I just got a Lenovo S10 Netbook computer and couldn't have been more enthusiastic about kicking the tires. As I've written before, I think Netbooks will be very big, and this was to be my first.
So this posting should have been a first look. I should be offering my opinion on whether the keyboard is too small, what it's like to use Windows XP on such a small screen, and how hot the thing gets. But I didn't get that far.
After a delay in getting the machine the box arrived all beat up. Not unusual, of course, but computers are normally so well packaged that it doesn't matter. Not this time.
My first impression was that the box had been opened in transit; two sides weren't sealed at all. As you can see below, a golf ball easily fit in the open sides of the box.
The golf ball points up three problems:
- Something could have fallen out or been purposely removed during shipping.
- The cardboard was thin, closer to a manila envelope than something protective.
- It didn't appear that the box had been vandalized, rather two sides were never sealed in the first place.
In a nutshell, the contents were not well protected in transit.
As I examined the box and turned it over, stuff was rattling inside. I've had more than my fair share of computers mailed to me, and never before did a box arrive with stuff rattling around inside.
I removed the 4-inch strip of tape that held the outside box closed and found the computer and a white box inside as shown below.
The white interior box was the source of the rattling. As you can see in the picture below, the battery and the AC adapter are together in the box and neither was covered. There was a plastic bag in the box, but it wasn't wrapped around anything.
That Lenovo would ship a battery in a plastic bag without cushioning is, to me, poor judgment--a corner that should not have been cut. That Lenovo would ship the battery without the plastic bag actually covering the thing is poor quality control.
Am I overreacting? After all, it's a $400 laptop. Perhaps, but lithium-ion batteries are a well-known fire hazard. In normal use I'm sure they are safe, but one mistake that you can make with a lithium-ion battery is banging it. According to PC Pitstop:
There are numerous conditions where these fires can occur in real life. Faulty battery packs (driving the recalls), faulty protection circuits inside the PC, exposure to excessive heat, and blunt force are some of the major ways that this could happen to you.
Shipping an unprotected, unwrapped battery right next to a hard object is risking "blunt force."
The Department of Transportation no longer allows lithium-ion batteries in checked baggage when flying. As for carry-on bags they say that "you may still carry any number of some types of lithium batteries, such as the ones used in cell phones and most laptop computers, provided you take measures to protect terminals." Why the different policies for checked vs. carry-on bags? "In the passenger compartment, flight crews can better monitor safety conditions to prevent an incident, and can access fire extinguishers, if an incident does happen."
To further illustrate the danger, the Department of Transportation offers these suggestions for flying with a loose lithium-ion battery:
- Place tape across the battery's contacts to isolate terminals. Isolating terminals prevents short-circuiting.
- If original packaging is not available, effectively insulate battery terminals by isolating spare batteries from contact with other batteries and metal. Place each battery in its own protective case, plastic bag, or package. Do not permit a loose battery to come in contact with metal objects, such as coins, keys, or jewelry.
- Take steps to prevent crushing, puncturing, or putting a high degree of pressure on the battery, as this can cause an internal short-circuit, resulting in overheating.
As for the S10 itself, I never removed the plastic covering the computer. It's going back.
As I was deciding whether to keep the computer or not, Lenovo e-mailed a receipt for the purchase. The receipt arrived a couple days after the computer arrived, and eight days after the initial order. There was a link in the e-mail message (www.lenovo.com/products/us/returns) for how to return a purchase, but it's broken. Instead of the return policy, the link results in "There were no items matching your search." This is on top of the shipping delay because UPS said there was no label on the box.
Lenovo ThinkPads have an excellent reputation, but an IdeaPad is not a ThinkPad. The S10, in particular, is a whole new product category, one for which there is no pre-existing reputation. So things boil down to confidence and Lenovo did not inspire confidence.
My next hassle is trying to convince Lenovo not to charge me the $60 restocking fee. If you're thinking of buying a Lenovo computer, be aware that machines sold on their Web site are subject to a 15 percent restocking fee. You may be better off at a local retailer with a more liberal return policy.
