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"A loss" of higher cost features? My T4x did not have a magnesium alloy chassis assembly the last time I checked. Nor did it include a completely redesigned, unified keyboard design that has smaller gaps between the keys, an overengineered keyboard support frame that is part of the chassis and bezel. If not, I didn't see features that added fractions of a cent to my T410, such as the small pieces of plastic mesh designed to keep larger chunks of dust outside of my chassis and heatsink!John Hobbes wrote:But it’s not all bad news. Change is always difficult and while ThinkPad has changed quite a lot over the past few years, a lot of the important bits are still here. The standard T Series models went from being the flagship in the T4x years to now being a “mainstream” do-it-all kind of product, which brings with it a loss of certain higher cost features (i.e. CFRP & magnesium alloy chassis) and a sub-$1000 price tag.
Alright, most people will take this in another way: So harddrives should have inferior lifespan and performance compared to their 90s era bretheren because they're simply lower in capacity to storage. Buy a VAIO, Macbook, feel super elite and super smug because your product costs more, therefore, must have more quality right?Economic trends are moving towards quantity over quality, more frequent replacement over higher initial cost & longer life. This can’t be entirely avoided in any field, without a company managing every stage of their product from conception to distribution. Smaller companies with smaller markets and more exclusive products can do this. Larger companies trying to increase market share and remain price competitive cannot.
For anyone who thinks this, you need to stop drinking koolaid. This logic means that Costco should not work as a business then. What Lenovo IS doing is that they're reducing their profit margin on products and attempting to gain a larger volume of product sales to offset this. This is a COMPLETELY legitimate business strategy. As for harddrives? Imagine 10-30 dollars used to make a 200 dollar product yet the HDD companies only make 20-50 dollars off one. Why? R&D costs money, it isn't "magical Apple designed with an electron microscope to find the perfect shaping for your finger to open the lid."
The s subseries of the T4x0 Thinkpads is a COMPROMISE design between a X series and a T series. It does not have the raw space of a T4x0 Thinkpad to fit components and it competes against a X series in size. You lose against BOTH SIDES to get a product that is the "Jack of all trades." Namely a smaller T series that is faster than a X series. There is nothing "flagship" about the s subseries. If anything, you should look at the W70xDS as a "flagship" product of "we can do this, find us someone else who can and we'll view them as being very serious about their laptops."That doesn’t mean that there are no flagship ThinkPads. Indeed, the X Series took over that role for a while with the X300/X301. While we wait for an X310 refresh, the T400s/T410s has stepped up to the plate with all the advancements of the X300 put into a more usable, cost effective package. Yet still, we have a product that is easily worth $1500+ and take upwards of $200 off on a regular basis. But I digress.
For anyone who isn't able to comprehend this post: I'm making a critical analysis of select statements and select "trains of logic" posessed by most people on forums. If you're one of those people, let me say this right now: Go take an economics class and understand the concept of sales volume being able to offset massive profit margins with "economies of scale."
