Buyers beware of Lenovo laptops

I have been very pleased with my T61 and have written a few reviews and articles about it, as well as numerous forum posts and emails encouraging others to buy it. Just a couple of days ago a reader of one of my reviews sent me an email asking me some questions about the T61 and the responses I gave him made him go ahead and make the purchase. However, all that is now in the past.

A friend of mine wanted me to convert a file for her from one format to another, m4a to ogg. On my desktop machine I can easily do that by playing the file with VLC and recording the output in Audacity, which then allows me to export it as an ogg. What a surprise to learn that I can not do that with my beloved T61 because it has been intentionally crippled!

At least that is what I am lead to believe from the following discussion threads:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52527
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=61803&highlight=poll

Until this issue is resolved, if at all possible, I will discourage one and all from purchasing Lenovo laptops. I have updated all my reviews to reflect this.

 

Really? We shouldn't buy a Lenovo just because it can't convert a m4a to an ogg.

Hmm.

 

Well, Lenovo disabled stereo mix as a precaution to getting sued by the RIAA. Dell also does the same with several of their laptops due to the RIAA. You can't say "don't buy lenovo" because what needs to change is copyright rules not the laptop itself.

 

well, dell doesnt have a m1330 driver that works with stereo mix, but there are drivers modified to work with m1330... the only bad thing is that m1330 has 2 headphone jacks, but the modified driver can only use one..

 

And plus, most newer laptops will not have stereo mix due to the RIAA again..

 

Why would you do the conversion in such a strange way? You're not trying to break the DRM on the file by picking off the soundcard output are you?

 

lenovo makes laptops for quality and business. Unless it is someone's job to convert these files...I cant see how you can justify not buying from lenovo. Like stated above, many laptops don't have the ability to record from stereo mix, because people were cutting their own mp3's and keeping illegal music easy.

 

The file has no DRM attached at all. That is just the quickest way I thought of doing the conversion without having to search for some piece of software to do so. The point is that I should be able to do this with my hardware if I want to.

 

If that file conversion is really really really important to you. Buy a new laptop and hope it will do the job.

 

The problem is that those doing the illegal music business will work around this issue with no problem, while end users wanting to make legitimate use of this feature are the ones being unjustly targeted. Lenovo should not have chosen the RIAA above its users.

 

Really? So they have to deal with all the lawsuits, cool. Would you do that if you were Lenovo?
There aren't that many buy a thinkpad to do those things anyway.

 

All I am saying is that if I had known that the Thinkpad was intentionally crippled in this way I would not have purchased it. By making others aware of this issue I am just doing what my conscience tells me to do, I am treating my neighbor as I want to be treated. You may not care about this isue, but I am sure there are some others out there like me.

If those that care about this issue are not many, then Lenovo has nothing to worry about. If on the other hand this results in less sells for Lenovo then maybe next time Lenovo will choose to fight the RIAA rather than meekly surrender to its demands.

 

Even if this does result in less sales...I think they'd rather lose 5% in sales, than be hit with a lawsuit that costs them millions of dollars. Its really a no-brainer.

 

But why? Why is it illegal to produce normal functioning hardware? And why are other manufacturers being able to do so?

 

I can already confirm at least one less purchase for Lenovo. It was going to be a T62.

 

As I said, you can just buy a new one, and hope that it will do the job.

 

My concern is for other unaware buyers like myself and all those who posted on the thread I linked to. There should be a sticky on this forum warning potential buyers about this intentional defect. I am surprised there hasn't been a class action suit about this, since as far as I can see, there is no disclosure about it any where. Are there any lawyers in the forum?

 

Congratulations, you've swayed one person to not buy a laptop that doesn't even exist. Do you want a trophy?

 

Because there is only 1% of notebook buyers care about this.
If you want to sue Lenovo, good luck with that.

 

I just about spit Mountain Dew all over my screen!! We had a user request an upgrade to a T64; I told them if Lenovo ever gets around to making one in the next few years, he'd be the first one in the company I'd call

 

Obviously what this person meant was that he was debating whether to get the next version of the T6x or another model. This information has swayed him away from Lenovo, unless the next version does not come similarly crippled, of course.

