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Lenovo Profits Sink 75% As PC Demand Continues Nosedive (theregister.com) 100

Lenovo, the world's largest PC maker, is facing a significant decline in revenue and profit due to decreased demand for personal computers in a post-pandemic world. According to The Register, the company "reported (PDF) revenue of $12.635 billion for Q4 of its fiscal 2023 ended March 31, down a brutal 24 percent year-on-year. Pre-tax profit was down 75 percent to $130 million on the back of workforce restructuring charges." From the report: The Intelligent Devices Group -- the PC and smart gadget division -- was most devastated by shifting buying patterns: revenue fell to $9.79 billion versus $14.69 billion a year earlier, a 33.3 percent decline, and one that may mark a bottoming out of shipments. [...] According to Gartner, PC shipments declined 30 percent to 55.154 million across the industry in calendar Q1, which tracks with Lenovo's Q4. Vendors used discounts to drive sales.

In its previous quarter, Lenovo reported its first profit decline in three years and hatched a plan to save $850 million in annual overheads. One of the levers was cutting jobs. During this latest quarter, it recorded a one-time restructuring charge of $249 million. Lenovo is trying to emphasize other divisions to seek out higher growth in areas including servers and tech services.

The Infrastructure Solutions Group grew to $2.2 billion in the latest quarter, up from $1.408 billion, selling servers and the like to SMEs, larger enterprises, and cloud service providers. The Solutions and Services Group, which includes managed services, grew to $6.66 billion for $5.441 billion a year earlier. For the full year, Lenovo revenues fell to 14 percent to $61.94 billion and it reported a profit before tax of $2.136 billion, down 23 percent.
"By the end of this quarter or early next, the inventory digestion will come to an end so that the activation number and the shipment number will be more consistent," said Lenovo CEO Yanqing Yang.
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Lenovo Profits Sink 75% As PC Demand Continues Nosedive

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  • by bsdetector101 ( 6345122 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @06:03AM (#63549877)
    Lenovo would be my last choice for a PC.
    • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @06:24AM (#63549895)

      They're not bad, but their web site is a serious pain in the ass to find anything. It's as if the translation from Chinese to English had to pass through Swahili.

      The real annoyance is their driver updater package. If it's not the latest version it won't update and worse, it stops and asks if you want to update. If you have no choice but to update so you can get drivers installed, why would you give someone a choice? Just update the updater and be done with it.

      Even after that, once you select the drivers you want, it continually prompts you about the updates. "Are you sure you want to do this?" "Are you really, really sure you want this driver?" "Make sure you want this driver before we continue."

      Christ folks, just update the damn thing. I made my selection, now do it.

      • by klui ( 457783 )

        Have you compared it to HP's website? I wanted to find something on a Lenovo system last night and I didn't have any trouble: reference manual.

        With HP's website because of their acquisitions and splits it is a major pain in the ass. Web searches return stale links. Sometimes I would find something but the site will say "go to this-other-website" to get what you're looking for, but it redirects me to the top level domain and I need to hunt around for it. It's a 50%/50% chance I will find what I was looking f

    • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @06:25AM (#63549899)
      I buy them used for around $300 and they last forever. Just buy a T series.
      • Bingo. Refurb T series laptops. The last working windows computers made. Everything made now is wifi only and windows 11 - useless garbage.
        • by jmccue ( 834797 )

          Everything made now is wifi only and windows 11

          I have not looked, but Lenovo no longer comes with a wired port ? I know others are dumping those, but getting rid on those seems to be a concern. I know people in Gov (security) and they are told to use a wired connection as opposed to wireless when working remotely.

          Anyway same for me, will buy refurb with one constraint, no Nvidia GPU. I want the option to use OpenBSD should Linux finally Jumps the Shark into being a Windows Clone. Seems we are not to far from that.

          • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

            I have not looked, but Lenovo no longer comes with a wired port ? I know others are dumping those, but getting rid on those seems to be a concern.

