Why have the thinkpad prices gone down?

With the current anniversary sale going on, I cannot help but think why the prices of Thinkpads have dropped so much in the past one year. Is it because compromises have been made in the build quality/ quality of parts? Or is it just because the technology has become old?

 

I think it's probably a mix of slightly lower quality parts and just a different marketing strategy with volume over exclusiveness now.

Thinkpads are still pretty high quality, I'm fairly happy with my T60. It does seem to have a creak or two and I didn't like the viewing angles of the 14" screen at first but I'm over it now.

If the price stayed high though it gives the impression that the product itself must be high quality. An Apple Macbook Pro does not seriously cost 2k to manufacture.

 

... or Lenovo and their suppliers have found ways to produce the same quality components and finished goods at less expense to them, allowing them to pass some of the savings along to their customers.

This, coupled with the fact that they are fighting for market share with HP and Dell and price is definitely an important factor.

My T61p seems as solid as any of the Thinkpads I've owned/used over the years. My first being 11 years ago (755CX I believe).

 

Definitely the quality of the parts and build quality have gone down. Myself and others on this forum have stated on how poorly these new thinkpads are made compared to the old ones made by IBM.

 

i've got a tech here right now fixing my computer, even he said the quality is way better than dells he's taken appart. He was laughing because he said if he was working on my dell he would have been gone already, but the lenovo has so many parts it just takes longer.

 

Not sure I agree.... many of the parts are the same, from the same suppliers, etc. NMB, Chicony, etc... Plus there have definitely been some positive structural changes (full metal hinges, magnesium roll cage, etc). I think the T61p is my 10th Thinkpad in 11 years, and I haven't noticed a significant quality change (either positive or negative) over the years... Let see... 755CX, 760, 770, T20, T21, T40, T43 * 2, T60p, T61p... plus my peers that use Thinkpads.

Quality is subjective to a degree -- it's hard to argue that two machines made with the same parts are of different quality. There's also engineering (fit) and assembly (lose screws, misalignments, etc) to consider. I'm suspecting the quality differences that are being discussed are more related to the build process than anything else. I've seen a number of posts about creaks, flexes, missing screws, etc, but not many posts about things melting down or being DOA.

Just my two cents.

And bear in mind I have a T61p under my left hand an a Dell M65 under my right hand, so I'm not a "fan boy" lashing out.

 

Thanks for voicing your opinion LaptopGuru, it is refreshing to hear from someone who can actually speak from experience.

 

Yeah dells sux!

 

Who's to say that the other people that responded don't actually have direct experiences with thinkpads? Why do you assume that we don't also have current thinkpads?

I have a brand new R61, and that's what I was basing my answer on...

 

What previous thinkpads have you owned?

 

Justanother Cheap Chinese plastic trinket...
I sure do miss IBM...

 

i think the 'building' quality has gone down. I am one of the users who had loose screws resulting in creaking...i tightned all of them and my notebooknow feels as solid as my old t40...however, vista is pissing me off when resuming from sleep..but that's not lenovo's fault

 

- Build quality worse (though people on these forums exaggerate the drop like crazy.)
- Customer Support outsourcing.
- Massive competition from Dell etc.
- Different marketing strategy.

 

Agree on all points. I think #4 drives #3. IBM never really competed with the Thinkpad, it sold itself, and it had a price premium. Now that Lenovo is going head to head with the other heavy hitters (Dell and HP), they've got to make some compromises to be competitive... So cost cutting in support and construction.

 

Realize that the R series is the "Affordable" line. There are build differences for a machine that starts about $200 less than the T line.

 

Hmm - I think build quality is not worse - it is different. If I compare my new T61p with the T20, T21, R50 that I had, then plastic covers are a bit thinner and you get more flex. It did not use to be that way. Though I am sure they did this intentionally - because more magnesium - means that they have to save weight in other areas.

 

Most of you making some very good and valid points. Especially LaptopGuru seems to hit the nail. Yet some just can't help being annoying and ignorant:

X26 please stop your ignorant remarks. On several occasions you have thrown comments around about Lenovo using cheap Chinese materials and in general just throw ignorant immature comments around.

