Why does Lenovo hate Europe?

Apple is almost as bad as Lenovo at currency conversion but i mean ***!!!

Why do I have to pay ~1400€ for a X200 in Germany when the equally speced machine costs a mere 1075$ in the US... Thats 750€... almost half. Even with import tax and shipping thats just around 1000€... but with a us keyboard layout...

Warranty is also 3 years on both... Am I missing something or is this really, really unfair? Does a german keyboard really cost 650€ more than an us one?

 

We get cheap notebooks. You get free health care. Pick your poison.

 

It just the way it is. Ideapad series is not that more expensive, but if you wanna buy Thinkpad.... it's just ridiculous.
For example:
XP Pro
Intel® Core 2 Duo T9300 (2.5GHz)
15.4" WUXGA TFT(1900x1200)
1x2 GB
250GB/7200rpm
nVidia Quadro FX 570M 256MB
DVD±RW DL
Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Intel agn
3 year warranty Carry-in

Price in Poland: $2241
YES, USD $2241 for a T61p.

New thinkpads are not even available......

 

Sony does the same.

Maybe it has something to do with taxes.

 

I'll agree with Phil on this. European countries like to tax the hell out of everything. How do you think your "free" healthcare gets paid for?

 

No no no. There's no such a thing as a free health care.
It's financed from the budget, And it just so happens that we pay more taxes.
If VAT in the USA is around 7%, It's somewhere in between 5 - 22% in European countries.
So even if I pay more taxes and get my "free" health care Lenovo sets the prices way too high.
t61p with the above spec is USD $1837 plus 22% Vat = $2241

 

You could get a friend to buy it in the US, ship it to germany after he/she opens it makes sure its functional and repackges it. After receiving it buy a German keyboard off a site such as ebay and your set.

 

There can be difference taxes/tax breaks for corporations as well. Or they just might not like Europe .

And frisco I am sure ZaZ does not believe it is completely "free" but relative to the US's lack of a government-backed health care system, it is basically "free" in our eyes.

 

I would say that a part of the difference in pricing also has with different marketing strategies to do. Historically, Thinkpads have been considered as business machines, commanding a significant price premium over similarly speced Dells for example.

After taking over from IBM, Lenovo seems to have shifted its focus somewhat in the US and have started to target the consumer segment more. This requires of course a reduction in price levels.

In Europe, I believe that Lenovo is still marketing the Thinkpads as premium business machines.

 

You get to drink beer during lunch, and you usually get the new release products first. Notice I said usually. Sorry man, looks like you should setup someone in the states to be your laptop broker. You could import them from the states, sell them for a profit but for cheaper than the Europe site. Everyone makes money and the consumer gets the laptop cheaper.

 

It's not only VAT but also import taxes and possibly other taxes.

 

No. When we import notebooks from US we pay only VAT (22%). It is the tax for all products from countries which are not in EU.

 

I'm not talking about importing yourself. I'm talking about all the taxes that companies like Lenovo and Sony have to pay when they want to do business in Europe.

Lenovo and Sony charge about 40% more in Europe than in US.

 

About one year ago notebook from dell.de was about 2 times cheaper than dell in dell.pl. All taxes ware the same . It is just strange politic of those companies.

 

I just looked at ebay and the keyboards for the lenovos are actually quite reasonably priced... Thought they would be way expensive. So this is really a viable option.

I also have a friend in the US whom I am visiting at the end of the year... But I don't really want to wait that long, yet sending it here would incur much higher cost (due also to not being able to avoid customs) and would probably also take weeks.

Sony and others are not that bad in comparision (Sony Z was 1800$ and only 1600€) because often in Europe you have longer warranty (Sony Z has 1 year in US and 2 in Europe), but the lenovos have the same 3 year worldwide warranty...

 

In China, people have to pay more than twice than US to buy a T series, you say lenovo hate chinese?

 

True about the warranty.

Sony Z starts at $1600 in US and in Europe at 1600 euro. Common for Sony and Apple is 1$ to 1 euro.

Lenovo, Dell and HP are sometimes often even cheaper than that. Especially with coupons.

 

use mail forwarding service. they give you US shipping address. I'm from Kuwait, everyone here use it. I personally have three addresses. In the US, UK and Dubai. it allows you to order stuff online from the US for example. have the items shipped to ur US address and then forwarded to your home. This is much cheaper than fedex or ups and it allows u to buy from websites that dont ship to international addresses.

 

Maybe hate is to strong of a word, they problably love Europeans and Chinese for giving them more money than anyone else in the world, but that doesn't make it better.

The problem is collusion: Probably all the notebook makers meet once a year or something like that and discuss:
"Hi I am Apple, I bought an asian country just with the excess cash I took from non-US people, what about you Sony and Lenovo"
- "We are still saving to buy the moon, but we are halfway there"
- "Should we all lower prices to make them fair worldwide and include a weaker dollar in our retail price suggestions."
- "No lets rater make them even more expensive."

What sucks is that I don't only need a new keyboard but also a new power supply...

