Another Lenovo quality step down is coming ?

[Puppy]

Lenovo to release more notebook orders to Taiwan ODMs http://digitimes.com/systems/a20080623PD214.html

The article is mentioning IdeaPad series but can you imagine ThinkPads manufactured by Quanta or Compal ... ?

[makai]

Bad news! Only the future will tell how far Lenovo will go to save a buck. Up until now, I never worried about having to make a choice of what laptop to purchase... Thinkpad, yes, others, no. It was simple. It's a little early to speculate, but perhaps Thinkpads as we know it, may one day go the way of the Dodo!

[carbon_unit]

Well if you pay attention in this forum you will see lots of people buy the R61i and other low end models, mostly because they are cheap.
As Lenovo attracts more "Consumers" price becomes the highest priority. When IBM courted the professional, quality was the highest priority.
The whole world (at least the US) seems to be focused on buying cheap products and quality is not much of a consideration. Thank your local Wal Mart for that.
You can't really blame Lenovo for chasing the money by aiming for the group who spends and spends and spends.
I too am saddened by any reduction in quality but to stay in business you have to sell what people are buying. If there was still a great market for "super high quality no matter the price" laptops IBM probably would have never sold the division.

[j-dawg]

The article is mentioning IdeaPad series but can you imagine ThinkPads manufactured by Quanta or Compal ... ?

No, but if you try the Ideapad U10 you will see that there is already a huge disparity in quality between the Thinkpad and Ideapad lines. I don't think that what happens to one is necessarily indicative of what will happen to the other.

[erik]

consumers don't want to pay for quality.   just look at all of the complaints about X300 prices.   it's ridiculous.

everyone wants "low cost" and "high quality" to be read in the same sentence.   sorry kids but it ain't gonna happen.

we can only hope that the high-end thinkpad line stays with foxconn.

[mattbiernat]

we can only hope that the high-end thinkpad line stays with foxconn.

otherwise it is going to be goodbye thinkpad and hello panasonic...

[pxa270]

I think there's a lot of prejudice against "Taiwanese ODMs" around here, because HP and Dell use them to produce their cheapest stuff. But they also produce high end stuff, with quite good quality. I wouldn't call the more expensive Dell and HP business models obviously inferior to ThinkPads.

Compal and Quanta are capable of producing good quality stuff if you pay them. I believe many of the X series were made by Wistron, another Taiwanese ODM. And it wasn't that long ago that Lenovo or Legend was regarded as just a cheap Chinese manufacturer.

[Puppy]

Compal and Quanta are capable of producing good quality stuff if you pay them.

"If you pay them" - Lenovo has proven they are not willing to spend money on quality. We still could have decent displays if ...

[Puppy]

consumers don't want to pay for quality.   just look at all of the complaints about X300 prices.   it's ridiculous.

I don't think the price is problem of X300. The problem are features you are getting for that price (no HDD option, no PCMCIA/ExpressCard slot etc.). I would never pay premium price for horrible sub-average display.

[pxa270]

Compal and Quanta are capable of producing good quality stuff if you pay them.

"If you pay them" - Lenovo has proven they are not willing to spend money on quality. We still could have decent displays if ...

Then the problem has little to do with Taiwanese ODMs. ThinkPad X series were (are?) manufactured by Wistron, which used to be a division of Acer (!).

[xixiliu]

Lenovo to release more notebook orders to Taiwan ODMs http://digitimes.com/systems/a20080623PD214.html

The article is mentioning IdeaPad series but can you imagine ThinkPads manufactured by Quanta or Compal ... ?

i don't know why you talked this way. hp and dell do the same thing. and this really helps the customers to get their laptops much sooner. anyway, i insist there are two kinds of notebooks: thinkpad and the others. my next is thinkpad t500. if you don't like, you can go to hp or dell. why did you come and say bad of lenovo?

[ajkula66]

xixiliu wrote:

hp and dell do the same thing.

Exactly. And that's what gets old-time ThinkPad buffs like Puppy and myself scared to no end...

[xixiliu]

xixiliu wrote:

hp and dell do the same thing.

Exactly. And that's what gets old-time ThinkPad buffs like Puppy and myself scared to no end...

in fact nearly pcs and laptops are made by taiwan manufacturers or their factories in china mainland. apple included.

