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Left: Dell Precision M4500 | Right: Lenovo ThinkPad W510 (not to scale)
It’s okay Dell, we’ll pretend you have an original design. Although I guess to be fair, the top cover certainly is…original.
[Humor] Imitation is the sincerest form of flatteryTuesday, March 9th, 2010Editorial: Does Lenovo REALLY need another ThinkPad line?Friday, November 20th, 2009 I’m at a bit of a loss here with the ThinkPad Edge. We get it, small business computing. But what is there to small business that an IdeaPad or a ThinkPad can’t provide? Why does there need to be a ThinkPad Edge? And for that matter, where does ThinkPad SL fall now? That WAS touted to be the small business ThinkPad, but seems like it’s more being slotted in as a de-featured R Series replacement with the recent refresh. The way I see it, SMB needs don’t necessarily come down to technology, but to services and price points. I’ve heard the arguments that SMB wants/needs more consumer oriented features that just aren’t appropriate on ThinkPad. Going by that logic, the biggest feature differences are the AMD processors (which bring in a lower price point with a bit more performance than Intel’s CULV) and HDMI output. The color choices help broaden appeal, but that’s it. From the services perspective, ThinkPad’s traditional global level of service with fast turnaround is ideal, if even a bit overkill. The support provided with consumer level machines really isn’t suitable for “mission critical” PCs, like those in a small business, as quality of service is closely managed down to the penny and there are too many places for the ball to drop. ThinkPad-level service isn’t perfect, but it is far more consistent than consumer-level service. Let’s say Lenovo compromised some things, added a few others to appeal more to SMBs and in the end “lowered” the price: $549 before discounts and with a standard warranty. Right now you can get a ThinkPad T400 for $636 with standard warranty. While this is arguably an exceptional price, it’s not all that different from the Edge starting price and will offer a fair amount more functionality with its Core 2 Duo processor and robust, time proven design. On the other hand, it is bigger and more than a pound heavier, with no color choices or HDMI. Maybe that’s enough of a reason for Lenovo to start a whole new product line, or maybe their channel partners have been screaming for this for a long time. It would be fair to expect this not to be a big seller on the website or through existing sales relationships in big corporations. Either way, it’s stretching the brand capital they have left. They tried SMB laptops under the Lenovo name before and it failed miserably, but was that because of the name or the product? Time will tell on this one, but I can’t help but feel things are getting a bit crowded with a unique laptop model for every form factor and price point, crossing both consumer and business laptop lines. Deal of the day: 20% off Lenovo ThinkPad T400sMonday, November 2nd, 2009
Lenovo’s ThinkPad T400s is the latest T Series model and the most advanced. The redesigned chassis is thinner, lighter, and still has all the T Series functionality you love. I really liked the T400s in my review and still prefer to use it over my X61 when I can’t be at a desk. The LCD really is amazing and it has plenty of horsepower to get the job done. Right now Lenovo is taking $146 off instantly plus an additional 20% stackable coupon that brings the entry price down to $1279 for the base model. The 120GB 1.8-inch 5400rpm hard drive is standard, but for only $40 you can move to the 64GB SSD. If you don’t need the capacity, I highly recommend the SSD – it makes the T400s experience really amazing. Plus of course you get Windows 7 preloaded now, complete with Lenovo’s Enhanced Experience. You can even choose from the T400s multitouch, with multitouch LCD that provides a cool experience with the Windows 7 touch pack and Lenovo’s unique SimpleTap program. T400s multitouch starts at $1599, check out my hands-on review here. Base specs and details on how to get the deal below!