You hold a grudge against Chinese things. We get it. It's funny how a large part of the products you and I use, are either fully made in China or contain parts made in China. But ignorance is a bliss right?

You share an interesting resemblance to Mstpe aka Royco (who joined in September as well) as well as MonsterMaxx. That is not a compliment by the way. And to be honest, I wish you and the rest of your type would disappear from NBR. But the moderators seem to have a different opinion, which I cannot understand.

Lenovo is not ignorant enough to seriously jeopardize loosing the ThinkPad business as it is their prestige business area. For all those who are ignorant enough to bash Lenovo for being a Chinese company, let me offer you this fact: Senior management is still predominantly made up of Americans. Why? Because Lenovo knows not to mess with something which is not broken.
And by the way, Lenovo was contract manufacturing ThinkPads even back when IBM was still calling the shots.

---

As for the question the OP made. The price decrease is a combination of several factors which are not different than for most other manufacturers:

- Ability to obtain parts and materials at a lower price, i.e. global price developments.
- Competition pressure. Competitors have become very good within the business notebook segment.
- Larger volumes being sold - Notebooks are becoming much more mainstream than in the past, affecting price as well.
- Lenovo was already being used as a manufacturing partner when the PC division was still owned by IBM. Now the margins are fully accumulated and manageable by Lenovo.
- Aggressive strategy by Lenovo.
- They are making themselves more available to the consumer market, compared to the past, where their customers were predominantly businesses.


Having owned and worked on at least 8 ThinkPads for more than a decade I can tell you that not much has changed quality wise. This has to be put in relation to the fact that notebooks are continually becoming more advanced, light and compact. The same goes for other notebook manufacturers. For some, Lenovo might seem worse than they used to, but has anyone stopped to think that it just might be that the competitors have improved their quality instead (i.e. HP/Dell)? Making the difference smaller and hence making the ThinkPads seem less superior. I can tell you that the Dell Latitude series has become very good build quality wise.

Having said that, Lenovo is to a large extent offering CTO, making the production process more demanding - increasing the risks of mistakes or neglect. Add to that, that due to ThinkPads being so affordable in i.e. the US (with coupon codes and what not), CTO purchases become even greater. I have a theory that the rate of quality issues are much greater with CTO notebooks than the pre-configured ones. But this is just a theory.

Regardless, I find many of the quality issues which every now and then are posted on this board to be blown way out of proportion. Also, the number of issues might seem high, but remember that the large majority is happy with their ThinkPads and are not posting. The same applies to other manufacturers.

But a few complaints are often perceived as more than they are, by naive (not meant in a negative way) first time buyers who don't know better. The fact of the matter is that even if these quality issues were apparent in the past, they would not have surfaced in the same manner, as the people making the complaints couldn't afford ThinkPads in the past, and the Internet was not a common media at that time either. One last thing to note, is that especially the younger generation has become incredibly more demanding and critical.
Add all of the above together and think about if for a minute.

At the end of the day, quality is in the eye of the beholder. It is not exact science, until a benchmark is set and agreed upon.

 

Let me put it this way adinu. In post number 4 you made a comparative statement. You said that quality of parts and build quality of the recent thinkpads has decreased in comparison to past thinkpads... You unfortunately left out how you came to this conclusion.

Can you please fill me (us?) in on which other thinkpads you have been able to compare your R61 to? What parts have decreased in quality, and where specifically have you found the build quality to have been decreased?

 

Just want you to know that IBM had been using Lenovo (previously called Legend) to produce Thinkpad. And most of Thinkpads were making in China since beginning.

 

The standard warranty for most CTO models are 1 year now instead of 3 year, and the CTO has a much shorter list of countries that honor the IWS (international warranty). If you look at those pre-configured models, their prices ain't that cheap.

 

I think the discussion needs to be divided into Design Quality and Build Quality.

I predict that we'll see the bigger difference in design quality within a couple of years. IBM got their reputation with the Thinkpads by putting extensive engineering effort into each aspect of the design, as well as tight quality control in manufacturing, and charged accordingly for it.

But once the existing design format gets too stale and must be extensively refreshed, I doubt Lenovo will put in the same "no stone unturned" effort. Hopefully I'm wrong though.