 

You probably don't need a new PSU, ask somebody what specs are printed on the PSU. It most likely says 110-240V. I had my Dell from ebay USA and the PSU worked fine with a new cable. I'm sure I saw cables for thinkpads for < 5€ just here at my local dealer.

 

yeah you only need a cheap cable.

 

Then it's really something to consider.

Just hope the € recovers until years end, but even at 1,20$ per € it would still be a huge bargain because even nominally the thing is more expensive here than in the US...

 

There is nothing to recover, even though it had been higher. 1 € = 1,4138 USD currently. Analysts say it will stay there at around 1,45 at most until years end.

The Euro was about 1:1 with the USD when it was introduced in 2002.
http://www.baufinanzierung-bayern.de/kurse/kurs_usd.html

 

Sure, even a year ago it was way lower at 1,30 or something.

The problem is that financial markets have more to do with psychology than reasoning at times.

At the moment every one thinks America is doing fine (most expected a deepening of the recession by Q3 of 08) and Europe is finally catching the chill of the crisis.

While the latter may uphold, most seem to neglect that the US interest rate has been lowered and lowered without much effect on the economy.
The "problem" is that the effect comes with a delay just like the weakening of Europe. The other problem is that like any interest rate change it will most likely be short lived and probably by year's end America will be suffering again.

And last but not least: The latest move to rescue Fannie and Freddie has probably caused a "safe-heaven bubble" which in turn might result in more NINJA loans...

Well back to notebooks: Still haven't decided yet what to do

 

I understand that they cant sell it for the same price as they do in the US, but does it really cost them £500 to ship each one over here? I have been looking to buy a X200/X300 for a while now but it is just too expensive.

 

well i just read that the us economy is at the very bottom and the takeover of those two loan companies is pricey, risky, but however neccessary.

another thing to mention though is that several eastern countries and companies moved away from US Dollar only contracts and started making contracts in Euro, because the Euro is stable and the US economy is in hight debt. i dont know if that actually affects lenovo, but it's definitely the case. that *could* explain the price difference.

 

the price difference is easily explained...

the competition in the US is higher, cost of living is generally cheaper and most companies are nativly American.

 

- competition: not agreed. there is a lot of competition here in germany, no way does that justify a price difference of ~ 40% or more
- cost of living: agree halfway.
- most companies nativly americans: that is no longer true and doesn't mean they have high market shares. the majority of notebooks available here come from asia. acer has the biggest market share with 22% here, then fujitsu siemens and hp. far far behind and not in the top 10 comes lenovo. dell and the asian notebook makers don't sell their notebooks as overpriced as lenovo. lenovo is price wise just out of competition here, that's what explains their bad market share.

http://www.heise.de/resale/Acer-ver...e-im-deutschen-PC-Markt--/news/meldung/113641

 

Although it has fallen far, the us economy is far from safe due to having reached a floor and the fannie freddie incident is an indicator for that.

This is the third time this has happend (first northern rock, then bear stears and now this). Although this move has somewhat secured the mortgage market from further plummentation in my eyes it just shows how bad everything is.

There are many more bubbles where the last one came from (i.e. Credit cards). And because of its nature as a "leveraged nation" the us will almost always be worse off than europe.


As for Lenovo and other notebook makers increased competition might be one cause for the high prices. In the us you have one produkt that is the same if you buy it in Alabama, New York or Kansas.

In Europe on the other hand you have different models for different countries due to power supply and layout, so in a way this creates new markets on its own.

Though this explains some part of it (i.e. Price rigidity being another) it still is not fair...

 

Hm... IDK. The power supply and the "Schuko" ("Schutzkontakt") cable is the same for any(?) western europe country, the power supply being even the same as in the us i think. And I bet the notebooks are often the same models, varying just from keyboard layout. Hm anyways, i guess it strenghtens the us economy if i order from there ;-)

 

You know that and I know that, but the regular customer doesn't. He enters a saturn markt and buys a notebvook.
And the shops themselves get supplied with german versions. Even facing shortages they won't go and buy a uk version and exchange keyboard, cable and reinstall the os in gerrman.

I totally concur that this is still BS and probably hurting Lenovo more than me and therefore should be banned
Let's make a notebookprice cap of 1K

 

Another issue is the "international warranty" of Lenovo, which is curiously not international. You will not get any warranty support for CTO models in Europe, and even more funny, you won't even get support (for which you've paid additionally) for any model which is not sold in Europe, if you are on a business trip in Europe (told by Lenovo Support).

This is business.

 

thanks for the info, i will have to read that myself to believe it... But that would really suck, cause then importing one would be a no go for me without warranty.

The ironic part is: if i have to buy a x200 for 1400 in europe, ill rather get get a 1600 sony z... Great going lenovo...

 

Canada was in the same situation with Lenovo's asinine currency conversion until quite recently. Now Canadian prices are much more in line with US prices.

I imagine this had a lot to do with Canadian customers just importing their machines from the US due to the significant savings. I suggest you do the same in Germany and hope that in time Lenovo gets the message.