Update: Unboxing other Netbooks
- The Dell Mini 9 comes wrapped in heavy cardboard and seems to have the battery already inserted.
- The battery for the MSI Wind U90 ships in plastic bubble-wrap. The computer itself comes in box inside another box.
- The Acer Aspire One battery is wrapped in plastic and seems cushioned by cardboard to keep it from moving in transit (2 minutes, 10 seconds into video).
- Laptop magazine got a very early copy of the Lenovo S10 and unboxed it on video. First point they made was that it might not be the final retail boxing. Still, their battery, like mine, shipped naked.
- Brand Linder at Liliputing did an unboxing video of the Asus Eee PC 100H. It shipped as a box within a box and the battery was protected by plastic bubble-wrap.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
Twice this year I ordered a computer directly from Lenovo and they shipped it via UPS. Both shipments got screwed up.
Back in January I wrote about how UPS lost my computer. That machine, a desktop, was supposedly delivered to the wrong address. Lenovo built and sent a replacement computer and a few days after the replacement computer arrived, and roughly a month after the first one was shipped, the first machine magically showed up.
On October 8th Lenovo shipped me a new S10 Netbook (see The Lenovo S10 Netbook is here, count me in. On the 9th, I checked the delivery status with UPS only to find that the tracking number didn't exist.
The next day, when the UPS tracking number still wasn't in the system, I called Lenovo. They couldn't explain what happened and queued my query to another group with a promise to call back in a couple days.
By the 13th, UPS knew about package.
My package "experienced an exception". The address label was missing or illegible. That's a first for me.
Lenovo called on the 13th to say that the package had no label and they would have a new estimated delivery date tomorrow.
Update: The computer arrived before the new delivery date estimate.
Making a poor situation worse was that three out of the four times I spoke to someone from Lenovo on the telephone, I couldn't hear the person due to background noise as loud as Fenway Park in the World Series. That, combined with the accents of the Lenovo employees, meant that every sentence had to be repeated.
Of course, you can also communicate with Lenovo by email, except that an email about this wasn't responded to for 3.5 days.
UPS seems to be the only shipper used by Lenovo.
Update October 20, 2008. This did not end well.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
The S10 is here, I ordered one yesterday and I'm psyched. The IdeaPad S10 is Lenovo's just-released entry in the Netbook market. "Netbook" is a new term that's applied to cheap small laptops that run either Windows XP Home Edition or Linux. No Vista or OS X here (neither is cheap).
One reason Netbooks are cheap is that they are underpowered, by current standards. Yet, they have more than sufficient horsepower to do the things most people do most of the time.
(Credit:
Lenovo)
I think Netbooks will drastically change the computing scene.
For some of us, they should make excellent secondary computers. For children, they could make great first computers. And, with prices starting at $325, Netbooks are almost an impulse buy. In contrast, the cheapest MacBook notebook costs $1,099. This may not be a good time to invest in Apple stock.
Netbooks are small, but I think people will find they are not so small as to be annoying.
The original Netbook, the Asus Eee had a 7-inch screen. It was wildly popular, but, to me, the screen was too small. Skype barely fit on the screen and Web pages required too much scrolling. Most Netbooks now have 9-inch screens, the S10 screen is 10.2 inches.
Another big thing to me about the S10 is the anti-glare screen. I'm wary that the glossy screens on the Acer Aspire One and the Dell Mini 9s may be a constant annoyance.
Keyboards are small too, roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of normal. The original Asus Eee keyboard was so small that I could barely type on it. My adult fingers just didn't fit. I haven't used the S10 yet, but if there ever was a company capable of making a good keyboard it's Lenovo. Their ThinkPads have excelled at keyboards for years. CNET said the S10 has a "decent-size keyboard (for a Netbook)". Wired said "Touch-typing is as easy as it gets in this category."
