Are some people happy "as is"?

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Bfskinnerpunk · #1 Post by **Bfskinnerpunk** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:21 am

I understand that internet forums give the appearance that a product is flawed and buggy. Most posts are asking for help with a problem. Looking down the column of thread titles looks like Thinkpads are frighteningly buggy.

So it would be interesting to know:
How many people simply unpack their new computer, turn it on, and are happy with it as is?

no reconfiguring things
no tweaks for performance
no removing un-needed software

I guess it's difficult to tell given that these aren't the type of people to join a forum.

mod edit: moved to general forum for a wider audience as this isn't T6x-specific.

Greg Gebhardt · #2 Post by **Greg Gebhardt** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:43 am

For the most part I am happy with what comes out of the box. I do delete some software like Norton and a few others and install my own that I need to work.

I do not spend hours looking for bad pixels or constantly feel my laptop to see if it too warm. Many here are so obcessed they ruin the whole experience. I need my laptop to work without anything getting in the way. My T61p has a decent keyboard and a screen that gets by and is more than fast enough to run my applications!

I feel sorry for anyone trying to tweek the last little hz for gaming as Thinkpad are not what I would call high performance.

I was upset that Lenovo would ruin the Thinkpad, overall they have not, so far!

Phazer · #3 Post by **Phazer** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:47 am

I'm "happier than a gopher in soft dirt" with mine. All my problems are due to age. Of course that happens on any laptop that is more than 5 years old. Some problems are even caused by me..

#4 Post by **jdhurst** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:22 am

I tweak Windows XP out of the box (classic interface, small cache, high performance, etc.). I posted a thread about this somewhere here. Result of my tweaking: Good, reliable performance, rock-solid and no crashes. All positive. ... JDH

Superego · #5 Post by **Superego** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:11 am

Looking down the column of thread titles looks like Thinkpads are frighteningly buggy.

Remember that most people are going post problems here rather than praise.

It's my opinion that a good portion of the problems people are posting here relate to the user (e.g. installing new software/drivers, deleting something important, changing something they don't fully understand, etc.), a portion comes from age/normal wear and tear, and then a final small portion are actually defective Thinkpads.

To answer your question, when I first opened my T60p it just worked. It was when I started tweaking things, particularly ATI drivers in Linux

, that I had problems (which I was able to fix once I fully understood the problem).

fredstev · #6 Post by **fredstev** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:46 am

Well, let's see - we've owned a T20, T23, two T40's, presently have a T43p and wife has T61. Only problems we've had of any consequence were with the T40's. (Both Ebay purchases). One had a hard drive fail about a week after receiving it, replaced with a Samsung 80gb and gave no further trouble. Other Ebay T40 had the usb port problem, only worked at 1.1 speed, usb 2.0 not functional. Never did resolve that problem, bought a pc card with two usb 2.0 ports which worked fine.

I sold both the T20 and the T23 to relatives/friends and they're still going strong. One T40 is down the street with the neighbor's kid. Working fine so far. This T43p has been faultless, doesn't run hot and yes, the fan is audible, but not distracting. The T61 just keeps it's head down and feeds endless lines of code to wife's embroidery machine.

Are we happy customers? Yup.

mateyo · #7 Post by **mateyo** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:52 am

I am happy "as is" right out of the box. No issues here.

JonathanGennick · #8 Post by **JonathanGennick** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:56 am

I've gone through six Thinkpads over the years. I've had good support, and they've all worked well from the get-go. Well, one had a niggling little problem with a keyboard rest not fitting quite right, but two phone calls and a week later and I had a replacement keyboard rest.

As for tweaking, I don't do much of that these days. Used to, when I was younger. Problem is though, all that tweaking is so transitory -- you have to do it all over again when switching machines, or when reloading your o/s. These days, I don't even bother to change my desktop background.

There are however, a couple of tweaks that I almost always do. With a new Thinkpad, I'll usually take the time to create a new power plan with settings that I like. And on some of my older machines I set Windows to "classic" mode to improve performance (for example, on an old, 800mhz Pentium III desktop).

And I'll admit, sometimes when I'm bored or in need of a break I'll go and tweak something, or at least look at a control panel to see what options are available. In the main though, I just use the machine.