Right now it is sort of a sweet spot, because the T60 / T61 designs are largely inherited from IBM I think, but the new pricing structure and marketing approach from Lenovo makes them very affordable.

Perhaps we're already starting to see some signs of looser quality control in the build from what I've read (although my T60 seems perfectly solid), but that risk is probably fairly low, and no worse than the other choices out there.

Hopefully Lenovo won't ruin the Thinkpad reputation.

 

The title of this thread should be modifed slightly to " Why have thinkpad prices gone down in the US?

As far as I know prices elsewhere in the world are really high...too high to justify buying imo. For example I just went to the Canadian Lenovo site to look for a similarly configured system ( custom builds are non existent ) to the one I bought fromthe US site. The Canadian price was $800 more! Couple hundred over I can understand but $800 differential ( CA $ and US $ is pretty much par atm) is just crazy..I could buy another thinkpad on the US site with the money saved.

So why the price disparity between US and rest of the world? Wish I knew but I bet those not in the US looking to buy a Thinkpad are definitely envious. Just be glad you're getting really good prices not available elsewhere.

 

I owned a PC repair company for 5 years.

To rate the T61, requires one to dissect it into two parts. #1 Main Chassis (includes the keyboard) #2 LCD Chassis.

#1 Main Chassis. The best on the market in its price range. The CPU heatsink is the best ever. Temperature variation across the chassis is very good and top tier. There are cooler laptops on the top or bottom but overall the T61 is one of the best. There is some minor flex in a couple of areas but better than those in its class. Regarding fit and finish, this is not a Macbook Pro but it's also $1000 less.

#2 LCD Chassis. One of the worst on the market with only the ramshorn locking mechanism keeping it just up from the bottom of the barrel. Fit and finish is atrocious. The clamshell design does not mate properly although I have heard that some improvement has been made recently (not verified). The bezel is not symetrical and neither are the hinges. There is just no excuse for the clamshell problems. Some of the LCD's are plagued with light leakage or poor illumination.

These issues caused me to return for a refund.

Let's face it, the T61 is a mainstream laptop and not as rugged as a Mil Spec notebook or a Macbook Pro when it comes to fit/finish. Many Dell's and Hp's outclass the LCD chassis on the T61 but the main chassis is best on the T61.

 

I have to pull rank here, Greggie. You owned a PC repair company for 5 years in the past?? What does that have to do with notebooks? Does that somehow give you some advanced form of expertise? Was your training at ITT Technical Institute?

Thinkpads have always been durable. If not always reliable they were backed by excellent customer service from IBM. Much like Apple, Thinkpad owners were part of a cult. Big Blue sold out to what left of Mao's communist empire, lol.

Thinkpads have lost their prestige by being sold to an unknown but very large Lenovo who was an OEM manufacturer.

After owning one Dell desktop and one Dell laptop, I can safely say I am a computer expert when it comes to repairing things. I can take a computer apart and put it back together.

Macs are not extremely well built, nice looking and expensive. Macs have always been far from reliable. Since Apple is a cult, nobody speaks of their Macs breaking down because it's forbidden.

Thinkpads are now under heavy pressure from HP and Toshiba. Dell is a has been in the laptop market.

My Thinkpad T43P died and it was made by IBM. The hard drive failed and I couldn't replace it with any old drive because IBM requires special hard drive firmware for the T43.

The build quality of Thinkpads has always been good. The LCD's have been terrible unless you pay the big bucks for what other manufacturers give you for the same price of the crappy Thinkpad screens.

It's nice to see Lenovo is getting competitive on price again. I may buy a T61

 

Agreed. Thinkpads are only cheap in the US. Seems like Lenovo's attempt to push into the US market to compete with HP and Dell.

That's the problem with both Macs and Thinkpads. You almost always can't criticise them or you get threatened or attacked by fanboys.

 

Hans Gruber, not to sound disrespectful but anyone who repairs Thinkpads will agree with Greggie.

The build quality with regards to the LCD Screen is often non existant, I have seen numerous issues with LCD Screens seperating from the case etc. (Poor design)

There really is no excuse for leaving such a major flaw in a series that is so well built otherwise. I am unaware if these complaints have been reduced with the T61 or if the issue has been improved upon. (Hopefully it has)

I definitely agree that ThinkPad currently has the best chassis though.

