Lenovo launches new support site

Lenovo Support - Home (US) has been revamped and is a work in progress. See the announcement at New Support site is here - some Q & A - Lenovo Community

 

It now takes more clicks to get to the driver download area. I also got greeted with a "brief" 5 minute survey.
Not digging the new site.

 

There is an entry for a T430. Those who bought a T420 may consider their laptop outdated. lol

 

I'm not liking the new redesign either, as Roger pointed out it takes more clicks than usual to get to the area you need to go.

Now i'm scratching my head on this one because before I always used their common driver matrix to get the URLs to help people (example with the T420), with the new interface its more difficult to do that now.

 

Not just the support site...Lenovo shop has also changed..

 

I like it--it's laid out in a much more logical way than before. Sure, it may take a few more clicks, but at least it's obvious where you need to click: it's like folders. I have a very systematic folder system, with tons of folders for all sorts of files--I hate it whenever I have a ton of files in one folder, and usually end up subdividing it. Yeah, you only need one click to open the file if there are no subfolders, but good luck finding the file to click on.

As for the matrix, after you select your computer, click on the grey text to the left that says "Download Drivers & Software." That would be the matrix, with collapsible sections. As *Hearst* mentioned, though, the matrix link is now not unique--you'll have to navigate to the "More Info" link to get a unique hyperlink. It'll be more difficult to share links, but then again, maybe fewer people will have issues finding the right driver in the first place

Glad they're moving in the right direction, and that they're taking some customer feedback on this. It's a good way to demystify the alphabet soup of model lines Lenovo has.

Also, made this little discovery... guess we know what the X120e's successor will be called:

 

There goes all my bookmarks! :cry:

Does not help me to help others. For individual users it might be better - not sure yet.

 

Bhargh.



What's with the recent trend of form over functionality?

 

Well, my bookmark for the ThinkPad Matrix is coming up again.

Lenovo Support - Drivers and software - ThinkPad

 

for a period of time (roughly one year, iirc) MIGR pages will still link to the appropriate locations on the new site.   eventually bookmarks will need to be updated.

i miss driver matrices already.   perhaps a poll should be started to find out how many still use them.

 

So, the auto-detect tool only works for IE? Get with the times, Lenovo...I use Firefox, and I'm sure more than 50% of people here use Firefox or Chrome.

 

This is a bad mistake if you ask me ala New Coke. I thought the old support site worked well, but perhaps they'll see the error of their ways like with the website.

 

I actually support Lenovo bringing this all under one roof and not shelling out to the various IBM sites. It certainly doesn't help their brand and it's time to cut some cords.

However, the current experience is less than desirable. For instance, the filtering isn't working properly. I told the site to only show me 64 bit Windows 7 drivers for the W520. It gave me some 32 bit drivers and not the 64 bit version.

Granted this could be a data input error and the site is working properly but the metadata is wrong, but still.

I also don't want collapsed categories. I would prefer a chronological list so I can see what drivers have emerged since the last visit.

Anyone see a way to sort all of the drivers for a machine by date? Looking for the flat list that would be similar to Lenovo Support - ThinkPad W520 support

 

All,

Glad to see these discussions popping up - we definitely want to hear feedback on the new site. As you noted, I set up a public discussion board on the Lenovo forum to focus attention on your feedback.

I think it's cool that you run this thread here too - broaden the reach. I also note many Lenovo forum familiar faces Colonel, ZaZ, Erik... I hope you can help post on the Lenovo forum and keep us up to date with links to goings on here.

I'll try to keep up. I think you understand the need to consolidate - the old infrastructure ironically had an outage this morning. We really want to build on a modern, stable platform. I expect a few bumps and bruises, and we may have made some initial decisions (like the driver matrix) that we are going to hear a lot about. I hope you will give us feedback on what is important to you - we want build a site that serves your needs and gives you another reason to love Thinkpads and Lenovo.

Best regards,

Mark

 

I agree with Thors.Hammer with the issue on the descriptions of drivers. I have had difficulties when the T61 UltraNav driver for Windows 7 (x32/x64) did not appear in the normal T61/p DATA MATRIX.

 

Probably needs ActiveX like most of the other auto-detect tools. Ma-config.com works with all browsers, but it requires installing something first.

 

I just want a list of new files for my specific Thinkpad in chronological order. Can this new version give me what I had before?

 

I just did yesterday as I rolled back my W520 to BIOS 1.22 to get turboboost back.

Perry

 

Why not to use the RSS feed - after you choose your model, you'll notice a link called Subscribe to driver updates in the Helpful Resources section which is pulling up the latest updates.

 

Thanks for the hint! Did what you suggested - will see how it goes. Looks excellent, but, unless I am missing something, it lists of latest updates are from 5th January?

 

I assume it could be some limitation of the new support site (it really appears that they include just the current year) because the prior feed is getting everything Lenovo ThinkPad W500 updates (took it here)

 

Yep! That's more like it! Thanks so much!

 

I went through the first four pages of the forum and didn't find any threads, so I figured I'd post. I hadn't checked for driver updates in a couple of weeks, and found Lenovo's support website completely updated.

Is it me, or is it now more cumbersome to navigate than before? I'm not saying the original site was perfect, but it seems to me like it requires more mouse clicks to find what I want, and get pertinent info on new drivers than I did before. The release date of a file also isn't listed unless I navigate to "More Info", which seems counter-intuitive.

One other thing I'd love to see that Dell implemented in the last year or so --the ability to filter drivers by only those released in the last xx number of days (I believe 0-30, 0-60, or 0-90). It would be really easy then to know if there were any new drivers since I last checked, rather than having to drill down through the new site.

 

I've merged your thread with the other one from a while back concerning the same topic

 

Yeah I don't like the new support site either. Maybe Lenovo should take a leaf out of Dell's book.