TTY · #9 Post by **TTY** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:24 am

I find that the things, which I can’t change in this ThinkPad– or which would be expensive to change – are at least bearable, most are OK or even good. Among those things are noise level, keyboard quality, screen brightness and contrast, weight, and overall design. Some tweaking - such as updating drivers or installing patches for the operating system - will improve matters. The result is a stable system that does what I ask from it.

Aroc · #10 Post by **Aroc** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:37 am

I, too, did a custom restore without Norton and a few others with Windows Vista Business x64 on my T61p and have been happy with the out of the box experience.

For my T43, mine was an openbay CTO module where I built and sourced the accessories (wifi, hdd, dvdrw, RAM, battery)from third part sources, including the O/S, so my situation doesn't apply to most people. I do the base XP install, add the Lenovo drivers, as well as the following utilities: Access Connections and the Hotkey manager. I also change change the UI back to XP classic (Control Panel, System Properties, Advanced, Settings-performance, Visual Effects, radio: "Adjust for best performance"). I stop then disable the Theme service.

iamdmc · #11 Post by **iamdmc** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 1:50 pm

With Vista, you have to do a lot of tweaking to get it working well. I enjoy inspecting my system - it really helps me to appreciate the overall quality - something you don't see with other brands.

Tweaking the laptop is like tweaking a bicycle or car - it's your work that you put into it that makes it feel more like it's "Yours" and you can take pride in your work. To see something run so smoothly because of your intervention is a thing of beauty.

IMHO, of course.

mateyo · #12 Post by **mateyo** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 2:54 pm

I didn't have to tweak Vista. Worked well already. Worked better after SP1.

davidhbrown · #13 Post by **davidhbrown** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:07 pm

For me, so far, so good. T61p CTO. I've had it only a few hours, but I've already tested a few things that have been reported to be problematic. (PC Card works, 3DMark completes, fingerprint login is trouble-free).

Re: "crapware":

Had to uninstall Office 2007 -- would have left it, but it wouldn't recognize the Ultimate key I bought a little while ago. (Reinstalled)

Uninstalled Picassa.

Keeping Diskeeper -- I've paid for it on other computers.

Norton: I will be uninstalling the Norton stuff that came with it. I prefer Eset NOD32 and Comodo Firewall.

Earthlink: bye-bye.

Intervideo WinDVD: I don't have a problem with that; sometimes DVD menus don't work right in one program or another, so it's nice to have two.

Sonic Drag-to-disk: probably not worth deleting. I'll install Nero the next time I need to master something for real.

Sonix Integrated Camera: Not sure why that's part of the image... the 15.4" screens don't have the camera.

Bfskinnerpunk · #14 Post by **Bfskinnerpunk** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:28 pm

Interesting responses.

When it comes down to it, it seems that dismissing Norton is the common theme with everything else being somewhat variable.

Not bad.

My last two computers... including the one I'm typing on... were Sony's, and the amount of preinstalled stuff was out of hand.

lithium726 · #15 Post by **lithium726** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 3:57 pm

I can't pull them out of the box and use them. I have to pull them out of the box, wipe the HDD, install my OS of choice clean, and then upgrade as better things become avaliable for cheap.

That said, they aren't buggy at all.

benplaut · #16 Post by **benplaut** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 4:25 pm

Look... if you don't read the forums for a while, there are no problems with your thinkpad

T60 14, and loving it

Miller88 · #17 Post by **Miller88** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:16 pm

I had a bad experience with the software image I had. BUT that was the college's image NOT lenovo's image. I ended up formatting and installing XP. I'm happy with my thinkpad.

A few things have disappointed me - Battery , 3 AC adapters and a motherboard failure.

Its still easier to carry than my 15.4'' Dell

Bfskinnerpunk · #18 Post by **Bfskinnerpunk** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 5:34 pm

I just opened the box and plugged it in!

Well, I tried pressing the blue button during startup, but wasn't sure what to do with all those options, so I canceled out of it and just started up.

So far, it seems very snappy.

To uninstall Norton, can I just go to Norton's web site and use their little "uninstaller" download?... or is there an easier way of just eliminating all traces of it?

#19 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 6:11 pm

Just try using Add remove programs. If that doesn't get it google for "SymNRT"

Bfskinnerpunk · #20 Post by **Bfskinnerpunk** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 7:41 pm

Yes... the SymNRT worked like a charm. Thankfully, I didn't have to dig into the registry.