How to get the deal
Support a good cause with LenovoWednesday, September 9th, 2009
I want to take a moment to share a message from a friend and colleague. I’ve had the pleasure of knowing Jeff Witt for several years. He oversees press reviews at Lenovo and his team are the ones responsible for a lot of what you see on this site. Jeff and his wife Sarah oversee an event every year in Raleigh, NC called the Magnificent Mile. Its fourth year running, Magnificent Mile supports the Spastic Paraplegia Foundation and helps fund research around upper motor neuron diseases. This year’s event will take place this Sunday, September 13th. If you are in the area, you can still register for a competitive mile run or recreational mile walk through midnight on Friday the 11th. Hit the website for more information or to donate. Via [Lenovo Connections] Editorial: Reports of Windows 7 battery life’s death have been greatly exaggeratedWednesday, August 26th, 2009
PCWorld in particular took the headline of LAPTOP Mag’s article “Windows 7: Bad For Netbook Battery Life?” a little too far, filling their article with gloom and doom about Windows 7, despite also fessing up the multiple other sources that are telling everyone to hold final judgment. The drop in battery life from 9 hours 24 minutes in XP to 6 hours 53 minutes with 7 on a Toshiba NB205 netbook is substantial, no doubt. But far from a black mark on Windows 7. The bottom line is that manufacturer drivers and power-optimization utilities are important these days. They help tailor the generic Windows operating system to the company’s unique hardware and shouldn’t be overlooked. When companies are shipping final Windows 7 images on their products, then we can make a determination on what the new version of Windows does for runtime. My interesting use of a Lenovo PCFriday, August 7th, 2009Two weeks ago Lenovo blogger Mark Hopkins put out the word for Lenovo customers to come forward and share any unique or interesting uses of a Lenovo PC. Today I’m finally sharing my “interesting” use of a Lenovo PC, or is it even interesting? Mark’s post has gotten a number of unique responses, from tuning a turbocharged sports car to performing actual rocket science, and even more in the comments of the original post. While my use isn’t as fulfilling or involved as those, it really is quite useful for me. Please mind the terrible camera work, I’m about as skilled with a video camera as I am with the ladies. Enjoy and happy Friday! Editorial: Analysts say AMD needs netbooks, I say noTuesday, July 28th, 2009(Subtle title, eh?)
The same fellows who believe Lenovo will make a profit this year also think that AMD is losing out without a processor for netbooks. To be clear, the folks at JP Morgan Securities see revenue going up for both Intel and AMD in Q2 and Q3 this year, but revenue will go up more for Intel. Why? Because Intel sells a bunch of Atom processors – ala netbooks. First off – AMD doesn’t need a netbook chip. Yes, to the entirely short-term focused financial analysts, AMD needs to BE Intel. Thus they need netbooks. That’s the same kind of thinking that got the world into the current economic mess. Editorial: Lenovo’s plans for India and emerging marketsFriday, July 17th, 2009 Mature markets in pink, emerging in blue - Image courtesy Wikipedia Lenovo recently discussed their plans for focusing on the emerging Indian market and how their market leadership in China would support that growth. The latest restructuring at Lenovo left the company organized around emerging and mature markets, with teams dedicated to each segment. Near as we can tell, the company figured that if they wanted to focus on emerging markets and capitalize there, that should be the core organization for the business. Emerging markets present an opportunity for Lenovo to capitalize on transactional business, or direct purchases by individuals and small business, which it is lacking in pretty much every market except for China. Even in India Lenovo has a relatively strong relationship business, which are regular, bulk purchases by large entities like corporations and governments. Yang Yaunqing, Lenovo’s CEO, stressed the importance of their recent restructuring, efficient business model in China, and “history of innovation” with industry leading products as reasons why Lenovo is poised to succeed in the Indian market. However, one could argue that those are the same reasons why Lenovo was poised to succeed in North America or Europe not long after the merger took place. Indeed, the big difference here is that India is fresh territory, not yet quite dominated by one brand or another. In the “mature” markets, Lenovo’s brand recognition pales in comparison to HP or Dell, even that of its own ThinkPad product. In India, it has a chance to show these “emerging” customers what they are all about. Mr. Yang went on to say:
Frankly, I’m not getting much actual facts or actions out of that statement. While insisting they only now have a stable leadership team, their last leadership team seemed perfectly stable. The only catch is that they were made up of ex-Dell and IBM’ers who were trying to run a company that was supposed to benefit from the Chinese business model. With the “unstable” leadership removed, what else is it that Lenovo needs to win in India? Short term results…core competence…culture of commitment…bla bla bla. The bottom line is that Lenovo actually has a decent product lineup, but they need to deliver on marketing, product fulfillment, and service (the end-to-end experience, as it were) in order to “win” in India. Being price competitive wouldn’t hurt either, something that is largely going to waste in the U.S. The effectiveness of their marketing elsewhere in the world is debatable, product fulfillment is very hit or miss, but the service experience seems mostly positive. Hopefully they can learn from the mistakes made in the “mature” markets that have inhibited their growth, and show India some ThinkPad love. Read posts related to emerging markets or India Gizmodo: desktops are a form factor on life supportMonday, July 6th, 2009 To scale image of X300 compared to W700 and ThinkStation S10 Gizmodo has a good opinion article about the demise of the desktop PC, with a few interesting revelations and some other points which I can’t help but agree with wholeheartedly. A recent report on the PC industry showed that sales were in a downturn, no surprise, but that laptop shipments grew 10% year to year while desktops dropped an amazing 23%. 