The keyboard on the Acer Aspire One has gotten good reviews but the placement of the mouse buttons is said to be sub-optimal. I fear that might be a constant annoyance especially for someone using the computer where an external mouse is not an option, such as on their lap. Interestingly, the Dell Mini 9 dealt with the small size of the keyboard by doing away with the row of Fx keys along the top. I've seen adults criticize the new Asus Netbooks for the keyboard still being too small. The HP Mini-Notes are said to have great keyboards, but not enough else to make them serious contenders.
When CNET wrote about the S10 way back on September 25th (2 weeks is a long time in the Netbook world) the only available model was $439. Now, there is also a $399 model for sale at Lenovo.com. CNET's demo unit had 1GB of ram and a 160GB hard disk. My only choices yesterday were 512MB of ram and an 80GB hard disk. I've run Windows XP on many computers with 512MB of ram and found it perfectly acceptable.
The two available models differ only in price and color. The $399 model is white, the $439 one is red (more colors are on way). I opted for white. Interestingly, other Netbooks are not priced by color. Comparable Dell Mini 9s are the same price regardless of the color. Newegg sells comparable models of both the Acer Aspire One and the Asus Eee for the same price regardless of the color.
Operating System
The S10 runs Windows XP Home Edition (Microsoft does not allow XP Professional on Netbook computers). Many competing Netbook vendors, such as Dell and Acer, offer both XP and Linux. In general, Linux is cheaper. The Linux version of the Acer Aspire One, for example, starts at $325. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 starts at $349 with Linux. In each case, sister XP-based models are more expensive.
Linux needs less hard-disk space than Windows, thus many Linux-based Netbooks come with solid-state drives (SSDs). SSDs are the wave of the future but their cost limits their storage capacity in a cheap computer. Linux can fit in a few gigabytes, Windows XP can't. The one downside, to me, of the S10 is that it comes with a legacy spinning-platter hard disk. Hard disks are fragile compared to SSDs, and not the best choice for use on a moving train or bus.
One annoyance with Linux is choice, there's just too much of it. Some Netbook vendors, such as Acer and Asus, created their own versions of Linux. My preference is for one of the major Linux distributions and Dell has, to me, made the best choice here. Their Mini 9 comes with Ubuntu. I previously wrote about the Ubuntu user interface; suffice it say, I think Windows users will take to it very easily with hardly any learning curve. In fact, Ubuntu running Open Office may be a simpler transition for an XP user than moving to Vista with Office 2007.
Which brings up an interesting question. Why pay $315 for the standard edition of Office 2007, when you can get an entire Netbook computer for just a bit more and install the free Open Office?
Linux, like OS X, benefits hugely just from not being Windows, and thus being immune to the vast majority of malicious software. A Linux-based Netbook would be appropriate for a child or anyone for whom antivirus and anti-spyware software is just too much to hassle with.
My shoulder is looking forward to carrying a 2.5-pound Netbook rather than a 6-or 7-pound laptop/notebook.
Update. October 11,2008. As an indicator of how quickly things change in the new Netbook world, take the pricing of the Lenovo S10. According to jkOnTheRun, both available colors (white and red) sold for $439 on October 7, 2008. On the 8th they noted that the white model dropped to $399. On the 10th, I noticed that the red one was down to $429. Then again, on October 7th, Wired wrote about a $469 S10 model, but with beefier specs. Circuit City is planning on selling one of these higher end S10s for $450, but, today at least, they don't have any in stock.
Update October 20, 2008. This did not end well.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
I was gladdened yesterday when techbargains.com reported a sale on a new Lenovo ThinkPad R61 running SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop ($552, see below). It's not everyday that you run into a major PC vendor selling machines pre-loaded with Linux (excluding servers).
Perhaps pre-installing Linux will become more popular, in part, due to a Vista backlash. Or, the popularity of Linux of ultra-cheap laptops (where Vista doesn't belong) such as the Asus EEE PC, will lay a foundation for its expansion. Once people see and touch and smell recent editions of Linux, they'll realize it is no more different from Windows XP than is the Mac OSX. And, as Lenovo says, Linux "Eliminates virus and spyware downtime".
