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Not buying anything Lenovo made ever again. T14 G1 was the worst computer I've ever had the displeasure of using. Extremely spotty USB C connection, throttling

Not buying anything Lenovo made ever again. T14 G1 was the worst computer I've ever had the displeasure of using. Extremely spotty USB C connection, throttling to 0.2 Ghz for no reason with no fix, and just terribly slow all around. Shame since I loved the T450s dearly.

binkHN 2y ago
I have a P14s G4 AMD that I am very pleased with. My only issue is the Qualcomm-made Wi-Fi that still doesn't work properly after a year because Qualcomm engineers can't figure out how to write a driver.
- bobmcnamara 2y ago
  Amen. I rewrote part of their camera stack once to find that they hadn't managed cache coherence for the MIPI DMA, and didn't connect the coherency domains to handle it in hardware. Ticket probably still not being worked in their support portal. Very rarely I see a little horizontal strip of corruption in my camera photos and roll my eyes.
rustcleaner 2y ago
Been mostly happy with P16 Gen 2 for Qubes OS. Flat button mouse design is a downgrade compared to X1 Extreme Gen 3 (more raised).
yonatan8070 2y ago
I've been running Fedora 40 (and recently 41) on my P14s G5 Intel at work, absolutely great machine.
- leeman2016 2y ago
  Is it the core ultra 155H? How is it efficiency/heat and performance wise? Was planning on getting one.
  - yonatan8070 2y ago
    Yeah, 155H + RTX 500 Ada. I use it primarily docked, so I don't really have data for efficiency/battery life. I did stress it with a Linux kernel compilation (`make -j22`), it was a while back, but I saw that the CPU frequency was up at 4GHz at the start, but dropped to 2GHz for the majority of the compilation, despite temps being in the 60-70°C range. I didn't try to troubleshoot it further since it's a work laptop and I don't compile huge projects on a regular basis. In terms of general system performance, I'm using it with Fedora KDE and it has been great.
lostdog 2y ago
I've watched the X1 Carbon line similarly nosedive from great, to decent, to self-immolating. Now I'm really not sure what to try next.
- JoshTriplett 2y ago
  What do you see as having gone downhill? I'm using an X1 Carbon Gen 11, and for my purposes at least, it's an improvement over every previous generation. I'd love to switch to a Framework one day, but I'm not willing to use a laptop without mouse buttons. (I don't care about the TrackPoint at all; I do care about having physical mouse buttons.)
  - lostdog 2y ago
    I've been keeping a list of problems with my gen10: 1. The laptop overheats easily. It is usually hot to the point of being painful to touch. It has melted the adhesive of the rubber strip on the bottom, which has fallen off. 2. The trackpoint is malfunctioning. Several times a day, the mouse cursor will jump to the top of the screen, and be stuck there until I wiggle the trackpoint fully in all directions. 3. There's coil whine and clicking from some part of the power intake. 4. Battery life is extremely poor, usually on the order of ~2 hours. 5. Sometimes the trackpad buttons will stop working. You have to put the laptop to sleep and wake it up again to get them back. 6. Plenty of random freezes and black screens.
- Muromec 2y ago
  Framework is my new thinkpad nowadays. Just saying
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    The funny thing is that Thinkpads got their reputation during the period that they were nose diving in quality. There hasn't been a decent one since the t440 and the only way to get that to a good standard was by modding the hell out of it. The t61 was the last good one. Framework is not quite at that quality but it's better than any other laptop made in the last 10 years.
deng 2y ago
Sorry to hear that. I actually cheaped out and for the first time went for the L-series, L14 G4, but with Ryzen. Very happy overall, pretty much no issues whatsoever, running Debian. I miss the old keyboard, though.
chx 2y ago
I would gladly buy any other laptop with a TrackPoint. Got any recommendations? This is not sarcasm I donated to https://community.frame.work/t/thinkpad-keyboard-mod-super-early-stages/38484 https://community.frame.work/t/thinkpad-keyboard-mod-super-e... because I really want it to happen.
aljgz 2y ago
Is that an Intel CPU? I had the same thermal throttling problem with frame.work laptop. Never getting any Intel CPU again.
arp242 2y ago
Lenovo makes many laptops; some are good, some are bad. This applies to pretty much ever manufacturer. Worked in a computer store for many years, and every manufacturer had some models with high return rates, but also models with low/normal return rates. Saying "I will never buy $x because I had a bad experience with a bad model" is almost always a mistake IMHO. What does matter is how they deal with the bad models. Some brands were definitely a lot better than others, and I generally advised customers based on that.

