[GTALUG] brands matter; Lenovo's brands
Peter King
peter.king at utoronto.ca
Sat Sep 16 13:11:24 EDT 2023
All points about brands/branding noted and appreciated. I got the
Lenovo Legion T5 because I wanted a desktop, and it seemed to me that
the niche for high-quality and well-built desktops -- what used to be
called "enterprise" or "business" models -- had largely collapsed, being
supplanted by either high-end laptops that business users would tote
around and if necessary plug into a docking station, or by cheap
consumer-grade desktops that were shoddily built, underpowered, and
meant to be thrown away in a few years (more economical than investing
in long-lasting hardware that would be outmoded too quickly). So what
is someone who wants a good desktop unit to do?
A few years ago one of my desktop units failed. I replaced it with a
miniPC, a minisform model I put more RAM and two 2TB SSDs into, and it
runs just fine. Maybe that is the way to go. (I have a portable
high-resolution LCD screen now, and I think I'll eventually just carry
around miniPCs rather than laptops.) But then again I also have a
14-year-old ThinkPad that still runs like a dream once I put in an SSD;
one of the last models with the "real" IBM keyboard in it.
Perhaps mistakenly, I thought that the combination of new hardware with
the rough requirements gamers have for their machines -- able to be run
hard for long periods of time, for instance -- would give me durability
and was the Next Best Thing to the trouble of actually assembling a
desktop machine myself. (I actually like to build computers, but I just
don't have the time these days, unfortunately.) Seems I was wrong, or at
least wrong that this model from Lenovo would be like that.
I didn't even consider ThinkCentres, which word-of-mouth had rated as
overpriced and underpowered, and in any event I wanted (and still want)
an extremely reliable machine that I can re-use my 3.5" spinning disks
in along with other desktop-sized hardware. My three desktops are
located in different offices, and they make a mini-cloud of backups etc.
Most of my academic colleagues took an entirely different route -- by
and large they use a high-end laptop as their main computer, and either
go for a docking-station setup or just use a cheap "business" desktop
for email/web work, a reversal of the old approach where the laptop was
for light duty and the desktop for serious work.
I am not a market of one (yet). But there are times when it is starting
to feel that way. And not working in tech, I don't hear what's current,
whose machines are reliable, and the sort of unwritten lore that would
help inform sensible purchasing choices.
I suspect this list of desiderata would apply to many in this group:
- reliable and long-lived
- user-upgradeable and user-fixable
- high storage capacity
- fast, or fast enough for work purposes
- able to manipulate high-end graphics (and sometimes high-end audio)
files
Things I don't need are: high framerate, portability, small form-factor,
Windows, the latest wireless speed standard, anything more than ordinary
ethernet, optical disks. I can plug in USB peripherals for keyboard,
mouse, portable devices, or even optical disks. I can even use offboard
DAC high-end audio over USB, which works quite well. I have thought
about building a NAS system, to reduce my need for local high-capacity
storage, but every time I look into it, the plethora of software choices
and the difficulty of configuring a server to do what is normally done
locally makes me just, well, give up.
Essentially, for a desktop unit I want a server-type machine that is
also capable of working with large graphics images, mostly static. I
don't think there is anything like that for general sale, and so it
isn't just branding -- it's having enough people to sustain a market for
such a product.
For that matter, I far prefer manual transmission in cars, but that's a
preference that is hard to sustain these days. Fortunately that's just
a preference and not a matter of work.
Thanks to everyone for all the reflections; there is more to the problem
than I was properly aware of. Today I will open up the Legion and see
how easy/difficult it is to replace the CMOS battery and to bypass the
high-end graphics card. The saga continues.
On 9/16/23 11:55, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
> | 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://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbc.ca%2Fradio%2Fundertheinfluence&data=05%7C01%7Cpeter.king%40utoronto.ca%7Cccbd434a8b5d4b2f363d08dbb6cd5c59%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C638304765354476275%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=errATnN%2BKBi80CSeWJDQJgP2XedOJCAbKymLcgzg8zY%3D&reserved=0>
>
> | 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://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.asus.com%2Fca-en%2Flaptops%2Ffor-home%2Fvivobook%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cpeter.king%40utoronto.ca%7Cccbd434a8b5d4b2f363d08dbb6cd5c59%7C78aac2262f034b4d9037b46d56c55210%7C0%7C0%7C638304765354476275%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=XndckooRwfIfxzrB8%2BWz4qM6ol%2B0ppritLjZBs8U4u0%3D&reserved=0>
> ---
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--
Peter King peter.king at utoronto.ca
Department of Philosophy
170 St. George Street #521
The University of Toronto (416)-946-3170 ofc
Toronto, ON M5R 2M8
CANADA
http://individual.utoronto.ca/pking/
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