I found it interesting though, that on the very page where you order this Linux laptop, Lenovo is in your face about recommending Vista Business and Vista Home Premium.
Theoretically, Linux computers should be cheaper than those running Windows since the manufacturer gets the operating system for free. Indeed, $552 was cheaper than all the other R series ThinkPads at Lenovo.com yesterday, except one. Lenovo was selling an R61e with Windows Vista Home Basic for $536. Both machines have 1GB of RAM, an 80GB hard disk, a CD burner/DVD reader, a one-year warranty and wide screens. The Linux ThinkPad has a 14.1 inch screen, the Vista machine comes with a 15.4 inch screen.
The big issue, to me, with pre-installed copies of Linux is technical support. If Linux support could be offered at a quality level as high as Apple, and at a reasonable cost, then Linux usage would take off. In this case, Lenovo provides Level 1 support. If you don't know what Level 1 means, then perhaps this computer is not for you. At least that's what Lenovo seems to be saying - they don't explain the term and say nothing about Level 2 or 3 support.
If you haven't purchased a computer from Lenovo recently, be aware that their return policy has changed. It used to be great, if you didn't like the machine, simply send it back for a full refund, no questions asked. No more. Their current return policy is:
"Lenovo will accept the return or exchange of a product in its original, sealed package for a full refund in cases of Lenovo error. Returns allowed for any other reason will be subject to a restocking fee equal to 15% of the purchase amount."
Note the word "allowed" in the second sentence. Makes a skeptic wonder what returns they don't allow.
Update May 19, 2008: The day I wrote this, I contacted Lenovo for clarification on the tech support situation. It is now 9 days later and there has been no response from Lenovo.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
Comedian Steven Wright tells a joke about walking up to a deli that advertises they are open 24 hours and someone is locking the front door and turning off the lights. He questions this, pointing out that the sign says they're open 24 hours. The response: "Not in a row".
Lenovo also advertises that their paid technical support, which goes by the name Lenovo Experts Live, is available 24 hours. As shown below, their tag line is "The help you need When and How you want it". They're even more explicit, offering help 24x7x365. The web page says "Need help right away? Get the help you need now: Call 1-866-63-THINK".
But, like Steven Wright's deli, they don't mean it.
I called them on a Saturday. They were closed. The recording said they are open Monday through Friday from 9AM to 7PM Eastern time and are closed on Saturday and Sunday.
At least the web site was up and running so I could take the two screen shots above of their advertised availability. At least, it was for a bit. Until just now...
According to the answering machine, on the weekends, potential Lenovo customers are to go to expertslive.lenovo.com/home. But, the link for Lenovo Experts Live on the Lenovo home page, takes you to www.lenovo.com/lel which is the page the screen shots above were taken from. Why the complication?
Firefox users are greeted at expertslive.lenovo.com/home with this:
So, if your problem is with Internet Explorer . . .
Internet Explorer users have homework to do before they can get help at expertslive.lenovo.com/home:
Seems like a high hurdle when paying $69 for help with a computer problem. Not to mention, if Windows can boot up, Internet Explorer can access web sites, Windows can install the .NET framework (actually you can install the .NET framework) and you can install ActiveX controls, the computer problem isn't that severe to begin with.
Finally, a note to Lenovo. There are three versions of the .NET framework. You should say which of these three versions you require. That'll be $69.
Update. March 1, 2008. Added information about expertslive.lenovo.com.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
Last week I mentioned that Lenovo's technical support wouldn't accept a minidump to help me debug a Windows failure on a new ThinkCentre A61 tower (see Debugging Windows crashes with minidumps? Not at Lenovo). Now I know why. Lenovo does not support Windows.
Note: Normally, when a computer is purchased with Windows pre-installed, tech support for Windows is provided by the computer manufacturer, not by Microsoft. To get Microsoft support for Windows requires a retail purchase of the operating system. Someone commented below that anyone can call Microsoft for paid technical support with Windows. I haven't tried this. (added March 1, 2008)
I was told by a Lenovo technician that their software support is limited to Lenovo ThinkVantage software. If they feel like it, they may help you download a driver, but they won't stay on the phone and won't walk you through installing the driver. So who will? Lenovo Experts Live will. For a price.