            I think they still come with them. I mean, the one work gave me came with a low profile Ethernet port that expands to fit a cable. The previous laptop (X1 Carbon) used a proprietary adapter.

            Both will take a thunderbolt dock which comes with an Ethernet port as well, or a USB-C dock with Ethernet. Though it seems they probably ditched it in favor of a more standard

            • My Lenovo Legion 7 with an AMD 5900HX CPU laptop has a gigabit NIC port in it.

              Even used it wired a couple of times, and it works as expected.

              It's about 1.5 years old now, can't say what the current models have. Will not be surprised if new models from all brands ditch the wired port. May have to get a USB NIC if needed in the future I guess.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              A few models still have an ethernet port, but the trend is towards USB adapters or docks now. USB 3.2 and above have more than enough bandwidth for 10G Ethernet.

          • T16s have an Ethernet port.

      • My last two desktops were both Lenovo boxes and they're solid. A glut of them always show on eBay when leases are up.

      • I'm on a 10 year old T530 running Mint. I upgraded the memory and added a solid state HD.
        It is heavy but also indestructible.

        • I use them as test servers, development clients, so many things. Only thing I can't do on them is ios developement (boo Apple), but at least now that I have gotten into Flutter I only need a mac to compile.
      • by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        I was going to say, the reason they are not selling more is because their Thinkpads last forever! Buy a T-series or X-series refurb for $200-$300 you have a great laptop for a decade.

      • by tchdab1 ( 164848 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @10:26AM (#63550289) Homepage

        Agreed. Unless you're seriously limping by on donated cash, buy the top of the line from a tier 1 maker - Apple, Lenovo, HP, Dell. Last longer.
        Its the equivalent of a car strategy: get a 2-3 year old used car, which is enough time to know which models are more likely to last.

        • That.
          About six months ago I bought a HP Zbook Fury G7 laptop. New in box, never opened. This model has the works, touch screen, 4k display, high end dedicated graphics card, big honkin fast Xeon processor, etc. In January 2021 when new this model had an MSRP of around $8,000 (according to HP's website). I got it out the door for like 2k.

          The build quality and level of materials on this damn thing is unreal!
          And running Ubuntu, it just flat out *screams*.

          Unless I drop it or otherwise unexpectedly damage it

          • Looking at ebay, this now runs 500-900. Do you game on it?

            • Not hardcore, but I do. Assassin's creed, Battlefront II, Red Dead Redemption 2.
              Mainly I run general apps with a Virtualbox for Windows apps (Windows 10, Office 365, Photoshop)

              If you're going to buy one, hold out for the true high end shit. The description from the one I bought: NEW HP ZBook Fury 15 G7 15.6” 4k W-10885M 64GB 1TB RTX 5000

              Get the RTX graphics card.

              One thing to note though, and all the reviews mention this: This fucker gets *hot*. While gaming psensor reported some of the cores gettin

        • Fuck dell, I canâ(TM)t tell you how many times they have shipped to the wrong address. A minor inconvenience until they send your 10k server to some random person several towns away.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I hate HP laptops. They all seem to be designed to cause you pain.

      • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @11:41AM (#63550431) Journal

        At our company, we haven't bought a new PC in two or three years. Since most of the work is done over RDP, we don't exactly need a lot of horsepower, and I've been recycling 10 year old PCs sitting in our inventory using Ubuntu and Remmina for the RDP client. Even work on the local desktop with something like Xubuntu, in a work setting where most of the work is documents and browsing, you really don't need anything spectacular. Heck, even our servers or 5 or 6 year old refurbished Dell blade servers which do pretty damned well even with database queries.

        I'd wager the refurb market is heavily screwing over manufacturers. There's so little significant difference, particularly for most end use cases (with gaming being the biggest exception) between a 5 year old computer and a brand new one, that there's no justification for paying 2 to 3 times the price for a brand new one.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Lenovo would be my last choice for a PC.

