Paul Thurrott and ZDNet Independently Slam Microsofts Newest Surface, Surfacegate Has Begun
-
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@kamidon said:
As far as Lenovo, that secret chip or whatever it was they sneaked into machines should have bankrupted them.... Though the reality is, it obviously hasn't done much. Am I missing something though, has Lenovo done anything more than the first incident I'm aware of?
They are up to like four or five epic security failures. They have been huge, each one. The secret chip wasn't even the worst one!
What was the security chip? I missed that announcement.
Not the actual security chip. I believe everyone means the BIOS chip that bypassed security even after a clean rebuild.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@kamidon said:
As far as Lenovo, that secret chip or whatever it was they sneaked into machines should have bankrupted them.... Though the reality is, it obviously hasn't done much. Am I missing something though, has Lenovo done anything more than the first incident I'm aware of?
They are up to like four or five epic security failures. They have been huge, each one. The secret chip wasn't even the worst one!
What was the security chip? I missed that announcement.
Not the actual security chip. I believe everyone means the BIOS chip that bypassed security even after a clean rebuild.
Aww.. the auto reinstall of Lenovo junkware after clean install.. OK.
-
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@kamidon said:
As far as Lenovo, that secret chip or whatever it was they sneaked into machines should have bankrupted them.... Though the reality is, it obviously hasn't done much. Am I missing something though, has Lenovo done anything more than the first incident I'm aware of?
They are up to like four or five epic security failures. They have been huge, each one. The secret chip wasn't even the worst one!
What was the security chip? I missed that announcement.
Not the actual security chip. I believe everyone means the BIOS chip that bypassed security even after a clean rebuild.
Aww.. the auto reinstall of Lenovo junkware after clean install.. OK.
Yes, I believe that that is what is being referred to. That was my assumption, anyway.
-
Oh oops, I thought something was physically removed from the Lenovo machines. Eh I never even read the news stories, just skimmed. It's disappointing regardless though, I used to like Lenovo a bit less than a decade ago.
I really liked how some of their laptops had keyboards that were easy to remove and plastic (or whatever) underneath them to protect the motherboard in case of a spill. The same particular model I liked had military grade plastic as well and was pretty damn strong. Albeit, this doesn't make for an awesome computer, but I did like how they design some models.
OOOOOHhhhhh just noticed an update for the Surface Pro 4 (and Surface Book) just popped up on Windows update! W00t! Let's all cross our fingers and hope it doesn't break more than is fixed!
(lol) -
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best. -
@scottalanmiller said:
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best.I won't agree with that, unless the Yoga design came from IBM. I really like the Yoga design. I realize it's a personal thing. But the design of the device is nice, solid, and functional. Sadly Lenovo hosted themselves and us with their network shim causing wireless issues up the ying/yang.
-
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best.I won't agree with that, unless the Yoga design came from IBM. I really like the Yoga design. I realize it's a personal thing. But the design of the device is nice, solid, and functional. Sadly Lenovo hosted themselves and us with their network shim causing wireless issues up the ying/yang.
You like it BUT you have it so broken that you had to replace some of the hardware to get it functional, right? By any normal standard, that's not even a working device
Normally people would deem needing to open their laptop and replace the parts that Lenovo can't fix and won't support as "utter failure." I get that you can still like it, but the bar for which you are willing to accept a device as "good" is dramatically below what I would accept as "passable."Yoga is definitely not something IBM would have been involved with. IBM would never have let that out the door like that.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best.I won't agree with that, unless the Yoga design came from IBM. I really like the Yoga design. I realize it's a personal thing. But the design of the device is nice, solid, and functional. Sadly Lenovo hosted themselves and us with their network shim causing wireless issues up the ying/yang.
You like it BUT you have it so broken that you had to replace some of the hardware to get it functional, right? By any normal standard, that's not even a working device
Normally people would deem needing to open their laptop and replace the parts that Lenovo can't fix and won't support as "utter failure." I get that you can still like it, but the bar for which you are willing to accept a device as "good" is dramatically below what I would accept as "passable."Yoga is definitely not something IBM would have been involved with. IBM would never have let that out the door like that.
I'm only talking about the chassis, nothing more - not the motherboard/the wifi/the display (though the display is nice - personally I'm not a fan of ultra high res anymore when a system isn't designed specifically around it, i.e. iPad)
So yes liked the chassis - the rest - nope Lenovo deserves to burn in hell for what I and your wife had to do to work around those issues.
-
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best.I won't agree with that, unless the Yoga design came from IBM. I really like the Yoga design. I realize it's a personal thing. But the design of the device is nice, solid, and functional. Sadly Lenovo hosted themselves and us with their network shim causing wireless issues up the ying/yang.