As far as I know this is not a time related issue. The computer I called for help with, was new. The Lenovo Experts Live website says nothing about their taking over after an initial period where software support is free. In fact, it says nothing about the services that are provided free with a new Lenovo computer vs. the services you have to pay for.
In their own words:
"Lenovo Experts Live is designed to provide you 100% U.S. based technical service to your hardware and software issues, how-to questions, and problems. Whether you're under warranty but have questions on issues not covered, or you're out-of-warranty but still need help, Lenovo has experts to address your technical problems ... Whether you have a networking issue, a software 'how to' question, a virus or spyware problem, or need help setting up your home office peripherals, Lenovo experts can help."
Providing software technical support is expensive and time consuming. It is, perhaps, unrealistic to expect it included for free in the price of a personal computer. If low end computers don't include technical support as a way of keeping the price down, fair enough. But hardware manufacturers should be honest and up-front about it.
Finally, Lenovo Experts Live does not inspire confidence when the web page they link to, that supposedly provides a list of their services, does no such thing.
Update. February 29, 2008. Lenovo makes it difficult to reach their tech support. Could this be designed to steer people to the paid support? You decide:
If you call Lenovo for tech support, instead of getting connected or placed in a queue, you're given a different phone number to call 800-426-7378. This is an IBM phone number. Mostly. The main voice menu only has choices for IBM, nothing for Lenovo.
Getting started requires choosing between hardware support or software support. Pinpointing the source of a problem as either hardware or software can be very difficult. Unless the computer is smoking, this can be an impossible choice to make, both for techies and non-techies.
But, no matter which way a Lenovo customer starts out, there are many voice menu options standing between them and Lenovo tech support. At one point, I made a wrong choice in the maze of menus. I ended up speaking to a polite, patient man who spoke perfect English, yet we had a total disconnect. Finally, he asked if I was calling about an IBM computer. I wasn't. He worked for IBM. Oops.
Lenovo is a huge company. They can't get their own phone number?
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
Like many of you, my copies of Windows XP crash with the now-classic "blue screen of death" (BSOD). When this happened a couple times recently to a new ThinkCentre A61 tower, I called Lenovo tech support. As the title of this posting suggests, it did not go well.
When Windows XP crashes, the default behavior is to create a minidump, a small file (only 88K) with a summary of, hopefully, the most important information about the failure. I wrote about minidumps back in November (see Dealing with software crashes, Part 2). If your copy of Windows has crashed (aka "blue-screened") in the past, you may find a minidump describing the problem in the C:\WINDOWS\Minidump folder. The format of the filename is MiniMMDDYY-99.DMP (the last two numbers being a sequence number).
Minidumps are in a binary format, opening them with Notepad is a waste of time. Windows XP doesn't include the necessary software (program Dumpchk.exe) to open a minidump file. The target audience for a minidump is a tech support person.
But, it seems Lenovo didn't get the memo.
When I spoke to a Lenovo technician on the phone, I was told they don't do that. That is, they aren't allowed to accept minidump files from customers. Instead, the debugging session is totally verbal. Been there, done that. Verbal debugging of computer problems over the phone is all but guaranteed to be a waste of time. It was in this case.
Although the minidump can be impenetrable, the Windows event log, specifically the System event log, also has information about Windows crashes. Shown below is the identifying information about the two Windows crashes I experienced.
The bugcheck was: 0x0000001a (0x00041284, 0xd7817001, 0x00003fde, 0xc0e00000)
A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini021508-01.dmp
The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck.
The bugcheck was: 0x1000000a (0x00000010, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0x8051b0c8)
A dump was saved in: C:\WINDOWS\Minidump\Mini021508-02.dmp
At this point you have more information than the Lenovo tech support person assisting me had. He was only interested in the two error codes, not any of the additional data fields shown above in parentheses, which provide additional information about the problem.