      It's a shame too as IBM Thinkpad laptops use to be top shelf. Fantastic build quality, good feature sets for business, etc.
       

      • Confirmed. I'm still using them. I have an 2.0Ghz C2D X60, an X60s, and a couple of X200s models. I still use them all the time. They still do everything I want them to do rather rapidly. I'd say if Lenovo wants to get some their laptop game back try these ideas: bring back the original keyboards and ditch that PoS chicklet abomination they use nowadays, gimme an option to change the windows logo key to something else or make it an OLED key, stop including those goddamn idiotic annoying trackpads and gimme
    • Depending on which line you look at, they are either terrible or pretty damn good. There's really no in-between.

      It does seem like their "pretty damn good" offerings never get over the line to "that's the one I really want" though - there's always at least one missing thing that you would either have to put up with doing without, or is the dealbreaker for me. And if they do check all the boxes, the price is usually a bit staggering unless they mark it "on sale" which just means their price is actually comp

  • by northerner ( 651751 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @06:41AM (#63549921)

    Lenovo profits continue to sink partially because they stopped selling Win10, they make it impossible to downgrade new laptops and PCs to Win10, and many businesses do not want Win11.
    Win11 is half baked, takes out desirable features and UI elements that people want, adds stuff they don't want, and isn't compatible with some software.
    Microsoft is distracted with new crap and is ruining with Windows ecosystem.

    • Windows 9x & 2k was the last good windows, winxp & 7 was okay, but everything after that was crapware, considering Microsoft's track record the sun is setting on the x86 PC,
      • by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 25, 2023 @09:06AM (#63550127)

        Windows 3.11 was the last good version because you could exit it.

        • Just to be fair, you could kinda hack Win95, Win98, and WinME to not even load the Windows GUI. This is the only way, as far as I know, to run the final versions of MS-DOS (7.0, 7.1, and 8.0). This page [tripod.com] describes the changes you need to the msdos.sys configuration to simply load MS-DOS without going into Windows.
      • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

        9x was always crap, in terms of stability. NT was superior in that regard, but lacked functionality and support - 9x was the tradeoff.

        XP was absolute garbage at first, and was more of the same kind of tradeoff to 2000 that 9x was for NT. It didn't achieve rough parity for stability/functionality with 2000 until SP3, IIRC.

        Again, the same cadence existed with Vista/Win7. They somewhat abandoned the cadence with w10, which is still comparable crap to W7.

    • Yup, Windows 11 is killing Lenovo. I hope they clue in soon. Give me a new Lenovo laptop with a full size (not fold down) ethernet adapter and Linux, and I will buy the crap out of that shit at all the businesses I serve.
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Does anyone sell win10 on new (not just selling through remaining inventory of old ones) laptops any more?

      Microsoft at least officially stopped issuing new licenses for win10 a few months ago IIRC.

      • Does anyone sell win10 on new (not just selling through remaining inventory of old ones) laptops any more?

        Microsoft at least officially stopped issuing new licenses for win10 a few months ago IIRC.

        They stopped selling Windows 10 retail, but OEMs can still preload Win10 if they want. Consumer grade models don't ship with Win10 out of the box anymore, but you can still get Dell Latitudes and Precisions, HP Probooks and Elitebooks, and a few other models with Win10, but they're all business class.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          So in other words, consumers are stuck with 11.

          • That's the way it's been for a while now. Microsoft has stopped selling Windows 10, but the Pro licenses allow for downgrades so you can buy Windows 11 Pro and install Windows 10 Pro. Microsoft doesn't allow that for the Home licenses, so it's only Windows 11 for them.

