The real genius and power of China lies in its armies of low-cost and brilliant engineers. Seen a Lenovo box lately? Heck of a lot nicer than anything Dell is pooping out from its factory in Round Rock.
Yeah, right. AFAIK all Lenovo engineering and design is done in the same ex-IBM engineering US-based campus and I am personally get scared every time new Thinkpads come out, because when Lenovo transfers engineering to China or/and turns into Dell, there won't be any usable laptops anymore and I'll have to go back to a self-made desktop PC.
Sorry Apple, but your keyboards and touchpads aren't in the same league with http://kontsevoy.com/ultranav.png and Dell... let's just say they'll never bounce back.
Lenovo is already making the Thinkpads suck. For example, they use shitty LCDs because they have some pride issue buying components from Japan and Korea, and therefore get second-rate LCDs instead. On my T61, there is a slot for an xD card (which my camera uses), but for some reason Lenovo has disabled that reader in hardware. It shows up in Linux, but can't read the media. What the fuck?
Anyway, the hardware is solid, but Lenovo is pulling a lot of crap that will probably prevent me from buying another Thinkpad. Dell and Apple both suck for other reasons, unfortunately, making it impossible to get an acceptable laptop. sigh.
I've been really pleased with the quality on the Dell XPS line. Comparing it to the new T61 I got for work, the Dell seems better in every way with the exception of the lack of a force mouse in the middle of the keyboard.
They're not. You can get custom machines from www.powernotebooks.com, and their prices do beat both Apple's and Dells.
I also recall the press release when Asustek won the contract for Apple's MacBook... though I don't remember whether it was Acer or Crown that won the contract for the MacBook Pro.
I am not saying that other manufacturers are not capable of building stuff that way. But they don't let you assemble your desired PC via web. OK, except maybe for powernotebooks, but I don't know them well enough to trust them yet.
Yeah, right. AFAIK all Lenovo engineering and design is done in the same ex-IBM engineering US-based campus and I am personally get scared every time new Thinkpads come out, because when Lenovo transfers engineering to China or/and turns into Dell, there won't be any usable laptops anymore and I'll have to go back to a self-made desktop PC.
Sorry Apple, but your keyboards and touchpads aren't in the same league with http://kontsevoy.com/ultranav.png and Dell... let's just say they'll never bounce back.