 

I would, but no warranty is just a no go.

 

USA is still the best place to buy PCs and Laptops..Lol.. of course per USD is only 1/1.5 of EURO.

So welcome to USA for purchasing!!

Never forget that Lenovo is a Chinese company, which usually builds low quality products..

Thinkpad is not a top-notched laptop choice anymore..in hands of Levono..and HP does much more better in many aspects than Lenovo.

What is the best reason to pick a thinkpad? Just because it is so cheap!! For the same spec. its cheaper than Dell's Latitude, than HP's Pavillians, than TOSHIBA's Satellite...

 

I'd throw in switchable graphics/battery life, build quality, reasonable graphics performance, noise, noise again.

The Thinkpad has it's quirks, but it features all of the above. That makes the list of possible competitors much smaller. So for me personally my only complaint is the notebook screen to reason the price premium - I'm willing to pay some bucks more when I buy something that I will keep for some years. I'm waiting for a high res 15,4" LED, 1600x1050 at least (have WUXGA 1900*1200 on my old Dell, ok but dim), as I'm programming with Eclipse. I recently checked an Appl Macbook Pro and for that matter the current LED resolution really sucks.

I'd even change to the Apple camp, if they'd offer high res LED screens. So if you hear me, Lenovo, I'll pay the European premium + 500 € if you can offer me a 1900*1200 LED that would be able for outdoor use!!! I mean it. But for the current (EU) price and screen lottery: No deal.

 

IMO, I think it depends on the amount of sales that Lenovo makes. In US I bet they sell a lot more laptops than what they sell in Europe, and a waaaaay more than in China, lol. So the business is going, eventhough the profit may not be as high per unit sold, but the market is there.

same thing with cars .. In US - cheaper than in Europe

now I do believe the taxing plays big role as well, and thus messes up the prices for the consumer. Just look at the gas prices .. in US 87 is what, below 4 bucks/gal. In East Europe it's like double that for 95 octane that is probably as good as US'es 91, lol.

 

Unlike gasoline there is no specific tax on computer that makes it so much more expensive.

As for cars there is also a different dynamic behind pricing: Also due to the high gas prices, big cars are not that popular in Europe, the market for those is small, therefore the demand is small and logically the price is higher, because the few that want a big car and are able to afford the high gas price also have more money to spend and are willing to spend more.
The US is the official home of the gas guzzlers and because everyone wants to have one, demand is high and supply is even higher creating a highly competitive market with even more competitive pricing.

But unlike the cars, the notebooks aren't made locally or regionally in factories, but most likely in the same factory in China...


I have also read through the warranty condidtions and kenen was right:

Nice... Sony Z I am coming for you...

 

I'll take the former!

 

Too many business reasons, if Lenovo can make more money by dropping the price, they would definitely do it. But they have not prepared well

Lenovo and Acer have tried to buy Packard Bell, and Acer succeeded. This year I find many cheap Acer laptops.

 

I'm afraid you are wrong.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/08/lenovo_q1_2009_earnings/

 

Lenovo is not the same as IBM was.
The thinkpads are getting worse. E.g. W500 has a cooling problem and the keyboard is bad.(forum.thinkpads.com)
The prices in Europe are definitly too high for this quality.
I wanted to buy a W500 but I think a HP 8530w will be a better choice.

 

Sadly they do it because they can get away with it. It's particularly noticeable with certain manufacturers like Lenovo and particularly Sony. I spoke to an executive for an organisation that tends to use or should I say abuse European, Canadian, Australasian customers a couple of years ago. After you got through all the bull of tax and extended supply chain etc he conceded that Europe in particular is viewed as a bit of cash cow (his words). Basically we receive poorer customer service and options (compare the US Lenovo site to the UK site), lower spec equipment (Sony are infamous for this) and later availability.

When you're looking at equipment and supply costs then there will be very little difference in costs around the world. Certainly not enough to explain the price differences.

A classic example is Sony's treatment of the US/Japan compared to the rest of the world. The PS3 was offered far later, at a lower spec but even higher cost. Have a look at the Vaio Z as another example, more expensive in Europe and in the UK you can't even have a blu-ray player as an option.

It's got something to do with the fragmented nature of the markets compared to the US. The US is still the single biggest market so that's where the budget goes.

They also view US customers as having less brand loyalty hence the numerous discount days they get.

Basically US customers won't put up with being treated as second rate.

 

lol, OK.

so maybe the competition within the size of the US market could explain it then

 

That's right and almost went right past me, now I don't want a Sony Z anymore...

I am now waiting on pricing for the Dell E4300... Hope they can do the math right...

 

I did not figure out if this method is for escaping from the taxes or not. it is just a trick to ship from US.

 

its a trick to ship cheaper from us to Kuwait

it costs $200 to ship thinkpad from USA to kuwait via fedex, where via Aramex (us forwarding mailbox service) it costs $75-$85 to ship to kuwait and most Us merchants offers free USA shipping

 

true...... change!

 

cant beat cheap notebooks , free health care and cheap fuel


















and TAX free country