    • I am curious what you mean by desirable features and UI elements missing from Windows 11. I've been on 11 for months and haven't found anything missing.
      • Win11 is so bloated is uses 3gb of ram out of the box, even after debloating [github.com].
        Right-click menu is broken.
        Copy / paste / etc has been replaced with almost meaningless icons without a tooltip.
        Start has been broken since Win8 and is bloated and mostly not customisable.
        Toolbar can't be customised since Win8, and is fairly useless with a single icon when an application is running, no ability for small icons.
        Toolbar running apps can't be split out / uncombined, and quick launch has been missing since Win7.
        Time clo

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Windows 10 and 11 use the same licence keys. If your machine comes pre installed with 11, you can install 10 yourself and it will pick up the key from the EUFI.

    • Win11 is half baked, takes out desirable features and UI elements that people want, adds stuff they don't want,.

      Thanks for trying to speak for everyone but you don't.

    • No not really. Your feverdream isn't reflected by businesses in general, and your projecting your view on Lenovo doesn't explain how literally every company's PC sales have slumped simultaneously.

      Hint: There was a big upgrade cycle during COVID, it's why these companies posted such great profits at the time. When everyone has ${shiny_new_thing} it's hard to sell more ${shiny_new_thing}

    • by Jimekai ( 938123 )
      This is how a prison crime boss gets and holds on to power. They take away things that inmates need and give back only certain chosen drugs.
    • by klui ( 457783 )

      Are you referring to their notebooks or consumer class systems? Their workstations are only available with Windows 10.

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      Good. More Linux users. ;)

  • by GeekWithAKnife ( 2717871 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @07:06AM (#63549939)
    All nonessentials are taking a hit. Inflation has degraded purchasing power and rate hikes have increased the cost of debt while lending standards are tightening. Basically the cost of living is squeezing people to the point nonessentials are recited, delays and or dropped outright. Things will get worse before they get better. Unemployment will rise, more small banks will fail and a lot of zomby companies will finally die. #cycles
    • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

      Add to this, that the quality of "non-consumable" goods has gone to absolute shit in the past couple years. Things are not lasting as long as they once did, and Q/C has been poor.

  • by xack ( 5304745 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @07:23AM (#63549959)
    Focus on making money on repairs instead and keeping much loved operating systems around instead of Windows as a service. IBM got it right by letting OS/2 stay around by licencing it to eComstation and ArcaOS. If Microsoft relaunched Windows 7 as "Windows Classic" they would make billions.
    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @08:28AM (#63550045)

      Win 7 is one time payment. Win 11 is constant monetization through data collection/reselling, windows store, additional services upselling (like onedrive) and ad impressions.

      MS would lose billions if it went back now. That's the problem. The "fuck the consumer" model is simply more profitable now that internet is pervasive and you can actually expect everyone in wealthier nations to have internet on always on.

      • I agree. However, that's definitely pushed some of us into "Fuck me? No, fuck YOU" mode. I haven't even thought about Windows after Windows 7 was deprecated. It was the last one I felt confident I could disable the telemetry on. I have it on an old drive with my Steam games, but I rarely use it anymore now that all those games run better under Linux. Bye bye M$, have fun fleecing the mob.
        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          Bad news on that front. Because Google nuked win 7 chromium support earlier this year likely in a collective push by US IT giants to normalize total spyware penetration into all your devices, Steam will no longer launch on 7 in next year. This is the last year you'll be able to run steam on that machine.

          • Yeah, the move to stop producing Chrome for Windows 7 was a big blow to Win7 users. Steam's treacherous lack of previous point-in-time clients that work with older platforms is also disappointing. The version on my Windows 7 hard drive is still working, but I wonder how long it will be before it complains it cannot authenticate me and thus I cannot play any of my games. I switched to GOG, long ago, but I still have 40+ old games in Steam, too. I'm just glad most of them work on Linux, now. That's a big boos
            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              >Also, Chrome doesn't work on Win7 anymore most of the alternative Chrome-based browsers still do (and so does Opera, Opera GX, and Firefox). So, Win7 is still usable. Zoom still works there, too.

