back to article Lenovo aims to seize PC crown within 3 years

Lenovo is aiming to become the biggest shifter of PC tin on the planet within three years after recently swiping the number two spot from Dell. The once sleeping dragon is clearly wide awake – Lenovo outpaced worldwide market growth for the last eight consecutive quarters – and in a bullish mood. "We should be able to …

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  1. Hayden Clark Silver badge
    Happy

    Think-ness

    As long as Lenovo doesn't pee in it's own spring by compromising on the brand attributes of the ex-IBM ThinkPad/ThinkCentre branding, it will do well.

    If it starts shipping dodgy, flimsy rubbish with "ThinkPad" on the lid, it will be doomed.

    1. hillsy
      Thumb Up

      Amen to that

      My second-hand (but still-in-warranty-because-Lenovo-warranty-is-excellent) ThinkPad T500 is probably the best laptop I've ever owned*.

      I'd be extremely disappointed if they started cutting corners. There are plenty of cheap and trashy PCs out there already, but not so much upmarket stuff.

      And their Linux support is excellent, if that sort of thing matters to you.

      *To be fair, one or two of my work HPs have been OK too.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      You mean like the W520, with the 2-pound 170W power supply? Impossible to appreciate how gargantuan that and the lappy itself it is on their site, which works well for a mail order biz I s'pose. But you'd never mistake it for "flimsy."

  2. Alan Gauton
    Thumb Down

    Maybe, if they can sort out their ordering system.

    Lenovo have had a few good deals on their website - shame the backend is not so helpful.

    I recently placed an order, after 10 days not knowing when it was likely to ship, I e-mailed to be told the order was ready, and would be shipped on 10/10/11 (about 2 1/2 weeks later). I asked if it was ready why it was going to take so long to ship, and got the reply it would ship soon, by courier. 20 minutes or so later got another reply saying the order was cancelled. To which I replied saying, yer wot?

    So I phoned customer services, to be told that no, the order was still in the system to ship on 10/10. Then I got another e-mail saying that it was indeed cancelled, and I would get an automated reply. Phoned back and was told, yes it had been cancelled.

    It took about 2 weeks to get the automated cancel e-mail (round about the expected shipping date), at which point I took my business elsewhere.

    They did offer a 10% discount, and said I could place another order through the site, but if this is how they work, they're going to struggle to get direct sales working.

    1. K. Adams
      Facepalm

      Ditto...

      I ordered a Lenovo ThinkPad L420 for my niece as a graduation gift.

      I couldn't get the unit shipped to work (since we also use Lenovo, I didn't want to risk the confusion), and I didn't have anyone at home to sign for the package, so I had to get the laptop shipped to an alternate location.

      I couldn't use my parents' address, because my niece was often at my parents' house, and helped with whole-house cleaning and such, so sending it to "Grandma and Grandpa's place" wouldn't work, either. I finally decided to have it drop-shipped to my Aunt's house.

      Everything was going great until the Lenovo website told me I needed to put an "authorised third-party drop ship address" on my credit card.

      OK, no sweat; I'll just call my bank (a very large and well-known outfit, at least where I live), and ask them to add the info to my card. Bank says "sorry, we can't do that; we don't have fields for that in our system." So I asked them to put the info in the general customer service "call notes," which they were happy to do.

      I then called Lenovo back, and had them re-instate my order, and told them to contact my bank and have the bank provide them the the call notes (which explicitly authorised the bank to release the info contained in that particular note). Unfortunately, Lenovo's sales reps wouldn't do that, because the "authorised third-party drop-ship address" verification is supposed to be automatically handled through the credit card payment system. Since my bank didn't have a formal place in its account database for "authorised shipping addresses," the purchase wouldn't go through.

      It took a conference call between my bank, a Lenovo sales department manager, and myself to crow-bar an override into the sales/ordering system to get the unit shipped.

      Despite the pain, the end result was worth it: I eventually took possession of a beautifully-crafted piece of custom-configured hardware, and prepped it for presentation to my niece at her graduation party...

  3. Roger Greenwood
    Pint

    "more shelf space"

    Do many still visit a shop? Lot of echo last time I walked into a shop selling computers. Maybe they meant virtual shelves.

    I will be receiving my first ever Lenovo (Z570) tomorrow (replacing a Dell) so maybe they are onto something here.

  4. airbrush

    Waiting to find out when my laptop will ship as they seem to be unable to tell me when placing the order, feeling a bit worried after Alan's comment. Email support could only tell me to query the order later this week to obtain a date, so yes they need to spend a bit of money on their web site and be better at keeping customers informed.

  5. superturtle

    drivers

    If Lenovo plan the be a big retailer they need to sort their frickin driver downloads out

    The other day i was trying to find a BIOS for a lenovo, using the driver download site, and the service tag didnt work, so i tried the model number, NO, nothing

    My Lenovo comptuer doesnt exist according to Lenovo, so no bios update for me then

    Never had this issue with Dell or HP before, down with Lenovo if they dont sort thier support out i wont be recommending em!

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Use PC Update

      I have three Lenovo laptops, of varying vintages, and the update utility that Lenovo includes with them has always been able to find the current drivers for me. Frankly, I have much better luck getting updates for my Lenovos than I do for the various Dells I have. (I've never dealt with HP PCs.)

    2. Paul 129
      Pint

      Bad luck

      I do lots of PC repairs. I've experienced the above issue with all of the above manufacturers.

      Thinking about it I haven't had that problem with Toshiba. I get the impression that this is just that Toshiba's local distributors don't update their product line as much (always seeing the same type stuff from them).

      I haven't recommended any individual brand for laptops, for a long time. The last few Lenovo's though have been a cut above the rest....

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