[ajkula66]

xixiliu wrote:

in fact nearly pcs and laptops are made by taiwan manufacturers or their factories in china mainland. apple included.

We all know that. But not all of these factories are created equal...and most of today's laptops (don't use desktops and can't comment on them) are garbage anyway, so you're doing an excellent job of proving Puppy's original point...

[Deckard]

Those who are dissing the Taiwanese or Chinese ODMs, where do you think that Thinkpads should be produced so that they would qualify as "quality" products?

[gator]

Those who are dissing the Taiwanese or Chinese ODMs, where do you think that Thinkpads should be produced so that they would qualify as "quality" products?

It is not about where they are produced, but how they are being produced. I don't give a hoot as to where my thinkpad comes from as long as it retains the legendary quality (which, sadly, seems to be dropping as market economics plays its game).

[Troels]

Dropping quality?

What are all the problems of DIMM slot problems of the T3x series we read of, and now pretty GPU problems due to flexing errors with the T4x series?
Why did IBM even consider Chicony and Alps if they knew that NMB is superior and is what people wanted?
How does that explain that the R-series in the 60-series is much improved in rigidness compared to R3x, R4x, R5x?

IBM chose to sell it's PC division. That included an exit to LCD manufacturing biz also. Lenovo has kept the Flexview and 14.1" 4:3 alive as long as even possible, and i'm amazed that it was possible for them for that long - all other manufacturers which were outselling Thinkpads by 30x as much or more have abandoned 4:3 long ago already. When it still was 4:3 and notebooks were expensive, they still didn't even want IPS because they wanted to maximize their profit. The NEC VersaPro being an exception.

I mean, as a company try asking manufacturers if you could order a high-resolution 15" laptop LCd... oh and it must have the best viewing angles as possible... og and it must be matte.. oh and high contrast too. Oh and by the way, we don't sell that many of these 15" 4:3 models, so it's just a relatively small order.
At no point in time this was really possible by others than LG-Philips, IDtech/CMO and Boe-Hydis. Samsung on the other hand looks more like the devil on the market.
The fact that Lenovo could get a manufacturer to manufacture a custom LED backlit screen with an unusual high resolution in low volumes (due to American economy right now, probably won't sell just as well as some years ago) is great. It's a real pity about the contrast ratio, really.

Lenovo has introduced the roll cage and redesigned the location of the CPU and GPU to much less flexing prone areas. I think the roll cage is one of the most usefull inventions, when you realize that few carry their laptops in a suitcase. Messenger bags are popular for laptops, or they are just stuffed into bags with a book or two. This is bound to flex the laptop chassis somewhat with no roll-cage.

Lenovo has probably learned that Thinkpad users are more conservative about changes - but they listened to their users to bring back the stripes of the UltraNav buttons. Recently - maybe based on the missing S-Video - they are asking their users what ports they find crucial.
Do HP, Sony or Dell do that? No. Do they care? No. All they do is look at the sales figures. If it doesn't sell well enough, change the design or add a new feature - never step back, or people won't upgrade.

I'm thinking Lenovo is trying out the market segments of HPs multimedia-design-notebooks in the lower price end are taking. For this Lenovo has the IdeaPad with all the shininess, multimedia buttons and a stylished color theme. People want decorated laptops now for some reason.

IBMs prices were too high to pay the development costs - so obviously Lenovo must try to either redesign the products or lower the price to gain interest.
Re-designing is a pretty hard task, since it is a business computer. The customers here should be kept while gaining more acceptance in the general public, where price also comes into play.
So they had to lower their prices.
This is at a time were LCD manufacturers - in particular Samsung - are mass producing millions of subpar LCDs.
For me, i think the Thinkpad series has been unaffected and is keeping up it's name and quality.

If we don't want foreign ODMs to assemble our Thinkpads - blame the bigger companies like HP and Dell for choosing them due to price and efficiency and driving the other ODMs out of the market. Even IBM outsourced Thinkpads to China since long ago.
I rarely hear about assembly errors from these places- it always turns out it either a design defect with Thinkpads. On the other hand we very often hear of ridiculously re-assemblies of Thinkpads repaired by Solectron on these forums. So much for for the argument of where it is assemblied.
Remember that the other notebook brands they assemble in China or Taiwan are of different quality, often where price comes first, then specs and then reliable design. The brand names want these to fail after some years so the consumer will come back and buy a new laptop. They will never introduce a roll-cage design for example.