              This is mostly false. Codebase needed to run on win 7 wasn't removed from Chrome but Chromium. As a result all downstream Chromium based vendors also removed win 7 support or are in process of removing it (steam is one such vendor).

              And Firefox has recently announced they will also nuke windows 7 support soon.

              • This is mostly false. Codebase needed to run on win 7 wasn't removed from Chrome but Chromium. As a result all downstream Chromium based vendors also removed win 7 support or are in process of removing it (steam is one such vendor).

                Okay, I looked it up and you are right about Chromium, but not completely right about the downstream effects (Opera is a valid counter-example). So, that seems to affect Brave and Microsoft Edge, Igalia browser, Yandex browser, Intel, Samsung, and LG's browser (from the Wikipedia Page [wikipedia.org]. Edge obviously being M$'s own baby isn't going to be backported in any case, since they want you to upgrade. Opera, a Chromium based browser, is today supporting Win7 well after Google Chrome as stopped, but they have announc [opera.com]

                • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

                  Steam is actually a glorified Chromium browser itself, and it will support win 7 until the end of this year. That makes it among the last if not the last Chromium derivative vendor to drop win 7 support.

                  The real problem is that with Mozilla dropping support (which frankly was expected, as Firefox has been a de facto Chromium lite since dropping of XUL) there are no modern major browser vendors left supporting win 7.

                  • I never should have trusted Steam. I now see it should have been obvious that upgrading was going to be their solution rather than maintaining an old version of Steam or building bridges. Proton is something of a bridge, but a shaky one.
      • They backported all the data collection/telemetry to 7 already, OneDrive works fine on it. I'm sure they could add the store if they felt it necessary; though I suspect the people who want that are the ones satisfied with 10/11 and wouldn't buy it anyway.
        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          >They backported all the data collection/telemetry to 7 already

          This lie by omission keeps getting pushed hard with desperation. I don't know if it's astroturfers, self-haters who are desperate to justify their own bad choices to themselves or just utterly misinformed consumers.

          On win 7 (and 8), there was an optional update to install the spyware package also called "telemetry" that was comparable to one on win10/11. Key words: optional update. You didn't have to install it, and if you installed it by acc

  • Not competitive (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Thursday May 25, 2023 @07:30AM (#63549977) Homepage Journal

    I was looking for a basic laptop with a matte HD screen, a memory slot and two nvme slots for a basic mirror. Mid-range Ryzen, whatever - don't care. $1700 from Lenovo. The mid-range model they used to offer (with an RJ-45 even) is discontinued.

    HP is like $600. And, yeah, the HP will fail in a few years but +$1100 is not competitive in the sales channel.

    And they say sales are slow, eh?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Lenovo have got into the habit of having high prices that businesses pay without a second though, and regular sales with big discounts to cater to more discerning consumers. Problem is their sales are not well publicised so unless someone is quite determined they will probably not wait, and just buy from somewhere else.

      It doesn't help that their current range is not that great, partly because AMD and Intel have been sucking on mobile lately. A lot of people are thinking like you - pay 1/3rd as much for some

      • Re:Not competitive (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @08:34AM (#63550053)

        I think it depends on how much an hour of your work costs. I work in a business where an hour of downtime of any person costs more than the laptop could. And even if you store a few spares, even just going and replacing the laptop, even if moving the storage is a possibility, that time costs more than the price difference.

        Having a system that works, no matter what, is key in such a business. You want a system that is reliable for at least the time that you will use it and should it fail, can be fixed quickly and without screwing about for 2+ hours.

        • Having a system that works, no matter what, is key in such a business. You want a system that is reliable for at least the time that you will use it and should it fail, can be fixed quickly and without screwing about for 2+ hours.

          So then you went with Fujitsu, right? Lenovo has been slipping in quality.

