Lenovo is undertaking an Olympic-size effort to establish itself as a consumer PC brand. The Chinese PC maker has found great success with the iconic ThinkPad brand of commercial laptops, a business it purchased from IBM. And now it’s taking the world stage with a new line of consumer-focused notebooks called IdeaPad. There will also be a desktop line called IdeaCentre.
Just do it a lot better than Dell does it and you have a new customer
I am not sure why they do not pre-install Linux distro’s on these machines.
Dell is doing it and it would start a good tide if others would get serious and follow.
Dell is earning marketing buzz, but little else.
They’re pre-installing Ubuntu. But they’re not supporting it. They’re not marketing it. They’re not even making it easy to find on their website. Even the documentation included with the Ubuntu systems is the same Windows-oriented documentation they include with every system. The linux community is really gaining very little, because Dell is simply not investing anything. They’re simply capitalizing on the community for incremental gain. Not that there’s anything necessarily wrong with that, there’s no such thing as bad publicity after all, but it’s not a model I’d would hold for the other hardware vendors to follow.
Lenovo does distribute linux-based systems in China and other parts of Asia and Europe. They have relationships with Red Flag, Red Hat, Novell and I believe TurboLinux. So it’s not undoable. But let’s set our expectations higher. If manufacturers are going to acknowledge linux in western markets, let’s see something more than a patronizing pat on the head. There’s potential opportunity, but both the industry and the userbase themselves have to be willing to step up if it’s going to work.
To my understanding it’s not their problem but Canonical’s. MS Windows is supported by Microsoft. And I don’t know what kind of a deal Dell has with Canonical.
It is not true that this is not a big deal. Even as a marketing buzz is good to hear that someone ships a PC/Laptop with Linux. For my boss means something.
I just think the SLED would be a better option for Dell, but that’s just my opinion.
Yes SLED would be a far better choice for Dell to use. However, like you picked up on, Canonical provide support for Ubuntu. It was Canonical that first approached Dell and made the offer that they would be providing the end user support if Dell were to include Ubuntu.
I do not think Novell would have the manpower to do this.
Since Canonical steps up and says that they will provide the support everything is settled. The user wants support, he doesn’t care where it comes from.
But about Novell I don’t understand what you mean. Novell is far larger a company than Canonical and their support is excellent(from my experience in their Enterprise offerings).
It’s their marketing dept that lacks compared to Canonical(In my opinion).
For example Ubuntu has really been a synonym for “user friendly distro”, because Canonical advertises their product that way. Where opensuse,SLES,SLED, has nothing to be jealous of in terms of user friendliness. I ‘ve tested both and I just happen to prefer opensuse.
EDIT: typo
Edited 2008-01-04 13:47
By going with Novell, Dell has zero leverage with Microsoft. By going with Ubuntu, Dell wagers nothing and plants seeds of discomfort with Redmond.
Well I modded you up because I think you are right. I suppose you mean about the deal between Novell and MS in which case there is a valid point I hadn’t thought of.
The keyboard is still one of the weakes parts of notebooks. Their mechanical quality usually is bad, their layout sometimes stupid, and space in line 1 is occupied by “idiot keys” that nobody (except very few advanced users) really use, causing the space bar to shrink. But still, the keyboard is very important because it is the undoubted most important means of data entry, so it’s important for the dialog with the machine.
Another point is the integrated mouse implementation. I always liked the concept of the trackpoint, when three (and not only lousy two) mouse buttons were available.
IBM impressed me with their concepts how they handled both of them (“idiot keys” small and up to the top, trackpoint and glidepad present), and I would like to see Lenovo building notebooks that are a joy to use with Linux and UNIX OSes, but this requires certain features, for example good hardware that is supported by standard drivers or that is documented properly (best solution: release open specifications and drivers). Devides that are present should work the way they are intended to (e. g. SD card reader should be standard DA compatible, hibernation / sleep mode and awakening should work correctly). And it should be silent, of course. 🙂
If Lenovo would build such a machine, let’s say, with no “idiot keys”, with a trackpoint with three mouse buttons, that is ready to run, hmmm… FreeBSD… then I would be happy to order one of these.
I use thinkpad (X40/FreeBSD) as a NIX console too. Are there any other brands/models that come close in robustness, battery life, driver availability, silence, absence of crap like optical media and special keys etc?
I might switch if I couldn’t get X6x without crammed keyboard and vista.
If Lenovo would build such a machine, let’s say, with no “idiot keys”, with a trackpoint with three mouse buttons, that is ready to run, hmmm… FreeBSD… then I would be happy to order one of these.
I think they call that machine the “Thinkpad” ;D and it seems to work great with any Linux I’ve thrown at it and the FreeBSD that some regulars on other sites select Thinkpads for specifically.
I do hope they keep up the high standards though. IBM has always been known for good keyboards and the Think* machines as good business boxes. It would be sad to see the brand used up with budget components then discarded once all it’s value had been erroded.
non-Windows preinstalls would be nice too. I hear they do it for business but offering a choice of OS for the consumer market would be great to see also.
Actually, this T60 is the first notebook that has convinced me there is something worth looking at outside of the toughbook series for my personal needs. It’s not ruggedised but the chassis doesn’t feel cheap, the insides are not budget hardware and it’s closer to my affordable price range these days.
“I think they call that machine the “Thinkpad” ;D and it seems to work great with any Linux I’ve thrown at it and the FreeBSD that some regulars on other sites select Thinkpads for specifically.”
