Lenovo Effect? (ThinkPad Quality Issues)
I have been delighted with the IBM ThinkPad laptop over the past five years. After I wore out my first T40 ThinkPad, my company replaced it with a new T42 model. And therein lies this tale.
After approximately six months of (admittedly hard) use, today I had to call IBM support and ask for a replacement keyboard. My “7″ key now works only about ten percent of the time. I seem to have some other keys that are also dropping, but not nearly as often.
I confess: my two-fingered “pounding” style of typing is probably especially hard on any keyboard. But there’s no way my keyboard should fail after a mere six months.
I asked my IT guru about their experience with recent ThinkPads, and her report was they are seeing a lot more problems across the board.
Is this the Lenovo effect? Has cost cutting been allowed to erode product quality? Is it time for me to consider an alternate laptop vendor?
HP has a business laptop that’s so similar to a ThinkPad you’d think they cloned it, and it costs a few hundred bucks less. Hmmm.