binkHN 2y ago

I have a P14s G4 AMD that I am very pleased with. My only issue is the Qualcomm-made Wi-Fi that still doesn't work properly after a year because Qualcomm engineers can't figure out how to write a driver.

bobmcnamara 2y ago
Amen. I rewrote part of their camera stack once to find that they hadn't managed cache coherence for the MIPI DMA, and didn't connect the coherency domains to handle it in hardware. Ticket probably still not being worked in their support portal. Very rarely I see a little horizontal strip of corruption in my camera photos and roll my eyes.

rustcleaner 2y ago

Been mostly happy with P16 Gen 2 for Qubes OS. Flat button mouse design is a downgrade compared to X1 Extreme Gen 3 (more raised).

yonatan8070 2y ago

I've been running Fedora 40 (and recently 41) on my P14s G5 Intel at work, absolutely great machine.

leeman2016 2y ago
Is it the core ultra 155H? How is it efficiency/heat and performance wise? Was planning on getting one.
- yonatan8070 2y ago
  Yeah, 155H + RTX 500 Ada. I use it primarily docked, so I don't really have data for efficiency/battery life. I did stress it with a Linux kernel compilation (`make -j22`), it was a while back, but I saw that the CPU frequency was up at 4GHz at the start, but dropped to 2GHz for the majority of the compilation, despite temps being in the 60-70°C range. I didn't try to troubleshoot it further since it's a work laptop and I don't compile huge projects on a regular basis. In terms of general system performance, I'm using it with Fedora KDE and it has been great.

lostdog 2y ago

I've watched the X1 Carbon line similarly nosedive from great, to decent, to self-immolating. Now I'm really not sure what to try next.

JoshTriplett 2y ago
What do you see as having gone downhill? I'm using an X1 Carbon Gen 11, and for my purposes at least, it's an improvement over every previous generation. I'd love to switch to a Framework one day, but I'm not willing to use a laptop without mouse buttons. (I don't care about the TrackPoint at all; I do care about having physical mouse buttons.)
- lostdog 2y ago
  I've been keeping a list of problems with my gen10: 1. The laptop overheats easily. It is usually hot to the point of being painful to touch. It has melted the adhesive of the rubber strip on the bottom, which has fallen off. 2. The trackpoint is malfunctioning. Several times a day, the mouse cursor will jump to the top of the screen, and be stuck there until I wiggle the trackpoint fully in all directions. 3. There's coil whine and clicking from some part of the power intake. 4. Battery life is extremely poor, usually on the order of ~2 hours. 5. Sometimes the trackpad buttons will stop working. You have to put the laptop to sleep and wake it up again to get them back. 6. Plenty of random freezes and black screens.
Muromec 2y ago
Framework is my new thinkpad nowadays. Just saying
- llm_trw 2y ago
  The funny thing is that Thinkpads got their reputation during the period that they were nose diving in quality. There hasn't been a decent one since the t440 and the only way to get that to a good standard was by modding the hell out of it. The t61 was the last good one. Framework is not quite at that quality but it's better than any other laptop made in the last 10 years.

deng 2y ago

Sorry to hear that. I actually cheaped out and for the first time went for the L-series, L14 G4, but with Ryzen. Very happy overall, pretty much no issues whatsoever, running Debian. I miss the old keyboard, though.

chx 2y ago

I would gladly buy any other laptop with a TrackPoint. Got any recommendations? This is not sarcasm I donated to https://community.frame.work/t/thinkpad-keyboard-mod-super-early-stages/38484 https://community.frame.work/t/thinkpad-keyboard-mod-super-e... because I really want it to happen.

aljgz 2y ago

Is that an Intel CPU? I had the same thermal throttling problem with frame.work laptop. Never getting any Intel CPU again.

arp242 2y ago

Lenovo makes many laptops; some are good, some are bad. This applies to pretty much ever manufacturer. Worked in a computer store for many years, and every manufacturer had some models with high return rates, but also models with low/normal return rates. Saying "I will never buy $x because I had a bad experience with a bad model" is almost always a mistake IMHO. What does matter is how they deal with the bad models. Some brands were definitely a lot better than others, and I generally advised customers based on that.