[GTALUG] brands matter; Lenovo's brands

[D. Hugh Redelmeier]

| From: Evan Leibovitch via talk <talk at gtalug.org>

| Disclaimer: I have an MBA in marketing. I studied this stuff at length.

(I think that's actually a claimer.)

Thanks for adding a lot to this topic.

For those interested in marketing, there is a great CBC Radio series, 
Terry O'Reilly's "Under the influence".  On in an hour (11:30 Saturdays).
You can also get it as a podcast: 
<https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence>

| More to the point: SOME brands matter. And they matter to varying degrees.

Absolutely.

Most techies start with the conscious attitude that brands don't
matter.  (We don't always realize that our less conscious reasoning
cannot ignore branding.  And we should not.)

| > They are meant to telegraph certain things to the customer.  Of course the
| > brand's meaning can be changed: it isn't a contract.
| 
| Sometimes that change is unintentional.

For sure.

But consider product defects (not usually planned).  How the company
reacts to a problem very much reflects on the brand.

| Lenovo's Think* brands are mostly solid conservative business machines.

ThinkPad, ThinkCentre, ThinkServer -- each of those have a consistent
message, with nuances you mentioned.

ThinkBook breaks that pattern.

| That's the brand IBM built, and that Lenovo maintained for some models. For
| others, they "diluted the brand", something that happens far too often. But
| hey, their marketing worked on you.

People I've heard from are happy with their L and E series.

I haven't bought a ThinkPad for a decade.  I have bought ThinkCentres
as recently as this year.

Why?  I find that I can get more bang for my buck with other brands,
and with the features I want.

|   + part of that is users don't like change.
| 
| 
| That's not universal, especially in the field of tech where things can
| change so fast (like whether a laptop needs a built-in CD/DVD player).
| Sometimes the users demand change, and conservative approaches don't
| survive.

The most vocal customers are the ones that don't like the changes
"forced on them".  I would guess that those are the most loyal
customers.  I also bet they don't buy a lot of units.

For years you could hear complaints about the (lack of?) trackpad
buttons in newer T series models.

I have a friend who really really wanted an optical drive in a laptop.
This year.  It is possible, but only in pretty limited number of
models, all horrible.

| > - the ThinkPad Android Tablet was a disaster that I got fooled by.
| 
| There have been in the past x86-based Thinkpad tablets that have been well
| regarded. The current Yoga line works nicely for some.

x86 tablets are a quite different thing.  So much so that they don't
get called tablets.  Slates?  Surfaces?  Convertibles.

- they are much clunkier in so many ways.  Worse
  + weight
  + battery time
  + display
  + touch control
  + fluidity of interface

- they run all the Windows software.

- accidentally can usually run any Linux distro

| Lenovo Android devices are mostly produced for the Chinese domestic
| audience and only unoficially get sold internationally.

Now.  But that doesn't describe the ThinkPad Android Tablet.
It appears that they abandoned it early, without announcing that.
Not as quickly as HP killed its TouchPad tablet, but not as explicitly
either.

I have some Lenovo tablets, not aimed at the Chinese domestic market.
They are limited but reasonably priced.  And they don't have a
ThinkPad brand.

| By and large Lenovo
| uses its Motorola brand for internationally-sold Android devices.

Phones.  I don't remember that being the case for tablets.

| Over the years a LOT of Thinkpad models have not been aimed at you or me.
| 
| I'm not sure I'm getting the point here.

The jumping off point is that Think* is aimed at conservative
customers but Lenovo in general and Legend in particular isn't.

Peter is struggling with a Legend desktop and appears to want and need
something closer to what a ThinkCentre is aimed at providing: solid,
well-supported, long-lived.

| Don't get caught up in branding. These days PCs are nearly a commodity and
| there's very little to separate the makers except for after-sale issues
| such as warranty and ease of repair. The only distinctive brand here is
| Apple and you either buy into their world or you don't.

To a point.

Lenovo has built a bit of a moat around the Think* brands and gets to
charge a premium.  Some of this premium is spent on things that their
audience wants.  Most interesting for GTALUG: they will make sure
Linux works (at least in theory).

Apple has a much bigger moat.  They use their premium for a lot of
engineering that PC makers cannot afford.  I'm not sure that Apple make
much profit on PCs -- they have a lot of engineering costs.

Most PC makers leave a lot of the innovation to Intel and Microsoft
(AMD not so much).  For example "ultrabook" is a trademark of Intel.
Intel made reference designs to show how it could be done.  They made
specifications that had to be met to allow that branding.


Here's another example of bad branding.  Asus has a line of notebooks
called "Vivobook".  This is supposed to be below their ZenBook line.
I have two models of these that are drastically different in quality /
price / features.

- the Vivobook X415 is a very ordinary laptop.  1920x1080 IPS display (the 
  minimum for me).  Processor: i3-1005g1.  Not horrible, ordinary.

- the Vivobook S 14X is amazing.  For example, the display is
  2880x1600 OLED display with 120Hz refresh.  Processor: Ryzen 7 6800H.

They really should segment the Vivobook brand.  Perhaps they think
that they have with the "S".
<https://www.asus.com/ca-en/laptops/for-home/vivobook/>