same type because they share a common power supply. There is no lock-in because you can take one of the devices out of the stack, and the things above and below it now plug into each other, and the replacement device will already have its own power supply.

A special keyboard plug would create lock-in because the keyboard would be useless without it. But this is just a special power plug, something that external devices already don't share. You can replace any component with the mainstream generic, and none of your devices have been bricked.

Lock-in has to have a negative consequence. That consequence is the "lock." The only consequence here would be re-organizing your travel bag, which is already to be expected when replacing devices.

I was just saying...

[NostalgiaForInfinity]

I was just saying: what my computer really needs is more proprietary connectors! Thanks, Lenovo!

1979 called

[John Bresnahan]

The Texas Instruments TI99/4 had this back in 1979...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...

About high tehnologies

[endurancerobot]

Everething about high technology production, mainly, lasers, diode laser engravers, telepresence robots and robotized systems you can find this http://endurancerobots.com/abo... Here is the video presentation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

You said it -- Memories of the IBM PC Junior

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing new, you could have this kind of modularity lock-in back in the early days if you bought an IBM PC Junior. The right side of the computer detached and exposed a bus port which you could then "expand". It lost out to the more standard "plug a card in" approach, and out of the half dozen or so PCjr computers I've seen, only one had it's expansion port used.

Re:You said it -- Memories of the IBM PC Junior

[Anonymous Coward]

The PCjr was my first computer because my parents couldn't afford the PC. Eventually I bought the 384k sidecard for it because it wouldn't run some assembler/compiler without it.

When I got older and read the reviews of the PCjr on the web I was surprised that the PCjr was so hated. I loved that machine, and it was responsible for me going into the software field. I have created a lot of software in my career and a ton of bugs. All due to the PCjr!

Re:You said it -- Memories of the IBM PC Junior

[ksheff]

The 2nd keyboard that they shipped with it wasn't too bad either, but people always remember the 'chiclet' one. By the time I finished college, my PCjr was about 3 times it's original size thanks to expansion products from PC Enterprises in NJ.

A bigger, costlier version of an existing product

[billcopc]

Let me get this straight, the entire point of this "Stack" is to have a battery-powered, wi-fi storage device for mobile professionals ?

So like:

- WD My Passport Wireless
- Corsair Voyager Air
- Seagate Wireless Plus
- Sandisk Connect Wireless
- LaCie Fuel

Except the Lenovo one is ten times the size with a bunch more failure points. Or, you know, a person could just carry a regular laptop and/or USB hard drive.

This is $400 of dumb.

When exactly did slashdot turn into this bucket of

[Anonymous Coward]

Feels like fark is better for tech news these days...

Re:HEY ASSKNOB! SUCK MY DICK AND FUCKING LIKE IT!

[Zontar The Mindless]

Hey! It's APK, only with the bold tags and =>'s stripped out.

FFS

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone actually trust Lenovo after their last security screwup?

My Opinion on Lenovo Laptops

[kilodelta]

They suck. Cheap plastic pieces of shit.