[ltp] [Fwd: Lenovo's reply ...] re SL500

[Henrique de Moraes Holschuh]

On Tue, 18 Nov 2008, Ted Frater wrote:
> Does this mean that all of us Thinkpad enthusiasts should also write to  
> that email address? raising our concerns?

I don't know.  A lot of people did it on the Lenovo blog site, some with
better thought out posts, others with posts that were best never being
written in the first place (and would belong in sites like slashdot).

> Nothing touches Thinkpads for reliability and or build quality.

THAT is not true anymore.  You now have to factor in luck as well, there are
parts suppliers and parts suppliers...

And Lenovo is going cheap behind the scenes on non-key stuff.
Hardware-based muting and volume control are rumored to be gone for good:
the thinkpad has gone down to Dell level on this.  Stelar quality Synaptics
touchpads are now inferior ALPS crap... which I suppose is worse than
Dell(!) level.  And batteries now are not lasting much, either from what I
get on the list and forums.

The frame and hinges are still top-notch (in fact, I am told they
*improved*!), but screwups somewhere have caused keyboard flex issues (that
apparently are being silently fixed), etc.

I.e. it is business as usual.  IBM had their share of screwups on the
ThinkPad line too.

You *have* to raise hell every time you come into anything substandard in a
ThinkPad, otherwise either Lenovo or that parts supplier will just keep
dragging quality lower and lower.

-- 
  "One disk to rule them all, One disk to find them. One disk to bring
  them all and in the darkness grind them. In the Land of Redmond
  where the shadows lie." -- The Silicon Valley Tarot
  Henrique Holschuh