Thinkpads Forum

Just curious...are Thinkpads manufactured in IBM/Lenovo factories or by contract manufacturers? I know IBM and Lenovo both use companies like Sanmina, but wasn't sure where the Thinkpads are manufactured.

R and X(4, anyway) series are made by Winstron. T series are moving to Lenovo plants, but they used to be made be Great Wall Computer, one of Lenovo's competitors.

Cool thanks for the info. My port replicator II arrived today and I noticed it had Sanminda-SCI on the carton.

Also, Sanmina-SCI makes the ThinkCentre, IntelliStation (x86 workstation) and most of the eServer xSeries (the x86 server line).

I was once told that my i1400 (2621-441) made in 1999 or 2000 may have been made by Acer Labs (ALi) for IBM. It has an Aladdin Pro chip set. Sorry, don't remember who told me this. May have been Bill himself.

All of the I series were Acer laptops with TrackPoints and IBM stickers on them.

ALi was Acer's chipmaking division, and at least some, if not all, of the I series used ALi chipsets. ALi has been spun off into ULI, who is now making Athlon 64 chipsets (primarily southbridges, because their southbridges are compatible with ATI's chipsets, and ATI is having trouble getting their own southbridges working).

If I'm not mistaken, Acer also made the 310, 390 and A series.

AlphaKilo470 wrote:If I'm not mistaken, Acer also made the 310, 390 and A series.

The "A" series machines were 100% built by IBM.

Regards,

James

My mistake then. Are there any other laptops that can still be considered new or relatively new that are IBM and not outsourced?

I believe T40 is 100% IBM. To check this, look on the underside for "Made by IBM" lettering. If it does, then it wasn't outsourced. Those were great times.

All Thinkpads are made at IIPC, which is a joint-venture of GWT (Great Wall Technologies) and IBM (Now Lenovo). IBM's stake in IIPC was part of the acquisition made by Lenovo.

Don't know about G and Z series, but the X and R series are made at Winstron. You're talking about the T series.

The A31 was apparantly made by IBM.

Lenovo themselves does not make the notebooks. They are almost all manufactured by Taiwanese companies, at least currently and for next few years.

Lenovo is expected to make between 7 million to 7.5 million nb fro 2006. And bhtooefr is correct, X and R series are all made by Winstron and that alone will account for 2.5 million notebooks. Compal computer is the next big winner but they did not disclose what models they will be making for Lenovo. But it is rumored that they got 7 out of the 10 new models (including China only models). Quanta computer will be making the Z series. There are still a couple of models that Lenovo hasn't decided they will release the order to.

Above information came from a Taiwanese newspaper.

Yes, now the Thinkpads are made by Lenovo/Great Wall etc.

But years back some of them were made by IBM themselves. Which is why I said that I believe the T40 is made by IBM and not outsourced to a different company. It could be even that some later T40's were outsourced but the earlier ones were not.

Same goes for A-series and maybe old X-series (not sure about this one).

My X series is "Made for IBM" and "Made in China" (Winstron?)...

Should note that very few (if any) are still made in the US. IBM/Lenovo is one of the few that even do their design/research in the US (Apple being the other big one). Many just buy the design and get an exclusive license to sell it. They are effectively cobranded. Designed and built by a third party.

I think this thread is about manufacture and not design, which neither LIBM nor Apple do in the USA. Pitty how competition is driving down product quality.

X series are made by Winstron, it is made in China but a Taiwanese company.

I believe thinkpad hardware design has always been done in Japan. X41 is supposely the last to be designed by IBM before Lenovo took over (Even though it started selling after Lenovo announced the takeover).

As part of the takeover, Lenovo also took over the design lab in Japan (Lenovo has said they will keep the design of thinkpads in Japan), so if Lenovo are able to retain the employees, future thinkpads are still in good hands.

Michael1980 wrote:I think this thread is about manufacture and not design, which neither LIBM nor Apple do in the USA. Pitty how competition is driving down product quality.