          • by CAIMLAS ( 41445 )

            Given what he mentioned, he probably got Apple. Nothing running Windows would fit that criteria.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Interesting that I was in a market for a mid end gaming laptop with mostly same basic requirements, and Lenovo was the best offer.

      Whereas for the cheap ultraportable 13" HP was the best option. But it didn't have RJ-45.

      Even more interestingly, their hardware management software was singificantly better than HPs. Not only does it let me adjust things that were usually only adjustable on desktop with specialized software, but it even allowed me to do things that used to be just straight up "no and fuck you" o

    • by Targon ( 17348 )
      If you look at the Ideapad line and not Thinkpad, you would find prices are a bit more normal. Still, the problem I see is that Ryzen 5 5500U or 5525U refresh part is still what the laptop makers are selling, and the 7540U, 7640U, and 7840U, which would be a HUGE improvement, are still nowhere to be seen. Ryzen 7840U based laptops will be beating the 4600H, but with far better battery life as well. So, 15-28W TDP from the new generation beating 45W gaming laptops from a couple of years ago.
  • Put ethenet adapters back in and ship with Linux - and watch sales soar. This is what the working world needs. Not Windows 11 playtoys with no real networking.
    • Like the jerkhole AC kinda said, the masses don't care anymore. That's why you only see cool laptops on kickstarter projects that rarely succeed and custom ARM projects like the MNT Reform [mntre.com] or Pinebook Pro [pine64.org]. I'd recommend folks review the last 20 years worth of laptops and buy a used or NOS one off Ebay. Forget the new stuff, it all sucks unless you wanna pay $1k-$2k for a lark of a hobby project (though some admitedly very cool ones!). Also, besides old IBM and Lenovo laptops pre-suck, you can run Linux or B
  • by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @07:53AM (#63549997)

    Windows 11, no RJ45 port, and CCP built/controlled, a very bad combination. No thanks.

    • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

      Look carefully at a back of your non-Lenovo laptop. In most cases you'll find the same "Made in PRC/assembled in PRC" marking.

      • Probably why I don't buy new laptops any longer unless I absolutely have to. In the past 10 years I've purchased exactly one new laptop for my son going to college. It wasn't Lenovo.I have a used Thinkpad T series that is still going strong and will be the last Lenovo I ever own.

        • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

          With some luck, "made in Vietnam/assembled in Vietnam" is going to be coming in next few years.

          Though trading one Communist nation for another Communist nation may not be that great of a deal in long term.

          • "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is a perfectly legitimate geopolitical statement. Yes, Vietnam is a Communist state, but it's a Communist state that is terrified of falling under a Chinese hegemony in East Asia, and needs the friendship of the United States and other Western powers. In other words, the friendship is self-serving on both parts, but if it serves to stave off China becoming an unquestioned power in East Asia and the South China Sea, then I'd say whatever future regrets we have, for now, i

            • by Luckyo ( 1726890 )

              Communist totalitarian and genocidal regimes are not each other's friends and allies any more so than any other ideology. Ideologies make for poor alliances. Geopolitical realities make the good ones. In case of Vietnam and PRC, Vietnam is a natural pain point for PRC, which in turn makes PRC a threat to Vietnam. Regardless of ideology. Ideologies come and go. Interests are eternal (unless you go to tectonic plate movements level of time scale).

              So if you have problems with things like slave labor and other

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @08:18AM (#63550033)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • I think the whole world knew that PCs (and soon after laptops) were a commodity business since about the time HP bought Compaq.

