Lenovo Positive and Negative
From WritingWiki
tazeldaro The IT Directors will be discussing our agreement with Lenovo in the near future.
Please list your comments below that you feel will be helpful in this discussion.
Positives
1. Lenovo has been good paying IT for covered repairs.
2. The T60 is a decent piece of hardware.
3. Good support for student image creation and troubleshooting.
4. Lenovo replacing T42 on which student has had 5 hard drive failures
5. Hot spares shipped promptly.
6. Worked out way for Pete to order on state site for Gateway students.
Negatives
1. Unable to customize computers - upgrades arrive as separate order which you must install.
2. They are very inconsistent on deliveries.
3. Receive DOA repair parts for systems under repair.
4. You don't know when stuff is on backorder till after you order.
5. The Reps are not easy to get a hold of.
6. They make our imaging process a nightmare. For example - T60 (2 different sub-models?) can't use the same image on both... here are some findings Microsoft has expanded the existing OEM CD BIOS locking mechanism with product activation, and call this method of protection "System Locked Pre-installation," or SLP. SLP uses information stored in an OEM PC's BIOS to protect the installation from casual piracy. And in theory..... "Installations of Windows XP made using volume licensing media and volume license product keys (VLKs) will have no activation, hardware checking, or limitations on installation or imaging." But alas with some IBMs .... the BBB and the setup logs indicate a problem with SLP - hardware is hardware, but why?
7. The first revision (8171) there was no way to lock the physical machine down.
8. In a side by side comparison the dell ultra sharp monitors have better colors and brightness.
9. The IBM line offers less flexibility with machine design for labs.
10. Failed to properly code student notebook for warranty both years. They had to code them separately.
11. Some missing Vital Source Keys for student notebooks.
12. The IBM monitors don't have USB ports.
13. Invoices are sent directly to Accounts Payable instead of the bill to address indicated on the purchase order.
14. Orders are held up campus wide due to past due invoices from other departments.
15. Very slow with requested special quotes.
16. If network boot (PXE) is enabled, some desktop models of IBM with older bios versions will always boot to the network, because the sata drive is not recognized in time to boot to the hard drive...... Thanks to Eric for confirming the existence of this on other machines not just mine :~)
17. They do not update to new technology quickly. Case in point the tower version of our sff desktop is still under devolopement (4 months behind the release date they posted)
18. Way to many bios releases because they have buggy hardware on release. T60 has had 7 bios revisions since May. Things just dont work out of the box.
18.a.Bad bios releases. They have now rolled back at least one version of the bios for the t60.
19. Now they're not taking electronic orders via eVA (they used to). We have to place the order in eVA, print the purchase order, then fax or email the order to Lenovo. We never get a confirmation. Can you imagine a computer company that can't get electronic ordering right?
20. Not sure who posted Positive #3, but it was obviously someone who has never actually attempted to build an image for any Lenovo system or ever attempted to deal with anyone beyond a sales rep in troublshooting imaging issues. Which by the way is next to impossible. If youâre ever lucky enough to get in contact with a technician, they are non-responsive. We have just invested over three weeks in creating an image that will work on any of the various models and configurations of the T60s inflicted on us by faculity and staff ignoring our web page & ordering whatever they feel like, then expecting us to "put a standard fac/staff image on it." Without getting to involved, the drivers supplied by the machine's own manufacturer, Lenovo, makes it impossible to use RIS imaging. Bottom Line: In order for us to continue to use our current imaging technology we have to build images totally devoid of Lenovo drivers. We have to hunt the web for each componentâs original manufacturerâs drivers. If you want the full detail, feel free to contact me, John Housekeeper, 1-1437.
21. The process for doing a job right the first time is lost to Lenovo. With our contract we have not recieved a universal web login to get Tools necessary to do our jobs. IE motherboard replacements and ASSET TAGGING. Dell ships the stuff with every motherboard to retag it and they even have it on the web if you know where to look. I personally spent an hour on the phone just to have lenovo tell me that i had to go to the rep to get the tools i need, when this should have been provided in some manner with the replacement part.
22. Lenovo is way to slow at refreshing the product technology. This week dell released their business class machines with core duo 2 and lenovo can't even get their core duo 1 towers out the door. By retaining the IBM contract we are stagnated in the hardware in the field. It compares to riding a horse because it works when there is a Mclaren F1 to use. How long will it take for lenovo to catch up to the times?
23. Not having the time to do a full analysis I'll just post a thought - Thoughts on Positive #1 - agreed, but are we paying more (not really paying) in engineering time to cover their poor engineering.... constant BIOS updates, poorly written drivers that add little to the manufacturer's product, software so poorly written that they must be competing with HP, ad nausium... as Matt would say we try to do things that increase our productivity...... IBM does not fit this model from an engineering perspective.
24. Lenovo computers do not ship with Windows XP cd which would help the imaging process since we could build an image from scratch. As it is now we have to start with the Lenovo install and add and remove to get to the image we want.