You like it BUT you have it so broken that you had to replace some of the hardware to get it functional, right? By any normal standard, that's not even a working device
Normally people would deem needing to open their laptop and replace the parts that Lenovo can't fix and won't support as "utter failure." I get that you can still like it, but the bar for which you are willing to accept a device as "good" is dramatically below what I would accept as "passable."Yoga is definitely not something IBM would have been involved with. IBM would never have let that out the door like that.
I'm only talking about the chassis, nothing more - not the motherboard/the wifi/the display (though the display is nice - personally I'm not a fan of ultra high res anymore when a system isn't designed specifically around it, i.e. iPad)
So yes liked the chassis - the rest - nope Lenovo deserves to burn in hell for what I and your wife had to do to work around those issues.
LOL, well okay. The physical chassis of the Yoga is perfectly fine for me. I don't like the power button but I do love the power connection, best one I've used yet (the physical port.) Weight is a little heavy, screen is decent but not my favourite. Keyboard is good but not my favourite. CPU is good, GPU is crap. But the plastic bits are okay.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best.I won't agree with that, unless the Yoga design came from IBM. I really like the Yoga design. I realize it's a personal thing. But the design of the device is nice, solid, and functional. Sadly Lenovo hosted themselves and us with their network shim causing wireless issues up the ying/yang.
You like it BUT you have it so broken that you had to replace some of the hardware to get it functional, right? By any normal standard, that's not even a working device
Normally people would deem needing to open their laptop and replace the parts that Lenovo can't fix and won't support as "utter failure." I get that you can still like it, but the bar for which you are willing to accept a device as "good" is dramatically below what I would accept as "passable."Yoga is definitely not something IBM would have been involved with. IBM would never have let that out the door like that.
I'm only talking about the chassis, nothing more - not the motherboard/the wifi/the display (though the display is nice - personally I'm not a fan of ultra high res anymore when a system isn't designed specifically around it, i.e. iPad)
So yes liked the chassis - the rest - nope Lenovo deserves to burn in hell for what I and your wife had to do to work around those issues.
LOL, well okay. The physical chassis of the Yoga is perfectly fine for me. I don't like the power button but I do love the power connection, best one I've used yet (the physical port.) Weight is a little heavy, screen is decent but not my favourite. Keyboard is good but not my favourite. CPU is good, GPU is crap. But the plastic bits are okay.
Does it have the same connection as the X1? Looks kind of like a big USB port? I love that port super secure and feels like a solid connection.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Basically you liked the bits that they inherited rather than the bits that they did
Once the IBM engineering got old, there hasn't been anything usable out of Lenovo. Their gear, any designed by them, has been middling at best.I won't agree with that, unless the Yoga design came from IBM. I really like the Yoga design. I realize it's a personal thing. But the design of the device is nice, solid, and functional. Sadly Lenovo hosted themselves and us with their network shim causing wireless issues up the ying/yang.
You like it BUT you have it so broken that you had to replace some of the hardware to get it functional, right? By any normal standard, that's not even a working device
Normally people would deem needing to open their laptop and replace the parts that Lenovo can't fix and won't support as "utter failure." I get that you can still like it, but the bar for which you are willing to accept a device as "good" is dramatically below what I would accept as "passable."Yoga is definitely not something IBM would have been involved with. IBM would never have let that out the door like that.
I'm only talking about the chassis, nothing more - not the motherboard/the wifi/the display (though the display is nice - personally I'm not a fan of ultra high res anymore when a system isn't designed specifically around it, i.e. iPad)
So yes liked the chassis - the rest - nope Lenovo deserves to burn in hell for what I and your wife had to do to work around those issues.
LOL, well okay. The physical chassis of the Yoga is perfectly fine for me. I don't like the power button but I do love the power connection, best one I've used yet (the physical port.) Weight is a little heavy, screen is decent but not my favourite. Keyboard is good but not my favourite. CPU is good, GPU is crap. But the plastic bits are okay.
We just purchased a 15" HP Spectre x360 which has the same style of flip mechanism. I'm curious how it performs in comparison to the Yoga.
-
I use a 2012 HP Folio 13 and love it SO much more then the much newer, and more expensive, Yoga 2 Pro.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Leo still considers Lenovo a good brand
I'd literally fire someone who was recommending Lenovo today.
Lol got very strong feelings on that one. All manufacturers seem to do an equally terrible job on the hardware side since they are just consumer computers. Superfish and software aside, what are you recommending these days to people as a "good go-to brand"?
-
@BBigford said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Leo still considers Lenovo a good brand
I'd literally fire someone who was recommending Lenovo today.
Lol got very strong feelings on that one. All manufacturers seem to do an equally terrible job on the hardware side since they are just consumer computers. Superfish and software aside, what are you recommending these days to people as a "good go-to brand"?