      Lenovo was probably thinking that they can keep the cost down for sometime at least and keep the division profitable. And don't forget, before they bought IBM's PC/laptop division, pretty much noone was aware that they even exist. Now pretty much the whole computing world know of them and they have managed to penetrate markets that they could never have entered in decades at least,

  • I have a collection of T450s I got 'for parts' off eBay for around $40 each. Add a new 120GB SSD for around $15, add/upgrade 16GB RAM for around $25, install Linux (my daily driver is Kubuntu) and voila, perfectly usable laptop. I have a couple of then I got as refurb with Windows 10 Pro and wouldn't upgrade to 11 if I could. I have only one machine that runs Win11, and that is enough for me for now. (As others say, it removes some good points about Windows 10 and adds nothing too significant.) And the trouble is, for most of my uses, a T450 that I cobbled together four under $75 is fine for many uses, and the lighter-weight nature of Linux means it gets good performance/battery life for things like coding small projects and web-development. For media consumption I use the Thinkpads running Windows 10 (video drivers for Thinkpads are better for Windows). Unless I win the lottery, however, it's unlikely I'd ever buy one new. I rely upon companies doing that for me, and dumping them on the refurb/for parts market four years later when they replace them.

    • I have a collection of T450s I got 'for parts' off eBay for around $40 each. Add a new 120GB SSD for around $15, add/upgrade 16GB RAM for around $25, install Linux (my daily driver is Kubuntu) and voila, perfectly usable laptop.

      OK WTF is with RAM prices. 16G (2x8) of DDR3 for an old laptop is like $30. 32G (2x16) is $400.

  • The quality of Thinkpads went down the pan ever since the Thinkpad branch of the IBM business got taken over by Lenovo. I've had one of T15s for 3 years now and in this time:
    - The screen died and had to be replaced 3 times.
    - The motherboard died and had to be replaced, too.
    - The charging port stopped working.
    - Lenovo would do anything they could to avoid honouring my On-Site warranty and have me mail in my laptop instead.

  • As someone who works IT at a company with several hundred exclusively Lenovo products, it miiiight also be because they sell failure-prone laptops that have complete board failures out of nowhere for no logical reason.
  • by radarskiy ( 2874255 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @08:43AM (#63550073)

    For seven years, Lenovo's Q4 revenue was in the $9-11 billion range. For 2021-2022, Q4 jumped to the $16-17 billion range.

    This year Q4 revenue is $12.6 billion. This isn't a collapse, this is slightly above trend!

    2021-2022 were the outlier years, due to an obvious one-time shock.

    • Mark informative!

      I am far from crying "... in the old days ..." hearing about Seneca writing referring to his contemporary youth - but in this case I have to say that the journalism is dead - all we're left with are clickbaits.

    • For seven years, Lenovo's Q4 revenue was in the $9-11 billion range. For 2021-2022, Q4 jumped to the $16-17 billion range.

      This year Q4 revenue is $12.6 billion. This isn't a collapse, this is slightly above trend!

      2021-2022 were the outlier years, due to an obvious one-time shock.

      Unfortunately, once the bean-counters and MBAs took over most business decisions, there are no longer "outlier years." Profits must go up every quarter, come hell, high water, or death to end-users. Those outlier profits were seen as the new trend, and the expectation would be that trend is sustainable forever. Corrections in the market are seen as the devil's work, and the antithesis of "logical profit growth quarter to quarter," the driver of all business decisions and all management thought patterns.

      Expe

  • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @08:53AM (#63550095)

    Most people have what they need. Even gaming is not a driver anymore, because the number of people willing to shell out a lot of money for diminishing returns is shrinking. Sure there are the Win11 forced hardware upgrades to be rammed down everybody's throats, but these are not actually necessary and have no benefits for the users. Many may simply refuse to participate. And are still 2 years away.

    Face it, PC manufacturers, the decades-long rush is over. You are now doing mostly replacements. The only way to survive long-term with such a market is good quality at reasonable prices and only replace models with new designs when there is actually a good reason.

    • Yes indeed. My daughter just got a used HP i7 desktop, added a supposedly obsolete video card, recycled her existing hard drive as the backup, and is fine.

      One piece of E-waste avoided, one new PC not bought, and one windows 11 license also
      Not bought.