 

What are you guys saying? Listen to yourselves, you are backing up the RIAA when it's threatening major PC makers to follow their damn rules.

RIAA shouldn't be able to get away with this crap. Lawsuit or not, PC makers should stand against them and preserve the rights of the users and not give in to their constant threat of suing everybody.

This is only beginning of hardware DRM restrictions- unless the industry fights back the RIAA.

 

Old news.

x61/t61 series and Stereo Mix

What do you use Stereo Mix/Wave Out for? (removal of feature from t61/r61/x61 models)

 

But obviously still relevant. There should be a sticky prominently displayed about this issue, or it should be mentioned on the sticky already there so that buyers like me can be aware of it. Is someone trying to cover this up?

 

Wouldn't something like this do the trick?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829102020

 

please sticky this.

 

All he needs to do to solve the original problem is download dbPowerAmp and the m4a+ogg codecs for it. It would have taken one tenth the time spent threatening to put Lenovo out of business.

 

I second the dBpoweramp Music Converter, it's a very good and professional software to convert audio/music files. The VLC built-in converter is nothing close to it. I can't believe no one has suggested this or other solution in 3 pages of posts.

 

It is not an issue of being able to convert the file or not. I was able to do that already using my desktop. The issue at hand is the principle being trampled upon of not being sold something crippled without fair warning. And I am not threatening to put Lenovo out of business. Believe me, I have given Lenovo so much business in the past that is going to take a long time for me to even out the score. I guess that is partly why I feel so betrayed. But, yes, if there was someone willing to start the process of a class action suit I would probably join in. Where are the sharks when one needs them? Maybe I'll have to swing over to a lawyers forum and see if anyone sees any possibilities from this issue.

On the other hand, if Lenovo was to issue a fix ...

(PS: or at least an apology and a promise not to do this in future models.)

 

If the mods are in agreement with placing this as a sticky (and why shouldn't they?) the title could be made more specific about the nature of the warning.

Remember, people are buying crippled hardware without notice from the manufacturer and without proper warning from the user community!

 

i hope you go to all the other notebook manufacturer sub-forums and demand stickies for all the brands that do the same exact thing.

as stated before, Lenovo is simply succumbing (rightly or not) to market pressures in line with other manufacturers. they are not the only ones to do this.

 

But it seems that other manufacturers are correcting the problem.

http://forum.lenovo.com/lnv/board/m...l&thread.id=316&view=by_date_ascending&page=8

(For some reason I can't get the link to work directly to the post. See post 74 on page 8 of that discussion.)

Not so with Lenovo.

 

Sure:

http://www.dellcommunity.com/suppor...thread.id=39102&view=by_date_ascending&page=1
Why do not dell release vista driver?

As usual: if you are not happy with windows:
http://www.linux.org/

 

You know this isn't even a proper way to "convert" an audio file. It's a slow and crappy method for people that don't want to get/use the proper/legit software. I don't understand, you're willing to use Audacity(3rd party software, sound editor/recorder, not a converter), but not a proper software to covert the audio files?

 

I don't think anyone is trying to cover anything up here. This is simply such an uncommon issue that not that many care. Maybe it does head down a slippery slope or whatever, but it's not going to sway me to another manufacturer.

If you want to start a lawsuit over this then go ahead. It's not like Lenovo advertised being able to record from line input as a feature.

A little while ago I was made aware that laptop wireless cards are actually hard-coded to work with particular laptops and not others. That might be something you want to sue about too.

 

In fact, he can just use VLC's command-line converter, or if he is a little bit lazy, use a graphical converter like WinFF:
http://www.winff.org/

 

This issue is important to enough people to have generated over 33000 views and over 260 posts, and counting, on this thread:

http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=52527

And there are many such like discussions going on around the web. I'd say there is quite a bit of interest on it. And just wait till I am done. I haven't even started to raise my voice yet. ( A bit busy at the moment.)

