22 ms·

Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been pretty embarrassing.

by pcunite 11y ago

huac 11y ago
Yes, and while Thinkpad is excellent, it's not really a 'cool' option. The Surface Book's design (and price point) places it solidly as a competitor to Macs.
- gcb0 11y ago
  i'd take the rubber coated ones over the cold and sharp metal ones you call 'cool' any time. but i guess everyone in SF just use macbooks on their desks at all times.
  - flamedoge 11y ago
    thinkpad just feels like a solid, workhorse.
  - freehunter 11y ago
    As a traveling consultant, the durability of the Thinkpad design is nice, but holy hell does it suck to carry through an airport, or to shove under the seat in front of you. I've had to switch to a backpack for my laptop, since a normal bag puts too much weight on one side of my body. A backpack is so much less professional than a laptop bag. And then I drop it from a table onto a cement floor and the body cracks and the lid won't close anymore. So why do I put up with a laptop that's 50% heavier than a Macbook yet still breaks when I drop it from a table? Or maybe Thinkpads are supposed to be used on desks at all times.
    - dreamfactory2 11y ago
      > A backpack is so much less professional than a laptop bag I wouldn't worry too much about that, backpacks are standard issue for big 5 consultants
    - phaus 11y ago
      It doesn't sound like you are making fair comparisons between Thinkpads and Macbooks. My 15" T550 is just .2 lbs heavier than a 15" Macbook Pro. The charger for my T550 is much lighter than the one I have for my Macbook Pro, so the overall weight might actually favor the Thinkpad. The 13" business-class ultrabooks that Lenovo sells are pretty close in weight to the 13" Macbook Pro and the Macbook Air. It sounds like you are basing your opinion off of an old system or a current model that isn't even in the same class as a Macbook.
      - freehunter 11y ago
        Thinkpad W520. Core i7, like a Macbook. 16GB of RAM, like a Macbook. Spinning hard drive, worse than a Macbook. Has a desktop video card that is required in order to use video out, but you have to reboot and enable the video card, then it won't sleep until you reboot and disable the card... unlike a Macbook. Because Nvidia won't make Linux drivers for Optimus. No, it's not in the same class as a Macbook, that's half my point. It doesn't do anything a Macbook won't do, and it's less than a year old. It has all the downsides of being a Thinkpad with none of the upsides of... being a Thinkpad. Modern Thinkpads are not as durable or reliable as people make them out to be. My company is switching everyone from Thinkpads to Macbooks, and this is a company that was built on Thinkpads. That's how awful modern Thinkpads are compared to basically anything else.
        andor 11y ago
        The W520 is a workstation-class model from 2011. If you don't need the dedicated graphics for something like CAD, it's probably not the right laptop for you.
        munchbunny 11y ago
        I'm a bit curious why a traveling consultant is outfitted with what is marketed as a "workstation in a laptop form factor". Seems like a mismatch of use case to product. I travel a lot, sometimes for work, sometimes for leisure, so when I chose my personal computer I went with a Thinkpad X230. Fast enough to compile C++ code for my game programming hobby, fast enough to do my excel stuff for work, and the integrated graphics card can drive two external 1920x1200 screens comfortably. Just don't expect to play any graphically intensive games. With the help of a spare battery I kept around I could get 12-14 hours out of it if, for example, I were flying to Asia. My point being, perhaps your experience had more to do with being given a computer that definitely did not fit your work/life style? Though I'd agree with you that the W520 was not well designed.
- scholia 11y ago
  There is still a class of business users for whom the ThinkPad is cool (though I expect most of them regret the brand's decline in Lenovo's hands).
- criddell 11y ago
  My last three laptops have been Thinkpads, but Lenovo seems determined to destroy that brand as well. Microsoft may be the only company selling hardware that is trustworthy.
- MichaelGG 11y ago