[wswartzendruber]

I seem to recall people saying the T60 was going to be a horrible machine.

[ajkula66]

gator wrote:

It is not about where they are produced, but how they are being produced. I don't give a hoot as to where my thinkpad comes from as long as it retains the legendary quality (which, sadly, seems to be dropping as market economics plays its game).

Exactly!!!

And that's why a huge number of business users has turned to ToughBooks. What no one really wants to admit is that this particular group couldn't care less about pricing, as long as they get what they want, since they're not paying it out of their pocket anyway..that's what stockholders are for...and Panasonic allows you to customize the machine to almost no-end...and with old-time-ThinkPad-type price tags they are doing extremely well...

Spare me the story about IPS availability and take a look here, under the 15" section:

http://www.idtech.co.jp/en/products/index.html

So yes, we've improved on a number of issues, including reliability, but we've lost any type of decent LCDs apart from ones on tablets, and I predict that these will be gone by the end of the year. And that's what got me hooked on ThinkPads to begin with...a great LCD.

What I'm going to say is not going to be politically correct, but the IBM ThinkPad quality had dropped when production was moved to China. Quality control...give me a break, start at the neck. You don't think that there is a difference between Mexico-assembled and China-assembled A3x and T30 units, you must have not owned enough of them to realize the difference in QC.

All of my A31p machines that suffered from GPU failures were produced in China. Not a single one in Mexico. And I'm not talking about one or two units.

Have the Chinese improved since then? Absolutely, by a zillion percent. I wouldn't expect any less from a nation that had come up with I-CHING four thousand years ago.But now we're going to Taiwan to submit a new set of workers to the "ThinkPad learning curve"...not at my expense, thank you.

As for T60, and "horrible machine"...it's definitely not anything of a kind. But apart from the sticker, it had little or nothing to do with Lenovo.

First "100% Lenovo ThinkPad" is X300, which is a machine that commands respect, although I'm not particularly impressed with it, especially at the given price tag.

I'm quite willing to give Lenovo a chance and wait for the new T series to come out. But if my predictions are anywhere near correct, my next new laptop, when the time comes, will be a ToughBook.

Typed on a pre-production X60T with IBM logos, made by Lenovo.

[erik]

like gator said above, it's not where it's made but how it's made.   the thinkpad s30 is built like a tank and was made in taiwan.   the thinkpad X300 is on-par with TP600 build quality and the X300 is made in china where the 600 was made in mexico.

saying that an entire country is a poor location for manufacturing is both naive and uninformed since it's the individual plant that matters most.   foxconn seems to churn out a quality product and they have locations in every major electronics-producing country—taiwan, china, and mexico included.   since the article linked above doesn't specify which ODM in taiwan will be used, i'll stick with my original statement that i hope manufacturing stays with foxconn.

[lophiomys]

as far as I understood, ajkula66 was not intending to discredit a
nation and or a single production site. He is reporting
experiences he actually made on his own. Only few can do that.

And accoring to Thinkpad-standards poor quality was delivered
from a certain country of origin during the last years.
I think we can agree on that.

Again I would also emphasize, it is not so much where
something is made and even not so much how it is made,
but more
how much is actually paid for production out-sourcing and
how much is invested in qualitiy control and/or customer services.
If you pay more for production, you'd get better quality.

Managers are taking deliberately decisions about these topics,
and they should be taken responsible for their actions.

Most probably they moved production from location X to Y,
because it was cheaper at Y, whereby not caring much about
quality and long term effects.

[makai]

I can tell you from experience in Aerospace that companies are looking for the cheap buck! When a major Aerospace company comes up with a slogan like... CASH IS KING!... then you really have to start wondering about the leadership!

The only reason for Lenovo to outsource is to find a cheaper means of production. Period. Whether that means the product line will go down or not, that's left to be seen. However, if things go like they have in Aerospace, well.....

On the other hand, there are a ton of computer parts made in Taiwan and most seem to work very well. I've personally had zero problems with my Abit and Asus motherboards and both are made in Taiwan. It's not so much where the parts are made, it's by whom.