 

If it's too expensive there are complaints that the price doesn't reflect quality. If it's cheap then it's a confirmation that the quality must be low. Please...

 

I replaced my T43 with a cheapie Toshiba A135 with Core Duo and a 15.4" widescreen. It came with Vista and 512mb of Ram. I upgraded the Ram to 2GB with the ram from my T43. I paid $550 in January at BestBuy. Consumer Reports ranked it a best buy in their laptop reviews.

I think everybody knows about the Hard Drive error message when changing or upgrading a T43 hard drive. My Toshiba drive in my T43 died 2 months after the warranty. I bought an 80GB Seagate 7200RPM drive that was supposed to be compatable with the T43. I even had the special firmware but it wouldn't work.

AMEX refunded me $575 on my AMEX entended warranty, so I'm happy. Maybe I will just waith for the holiday laptop wars and buy another cheapie instead of another thinkpad.

 

Are there any hard facts / statistics we can point to, to back up some the claims about poor screen reliability?

I couldn't care less and don't get bent out of shape if someone criticizes a Thinkpad. But sometimes what I read just doesn't jive at all with what I've seen, thus I need to see more facts before my opinion is swayed.

 

Although IBM's product quality is excellent compared to many other manufacturers, they were completely arrogant towards home/small business customers.

Few days ago, I've heard a case by Oliver Wyman (a consulting firm) conducting a Customer Value case for IBM's iSeries server (low-end server) division. About 3 to 4 years ago, IBM was still focused on mainframe/enterprise/military/government business and consulting service. When talking about iSeries server, an excecutive in mainframe division actually told the consulting firm that they were "briefing life to mummy".

Do you still believe IBM would even care about Thinkpad users?

 

The price of computers always drop after a new platform (Santa Rosa in this case) becomes widespread. Also, laptops are made in assembly lines, so the cost of manufacturing isn't really that high. I for one am glad that thinkpads are cheap these days. I wouldn't buy a MBP since the price doesn't justify the performance. It makes NO sense to complain about the quality of a product just because it has gotten cheaper. Sounds more like someone is unhappy that the price got lower a day after he or she bought a thinkpad.

I take the reports on bad/lowered quality parts and people's horror stories about receiving broken laptops with a grain of salt. This is because most of the time the statistics is really skewed. We best remember bad/uncommon reports that catch our attention.

 

I'm sorry, but where do people get these ideas? If anything, Mac owners seem to be MORE vocal about even minor imperfections, etc.

One thing that amazed me when following the X61t threads was how many people were accepting of the loose bezel issues (with the glue coming unstuck).

Seriously, if you ever go to a Mac forum, you will find endless threads about people complaining about ANY imperfection in their Macs. I've seen threads with hundreds of posts with people complaining about the lid not lining up perfectly with the base when the laptop is closed, for example.

And granted, they will complain about more substantial issues too, like screen imperfections, etc. (in fact, I myself returned the MBP I bought last year, the first C2D models, not the current Santa Rosa models, because the screen wasn't evenly lit).

Seriously, this idea that Mac owners never speak about problems with their Macs seems really bizarre to me, and can be disproven in a second by looking at the forums on MacRumors, etc. or just about anywhere else.

As someone who uses both, I've been amazed about what Sony and ThinkPad owners, for example, seem willing to just accept.

On the Vaio side, for example, many Vaios are known for loose-batteries that rattle around. If this was on a MBP, you'd see endless threads with people returning their machines to Apple as defective, demanding a replacement. But most of the Vaio owners I saw seemed to just accept it, or stick velcro on the battery to keep it from rattling around.

Anyway, I just think this is worth mentioning. I am baffled by this idea that non-Mac owners think Mac owners never complain about their machines, or squelch discussion of any problems.

I don't want to touch the other part of your premise (Macs aren't reliable, aren't well built, etc.). Relative to most other manufacturers I'm not sure that's really justifiable; they've always had their share of problems, and some models have been worse than others, but I don't know what I'd say about the current MBP is "poorly built", for example.