  I can only hope that this compels Lenovo to ship a non-16:9, with a great screen, hi-res at low-size with 16GB of RAM. (I've found it hard to find vendors carrying 16GB SODIMMs for the X250.) I wonder what the heat scenario will be like with the Surface Book. If it turns hot like a MacBook, that'll set yet another disappointing precedent. Finally though, it's nice to see MS doing what people have been asking for years.
  - bluecalm 11y ago
    Yeah, 16:9 is disappointing especially with huge bottom bezel on x250, I mean 16:10 would easily fit there.
superuser2 11y ago
ThinkPad is pretty embarrassing; you're supporting a company that decided to MITM all its users traffic to inject advertising using factory-installed malware by trusting the same certificate, whose private key can be extracted from any Lenovo product and trivially used to MITM all the others. Lenovo needs to fail hard and fast. I recognize we'll probably never get those responsible into prison, but at least we can make sure they never work again. If you wouldn't buy or recommend a Volkswagen after dieselgate, you certainly shouldn't buy or recommend a Lenovo product after Superfish.
- caskance 11y ago
  I support the company that makes the closest thing to a product I want. Reimaging the computer is a lot easier than installing your own pointing stick.
  - superuser2 11y ago
    I don't think people understand the magnitude of this betrayal. When you buy a tool, it should obey you, and any deviations from that expectation should be disclosed upfront. Imagine if you bought a car that detected when you were driving to a particular business, locked out steering, and instead drove you to a competitor that had "partnered" with the manufacturer. You totally own the car, and no one ever told you it had this "feature." Imagine if you bought a gun that would refuse to fire when pointed at people who had purchased protection from the manufacturer. You don't find out about this feature until the guy invading your home has it. Lenovo lied to your face. It sold laptops that claimed to navigate to the websites you entered in the URL bar, but instead displayed a version edited by Lenovo on behalf of its partners. Normalizing this sort of thing is not okay and anyone buying Lenovo post-Superfish shares the moral responsibility when this is our future.
    - hkmurakami 11y ago
      Considering we apparently don't "own" our Kindle ebook purchases, I can see a future where our hardware purchases are on indefinite loans to us rather than outright purchases.
nogridbag 11y ago
I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows laptop vendors): http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E? Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model? T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550? And ThinkPad is just one line of Lenovo's products, they also have: Y Series, Z Series, Yoga Series, 500 Series, Flex, Edge, U Series, Lavie, B Series, 100 Series, S Series, G Series, and finally Chromebook. As a consumer, I have a hard enough time deciding between Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book... or Macbook Air vs Macbook vs Macbook Pro. When presented with so many options from one company I simply close the webpage. After all, how can they possibly make the product as good as MS's offering if they have so many models?
- kuschku 11y ago
  They can make it better than MS's offering because they are providing you with exactly what you need. Take for example me, compsci student. I wanted to have a sub-600€ laptop with good hardware and good battery life, but did not care much about display. I ordered a thinkpad, replaced the HDD with an SSD, and am now happy with it. The trick is called customization: Being better because they can deliver exactly what you need.
  - mmanfrin 11y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice
  - Joeri 11y ago
    No, they really do have too many models. The yoga line is nice, but they clearly don't invest much individual resources on the design of each of the other models, which tends to make them generic. I have a work-supplied s540, and it's a decent workhorse laptop, but a macbook it is not. It's too generic for that. I was also pretty disappointed that the coating had blemishes. Even a cursory visual QA check would have detected those, so either they're shipping product sight unseen, or they're deliberately deciding to ship blemished goods.