I'm sure the company Lenovo chooses will have to live up to Lenovo's expectations seeing as Lenovo's reputation will be on the line... and they know it. My opinion means nothing right now, but when the time comes... I'll voice it loudly with my wallet!

[pxa270]

like gator
since the article linked above doesn't specify which ODM in taiwan will be used, i'll stick with my original statement that i hope manufacturing stays with foxconn.

Quanta or Compal. I don't know how you could have missed that, as it's in both the starter post and the first sentence of the linked article.

[erik]

as far as I understood, ajkula66 was not intending to discredit a nation and or a single production site.

my post wasn't directed toward george (ajkula66).

like gator
since the article linked above doesn't specify which ODM in taiwan will be used, i'll stick with my original statement that i hope manufacturing stays with foxconn.

Quanta or Compal. I don't know how you could have missed that, as it's in both the starter post and the first sentence of the linked article.

the article states, "with Quanta Computer and Compal Electronics being in competition for the orders, according to sources," which doesn't mean there aren't other companies vying for the spot.   you're assuming that quanta and compal are the only two.   it's possible that other ODMs are in the mix, albeit this is a slim possibility.   i may end up being wrong but i stand by my original statement quoted below.

we can only hope that the high-end thinkpad line stays with foxconn.

[rleo25]

It is a tough decision when you have to balance between price and quality, taking into account that this is a market where the life span of products is set arround a year because of technological changes. I myself have made this question, what's the point in buying durable but costly equipments when I have to resell them in a year losing 60% of its price?

[ajkula66]

rleo25 wrote:

I myself have made this question, what's the point in buying durable but costly equipments when I have to resell them in a year losing 60% of its price?

If you're applying it for business purposes, that machine has earned its keep within a year, or you're not using it properly.

If you're just a ThinkPad buff, a high-end unit should last you way more than that. Unless, of course, you're one of the people who buy a new Porsche every year...and have to have the very latest one.

[wearetheborg]

I was recently reading a thread here where someone was debating getting a T42P or a T61. And one of the plus points people mentioned for the T61 was its better build quality due to the 360 degree rollcage.

So all this talk about quality degradation, at least it has not happened in past 2 years.

Also, I recently played around with a dell lattitude D820 for a couple of days. It is very well built. It certainly felt more solid than the T4x's and the T30 I have owned.

LCD wise, yes, its sad that Lenovo does not offer IPS, but they do offer WSXGA+, WUXGA, WXGA+, and these screens are of decent quality. Much much better than the horrendous SXGA+ of T3x etc.

[BillMorrow]

lots of thinkpads have been made in taiwan..
(south korea too)
they make what you want to your spec..
good quality or not, buyers choice..

to name a couple offhand, the 240 series, the S30 series, the iSeries (okok the iSeries was a consumer grade thinkpad) and many others going back to the 350 series (i this it was 350..)

don't complain about quality until you see a really el-cheapo thinkpad made by lenovo that is of lesser qualoity than some made by IBM..

i remember when japanese goods were considered to be junk..
same for mexican goods..
thinkpads have been made in both japan and mexico..

calling taiwanese goods "cheap" or "junk" borders on prejudiced comments..

be fair..

[beeblebrox]

To be honest, after 15 years with Thinkpads, Compaq, Dell, Epson, Tandy, HP and Apple, I would not praise Thinkpads too much.

The business lines are qualitywise all the same. Some better, some worse and vise versa.

Thinkpads are not better or worse than others. They are NOT rock-solid tanks as many say here and Thinkpad quality is average.
They are only so good in perception because some other brands are so much worse.

Strange enough, but a major part of every privately bought Thinkpad I bought, I had to return immediately for repairs after 1 week. We even had a few dead on arrival Thinkpads in our company (Yep!).

I my previous life as an engineer I disassembled and repaired many notebooks and to be honest: most Thinkpads are flimsy and poorly designed. I just think of common problems with T2x, T4x and R31 with their built-in crack sections and poorly designed cooling systems.

The best notebooks I have ever seen and used were the 755 and 600 series.
Everything newer is going down in quality and costs.

I can not speak about the T6x series because we will migrate by fall this year to the next generation (crossing fingers, but Dell reps are doing some great presentations in our CIO dept. maybe I'll be using Dells in future. They are surprisingly good machines, much better than in the past!)