    • by doubledown00 ( 2767069 ) on Thursday May 25, 2023 @10:58AM (#63550347)

      This is something I have noticed over the past couple of years through observing teenagers and young adults in business environments, but I don't know that a lot of people actually have PCs in their homes anymore. Sure, there are gamers. And some folks need a PC or laptop for various school tasks. But outside of the workplace I'd wager more and more people get by with phones and tablets.

      It's funny because I (and probably many pundits) assumed younger Millennial and Gen Zers would be very computer literate as a generation. But from what I'm seeing that just isn't so. And if true that will certainly have an increasing impact on the PC market going forward.

      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Interesting point. I do have my own servers here and will keep that, but, for example, 3 out of 5 in my usual MMO party are gaming on laptops (all older folks though) and the one with a "real" PC is a PhD CS type like me. The trend to phones and tablets in the younger generations would be a logical extension of that trend. And really, if you are just surfing the web, read and write email, watch videos and do some not hardware hungry gaming, a tablet or even a phone may be adequate. And this probably covers

        • Ya know, I can't really stand to "do work" or even look at websites for more than about 15 - 20 minutes on my phone. The screen is too small.

          My nieces and nephew however (all in their early to mid 20's)......all day on the phone.

          I will admit to stretches of using an Ipad while on the couch rather than pulling out the laptop because as you say, websites etc. That makes me ponder how the young folk do actual work. Composing a memo on a tiny phone screen would make me mental!

      • .

        It's funny because I (and probably many pundits) assumed younger Millennial and Gen Zers would be very computer literate as a generation.

        I don't know why you and many other people assume this. When automobiles normalized, did everyone suddenly become a mechanic?

        • From dictionary.com:
          computer-literate: (of a person) having sufficient knowledge and skill to be able to use computers; familiar with the operation of computers.

          Your statement is over the top absurd and not consistent with the understood plain meaning of the term.

          Also this is not a new proposition to anyone who follows trends:
          https://www.bbc.com/news/techn... [bbc.com]

  • Considering that AMD has gained significant ground in the space, the fact that Lenovo, HP, and Dell have all delayed or not even bothered to release new laptops based on the Zen4 based Ryzen chips is another reason why they aren't seeing as many sales as they could. Ryzen 7840U as well as 7540U and 7640U are a huge improvement over the previous generations, but there has been no sign of laptops being set to be released using these chips.
  • sheesh. once the glut of new pcs and laptops from the covid buyup gets old and sluggish, the demand will be back with a vengence. I'd give it a another year maybe two... two things will never change... things wear out and software just keeps getting fatter.
    • I'd give it a another year maybe two... two things will never change... things wear out and software just keeps getting fatter.

      You're not wrong, but seriously old machines are still useful now. If you know anybody even slightly competent (i.e. they know how to google) you can bypass the Windows 11 restrictions if for some reason you have to (or want to?) do that. And you can still run a browser or (if not and) a word processor on basically any multicore, 4GB+ machine. And that's been common for what, a decade?

  • Mrs. presearch's company is phasing out supplying laptops to employees and is moving to something virtual on Azure. When your laptop gives up the ghost, you are expected to supply (and pay for) your own machine and install their security layer and feel the joy of remote Windows.
    What could go wrong?

    Not a great model for the Office/Windows/Intel/Refresh unit forecast.

  • Currently dealing with Dell since they broke my laptop when repairing the hinge. The amount of phone tag and escalation required is insane. Every time you call itâ(TM)s like the first time, and their solution to your problem is to schedule a call for later. Now they are trying to blame me for breaking it. Iâ(TM)ll never buy a Dell again
  • The high end, custom, gaming and DIY markets are continuing to grow. There are tons of people who still want computers. They just don't want a PC built by a child laborer out of sub-tier parts.
  • I would never buy anything from them. Had 4 top-end laptops dies due to cooling design bugs. IBM one from before sill works after 20 years. Not to mention CCP.

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