Lenovo = a piece of crap?

[rovernut]

I did have to buy a new battery this spring, though it was pretty much dead last year, always had to have the laptop plugged in if I was using if for more than 20 min or so.
Took a chance on an aftermarket GHU brand, X001CAV4XF.
Tried to use the one from my T420, but it came up saying the battery wasn't compatible.

[/tmp]

For free, MacBook Pro. My oldest daughter has a MaccBook, it lasted all through college and still runs like new.

I received a Macbook Air circa 2012 from a friend and was able to get Debian GNU/Linux running on it almost painlessly. The only issue was needing non-free wireless drivers which I obtained and installed via USB.

[sunrat]

This topic is a piece of crap. One user 8 years ago has a problem with one computer, followed by a number of users saying their Lenovo works fine.
I have a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 11e. It works fine.

[BBQdave]

This topic is a piece of crap. One user 8 years ago has a problem with one computer, followed by a number of users saying their Lenovo works fine.

My experience is second hand (couple years old) Lenovo hardware is great with GNU/Linux.

You install and everything just works! I get a steady supply of my wife's old work laptops, usually Thinkpads, and all is great with GNU/Linux

Currently I have a lenovo Edge with Fedora 38, the hardware is set to be out-of-date by Windows. Wiped the machine, loaded GNU/Linux and it's like new hardware and my home computer workstation

My older (in signature) computer is upgraded and portable and has Debian loaded. Great travel computer and the fastest machine in my household

If I would recommend any hardware for GNU/Linux, grab a couple years old Thinkpad, load GNU/Linux and be happy

[Hallvor]

ThinkPads are great. Just make sure you don't buy the ones with Nvidia GPU...

[canci]

Lenovo = a piece of crap?

Yes, and increasingly so. Ever since the product lines were taken over by Lenovo from IBM, it's been a very slow downhill thing. The T and X series that end in 20 were the last ones to have amazing keyboards, the ones ending in 70 were probably the ones that still had good I/O and weren't riddled with soldered on crap. But other vendors are similar in this regard.

Someone mentioned MacBooks. Yeah, they're very robust, but they are also increasingly more hostile when it comes to open source driver support. I.e. it takes a good while till a current MacBook can run decently on Linux.

All hardware vendors meanwhile are increasingly less usable without proprietary blobs. It's all a bit sad.

[oswaldkelso]

viewtopic.php?p=677247#p677247

Of my 3 "Good spec laptops"

Lenovo T520 i5 4Gb ram. Still running well and nicer than my MBP which is the best spec machine I own with an i7 and 8Gb ram But if I was had to grab one from a sinking ship it would be my Dell Latitude 5420 i5 4Gb ram, swap the wifi card for a freedom loving one and no non-free or bullshit hoop jumping required.

[BBQdave]

ThinkPads are great. Just make sure you don't buy the ones with Nvidia GPU...

+1
Yes, I have had a great experience with intel chip and intel integrated graphics. AMD chip and AMD integrated graphics may be great too, just do not have experience with AMD

[pwzhangzz]

Lenovo = a piece of crap?

Yes, and increasingly so. Ever since the product lines were taken over by Lenovo from IBM, it's been a very slow downhill thing. The T and X series that end in 20 were the last ones to have amazing keyboards, the ones ending in 70 were probably the ones that still had good I/O and weren't riddled with soldered on crap. But other vendors are similar in this regard.

Someone mentioned MacBooks. Yeah, they're very robust, but they are also increasingly more hostile when it comes to open source driver support. I.e. it takes a good while till a current MacBook can run decently on Linux.

All hardware vendors meanwhile are increasingly less usable without proprietary blobs. It's all a bit sad.

A little bit over two years ago we bought two Lenovo laptops, one went completely dead, the other had problem with the keyboard. Because the screws are so small we cannot open the case and had to resort to using a hammer to break the computer apart to retrieve the hard disk. For the second computer, Lenovo's local rep told us it would cost us over $200 to replace the keyboard. Those are hardware problems and have nothing to do with software/OS. Two pieces of crap! We will never consider Lenovo again.

[cds60601]

Lenovo = a piece of crap?

Yes, and increasingly so. Ever since the product lines were taken over by Lenovo from IBM, it's been a very slow downhill thing. The T and X series that end in 20 were the last ones to have amazing keyboards, the ones ending in 70 were probably the ones that still had good I/O and weren't riddled with soldered on crap. But other vendors are similar in this regard.

Someone mentioned MacBooks. Yeah, they're very robust, but they are also increasingly more hostile when it comes to open source driver support. I.e. it takes a good while till a current MacBook can run decently on Linux.

