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Comment by qb45 | Hacker News Reader

So... you need to reverse engineer some "security" thing to put 3rd party battery in a laptop? The same Lenovo people are recommending everywhere?

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> The same Lenovo people are recommending everywhere?

Lenovo laptops used to be awesome. I'm typing this on a T410 and I'd still recommend an old Lenovo laptop for lots of purposes. I've heard mostly bad things about their newer offerings.

Seconded. I've owned several Lenovos since my beloved L520, and I probably won't be buying another.

The L520 was the last I've owned that I'd describe as excellent; the others have been disappointing in various ways, especially the L530 that just fell apart in a little over a year of the same level of use that my L520 handled without issue.

These are Thinkpads. I recently bought a non-Thinkpad Lenovo (y50-70 gaming laptop) and it's a piece of crap. The keyboard and touchpad are mediocre, fans are pretty loud under load, the numlock key has fallen off (!), and it sometimes just powers off for no reason. It costs 40% of what a comparable MacBook Pro would cost, but it is unfortuantely reflected in quality.

The new lenovo thinkpads are nearly as bad. I'm an x series user, the last model with a good keyboard for programming was the x220.

From the x230 onwards they have stupid chicklet keys, no visual representation of caps lock or numlock, bad trackpads, and 'modal' function keys - (visually represesented with LEDs of course). Abandoning traditional insert/delete/home/end/pgup/pgdn layout.

Superfish on thinkpads, this battery thing, this bios thing:

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...

Very frustrating! Beyond a joke at this stage.

I really don't mind the keyboard on my X230. Then again, I don't see the point of caps lock or trackpads. The layout is a bit annoying when I switch back and forth to a T61, but that's due to the difference rather than inherent superiority. If the keyboard dies, I will obviously consider replacing it with an X220 keyboard but nothing makes me want to do that preemptively.

The plastic case seems a bit flimsy, but so far hasn't broken. And obviously having a shortscreen sucks, but I accepted that tradeoff for the LED backlight and better specs.

In no uncertain terms I absolutely detest the x230 keyboard. I am none too happy about the location of Insert on the x220.

It is like using a cheap acer/toshiba laptop from Argos. A common question I have using them is 'where have the HW UX geniuses decided to put this button I want to use?'.

Cheap laptops are fine by me, but that's not what I want from a thinkpad.

The fact that there is a difference at all is the inherent superiority, a standard layout that stood the test of time and changed for the sake of saving a few pennies.

The fact that you would consider replacing it if it dies with an x220 keyboard (thanks for the info I didn't know that was possible) shows that you do mind it to a small extent.

The keyboard is a very common complaint: http://blog.the-compiler.org/?p=134 - also see the comments.

Also in addition to my prior whining about lenovo, their customer support and returns policy is nowhere near as good as IBM's was. A friend was sent the wrong laptop and after returning it & huge delays lenovo failed to source the correct laptop. He bought a dell.

Richard Sapper, the German industrial designer who orchestrated the look of the iconic laptop for IBM, died 83 years old. I'm blaming lenovo, he's probably spinning in his grave.

The keyboard is a very common complaint, so I just figured I'd throw in my two cents of not actually hating the chiclet-style keys. Because I was unsure before I bought it, and ended up not actually minding the different keycaps.

PgUp/PgDn are more my problem when switching back and forth to the T61, but I would probably fix that by remapping the T61. I don't see how Insert is that different between the two, but I'm not so picky with specific positioning because I don't "home row".

Don't worry, I'm also bitter about the erosion of Thinkpad - just not so much about the keyboard. The 1.75 inches of missing vertical screen real estate is a much bigger annoyance.

How is it comparable if the quality isn't par to the MacBook?

Not sure what you're asking but I have a Lenovo y40-80. Compared to a macbook its $1,200 cheaper and has better specs (except the non-4k display and battery). Not to say I'd rather not have a mac, if I could afford one I would've gotten a mac for sure.

Comparable in terms of specs. On paper, this machine looks almost as good as the discrete GPU MBP - the only major difference is worse battery life. In practice, it's worlds apart.

Considering the damage a 3rd party battery can potentially cause, I can see where Lenovo is coming from.

Of course there's also the aspect of securing margins on accessories, but there's also the aspect of making sure people's machines don't go up in flames or fail in ways that might trigger expensive repairs (which Lenovo will have to pay for if the device is still in warranty)

We need a list of good/bad batteries then, and a label telling you to use the original batteries.

The problem is that, in a lot of cases, there's little QC on the third-party batteries, or even necessarily ways to validate the battery, since they're all just going to be using one of a handful of "copied" chips.

Then you get into fun with who's liable if a battery explodes - many of these vendors don't really have much concrete existence, and good luck with a "warranty".

Source: tried playing hard and fast with batteries a few times, including helping someone solder his own cells into a dead first-party battery.

Lenovo would only have to cover the repair if you had the incidental damage coverage - last I checked, they're pretty sticky about not covering things that aren't manufacturer defect unless you have it.

How would they prove that the damage was caused by a third-party battery if there was no security feature to authenticate first-party ones?

People would buy third party batteries and put the original back before filing a warranty claim

Heat damage or busted overvoltage protection diode. Is there something else a broken/wrong battery can do to a laptop?

It can literally burst into flames?

They sometimes do, but then it's obvious that the laptop has been damaged by battery so the user would better show remnants of a genuine one before asking for warranty replacement.

But warranty replacement is only one aspect, what happens when a social media website gets a tweet from someone saying their lenovo exploded?

Something like that could significantly hurt the brand

Various battery powered devices, including laptops, have been in use for decades.

How many times somebody publicly blamed 3rd party battery failure on device vendor?

Links or it doesn't happen.

Not batteries, but Apple has had problems with third party chargers in the past.

The initial reports often do not say whether a third party charger/accessory is used and just says things like "Chinese flight attendant electrocuted after picking up charging iPhone 5", which is not a good look for Apple.

* http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2484293,00.asp

* http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/chinese-teen-dies-char...

This was the case with non-Apple iPhone chargers that damaged the iPhones. I've seen it on TV in France. I would reckon that it strengthened the Apple brand, because since then more users were afraid to buy non-Apple accessories. However it didn't make Apple move to change their interface to a standard USB like other vendors have.

So much for brand damage.

As other people have said, fire or blast damage from the battery would be a sign, but they don't even necessarily have to prove it's from the battery to not cover it under warranty, just that it wasn't an inherent manufacturing defect.

Vendors shouldn't be liable for actions of users. And if they are doing this out of well-meant concern for user safety, I suppose this warning screen during bootup would suffice.

I would like to know if there are some actual regulations/litigations which forced them or if it's just another money grab like this SuperFish adware.

Well, the big TrackPoint patents are going to be expiring before too long so maybe someone else will be able to make good laptops for use without the touch pad?

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