5 ms·

Not related to the blog post but why are the websites form lenovo + dell (and acer) so god damn awful? lenovo.com redirects me to https://www.lenovo.com/se/en/

by J0-nas 10y ago

Not related to the blog post but why are the websites form lenovo + dell (and acer) so god damn awful? lenovo.com redirects me to https://www.lenovo.com/se/en/ https://www.lenovo.com/se/en/ since i'm currently in Sweden. I then get nice server error as greeting: 403 - Forbidden: Access is denied. If I try to access lenovo.de I get often no response... also for subsequent pages... On dells website it takes an awful lot of time to filter their laptops. It's not even 100 items... why does it take so long? Acer has a nice compare function. The only problem is that you can't compare laptops of their business line with the home ones. They also have too many different models. The compare function doesn't showcase any difference.

flukus 10y ago
Even worse when you're trying to dig through a maze of URL's to find drivers, half the link will go to the US site which will then get redirected to the regional one where the file doesn't exist. Had to do it once for a network drive with "export restrictions" it took hours to find their awful, half working driver. IME Dell are one of the better ones.
wineisfine 10y ago
Yeah try ordering anything from Lenovo on your iPad... their site is buggy as hell. I mean, how much effort can it take to clean it up?
nkoren 10y ago
This, this, a thousand times this. One thing that Apple has done very well is put together a website that: A.) Tells you what they are selling, and B.) Can sell it to you. Why is it so hard for other vendors to figure out that this is a pretty good way to sell computers? My girlfriend bought an Asus Zenbook the other day; it's a really nice machine and made me wonder whether there might be a Zenbook for me. So I ended up on http://www.asus.com/zenbook/global/index.html http://www.asus.com/zenbook/global/index.html. Is there a product list? No. A comparison feature? No. A way to buy, like, anything at all? Fuck you, says Asus. Here, have a bunch of annoying marketing copy; if you like that enough then maybe you can buy from some online retailer who has screwed up the model-numbers, unless you'd rather go to a shop were some know-nothing highschooler will try to make a commission by upselling you. Had the same experience with HP. I take your word for it that Leno and Dell and Acer are similar. Really made me appreciate Apple's retail mechanisms (as much as I'm aiming to exit their ecosystem). Seriously, industry: WTF? Get it together, guys!
- massysett 10y ago
  Lenovo's website is the least of their problems. I'm in the USA and ordered a Thinkpad. They ship out of China. No one in their call centers can give any kind of order status. Their information is days behind. I canceled an order (after they cut the price to try to get me to change my mind) and the thing still shipped. It seems like their Thinkpad factory just pumps them out; no kind of true build to order. The only good way to get their machines is through a reputable reseller who has them on a shelf.
- franciscop 10y ago
  I have been using Asus Zenbook for the last 3 laptops; I just go straight to Amazon or Ebay to buy them, the experience there is quite better (besides I want a US keyboard instead of Spanish).
- activatedgeek 10y ago
  I think the problem here is that Apple doesn't really have to have a huge product range because they are pretty much focused on the premium price range. On the other hand, manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo and Dell have everything from the economy to premium range which makes the content organization a natural headache. And it looks like nobody has figured out a good way to fix everything up.
  - pawadu 10y ago
    But Dell has a pretty nice web site despite having a huge range of products.
    - flurdy 10y ago
      Yes and no. UI looks wise it is ok, but UX wise it is a nightmare. When I try to find a product I often can't find it. Or I can only find the previous year/range's version. Or I can only find it if I pretend to be in the US. Or mostly it is out of stock. And all this time direct links works so the products exists, I just cant find them consistently. Went through this recently trying to find the XPS13 DE for a friend. He bought his first macbook pro in the end instead(a 2015 one just after the touchbar launched). Yes their SKU stock is massive compared to Apple, so navigation will be trickier, but why do they need to make it so hard by hiding products etc.
asciimo 10y ago
Completely agree. Many pains in the ass from ordering my 4th generation X1 Carbon off Lenovo's site, even while tracking the absurdly lengthy shipment. My past Mac purchases were pleasures, by comparison.
lobster_johnson 10y ago
The other manufacturers also haven't figured out how to organize their models. As far as I can tell, Dell has just a handful of models (XPS, Precision etc.), but if you go and look at the XPS 15, for example, it's a grid of dozens of SKUs with various specs instead of just a single page with customization options. It's not even a matrix -- with models varying by CPU and RAM and disk and such, you'd expect that at least they'd arrange them visually in some kind of table. It must be a nightmare for non-technical people. They're all like this, and it becomes hilariously complicated when the manufacturer has, like Lenovo, dozens and dozens of models, and it's impossible to understand what the difference is between them and which ones are targeting which uses. (You have to ask why they're so unfocused, too. Is it an intentional tactic?) Asus seems to be one of the few to understand this (aside from Apple); their Zenbook site is pretty friendly and focused. Though they still insist on nonsense model names like "UX390UA". It's not just PCs, of course. It's all consumer electronics: TVs, sound systems, what have you.
- wyldfire 10y ago
  I've never been a product manager but IMO it probably goes something like this: "The framistan line is successful but I hear from our customers that we should have some options that add [x] and drop [y], while having support for more [z]." "We need to create a new line, a totally separate brand from framistan that has way more [x], [y] but no [z] at all. The competition has entered this space and there is clearly a market there." They say this as often as they can, iterating over various x, y, z triples and they maximize the product line, perhaps until they hear feedback like yours. Apple, OTOH, does whatever they want, targeting limited segments in order to keep everything simple. They lose out on lots of opportunity by restricting themselves to just parts of the market. But they also have a money tree, so it doesn't really matter. Re: nonsense model names. As a technical consumer I much prefer these very-distinct names that change with each new release. When I read a review, it's very likely that I'm reading the right review. When I'm buying used, it's very likely that I'm getting the right product. Brands like Amazon Kindle Fire, MacBook, IMO make searching for and finding the right stuff harder. I can appreciate the elegance of a simple product name, though. Typically they're concealing the true model info under some other header, but it's usually harder to identify.
dopeboy 10y ago
This is a really good point. I'm a lenovo guy and I've bought from their official site a couple times. It takes forever to render and the customizer is clunky. Just give me a basic webpage with checkboxes and a price that gets auto updated.

