The Notebook Review forums were hosted by TechTarget, who shut down them down on January 31, 2022. This static read-only archive was pulled by NBR forum users between January 20 and January 31, 2022, in an effort to make sure that the valuable technical information that had been posted on the forums is preserved. For current discussions, many NBR forum users moved over to NotebookTalk.net after the shutdown.
Maybe I just haven't ordered enough laptops online, but wouldn't it be cheaper to have a factory in US? Just have the basic layout of the laptop made in China then ship it to the US and have the US workers make the small customizations?
Don't most laptops manufacturers like Dell and HP ship within the US?
I think you guys misunderstood my question. Obviously 90% of the things made come from China, but when a customer orders a laptop, why is it being shipped directly from China?
I ordered an Apple Macbook a couple months ago and it was shipped from somewhere in California. Do you get what I'm saying?
There are only a dozen or so base configurations. CPU, RAM, HDD, etc., can all be easily installed in a US factory. I have no idea what the cost of that would be compared to oversea shipping.
Do Dells also ship directly from China too? I thought they have a factory in Dallas, Texas where all the customizations are made.
Probably just boils down to cost. Since Lenovo was probably already making most of their computers at factories in China before Thinkpads, it would cheaper to do it all the Thinkpads there too using existing equipment, procedures, etc. It may cost a lot to have a customization type of factory in the U.S. from scratch, something they may not want to invest in right away since they are new to the U.S. market.
The labor will be much lower than the shipping cost.
Maybe you don't believe, but I had once ship something oversea from Asia, the shipping cost is lower than the domestic shipping here.
And how much is the minimum wage here? I'd say it will be at least 10x less if you have them assembled in China.
In China, that factory gets to pay their workers a FEW dollars a DAY (by few, I mean like around $3, if even that much). Compare that to a minimum wage of $5.35 per HOUR here in the US. In the US, they have to install basic safety measures for workers in that factory (more money). In China they do not. In the US they have to spend money to comply with regulations and safety/health standards (though as well all know, even ours are not very good), in China there is little to none. In the US they have to comply with environmental laws (which, again, are already weak here). In China, they have almost no environmental laws whatsoever.
1. Near-slave labour.
2. Little to no standards regulation that costs money to comply with and/or file paperwork.
3. No environmental laws.
4. No safety/health standards for products produced.
5. No safety/health standards for workers.
All that makes up for the shipping by FAR.
And BTW, you might want to watch Lou Dobbs on CNN and/or get a lot more information online...because this has been going on for several years...the US is rapidly becoming dependent on potentially hazardous chinese products, produced by jobs that are being paid a slave's salary, which used to be in the US actually providing someone a decent quality-of-life. As far as just laptops are concerned, as has been said on this forum before...almost all (if not all) laptops from all the brands are now either currently or in process of moving to being manufactured in China.
Dell already has a BTO center here, why bother move everything to China?
Don't you know there's another law here for lay off the "hard working employee"?
Lenovo has accquired IBM's personal computer business in 2004 and then shut down IBM's plants in US and Mexico. Most Lenovo contracted assembly plants are located in China. So if you buy from Lenovo directly, you would received your order shipped from China.
Lenovo is a Chinese based company and manage to take full advantage of lower labour cost in China. However, in order to adapt to international operation, Lenovo has relocated it's world headquarter from Beijing to New York. Lenovo also has two executive offices in Beijing and Raleigh, North Carolina. And the technical center (Yamato Lab) is still in Japan.
Overall it's probably cheaper for them to drop ship directly from the manufacturing site. I ordered both a D820 and DV6000T in the past and both shipped directly from China.
In the area north of Hong Kong, Foxconn has 350,000 employees churning out electronics for a wide range of manufacturers - including Apple. Read the article (not available online) to get an idea of why China is number one. I used to think China made crap - they still mostly do, but this thinkpad is the best Chinese product I've ever owned and will end up buying more of them.
I read this article as well. It is most excellent. They say in the article that some things are shipped from China but with the return address listed as being in the US. Perhaps Apple is doing this as well? Making it seem as though it had shipped from the US?
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