agumonkey 11y ago
VAIO had an edge a while back. Toshiba still throw some stuff from time to time. Panasonic too but in the survivor category.
- bsilvereagle 11y ago
  Somewhat off topic, what're Vaio users migrating to? I look every year or so to see what the current laptop offerings are, and nothing has convinced me to leave my 5+ year old Vaio.
  - jtuente 11y ago
    The new Vaios? Vaio recently announced their newest offerings and they look, to me, like they're still in that high-end business offerings bracket.
    - bsilvereagle 11y ago
      As far as I know (and searching around seems to confirm this) Sony is out of the laptop business and just produces tablets. I should've phrased myself a little better, "what laptops are Vaio owners switching to".
      - vietor 11y ago
        It's it's own thing now, and still has a very nice looking high-end model: https://vaio.com/products/z/ https://vaio.com/products/z/ They just launched their Surface Pro competitor in the US: http://us.vaio.com/ http://us.vaio.com/ (Typing this on the final version of the Sony Vaio Z, eagerly looking for a Skylake based successor...)
  - nogridbag 11y ago
    Sony recently released the Vaio Z Canvas (who comes up with these names???) which you can demo/pre-order in the Microsoft Store. I tried to use it, but I believe the keyboard was dead (I guess since it fully detaches from the display and was not being actively charged). It also seems nearly impossible to use on your lap.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
One of the challenges of being the 'commodity version' is that a lot of value gets squeezed out of the pipeline. One way to look at it is that a laptop is made up of a bunch of parts, sometimes those parts come in subassemblies, and every time someone touches a part, a small bit of margin is taken out to pay for that touch. This is the reason that vertically integrated (from chips to finished product) has a higher profit margin, it collects all of those bits into one chunk. For a long time the windows Laptop market has been all sub-assemblies coming together at the last stage. Not much margin left for the laptop "maker" after they pay for the folks who built the motherboard, the folks who build the disk drive, Intel for making the CPU, Hynix or Samsung for making the memory modules, Sharp or Toshiba for making the display, and then pony up still more cash to Microsoft for an OS. Apple's advantage is that they tightly control the supply line, using their own OS, and by not licensing their software elsewhere can charge a premium price for additional margin. By going into competition with their partners, Microsoft took the the only path possible to compete with Apple, be vertical. Interesting to see what that means long term.
- petra 11y ago
  How much really is there to "veticalize" ? Microsoft won't build hard-drives, cpu's , memory modules, or display. And i think the big OEM's already design their own motherboards and assemble. So the only thing MS can save is OEM margin, and it's supposed to be razor thin(maybe 10%) . Is this such a big deal ?
arsa 11y ago
I have tried and failed to buy X1 Carbon last month - i needed it to ship in less than a month, and their online ordering has no expedited shipping (not even an option, wtf?) and doesn't tell you when they will deliver it by (wtf??) and they don't sell X1 in any store in the area (wtf???) I truly fail to understand this - the best laptop is not sold in stores, and takes over two weeks online. The other Lenovos are, but not that one. I hope MS is better with this, but I don't have experience yet.
- ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
  It's hard to find "business class" laptops if you want one for your personal usage, and you want to buy one in person or have it shipped quickly.
lifeformed 11y ago
I use a Razer Blade. It's bafflingly the only laptop that exists that has premium build quality, doesn't weigh a ton, and has actually good graphics. Its form and quality is pretty much equivalent to a black Macbook Pro, but it manages to fit a GTX 970M in there. I recommend it to anyone looking to do portable work that requires a good GPU (like game dev). Cons: - It's a bit pricey - Gamery branding - Not a lot of ports

Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been pretty embarrassing.

by pcunite 11y ago

Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been pretty embarrassing.

huac 11y ago

Yes, and while Thinkpad is excellent, it's not really a 'cool' option. The Surface Book's design (and price point) places it solidly as a competitor to Macs.

gcb0 11y ago
i'd take the rubber coated ones over the cold and sharp metal ones you call 'cool' any time. but i guess everyone in SF just use macbooks on their desks at all times.
- flamedoge 11y ago
  thinkpad just feels like a solid, workhorse.
- freehunter 11y ago
  As a traveling consultant, the durability of the Thinkpad design is nice, but holy hell does it suck to carry through an airport, or to shove under the seat in front of you. I've had to switch to a backpack for my laptop, since a normal bag puts too much weight on one side of my body. A backpack is so much less professional than a laptop bag. And then I drop it from a table onto a cement floor and the body cracks and the lid won't close anymore. So why do I put up with a laptop that's 50% heavier than a Macbook yet still breaks when I drop it from a table? Or maybe Thinkpads are supposed to be used on desks at all times.
  - dreamfactory2 11y ago
    > A backpack is so much less professional than a laptop bag I wouldn't worry too much about that, backpacks are standard issue for big 5 consultants
  - phaus 11y ago
    It doesn't sound like you are making fair comparisons between Thinkpads and Macbooks. My 15" T550 is just .2 lbs heavier than a 15" Macbook Pro. The charger for my T550 is much lighter than the one I have for my Macbook Pro, so the overall weight might actually favor the Thinkpad. The 13" business-class ultrabooks that Lenovo sells are pretty close in weight to the 13" Macbook Pro and the Macbook Air. It sounds like you are basing your opinion off of an old system or a current model that isn't even in the same class as a Macbook.
    - freehunter 11y ago
      Thinkpad W520. Core i7, like a Macbook. 16GB of RAM, like a Macbook. Spinning hard drive, worse than a Macbook. Has a desktop video card that is required in order to use video out, but you have to reboot and enable the video card, then it won't sleep until you reboot and disable the card... unlike a Macbook. Because Nvidia won't make Linux drivers for Optimus. No, it's not in the same class as a Macbook, that's half my point. It doesn't do anything a Macbook won't do, and it's less than a year old. It has all the downsides of being a Thinkpad with none of the upsides of... being a Thinkpad. Modern Thinkpads are not as durable or reliable as people make them out to be. My company is switching everyone from Thinkpads to Macbooks, and this is a company that was built on Thinkpads. That's how awful modern Thinkpads are compared to basically anything else.
      - andor 11y ago
        The W520 is a workstation-class model from 2011. If you don't need the dedicated graphics for something like CAD, it's probably not the right laptop for you.
      - munchbunny 11y ago
        I'm a bit curious why a traveling consultant is outfitted with what is marketed as a "workstation in a laptop form factor". Seems like a mismatch of use case to product. I travel a lot, sometimes for work, sometimes for leisure, so when I chose my personal computer I went with a Thinkpad X230. Fast enough to compile C++ code for my game programming hobby, fast enough to do my excel stuff for work, and the integrated graphics card can drive two external 1920x1200 screens comfortably. Just don't expect to play any graphically intensive games. With the help of a spare battery I kept around I could get 12-14 hours out of it if, for example, I were flying to Asia. My point being, perhaps your experience had more to do with being given a computer that definitely did not fit your work/life style? Though I'd agree with you that the W520 was not well designed.
scholia 11y ago
There is still a class of business users for whom the ThinkPad is cool (though I expect most of them regret the brand's decline in Lenovo's hands).
criddell 11y ago
My last three laptops have been Thinkpads, but Lenovo seems determined to destroy that brand as well. Microsoft may be the only company selling hardware that is trustworthy.
MichaelGG 11y ago
I can only hope that this compels Lenovo to ship a non-16:9, with a great screen, hi-res at low-size with 16GB of RAM. (I've found it hard to find vendors carrying 16GB SODIMMs for the X250.) I wonder what the heat scenario will be like with the Surface Book. If it turns hot like a MacBook, that'll set yet another disappointing precedent. Finally though, it's nice to see MS doing what people have been asking for years.
- bluecalm 11y ago
  Yeah, 16:9 is disappointing especially with huge bottom bezel on x250, I mean 16:10 would easily fit there.

superuser2 11y ago

ThinkPad is pretty embarrassing; you're supporting a company that decided to MITM all its users traffic to inject advertising using factory-installed malware by trusting the same certificate, whose private key can be extracted from any Lenovo product and trivially used to MITM all the others. Lenovo needs to fail hard and fast. I recognize we'll probably never get those responsible into prison, but at least we can make sure they never work again. If you wouldn't buy or recommend a Volkswagen after dieselgate, you certainly shouldn't buy or recommend a Lenovo product after Superfish.

caskance 11y ago
I support the company that makes the closest thing to a product I want. Reimaging the computer is a lot easier than installing your own pointing stick.
- superuser2 11y ago
  I don't think people understand the magnitude of this betrayal. When you buy a tool, it should obey you, and any deviations from that expectation should be disclosed upfront. Imagine if you bought a car that detected when you were driving to a particular business, locked out steering, and instead drove you to a competitor that had "partnered" with the manufacturer. You totally own the car, and no one ever told you it had this "feature." Imagine if you bought a gun that would refuse to fire when pointed at people who had purchased protection from the manufacturer. You don't find out about this feature until the guy invading your home has it. Lenovo lied to your face. It sold laptops that claimed to navigate to the websites you entered in the URL bar, but instead displayed a version edited by Lenovo on behalf of its partners. Normalizing this sort of thing is not okay and anyone buying Lenovo post-Superfish shares the moral responsibility when this is our future.
  - hkmurakami 11y ago
    Considering we apparently don't "own" our Kindle ebook purchases, I can see a future where our hardware purchases are on indefinite loans to us rather than outright purchases.

nogridbag 11y ago

I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows laptop vendors): http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E? Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model? T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550? And ThinkPad is just one line of Lenovo's products, they also have: Y Series, Z Series, Yoga Series, 500 Series, Flex, Edge, U Series, Lavie, B Series, 100 Series, S Series, G Series, and finally Chromebook. As a consumer, I have a hard enough time deciding between Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book... or Macbook Air vs Macbook vs Macbook Pro. When presented with so many options from one company I simply close the webpage. After all, how can they possibly make the product as good as MS's offering if they have so many models?