80% of retail computer sales today are notebooks, which doesn’t even include machines like all-in-ones which generally use more notebook tech than “old school” desktop parts. Some of the reasons for this fall are cited as the lack of price disparity & relative value between desktops & laptops, simple usability in a notebook, and the slow death of PC gaming. I can’t agree more. Especially over the past 1-2 years, notebooks have been increasing in value and for the basic user, there doesn’t exist enough of a price difference for people to consider a notebook over a desktop. Basic desktop models only have 17-19 inch low resolution monitors, which isn’t a huge step from a 15-17 inch low resolution notebook LCD. Performance and connectivity is similar enough in the two form factors and there are NO cables, cord, or widgets to plug into the laptop to get it working out of the box, aside from the uniquitious power cord which every electronic device in the world has and even my grandparents know how to plug in. On a related note, when I started a job at a large company, I wasn’t even offered the option of a desktop, only the choice between three laptop brands. (Do you know which I chose? The point on gaming is a strong one for me. Almost 3 years ago, I parted and sold my decently well spec’d desktop rig. Several hard drives, lightweight case with a window, overclocked processor, and a high end GPU to get my PC gaming fix. Over the many years of PC gaming, I spent a lot of time and money keeping up with the Jeffersons. Not only were graphics cards swapped more frequently than underwear and clock speeds challenged on a weekly basis, but a lot of time was spent getting the games to run well, or even run at all. PC gaming is not a universal plug-and-play experience. Different hardware combinations produce different results in the error-filled, human-created ether that is software. Tweaks here and there produced subtly noticeable changes in the gaming experience. Moving a tweak or overclock a hair too far meant instability. I ditched my desktop in part as an effort to spend less time and money on gaming, but also as a move to a simpler, more reliable, and more useful form of computing. I kept my nice LCD, acquired a second hand docking station for my ThinkPad T42, and had a competent desk computer as well as a portable computer. And I got a little bit of the money I’d sunk into desktops over the years back. Win, win? Not for everyone. Not hindered by size and power limitations, desktops will have a performance and expandability advantage over laptops for the forseeable future. Until SSD’s mature significantly, as well as come down in cost, desktops will have a big advantage in storage speed, which itself has a big impact on system performance. Connectivity is more abundant and upgrades like storage & RAM are generally cheaper. But is that advantage something that most people need? Not really, and the numbers show it. Source: [Gizmodo] I love TrackPointsThursday, June 11th, 2009
If the head honcho over at Gizmodo feels the need to praise trackpads, I can’t help but rebuttal about TrackPoints. (I thought the industry term was touchpad? I must be out of the loop.) TrackPoint. Pointing stick. Red dot. Nub. Keyboard nipple. There have been many names for for it, including some more vulgar ones. Whatever you call it, this highly efficient and accurate pointing device is the one of choice for me, and many other ThinkPad enthusiasts. I’ve been using ThinkPads for about the past 7 years, admittedly not long compared to others. I had a desktop as my primary machine for probably more than half that time, but quickly became adjusted to the TrackPoint on my ThinkPad T42 and the trackpad/touchpad fell to dis-use. Eventually I decided I liked the small footprint of the X Series and lost the trackpad altogether.
The distance involved in moving your pointer finger from its resting place on the keyboard to the central point between the G/B/H keys is less than moving a hand to the touchpad, and far less than moving to a mouse. Rather than relying on relatively inaccurate capacitance readings, the TrackPoint detects applied force through resistive strain gauges. Whether editing a photo or lining up for the perfect headshot, I can move the cursor a few pixels at a time if I like. Maybe my fingers are too large to be precise, but I never had that kind of control with a touchpad. He also touches on multitouch and I will give him that – it is a neat feature. But until wide-spread software support makes it a useful technology outside of the Apple world, I’ll hold off on calling it “revolutionary” as others in the industry have. The TrackPoint lets me keep my hands in the typing position. The middle button lets me scroll vertically and horizontall with ease, something that is also very imprecise on a touchpad. I have introduced several people, even those who are on the lower end of computer savviness, to TrackPoint and they all loved it. My significant other can switch between her Dell touchpad and my ThinkPads’ TrackPoints with ease. Learn more about TrackPoints at Wikipedia and shout out your TrackPoint love in the comments! P.S. Gizmodo readers agree with me
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