I haven't had a chance a chance to verify this, but several comments on various threads say that in fact Lenovo did advertise the ability to do "Sound mix" recording, if I remember right. This is a feature that has existed on all previous models of the Thinkpad line, so it would not have been unreasonable to expect it to be there, and in fact many comments are from people who bough the laptop with the intention of using this feature. See here for instance:

http://forum.lenovo.com/lnv/board/m...al&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=501#M501

At the very least, Lenovo should have made it known in the specs that this feature was not present, but it appears that the opposite was true. Again, I will have to verify this.

I fail to see the resemblance to this issue.

 

Sure.
I have written a french guide about diablo II's paladin class:
http://forum.judgehype.com/judgehype/Lepaladin/paladins-12-sujet_240425_1.htm
Around 140k view. So the only thing that your "over 33000 views and over 260 posts" deserves is a big LOL since it's rather low number, at least for a popular internet forum.

Go find the evidence.

"I haven't had a chance to verify this, but several comments on various threads say that in fact Hitler is a saint".

Another argument that deserves a LOL.
It's only "unreasonable" for those who don't think with numbers ($$$) but emotions. Emotions are always unreasonable.

Why?
Did they put on the spec that their machines have that feature? No? Since they didn't promise it, why must they do it?

Should I say "epic fail"? No?

It's exactly the same kind of issue.

 

Sheesh. Seriously. foobar2000, anything. Worst "Beware of Lenovo" thread ever

 

People doing transcodes from one lossy format to another should be shot either way ;-)

People trying to record by connecting their soundcard Inputs to its Outputs in order to avoid some audio playback limitation are crazy. It's not that hard to bypass such things. Learn how to use search engines, learn how to read.

 

You are comparing apples to oranges. Over 33000 views is a very high number for that forum, which demonstrates that there is a large interest on this issue by Thinkpad owners. The thing is that a lot of users are not even aware that this feature is missing. I have had my Thinkpad for several months and just realize this problem the other day. We just take it for granted that our hardware works as expected. Then we go and try it and, surprise-surprise.

Fair enough. There may not be any such evidence of false advertisement. I don't know. But see below.

That is a matter of opinion. I think that the removal of a feature that has been a part of every previous product and that is quite popular with some of the customers should be more widely displayed. The fact that the manufacturer had to go out of his way to cripple it shows that users can not be faulted for expecting it to be there. Especially when similar products from other manufacturers do perform as expected.

See above.

I guess there is some relation. However, when purchasing a device, like a wireless card, one can check the specs to ensure that it is compatible with the device one intends to use it in *and the specs tell you if it is or isn't*. In our case, consumers would not think to look for this feature inclusion or absence simply because it has never been missing. In fact, unless the manufacturer intentionally and deliberately removed it (making his product less desirable) the feature would be there. With the wireless card issue, it is understandable that a card can not be made compatible with all devices in the market. Unfortunately, that type of feature is not very well standardized. But, why would a consumer expect that a manufacturer would want to make his product less desirable on purpose? Besides, the specs did not make this lack of functionality known.

 

Most posters on this thread completely miss the points.

1) Lenovo is caving in to the demands of the RIAA over the users (you can justify this by lawsuits, but its a fact). This has diminished Lenovo's reputation in my opinion.

2) Some manufacturers have not removed this "feature"--Lenovo should be one of those manufacturers.

It doesn't matter if you don't use the feature, or if there are better versions, but it shows that Lenovo prioritizes the RIAA over its users as a whole. Remember, it is shortchanging all users on this "feature" so as a paying customer I can't help be slighted.

In addition, some posters have bashed RM2 for not posting this message on other manufacturer forums. Well, all I can say is that he seems to be a TP user, so it would be logical that he would voice his opinion where the $ is going, and where his experience is.

Lastly, the existence of this thread (though not necessarily the title) is an excellent idea, as it may cause Lenovo to rectify their current course.

With that, all appreciable counter-points have been nixed. I am surprised at the myopia of notebookreview posters.

The only thing I have to criticize RM2 for is the vague and possibly misleading title.

Personally, I am a die-hard TP user (I own 5), but it is becoming harder and harder to recommend them as time passes. This is also the general sentiment on forum.thinkpads.com. I would not be surprised if a couple years down the line my next laptop was a Dell.