Yes, I know, I know. 🙂 I’ve still got a very old Thinkpad (built by IBM) which I usually use to program Motorola mobile radios. Great technology, high quality. If I’m ever going to buy a new notebook (I usually get outdated or mininmal defective ones as presents and refurbish them so they are better than before), such a Thinkpad would surely be an option.
“I do hope they keep up the high standards though. IBM has always been known for good keyboards and the Think* machines as good business boxes.”
That’s correct, but as you see when you’re looking at keyboards, no matter if they are in a notebook or to be placed on the table: The quality goes down and down, the devices are cheap, of course, but for typists they usually are a pain to use.
“non-Windows preinstalls would be nice too.”
No installs at all would be an option, too, maybe it would make the product a bit cheaper without loosing hardware quality. And if the quality is good, you can install anything you like, be it Linux, BSD or even Solaris.
Those Lenovo models I’ve seen are priced like up to date models but always seem to have Core Duo, not Core 2 Duo processors.
It seems they need to do a bit more to succeed than just sell IBM designs at somewhat lower prices.
Are you sure they’re not Core 2 Duos?
My university has forced us to buy older T60s when T61s were current but we certainly did get Core 2 Duos.
If you’re looking at the X series and tablets then those may still be on Core Duos or the like but I thought that was the norm with ultra-portables and tablets anyway.
My T60 does have the Windows key (which I find useful even though I’ve been Microsoft free for a couple years now) but the Lenovo/ThinkPad keyboards are definitely one of the best ones out there. Before I was upgraded to the T60 we were on the cheap R52 and the keyboard on there lasted me a good 2 years of solid work while with my older Dell I went through 2. Lenovo may have finally given in to adding a Windows key but their keyboard and the layouts are IMHO still definitely some of the best out there.
I’m quickly becoming a Thinkpad fan so take my imput for what it’s worth. In terms of CPU, this T60 here is a Centrino Duo with two lovely little usage graphs in my ever present task manager display.
Will we need to watch for lead paint?
My home laptop is a ThinkPad, made by Lenovo but still branded IBM (R52). This machine doesn’t look like other laptops and it still looks like a professional design. I don’t want a cheap plastic design for my next lappy.
Amen to that. I don’t even have a ThinkPad, but from what I’ve heard/read over the years they are the top of the line as far as reliable laptops go. Yes, they cost a bit of a premium, but it’s probably worth it.
Recently a few friends of mine were lamenting the horrible quality of our collective Acer and HP laptops, and we came up with the following approximate (totally non-scientific) order of laptop quality (from lowest to highest):
Acer
Gateway
Compaq
HP
Dell
Toshiba
Sony
Apple
ThinkPad
So basically, if you have the cash and you want a decent laptop, your only truly safe options are Sony, Apple and Thinkpad. If you want to avoid having tons of bloatware installed by default, then scratch the Sony too.
That leaves ThinkPads as the last remaining truly reliable non-Apple laptops out there.
So please, Lenovo, don’t let this Mercedes of laptop brands get Chryslerized. Thank you.
Edited 2008-01-04 13:15 UTC
Well, looks like my fears may be confirmed, according to this reader comment on the CNet article:
http://www.news.com/5208-1044_3-0.html?forumID=1&threadID=34053&mes…
Where does Asus fit in that list? I recently upgraded a friend’s A2500H and was pleased with the quality of the product running both XP Pro and Gutsy (she thought it was a dog until the memory was boosted to 512Mb).
I wouldn’t rate Apple or Sony all that high. I did tech support in college, and both of those brands appeared fairly often with hardware problems. More notably, both Sony and Apple did not design their products with servicablility in mind. On many models of both brands, the hard drive is inaccessible without nearly dismantling the whole machine.
Another interesting point: Apple hardware is actually produced by Asus, and Sony’s might be as well.
Laptop hardware is a crapshoot. None of them are as durable as desktops, but also people treat their laptops a lot worse than desktops.
I’d actually put Dell laptops pretty high on the rankings with the caveat that there are two ‘classes’ of Dell machines. Their low end models break easily, but the more expensive corporate models are quite reliable. I’ve been pretty happy with my Fujitsu tablet, but it was quite expensive too.
I placed an customized order on a T61, since it looks to be a well designed, innovative, modern laptop. It looks to me like the lenovo engineers are continuing well where IBM left off with the ThinkPad line.
– The order was placed December 11.
– It was sent to an office by the 12th to be double checked.
– The order was then sent to manufacturing on the 20th. It apparently took them eight days to review the order manually.
– I am told that the order will ship out by January 6th. That’s two and a half weeks right there.
When I placed the order, the website quoted 1-2 weeks and said that I would receive a shipping estimate immediately by email, which never happened. I got all of the above information from a service agent who didn’t mind digging into the details of the order (the previous person I had talked to gave me quite false information).
Once they do ship it, that won’t be the end of the delays though. It also turns out that they also can’t ship directly to me, but rather they have to ship to a warehouse in Burlington, then to me because of problems at the Canadian border.
I’d strongly advise anyone against placing a consumer order with them until they get well established. My experience thus far has been miles short of satisfactory. The one reassurance I have is that their technical support seems to be contracted to IBM.
As far as linux instillation is concerned, I really couldn’t care less. They already have linux certification with Novell and Red Hat for many products, so I can be confident in being able to install whatever distribution I wish. I think a no-os or FreeDOS option on business models would be quite appealing to everyone since it doesn’t force businesses who already have commercial licensing to by another license they won’t use anyways, and of course enables complete flexibility for the rest of us.
I’ve heard through the grapevine that the T60 is a laptop on which
Mac OS X Leopard can be installed. Far be it for me to ever engage
in an unlawful act such as that.