Fairly strong feelings about intentionally buying a product from a known enemy organization? Yes. I consider it identical to hiring someone to work your cash register that was just arrested for having stolen from your cash drawer. It has nothing to do with their hardware quality, it has everything to do with them being hackers and using their position as a vendor to get access to your data. They are the kinds of people that IT is tasked with protecting their companies from, letting them in the door isn't just not doing our job, it's paying the enemy to attack us!
Brand of what are you looking for? Each category has a different set of good vendors.
Lenovo never made my short list, they making the black list doesn't change anything in my recommendations, it only changes who I would never let be considered.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
Fairly strong feelings about intentionally buying a product from a known enemy organization? Yes. I consider it identical to hiring someone to work your cash register that was just arrested for having stolen from your cash drawer.
Let me rephrase that.....
Got caught attempting to steal from the drawer four times and showed zero remorse and still shows zero remorse and we must assume is still doing it, just hasn't been caught in all the ways that they are doing it, yet.
Four times. No remorse.
This isn't something they "did", this is fundamentally who they are and what they do. It's what they are trying to do right now.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
I use a 2012 HP Folio 13 and love it SO much more then the much newer, and more expensive, Yoga 2 Pro.
I've had my eye on the new Dell XPS 13 (as well as the Folio over the years). Agreed the Yoga is fairly expensive and the keyboard flex is less than desirable. Having worked in a lot of Dell/HP environments, the level of problems is... palpable. Finding it hard to trust Dell again. I know every manufacturer has their flaws though. Why does Dell/HP make up for 80% of the junked computers in many repair shop collections? Well it could be due to market saturation for one I guess. More people have Dell and HP so more will be brought in to shops to recycle. I don't know. I swore I'd never buy another Dell, but we use the Latitudes and Precisions at work over the years and they've been fairly solid with some totally unexplainable issues that I relate to the mobos.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
Got caught attempting to steal from the drawer four times and showed zero remorse
I must be completely missing something here... For how much they've been smeared in the news over the last year, can you elaborate on that one? Or was that the one on Josh Duggar?
-
Yes, Dell and HP are nearly the entire market. We have HPs and have never had to repair them. We have one Lenovo and it is never fixed. But we never take it in for repair... we are just giving it away as soon as we get back to the States and being done with it. Going to buy an Asus to replace it, we think. We love the Asus that we have, and the HP. Those are the two best laptops we've had in years.
The volume in a repair shop should never indicate issues, it only indicates popularity. If you worked in an Apple depot you'd swear that nothing breaks but Apples. But it is just a combination of what sells, what people like enough to fix, what lasts long enough to wear out and what ones your specific shops tends to receive.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
The volume in a repair shop should never indicate issues, it only indicates popularity.
Valid. I've only ever bought IBM/Lenovo and Asus. Had 100% good luck with all of them.
-
@BBigford said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Got caught attempting to steal from the drawer four times and showed zero remorse
I must be completely missing something here... For how much they've been smeared in the news over the last year, can you elaborate on that one? Or was that the one on Josh Duggar?
They did the network shim hijack. The one associated with Superfish. That was one epic. That alone is unforgiveable and that they had a single customer since that time is, to me, inexcusable on the part of any IT department or business with knowledge of it. That was so deliberate, evil and remorseless that they should have been completely shunned. They were not and they took advantage of it. This was done through elaborate means that gave normal shops no means of bypassing - clean installs could not get around it.
They pulled an SSL cert manoeuvre, I believe, but I don't remember the details.
They did a BIOS level bloatware (which is malware when you don't want it, so malware) installation that could not be bypassed via reinstallation. You do a clean install and software that you never authorized was pushed onto your machine without permission or authorization. They got caught just doing it with bloatware, but what they intended to use it for before getting caught we will never know. that the system was compromised at the hardware level (below root level) is what it was, however.
Then they did the shared, 12345678 password backdoor issue this week.
That's four. I think I missed one or two. They've had so many issues it is pretty much impossible to track.
That's on top of running the scam that we got stuck with at Spiceworld 2014. They ran a promotion to win a laptop. My wife won and they wouldn't even respond to us until we threatened legal action. We went through them directly, they blew us off. We went through SW, both they and SW blew us off. We went public, they got their promotional people to pretend it didn't matter. We starting talking lawyer and grand theft and... a week later our superfish enabled, networking broken, no wifi crippled Yoga 2 arrived.
(For reference, at the event they lied to my wife and told her that they had no Yoga 2s there and she would get it by mail. She was the first winner. All of the MALE winners after her were handed a Yoga 2 on the spot, the very one Dominica had already won and they refused to give her. Technically, they gave hers away. Our guess is that they were guessing that she was female and unlikely to make a fuss and that they could blow her off and since they have no community presence had no idea who she was and that she would get a lot of attention when they didn't honour their commitment. But that is just speculation as to why they did it.)