All hardware vendors meanwhile are increasingly less usable without proprietary blobs. It's all a bit sad.

A little bit over two years ago we bought two Lenovo laptops, one went completely dead, the other had problem with the keyboard. Because the screws are so small we cannot open the case and had to resort to using a hammer to break the computer apart to retrieve the hard disk. For the second computer, Lenovo's local rep told us it would cost us over $200 to replace the keyboard. Those are hardware problems and have nothing to do with software/OS. Two pieces of crap! We will never consider Lenovo again.

Ebay is your friend - I purchased 4 better than a year ago and all 4 work perfectly. On top of that, try to stay within a certain model and purchase one that is labeled parts only as a spare.
This process has been 100% successful for me. As to screw size - Amazon has inexpensive kits that will allow working on near anything from cell phones to devices that have torque heads.

If you like, I can mention the seller I used (and will continue to) for my ThinkPad needs.

[sunrat]

As to screw size - Amazon has inexpensive kits that will allow working on near anything from cell phones to devices that have torque heads.

There's no such thing as a screw too small, only screwdrivers too big.

[pwzhangzz]

We have a pro bono project to help retired professionals use computers productively. (you will be surprised how user-unfriendly Windows are). We used to use Ubuntu but for obvious reasons we switched to Debian Sid. Partly to support this project, we buy one or two new computers at least every two years (so we can recommend our students what laptops to buy). The students don't need very powerful pcs nor are they interested in spending too much $$$. Lenovo's ThinkPads may be OK but I personally think Dell's XPS's are better. Neither of them is within the price range willing to be considered by our students. At moderate prices, Acer's are always better than Lenovo's. The former actually has a better price; and lately, the latter sucks.

HPs are good too, but their prices are typically a little bit higher.

[Dr Cheeto Cornchip]

I picked up a new Lenovo Yoga 6 about a week and a half ago. I really haven't used it a whole lot, been taking a break from game development, but so far Debian works flawlessly. This is the first computer I've had where I haven't encountered a single problem running a Linux distro. Sleep, bluetooth, wifi, sound, volume control, GPU everything works like Debian came pre-installed, though I haven't tested the camera or microphone and probably never will.

I chose this computer for a few reasons. The APU is a Ryzen 5 7530u which is a rebrand of AMDs older Ryzen 5 5600u. Power consumption was one of my primary concerns and this is a 15 watt part with excellent power efficiency. The newer model AMD U-series processors are 28 watt parts and while they still tend to best Intel when it comes to power consumption the R5 5600u still wins out on the efficiency metrics. I can run Dead Rising limited to 30fps and the system only consumes around 9.5 watts which is a little lower than my old Surface 3 tablet which gamed around 10-12 watts and the Surface couldn't even run Dead Rising playably.

Additionally, there's a nice port selection here. 2 USB-A, 2 USB-C and a microSD reader which is becoming pretty rare these days. The 2 USB-Cs are rare, especially in this price range, because they both support power delivery. This is nice because in my experience USB-C ports tend to wear out, the cord just falls out of my mobile when handled anymore, and with two charging ports I get double the longevity.

Another plus was that this was in stock at a local Best Buy which has been running rotating sales on their computers every week. I haven't been able to order anything since last year. My girlfriend and I have made several attempts to order various things on-line and everything we order gets canceled within minutes of placing the order. One exception was a hard shell laptop case I ordered from Walmart for this computer. It actually shipped, but it was never delivered. The shipping carrier received the manifest, but never received the package. I'm not expecting a refund.

[pawRoot]

I have a Lenovo T480 which I've bought only to use with my telescope.
It's utter crap compared to any Macbook though.

The only good thing is it's super easy to upgrade RAM and SSD.
But the keyboard and trackpad is

[Trihexagonal]

Right, so my time is up for a new laptop. I have a lenovo thinkpad w520 and I've had major pains with it -

I have two W520, am using one now runinng Kali Linux and another beside me running FreeBSD.

FreeBSD patches the BIOS bug during the build, asking you first for permission That one developed an issue where it does not power down during reboot and you have to do a cold reboot with the power button. It may, and may not, start up the first time on boot requiring to power it off, try again and why I have FreeBSD on it. I seldom need to reboot and it runs fine when it's running.

One of them, I don't know which ,was running on a stand I caught on the way through a folding stand from Walmart to the ground, flew 6 foot in the air and landed top down.

I landed like I meant to do it, (I did not) jumped right up and wasn't hurt at all. It was still running when I opened the top, like it never happened to either of us so we just kept that little incident to ourselves.