While the System event log doesn't provide much information about the crash itself, taken together, the six event logs can provide a wealth of information about the overall goings-on inside Windows. Like the minidump files, the event logs are not very big; in XP they max out at 512K by default. You can see them below for the computer in question.
Lenovo's technicians are also not allowed to accept event logs from customers.
What's Your Experience?
Lenovo is only one company of many offering technical support for Windows. What has been your experience in trying to get a technician to review either a minidump or an event log?
Do other computer manufacturers also refuse to accept these small files when offered?
Has a support person ever asked for them?
Is there an equivalent situation with Macs?
Either leave a comment below, or e-mail me at minidump at michaelhorowitz dot com.
And, if anyone works for Lenovo, is this, in fact, the normal procedure or did the person I dealt with not follow the rules?
Debugging operating system crashes can be hard to impossible, especially with the small amount of information in a minidump. But not even trying is disgraceful.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
New computers come with old software, a situation that, considering the recent slew of critical bug fixes, can be quite dangerous.
To illustrate just how old some of the software is, consider a new Windows XP machine that I got yesterday. The computer, a ThinkCentre A61 tower, was ordered from Lenovo on January 6, 2008. It was delivered to someone on January 16th, exactly who I'll never know. As I wrote about last month, UPS lost my computer. But that's another story.
I've got my new computer routine down pat at this point. First, I run a slew of hardware diagnostics, then I make a disk image backup. Next, I remove the pre-installed software that I don't want, followed by updating the pre-installed software that I'm keeping.
The first update is to Windows itself. I start by manually running Windows Update at www.update.microsoft.com. The Windows Update software is always old. Every new Windows XP computer I've touched required a couple software updates to Windows Update itself before it would even start scanning for missing bug fixes (a.k.a. patches and updates).
The machine was missing 60 fixes to Windows XP. I installed them, re-booted and went back to Windows Update. Experience has shown that Windows Update is far from perfect. Running it a second time often reports a new bug fix that was either missed the first time or is needed because the first go-round installed buggy software. Sure enough, a custom scan shows the machine is missing the .NET Framework version 1.1 Service Pack 1.
After dealing with Windows, I tried the Adobe Flash tester page, which reported that Internet Explorer was using Flash version 7.0.68. This is a really old version of Flash (the latest is 9,0,115,0).
The other popular Adobe product, the Acrobat Reader, was the only reasonably recent software. That said, the pre-installed version, 8.1.0, is missing critical bug fixes that make it too, a security risk.
At this point I turn to the online Secunia Software Inspector to see what other software is missing security patches.
In addition to the ancient version 7 of Flash, the machine also came with the downright pre-historic, and buggy, versions 4 and 6 pre-installed.
Java too, was missing security fixes. Secunia reported that Java was at version 1.5.0_6, which was released about December 2005. The latest version of the 1.5.x family, version 1.5.0_14 is secure, according to Secunia. However, the current version of Java is 1.6.0_4. You can see which version you have at javatester.org.
Lenovo has their own version of Windows Update called ThinkVantage System Update that updates the software they pre-install. It also seems to update other software, but exactly what it targets is not at all clear from the supplied instructions. Just like Windows Update, the first update it finds is to itself.
After self-updating, ThinkVantage System Update finds about a dozen or so software updates, mostly to Lenovo applications. The number would have probably been larger, but I had already un-installed some of the Lenovo software. Interestingly, it offered to install the latest version of the Adobe Flash player, despite the fact that Internet Explorer was already using the latest version at this point, at least according to Adobe's Flash tester page. The updates I chose to accept were 422 megabytes.
Finally, the computer came with Picasa version 2 from Google. The first time I ran Picasa, it wanted to update itself to a newer version.
The hardware in a new computer may be new, but the software never is.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
UPS delivered a new Lenovo computer yesterday. It was supposed to go to my wife, but no such luck.
We live in an apartment building that has been accepting UPS packages for over 30 years. The system is pretty well grooved in by now. So it was quite unusual for a package to be missing, seven hours after the UPS website said it was delivered. Also strange was the name of the person who signed for the package; it wasn't anyone who works in our building.
