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I think we'll see the full effects of Lenovo's takeover in the upcoming period. As the IBM inventory stocks dwindle, we'll see how the manufacturing quality stands up.
Well that kills the deal for me. I've been shopping for a new notebook for the last two years and I've narrowed it down to about 5. But now that I've read the posted article I can countout the T42 and T43. Now I just have decide between the dell D610, X1 and Fujitsu S6240. I should have a decision in another 12 to 16 months.
You shouldn't count out the T42 and T43, as the article doesn't really apply to them. Future lenovo designed products may have a decrease in quality, but the existing models are still IBM designed. All this casts doubt on is the quality of the future Z series model.
I don't see why you would cast out T42 and T43 when you keep in the dell notebooks as there is no way that the dell units are better built than the T4x.
But anyways, whether IBM designed the T43 or not, this article said that Lenovo was using lower quality parts. The design may be the same, but it doesn't mean the quality will still be as high as it was. Perhaps things like looser quality control, apparition of more dead pixels or cheaper plastic, etc.
I don't think they made such a claim expressly. The article seemed to focus more on future problems that are likely to develop, referring to "Lenovo's historical approach of using less expensive products from tier two suppliers." When the article talks about quality differences between IBM and Lenovo PCs, it doesn't expressly say that this relates to PCs of the 'same model.' Also, didn't IBM say that the "PC product roadmap will not change for 18 months under the new company" back in December (refer to similar thread.) Doesn't this seem to suggest that quality differences in existing IBM models will appear after this? Also, the IBM/Lenovo deal was only finalized as of May 1, 2005, so much of the stock available now for purchase very well could have been made before that, and that brief period seems to have left little time for serious changes in the manufacturing process.
Either way, this one article does not in any way provide evidence of a significant decrease in the quality of IBM/Lenovo PCs, now or in the near future.
My grandparents back in China own two lenovo PCs that I bought for them and I must say their quality isn't very assuring. One came with a broken speaker and the other kept crashing after 2 weeks of use. The only reason we bought from lenovo was because they were the largest PC producers in China with supposedly great support. From what I've seen so far, I'm going to stay away from lenovo for some time.
Also, the specs of Lenovo PCs in China are horrendous. I mean who makes a 3.4 Pentium 4 and dedicated gpu, but only 256 mb of ram (no other option) that you can't even upgrade yourself because of those warrenty stickers everywhere!?!
Hopefully, Lenovo's PCs are not any indications of their future laptops.
I agree that the Z series would be the one where we start to see the differences in quality. It seems pretty clear that this one wasn't designed by IBM, that Lenovo simply tried their best to make it look like a proper ThinkPad. However, I'm sure that Lenovo will try their best to keep the quality up, otherwise ThinkPads would either have to become drastically cheaper or extinct.
The only thing that gives me hope that quality will either be maintained or returned to IBM levels is that in the transfer of the business to Lenovo, IBM retained a significant percentage of the shares of stock in the new enterprise. Though IBM is not a mjority shareholder (which would give it control over the new corp), it has a strong interest to ensure that the Lenovo products maintain quality, or the value of the shares will plummet and IBM will in effect lose a lot of its selling price for the division.
I don't know, but I suspect that this was part of the deal for the sale in order to ensure that IBM would have an interest in maintaining an oversight on the quality.
This is awful to hear right, mainly because they have a new series coming out soon too. This would have never happened to Big Blue
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ThinkPad 770Z
128mb Ram
14 gig hard disk
Trident Cyber 9397
ultrabay II 8x DVD
Windows ME
AND **** PROUD OF IT!
Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