Last I heard IBM still does some in their NC facility, but product design is in Japan.

Apple still does virtually all of it in Cupertino CA. Hence they say "designed by apple california, made in china" on all products. Jonathan Ive has been the brains behind their design team for ages. Of course many components are designed overseas.

My T40p (2373-G3U) bought in January 2004 says "Manufactured for IBM Corporation" and "Made in Mexico" on the bottom. Don't know the build date; it is a refurb found on ebay.

Michael1980 wrote:I think this thread is about manufacture and not design, which neither LIBM nor Apple do in the USA. Pitty how competition is driving down product quality.

Since when were US products better quality than those made elsewhere in the world? I have Thinkpad models made in China, Taiwan, US and Scotland and they all have the same quality. As long as the product passes IBM's QA (which is the same everywhere in the world), it is good enough to be an IBM product.

Machine type + serial number will tell you the warranty expiry, and if you know ballpark how old it is (one, two, three, or four years old - most likely two), you can tell when it shipped out.

stgreek wrote:Since when were US products better quality than those made elsewhere in the world? I have Thinkpad models made in China, Taiwan, US and Scotland and they all have the same quality. As long as the product passes IBM's QA (which is the same everywhere in the world), it is good enough to be an IBM product.

I believe the quality remark that Michael1980 made was probably meant to be a generalization which even though it does have a little accuracy to it, holds not nearly as much as did several years back.

While some countries produced better products than others up until a few years back, nowadays that statement doesn't hold as much truth. Nowadays, for the most part, it's more of an issue of the company responsible for the product that determines the overall quality.

As far as IBM's go, I've used ones made in the U.S., Mexico and China and all seemed to have very similar quality to them.

stgreek wrote:

Michael1980 wrote:I think this thread is about manufacture and not design, which neither LIBM nor Apple do in the USA. Pitty how competition is driving down product quality.

Since when were US products better quality than those made elsewhere in the world? I have Thinkpad models made in China, Taiwan, US and Scotland and they all have the same quality. As long as the product passes IBM's QA (which is the same everywhere in the world), it is good enough to be an IBM product.

I do feel that thinkpads made in Japan were higher quality than those made elsewhere.

When'd they make them in Japan and what models were made there? All of the ThinkPads I've used had either China, Mexico or U.S.A. stamped on them.

AlphaKilo470 wrote:When'd they make them in Japan and what models were made there? All of the ThinkPads I've used had either China, Mexico or U.S.A. stamped on them.

I am not sure when they stopped making it in Japan but my 700c was made in Japan. That was in 1992. Supposely IBM still made some at the Japan plant for Corporate customers and domestic Japan market up till 2002.

I had a link where a Taiwanese took a visit to Japan's IBM manufacturera and he posted some pictures he took there. I will try to find it.

p.s. I have a IBM 760ED as well.

Some companies offer different grades by country.

Fender instruments for example uses the country of origin to separate classes.

Made In Mexico, or Korea isn't as good as Japan or US.

stgreek wrote:

Michael1980 wrote:I think this thread is about manufacture and not design, which neither LIBM nor Apple do in the USA. Pitty how competition is driving down product quality.

Since when were US products better quality than those made elsewhere in the world? I have Thinkpad models made in China, Taiwan, US and Scotland and they all have the same quality. As long as the product passes IBM's QA (which is the same everywhere in the world), it is good enough to be an IBM product.

No, no, no. I did not mean that products in one country are better than the next. What I did mean, is that, IMO, products made in the IBM factory are probably going to be better quality that the same products outsourced. You just have more control of how the product turns out.

Anyway, this is just my opinion, and I am certainly very happy with the quality of my Chinese T42.

thinkie wrote:My T40p (2373-G3U) bought in January 2004 says "Manufactured for IBM Corporation" and "Made in Mexico" on the bottom. Don't know the build date; it is a refurb found on ebay.

Well that puts down my theory about the T40's not being outsourced then.
I guess the T30 must have been the last T-series to display the "Made by IBM".