Last night, my wife called UPS and was told the computer was not delivered to our building at all. Instead of being delivered to 8 East 8th Street (the addresses are fictional but illustrative), it went to 777 East 77th Street. You have to call UPS to learn the actual delivery address because the website tracking says only that the package was delivered, it doesn't say where.
But is the computer really at 777 East 77th Street? As I write this, it has been about 20 hours since the first of multiple phone calls to UPS. No one there knows exactly what happened to the package. Their first reaction was to trace the package, a process that takes a week. A week, as if it were 1977 again.
Needless to say, Lenovo was contacted too. You might think they could lean on UPS to get a straight answer. So far, multiple contacts with Lenovo have produced nothing.
Looks like we have to wait all over again for Lenovo to build and ship a new computer, a process that took ten days the first time around (four to build, six to ship). But that process can't start until Lenovo or UPS declares the first machine missing in action and we don't yet know when that will happen.
With all their many computer systems, how can UPS lose a package? Was it stolen or sold rather than lost? Can UPS ever make a final determination about what happened? Is there a Bermuda triangle in New York City? We'll see. Watch this space.
Who really gets screwed here? That is, if the computer never turns up, who is out the cost of the machine? Lenovo? UPS? One of their insurance companies? If you know, please leave a comment below. Thanks.
Over the years, my wife and I have had many computers delivered to us. This was the first time anything went wrong. If something like this has happened to you, please leave a comment below.
Defensive computing even extends this request to the shipping company.
Update. January 18, 2008. After dealing with UPS for a day or so, and getting nowhere, Lenovo agreed to build and ship a second computer.
Update. February 15, 2008. The replacement computer showed up today. Finally. The majority of the delay was on Lenovo's end rather than from UPS. For whatever reason it took Lenovo a much longer time to build the second machine than the first one. Both were made and mailed from Mexico. If I had to do it again, I would cancel the original order, make sure the credit card company didn't bill me for it and place a new order - one unrelated to the original order. That would have saved about three weeks. Neither Lenovo or UPS ever got back to us about what happened to the original computer.
Update. February 20, 2008. The original computer showed up today. I refused delivery.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
If you shop online for a new Windows computer, every manufacturer recommends Vista on their web site. For home use they all suggest Vista Home Premium, for business use, Vista Business gets the nod. All the manufacturers sell other versions of Vista of course, most if not all sell Windows XP too, yet their websites universally recommend Vista Home Premium or Business.
Except IBM.
Yes, IBM no longer plays in this game. Back in 2005, IBM sold their personal computer division to Lenovo.
However, IBM still sells their old notebook and desktop computers, albeit as "IBM Certified Used Equipment".
As shown in the screen shot above, IBM recommends Windows XP Professional for their refurbished computers. Most of the personal computers (they also sell refurbished servers) are, in fact, running XP Professional, though a handful are running Vista.
Why is IBM the lone wolf?
A cynic might say that since most of their refurbs are running Windows XP, it's marketing. Or perhaps the web page in question simply hasn't been updated in over a year. IBM has no love for Microsoft, so maybe it's just a cheap shot.
But, could it be that since they are no longer in the personal computer business they can offer an honest opinion? After all, in August Lenovo decided to go with Windows XP rather than Vista for the upcoming 2008 Olympics. Quoting Computerworld (Vista, wireless sidelined from core Olympic IT roster):
"Windows XP was chosen to run on all PCs handling chores vital to the Olympic Games and has been installed on most of the PCs delivered by Lenovo Group Ltd. Vista will be used only on PCs in Internet lounges set up for athletes to use during the games.
The Olympic Games require mature, stable technologies, said Yang Yuanqing, chairman of Lenovo, during a briefing in Beijing. The Olympic Games aren't a place to try new technologies because of the size and importance of the event, he said. Everything must work smoothly."
The man has a point.
See a summary of all my Defensive Computing postings.
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