by J0-nas 10y ago

flukus 10y ago

Even worse when you're trying to dig through a maze of URL's to find drivers, half the link will go to the US site which will then get redirected to the regional one where the file doesn't exist. Had to do it once for a network drive with "export restrictions" it took hours to find their awful, half working driver. IME Dell are one of the better ones.

wineisfine 10y ago

Yeah try ordering anything from Lenovo on your iPad... their site is buggy as hell. I mean, how much effort can it take to clean it up?

nkoren 10y ago

This, this, a thousand times this. One thing that Apple has done very well is put together a website that: A.) Tells you what they are selling, and B.) Can sell it to you. Why is it so hard for other vendors to figure out that this is a pretty good way to sell computers? My girlfriend bought an Asus Zenbook the other day; it's a really nice machine and made me wonder whether there might be a Zenbook for me. So I ended up on http://www.asus.com/zenbook/global/index.html http://www.asus.com/zenbook/global/index.html. Is there a product list? No. A comparison feature? No. A way to buy, like, anything at all? Fuck you, says Asus. Here, have a bunch of annoying marketing copy; if you like that enough then maybe you can buy from some online retailer who has screwed up the model-numbers, unless you'd rather go to a shop were some know-nothing highschooler will try to make a commission by upselling you. Had the same experience with HP. I take your word for it that Leno and Dell and Acer are similar. Really made me appreciate Apple's retail mechanisms (as much as I'm aiming to exit their ecosystem). Seriously, industry: WTF? Get it together, guys!