 

I haven't heard very many people complain about the wireless card issue mentioned a few posts back. Many, if not most laptop manufacturers hard-code a list of allowed wireless cards into the BIOS. I attempted to replace the wireless card in my laptop for a better one, and I was surprised to learn that I could not. This issue seems more pressing than this wave output issue and it has been around longer. As far as I know, this issue is yet to be rectified, so good luck on this one. I'm surprised you wouldn't have dropped lenovo long ago for the "crippled" BIOS they give.

Here is a link about IBM laptops in general relating to the wireless issue:
http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mjg59/thinkpad/wireless.html

It is extremely relevant to this topic.

 

The title is misleading...

People posted ways to do the conversion you wanted...

As far as the RIAA I blame Metallica for busting Napster!

 

People are buying crippled laptops without notice from the manufacturer and without warning from the user community. This issue is more important to some than others. To me it is a matter of principle. If I had known that this laptop was intentionally crippled I would not have purchased it. I wish there would have been a sticky about this issue when I was researching it. At this point all I can do is try to do unto others what I wish someone had done to me, give a heads-up about it. Therefore the title of my post.

 

[The bottom on tabook mentions something about the wireless]

the wifi issue is a compatibility problem, the OP is talking about a disabled feature.

either way a consumer should be aware of both. both issues should be highlighted in the thinkpad sticky

the lack of this feature alone makes thinkpads a questionable purchase for A/V students.


[the tabook also mentions "mic input jack" vs stereo input jack so maybe that was the red flag]

either way, thanks for the heads up rm2.

 

For a topic of whinners, no (ah vocal minorities).

What do you expect? Happy user never go on such a forum, since they have other things to do that complaining for an issue that is not one: converting a lossy codec to another DO NOT REQUIRE YOUR DIRTY METHOD and converting a lossy codec to another IS A VERY STUPID IDEA.

See above.

Lol?
Do you have more valid stats? Like a "% of thinkpad users complaining about this issue", "total number of user affected by this issue"?
Because "view number" is really the most invalid stats ever.

take it for a benediction since now you know that what you were doing is stupid and a unexpected behavior for the manufacture. It's like: omagad the t61 sucks, I can't use it as a hammer! OMAGAD!

Is it the manufacture's fault? No. Do they care? No, since they are not responsible for users' misbehavior.

Eh no, on the wireless card, there is no: it wont work with other laptop. Instead, it has:
"This wireless card support thinkpad t61, t60, r61..."
Look at Windows Vista box, are there any: "not supporting 16bit processor"?. Instead, it's: "supporting 32 bit processor and higher"

If we continue that way, instead of having a list of content, there will be a list of "things that are not in the box".

Let's go!

Thinkpad t61 spec sheet:
Hardware that it does not have:
AMD CPU
AMD GPU
AMD Chipsets
VIA CPU
VIA CPU
Via Chipsets
DVI port
Parallel port
eSata port

Software not included:
Winodws 2k/Me/98/95...
OS X 10.0//10.1/10.2/10.3/10.4/10.5
Red Hat linux,Fedora linux, Opensuse, ubuntu, kubunu, xubuntu, edubuntu, PClinuxOs, debian, gentoo, arch
Office xp/2000/97...
Openoffice 2.x/1.x

Not being design to be used as:
hammer
toilet paper
transcoding in a stupid way
soap
skate board
chair
girlfriend
bed
phone
home theater
blabla

For both the wireless card and your "bug", it's intentional.

Dell has the same issue, lol.

 

If you want to do Multimedia stuff wouldn't it be better to buy a multimedia laptop because the Thinkpad T series is a business laptop not a multimedia laptop.

 

Even with a multimedia laptop, his "method" wont work.

 

If those who care about this issue are as few as you say we are, then there should be no problem with letting the word out. It will have very little effect on Lenovo sells. But, the few that do care, will be forewarned. What is the problem?

I can see trying to have an intelligent, respectful, dialog with you is pointless. I won't waste my time. You obviously do not see the point.