Thinkpads Forum

The PC Sales Guide/Configurator is available for download from

http://www.pscfg.com/downloads.htm

It is a PC-based application, useful for pre- and post-sales support regarding system configuration details and supported options. It is not meant for technical support such as many of the questions seen on this Forum. There are two main versions, one completely in German for use in Europe, and a second in English, which has sub-versions for the US, Canada and the UK. Each version has products announced in their respective countries. You can have any or all installed on your PC. Prices are provided for the bulk of the product content for both the US and Canada, both List and one Business Partner in each country. European list prices are much less complete. Employee prices or other promos are not included. Product content is on the order of 2,500 current system units, 3,500 withdrawn models, and perhaps 5,000 options.

Neither of the two files make any changes to your system, as their is no "install" program. Simple unzip the file, place the contents in any folder you like, follow the instructions (also available on the web site) and you are ready to go, with no reboot. If your security settings prevent the EXE file from unzipping, please allow it, as that is the Configurator engine itself.

There are four different ways to get at the data. PLEASE read the instructions to see what I mean here. If you miss out on any one of these features, you may miss a really important function.

The tool is updated approx. every month. Support questions will be answered promptly. These include how-to and where-do-I-find questions, suggestions, bug reports and general comments. The target response to any of these is five minutes from when I see your note. Inquiries from inside N. America may receive a telephone response, if you include your number. There is a "contact us" link. Should your note require a change to the data file, the target response to deliver the update is ten minutes. While the product content contains a great many withdrawn systems, requests to add other withdrawn systems are welcome. Adding one particular model make take only a few minutes. Adding an entire withdrawn product line is not possible inside the ten minute response target !

Lastly, there is no charge either for the tool itself, or any support you may request.

Is this some internal pricing tool.

The tool is for use by anyone. Internals, Business Partners, customers, anyone interested in Lenovo products and services. Internal prices (however you might define that) are not included. If you fit any of these categories, please download it AND the instructions (most important !), and you can have a German version in German, or an English version for Canada, USA or UK. Spanish and French versions are partially complete. Translation assistance would be most welcome. If you are aware of Lenovo Business Partners in any country - especially but not only Europe - who make available list prices on their web sites, please advise. The pricing info is contained in external text files, and can easily be replaced with local versions. Contact me for assistance.

Translation assistance would be most welcome.

If you're looking to hire a Spanish translator with many years of international experience and several uni degrees in languages, I have a girl that works for me who I believe is looking for some parttime work. Even though spanish is her native language, her English is better then anyone I know, and since I live in an English speaking country, that really impresses me. I think she is also pretty good with french and italian, not sure about german but it sounds like you got that covered already. I also have someone who can do Mandarin (chinese) and Romanian translations if needed.

Thanks for your interest. The next update will include the usual English language version (which can be set up for use in Canada, the US, or the UK). Also available is a German language version (for use in Germany/Austria/Switzerland). Prices are available for the U.S. (Lenovo List and one Business Partner), Canada (Lenovo List and one Business Partner) and partial list prices for the UK, France, Germany, and Italy. Coming with the next update - a French language version, for use in French Canada or France. Those who need to support customers in multiple countries can set up a sort of 'world-wide' version, which shows systems and options plus prices from all the countries where I found data. Contact me directly for assistance if you need this.

I am, as we speak, adding the new ThinkPad X1 Carbon models to the database, for both N. America and Western Europe. I regret I do not have any publicly-available supply info I could include with the public version, but I can fairly easily make YOUR prices and supply info visible in the selection menus and quotes. The price lists I have found for Europe are very short, for some reason. Of the products the PSREF says are announced in Europe, less than 10% of the systems have prices for any one country. N. America has prices for 10 times as many models. Strange.

The update (free, of course, as is end-user support) will be posted at www.pscfg.com/downloads.htm in the next day or two. Instructions are provided. Since the tool is more powerful than you might imagine, I recommend you read the instructions !

The work of translating the entire product database to French was tedious, to put it mildly. There are over 10K partnumbers, and almost 700K lines of code. There are some 4,000+ descriptive terms I had to look up and translate. Just as an example, there are now over 2,000 current model notebooks alone in the database. Hopefully my work will help users to find models that match their requirements, quickly and easily. Try the Needs Assist function to see this at work.

My command of French, while modest, is far better than my Spanish. I am sure there are a number of instances where the French I use is not terribly colloquial. I expect your colleague would want a fee to do the work. I would prefer to get some volunteer assistance from a native Spaniard who works either for Lenovo (Spain) or for a Spanish Business Partner. The benefit to them is that they get a tool that will generate quotes/proposals in the local language, in which case they might offer to do the work for free. If there is anyone who would be interested in discussing this, please drop me a line. I could come up with a version with a Spanish GUI fairly quickly, but I don't want to post a Spanish GUI version, with product descriptions still in English. The work involves updating a text file with two columns of words & phrases - English on one side, and the target language on the other. In a great many cases, there is no translation required, just copying. An "Intel Core i5-3320M" may well be exactly the same in any language. In other instances, it is a single word, like "Display". I can do the same for most any language based on Roman characters, and maybe even Cyrillic. With assistance, of course! Not Kanji or Chinese, I am afraid.

The latest version of the free LenovoLook Pro app - a search engine for Android devices - now checks for the existence of one database, US ThinkPads, and if not present, automatically downloads and installs it, and two others, French ThinkPads, and German ThinkPads. Product descriptions are in the local language, as best as I can manage. These databases are created using the standalone configurator application for Windows. In addition we have added the ability for the app to compare the installed database on your phone or tablet, with the one posted on the web site, and if newer, gets the newer one from the web site. I could easily do a version for the UK as well, but I would rather wait until I can get list prices for Europe. Lenovo for some unknown reason treats list prices as something to be kept secret from the public, and does not make a price list available in any country. This appears to be unique in the IT industry. If anyone knows of a Lenovo Business Partner who posts a price list please drop me a note so I might contact them and ask permission to post their prices. End user support for the app is free.