massysett 10y ago
Lenovo's website is the least of their problems. I'm in the USA and ordered a Thinkpad. They ship out of China. No one in their call centers can give any kind of order status. Their information is days behind. I canceled an order (after they cut the price to try to get me to change my mind) and the thing still shipped. It seems like their Thinkpad factory just pumps them out; no kind of true build to order. The only good way to get their machines is through a reputable reseller who has them on a shelf.
franciscop 10y ago
I have been using Asus Zenbook for the last 3 laptops; I just go straight to Amazon or Ebay to buy them, the experience there is quite better (besides I want a US keyboard instead of Spanish).
activatedgeek 10y ago
I think the problem here is that Apple doesn't really have to have a huge product range because they are pretty much focused on the premium price range. On the other hand, manufacturers like Asus, Lenovo and Dell have everything from the economy to premium range which makes the content organization a natural headache. And it looks like nobody has figured out a good way to fix everything up.
- pawadu 10y ago
  But Dell has a pretty nice web site despite having a huge range of products.
  - flurdy 10y ago
    Yes and no. UI looks wise it is ok, but UX wise it is a nightmare. When I try to find a product I often can't find it. Or I can only find the previous year/range's version. Or I can only find it if I pretend to be in the US. Or mostly it is out of stock. And all this time direct links works so the products exists, I just cant find them consistently. Went through this recently trying to find the XPS13 DE for a friend. He bought his first macbook pro in the end instead(a 2015 one just after the touchbar launched). Yes their SKU stock is massive compared to Apple, so navigation will be trickier, but why do they need to make it so hard by hiding products etc.

asciimo 10y ago

Completely agree. Many pains in the ass from ordering my 4th generation X1 Carbon off Lenovo's site, even while tracking the absurdly lengthy shipment. My past Mac purchases were pleasures, by comparison.

lobster_johnson 10y ago

The other manufacturers also haven't figured out how to organize their models. As far as I can tell, Dell has just a handful of models (XPS, Precision etc.), but if you go and look at the XPS 15, for example, it's a grid of dozens of SKUs with various specs instead of just a single page with customization options. It's not even a matrix -- with models varying by CPU and RAM and disk and such, you'd expect that at least they'd arrange them visually in some kind of table. It must be a nightmare for non-technical people. They're all like this, and it becomes hilariously complicated when the manufacturer has, like Lenovo, dozens and dozens of models, and it's impossible to understand what the difference is between them and which ones are targeting which uses. (You have to ask why they're so unfocused, too. Is it an intentional tactic?) Asus seems to be one of the few to understand this (aside from Apple); their Zenbook site is pretty friendly and focused. Though they still insist on nonsense model names like "UX390UA". It's not just PCs, of course. It's all consumer electronics: TVs, sound systems, what have you.

wyldfire 10y ago
I've never been a product manager but IMO it probably goes something like this: "The framistan line is successful but I hear from our customers that we should have some options that add [x] and drop [y], while having support for more [z]." "We need to create a new line, a totally separate brand from framistan that has way more [x], [y] but no [z] at all. The competition has entered this space and there is clearly a market there." They say this as often as they can, iterating over various x, y, z triples and they maximize the product line, perhaps until they hear feedback like yours. Apple, OTOH, does whatever they want, targeting limited segments in order to keep everything simple. They lose out on lots of opportunity by restricting themselves to just parts of the market. But they also have a money tree, so it doesn't really matter. Re: nonsense model names. As a technical consumer I much prefer these very-distinct names that change with each new release. When I read a review, it's very likely that I'm reading the right review. When I'm buying used, it's very likely that I'm getting the right product. Brands like Amazon Kindle Fire, MacBook, IMO make searching for and finding the right stuff harder. I can appreciate the elegance of a simple product name, though. Typically they're concealing the true model info under some other header, but it's usually harder to identify.

dopeboy 10y ago

This is a really good point. I'm a lenovo guy and I've bought from their official site a couple times. It takes forever to render and the customizer is clunky. Just give me a basic webpage with checkboxes and a price that gets auto updated.