I have installed the 30 day trial of NOD32.

joester · #21 Post by **joester** » Mon Mar 24, 2008 8:30 pm

Am I happy? Let me put it this way...

I bought my first laptop, an Averatec 3220H-01. Had it for just over a year (warranty expired for only a few weeks) and it died. It ALWAYS ran hot, and the processor just quit processing. Averatec wouldn't cut slack on the warranty issue, and since the chip itself was extremely hard to get my hands on, I had to send it in for service (Averatec does NOT sell parts, nor offer any sort of HMM).
Long story short, I ended up 6 weeks later with a running laptop.

A few months later, I acquired my T21... and was hooked. It has become my primary laptop.
The fan is unbelieveably quieter then the Averatec (Turbo-charger at max throttle sounds very similar), and the feel of the keyboard is firm and useable. The T21 is also MUCH older and ran at less than half the processing speed (now bumped to 1.0GHZ thanks to chan-man). Still, it quickly became my laptop of choice. I have 4 600E's and a 600X to play with too.

Happy with the 3220H-01? well, I suppose so...but it spends most of its' days sitting in the laptop bag.
Happy with my growing Thinkpad family? You bet. I've received all sorts of help from this forum and a few select friends.
The only thing I got from Averatec's support center was a lie that the unit would be treated as a warranty repair followed by the repair people holding it hostage until I bailed it out. It runs OK with CPU controlling software since windows didn't seem to be able to manage it.

Joe

dsigma6 · #22 Post by **dsigma6** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 7:52 am

I'm a tweaker. A guy at the bar last night got wind that I'm a computer guy, so I spent an hour configuring his Vostro. For mine, I definitely tweak for a couple hours, but most of it's stuff that I'm programmed to do when the time comes...not like I could write everything out right now.

It'd probably take me 13 hours to tweak a new computer if I had to rely on a touchpad. Horrendous!

mateyo · #23 Post by **mateyo** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 8:46 am

Maybe OP should have made a poll of some sort. Wasn't the point to see who is satisfied that don't tweak or modify settings of the T61? There sure are a lot of posts about the opposite.

Couldn't the post have stayed in the T61x forum? From what I gather the OP intended to ask who is satisfied with their T61 "as-is" hence being posted in the T61 forum so that maybe they or others can make a more confident decision to purchase the T61x. Correct me if I am wrong.

Bfskinnerpunk · #24 Post by **Bfskinnerpunk** » Tue Mar 25, 2008 9:24 am

The OP isn't savy enough to know that a poll is an option!

Still, this informal "poll" has been informative.

As for me with this computer now in my hands, I am thrilled. I removed Norton with Symantics uninstaller download, installed NOD32...and that's it.

This computer (T9300) is blazing along as fast as I could want with no weird messages, warnings, or annoyances. All my old crap... like my Verizon Blackberry tethering/internet service is rock solid.

So, with almost no tweaks, I'm not sure what I would want to do to make it any more useable! All programs open seemingly before I can take my next breath.

iThinkiAmBen · #25 Post by **iThinkiAmBen** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 6:49 am

Well, for the most part, when I get a new computer I don't do anything but install applications and put my files on.

I don't like messing with things when I don't need to. There's always a risk of screwing the machine up.

*looks at dead G4 in closet*

lightweight · #26 Post by **lightweight** » Fri Mar 28, 2008 9:53 pm

I think it is a mistake to attribute the lack immediate satisfaction to Lenovo, IBM, or anyone else. No out-of-the-box OS and machine can be all things to all people, and the best simply allow (experienced and novice) users to increase satisfaction easily while remaining productive. This is perhaps best shown by most OSs/Desktops assuming most users will be confused, and so offer a tutorial on the first boot.

fuscob · #27 Post by **fuscob** » Sun Apr 06, 2008 11:25 am

I wouldn't say I'm immediately happy...there's too much bloatware for me. When I get a new machine, the first thing that I do is wipe the drive and reinstall the OS from scratch. Then, I install only what I actually need and not all the junk that Lenovo thinks I need.

Are some people happy "as is"?

Are some people happy "as is"?

So far, so good

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