It seems like there are very few companies that make "perfect" machines these days - the gold standard I think has been the ThinkPad and Asus laptops, for example, but you can read plenty of complaints about both nowadays.

-Zadillo

 

I think the discussion here actually hit the point. I would like to make further investigation about this issue. Maybe it's a good business study case for my graduate school.

Sony and Apple are fashion-driven companies in their business domain. So their marketing and pricing strategy is totally different with Lenovo/IBM, HP and Dell. I also see Dell and HP are changing their marketing strategy by introducing some vivid designs and ads in sight, such as Dell XPS series and HP DV series.

Marketing, product pricing, design quality, manufacturing cost and customer service is all about Customer Valuation. No matter how much you invest into your products, there won't be 100% satisfaction from all your customers. The best thing you can do is trying to reach a balance between sales and profit by redistribution your resource in different business sections, mostly in R&D, purchasing and manufacturing. Marketing strategy is the most important, because it actually change the way you do business, and lead to chain reaction on other divisions within your company.

Lenovo has already gone far beyond the way that IBM did business before 2004. IBM is a technology-driven company which is also the largest technology/business solution provider in the world. IBM focused on technology, so they have the best engineering computers in the world. However, market penetration in home/SMB segment is relatively lower than enterprise segment.

Meanwhile, Lenovo is a sales-driven company like Dell, even before it's acquisition of IBM PC. IBM is no longer interested or profitable in PC division, so Lenovo took over and started revolutionary reformation on IBM PC. While it still need some time to see if this strategy works out or not, Lenovo does improve financial status of this PC division.

I can see that Lenovo is reaching out to its customers (or fans exactly) all around the world by reconstructing price strategy and making direct contact by Lenovo Blogs and forums here. I’m neither an employee nor a sales agent of Lenovo/IBM. However, I do think Lenovo need everyone’s support if you want them keep ThinkPad or any other legacy IBM Think products. Posting complaints here or calling their support center is helpful, because Lenovo will understand customers do care about ThinkPad and maybe they’ll put more efforts to improve ThinkPad.

 

They are higher today!!

 

Yes, I just noticed that too.
I put an order in yesterday for my first Thinkpad. I use one at work and supposedly get a corp discount on personal purchases, but I think the sale prices were even lower. I had to check today to see if the prices went back up since the sale ended yesterday.

Yesterday I ordered:

6459CTO ThinkPad T61 15 Widescreen
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7700 (2.4GHz 800MHz 4MBL2)
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
15.4 WSXGA+ TFT
NVIDIA Quadro FX 570M (256MB Open GL)
2 GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz SODIMM Memory (2 DIMM)
100GB Hard Disk Drive, 7200rpm
DVD Recordable 8x Max Dual Layer, Ultrabay Slim
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
9 cell Li-Ion Battery

$1,640.87

Did the same line-up today and it was $1785.05. So there ya go.

(BTW, I also added 2 year next business delay warranty and a mini docking station)

Doesn't ship til the 25th.

 

Dr Sam, technology is valid cause for fluctuation in price of our beloved ThinkPads.

We can also relistically reason that the drop in prices is due also to market forces such as demand vs supply; and competitors' actions.

E.g. Toshiba or Acer have each come up with their respective models to compete with the T61 and they are selling at more competitive prices. In order for Lenovo to maintain its market share, it becomes necessary to adjust its prices. (Marketing and Economics)


rgds,
Benjamin Chin
10 Oct 07

 

Just a bit of speculation here, but I was talking with a computer reseller today who handles Lenovo, Toshiba, and some other brands. So this person has watched the changes in models and sales tactics for many years. The dealer's speculation is that Lenovo is phasing out the T61 line in preparation for a new model to be released in time for the Christmas market.

 

That cannot be true because, T61 came up around a year ago. I don't think lenovo's gonna phase out T61 so soon. Comments anyone?

 

The T61 just come out like 6 months ago....

 

yep..just came out in may...however the t60's have been around longer. they'll probably come out with the t62's...meaning they will phase out t61's...the t62's will probably the ones with the perinym chips (however u spell it)

 

While I'd say Lenovo's have a higher build quality than the majority of Dell's, Ease of maintaining, cleaning, replacing parts, etc on Dell units is usually exceptional.