kuschku 11y ago
They can make it better than MS's offering because they are providing you with exactly what you need. Take for example me, compsci student. I wanted to have a sub-600€ laptop with good hardware and good battery life, but did not care much about display. I ordered a thinkpad, replaced the HDD with an SSD, and am now happy with it. The trick is called customization: Being better because they can deliver exactly what you need.
- mmanfrin 11y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overchoice
- Joeri 11y ago
  No, they really do have too many models. The yoga line is nice, but they clearly don't invest much individual resources on the design of each of the other models, which tends to make them generic. I have a work-supplied s540, and it's a decent workhorse laptop, but a macbook it is not. It's too generic for that. I was also pretty disappointed that the coating had blemishes. Even a cursory visual QA check would have detected those, so either they're shipping product sight unseen, or they're deliberately deciding to ship blemished goods.

agumonkey 11y ago

VAIO had an edge a while back. Toshiba still throw some stuff from time to time. Panasonic too but in the survivor category.

bsilvereagle 11y ago
Somewhat off topic, what're Vaio users migrating to? I look every year or so to see what the current laptop offerings are, and nothing has convinced me to leave my 5+ year old Vaio.
- jtuente 11y ago
  The new Vaios? Vaio recently announced their newest offerings and they look, to me, like they're still in that high-end business offerings bracket.
  - bsilvereagle 11y ago
    As far as I know (and searching around seems to confirm this) Sony is out of the laptop business and just produces tablets. I should've phrased myself a little better, "what laptops are Vaio owners switching to".
    - vietor 11y ago
      It's it's own thing now, and still has a very nice looking high-end model: https://vaio.com/products/z/ https://vaio.com/products/z/ They just launched their Surface Pro competitor in the US: http://us.vaio.com/ http://us.vaio.com/ (Typing this on the final version of the Sony Vaio Z, eagerly looking for a Skylake based successor...)
- nogridbag 11y ago
  Sony recently released the Vaio Z Canvas (who comes up with these names???) which you can demo/pre-order in the Microsoft Store. I tried to use it, but I believe the keyboard was dead (I guess since it fully detaches from the display and was not being actively charged). It also seems nearly impossible to use on your lap.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

One of the challenges of being the 'commodity version' is that a lot of value gets squeezed out of the pipeline. One way to look at it is that a laptop is made up of a bunch of parts, sometimes those parts come in subassemblies, and every time someone touches a part, a small bit of margin is taken out to pay for that touch. This is the reason that vertically integrated (from chips to finished product) has a higher profit margin, it collects all of those bits into one chunk. For a long time the windows Laptop market has been all sub-assemblies coming together at the last stage. Not much margin left for the laptop "maker" after they pay for the folks who built the motherboard, the folks who build the disk drive, Intel for making the CPU, Hynix or Samsung for making the memory modules, Sharp or Toshiba for making the display, and then pony up still more cash to Microsoft for an OS. Apple's advantage is that they tightly control the supply line, using their own OS, and by not licensing their software elsewhere can charge a premium price for additional margin. By going into competition with their partners, Microsoft took the the only path possible to compete with Apple, be vertical. Interesting to see what that means long term.

petra 11y ago
How much really is there to "veticalize" ? Microsoft won't build hard-drives, cpu's , memory modules, or display. And i think the big OEM's already design their own motherboards and assemble. So the only thing MS can save is OEM margin, and it's supposed to be razor thin(maybe 10%) . Is this such a big deal ?

arsa 11y ago

I have tried and failed to buy X1 Carbon last month - i needed it to ship in less than a month, and their online ordering has no expedited shipping (not even an option, wtf?) and doesn't tell you when they will deliver it by (wtf??) and they don't sell X1 in any store in the area (wtf???) I truly fail to understand this - the best laptop is not sold in stores, and takes over two weeks online. The other Lenovos are, but not that one. I hope MS is better with this, but I don't have experience yet.

ZanyProgrammer 11y ago
It's hard to find "business class" laptops if you want one for your personal usage, and you want to buy one in person or have it shipped quickly.

lifeformed 11y ago

I use a Razer Blade. It's bafflingly the only laptop that exists that has premium build quality, doesn't weigh a ton, and has actually good graphics. Its form and quality is pretty much equivalent to a black Macbook Pro, but it manages to fit a GTX 970M in there. I recommend it to anyone looking to do portable work that requires a good GPU (like game dev). Cons: - It's a bit pricey - Gamery branding - Not a lot of ports