I was so surprised that for a second I wondered if had been delivered a refurbished machine. Inquiring with Lenovo’s Customer Service about “a box” revealed they had no idea what I was talking about.
What, has the author literally never purchased a non-Apple branded product? Not everything comes in retail packaging, come on.
I also legitimately hate how the internet has gotten to the point that “will it run nytimes.com” is a fucking benchmark.
To be fair, that box looked pretty dirty. I’ve bought plenty of ThinkPads over the years and I’d frown at a blackened box like that as well. It looks like something happened to it while shipping.
Yeah that is fair. I guess I’ve just dealt with enough kinda crappily-handled boxes that the box pictured didn’t look super beat up to my eyes haha. Usually I’d be more concerned if the seals were broken. But yeah, that’s understandable.
I’ve received beautifully packaged laptops with a fancy retail box from Lenovo, Dell, and Asus. I’ve received phones packaged like that from Google, Samsung, and Sony. I’ve received an exquisitely packaged headset from Valve. I’ve literally never bought a product from Apple.
I’ve never received a new piece of consumer electronics in a “bare” cardboard box like that.
(To be fair, the thinkpad series is theoretically targeting a non-consumer market, but…)
I don’t understand people caring about boxes and packaging. The problem is obviously with me, since there’s millions of YouTube videos of people talking about the boxes of products. But I really don’t understand, why do people care?
I’ve watched them sometimes to get a better impression of a product before I buy it online. Images just aren’t quite the same, and promotional videos tend to be too flashy to really show whatever you’re interested in buying.
But other than that, yeah, I don’t really get the whole “unboxing video” phenomenon. Then again, I watch medical training videos on YouTube in the evening as I find it a good way to fall asleep sometimes 😅 If I were to guess, I’d say that for a lot of watchers it’s not really about the packaging, but just something soothing to watch.
The only reason I would care if I was op is exactly the reason op did care, it’s a potential signal that they received the wrong thing.
Many people also value “beautiful” and “premium” things, which is a potential reason why fancy packaging could make them happy. Well made packaging is also useful to protect items while moving, but that’s not terribly applicable to a laptop and the packaging op received seems like it would do that.
Well author was using 2011 MacBook Air, so I guess he wasn’t buying laptops recently. Other consumer electronics, like phones, typically have nicely branded packaging.
Hm, interesting. I hate the X1 with a passion, even though I’m using one right now. It has a crap-ton of tiny issues (especially the 6th and 7th gen). If you have one and you read this, I hope you updated your thunderbolt firmware after buying it. It may die spontaneously otherwise. It doesn’t properly connect to a relative high number of USB-C screens (it disconnects and reconnects frequently), but only if the battery is fully charged. To fit the form factor, it heavily throttles CPU speed very quickly, so the full computing power is only usable for very short stretches. Stepping is broken for some models in Linux, you need to reconfigure it. We stopped using them across out company. The T4xx(s) range is of similar size, a tiny bit larger, but with a lot less issues.
The problem with the T-Series is that Lenovo has dropped the ball and seemingly does not offer any with HiDPI screens. 1080p in 2020 is a joke, my T42p from roughly 15 years ago had 1600x1200. After using a Retina screen and seeing gorgeous font crispness I don’t ever see a way back to low-res screens. Even phones have surpassed 1080p a while ago.
You can buy the machine, then a screen and have it built in by a repair shop. The weird thing is that in some countries, they do sell those screens in student editions.
But yeah, if there’s one thing I like about Apple is that if a config exists, it can be bought all around the globe.
I am not sure buying a screen and getting it replaced (thus probably voiding the warranty) is an option for many companies or even people, given there is no reliable supply for screens than “random thing off eBay”. As a new hire it would be weird to ask for a T-Series, a screen and then to pay for the repair shop to replace it.
And I say that as someone who replaced their X200 screen with an IPS screen back in the day. It was certainly doable, but if I have to basically hack a brand-new product then this is just insanity. But then so is the maximum of 16GB non-upgradeable RAM in a top-of-the-line laptop; I have so many questions for people who design the specs at Lenovo.
Oh, we may have communicated past each other. It’s an absurd suck. You can even get all the parts at Lenovo shops and if a Lenovo shop does the change, you get warranty.
My company did that for machines, but then again, we’re 10 people.
I’ve had my X1 Carbon 6th Gen for nearly 2.5 years now and I’m also extremely happy with it. By far the best device I’ve owned (upgraded from a Macbook Pro), I am also a big fan of the keyboard and the HDR screen option is excellent. Unlike the author, mine did arrive in a beautifully packaged box. That part is quite strange.
The advantage Apple still holds over its competitors is its willingness to break backward compatibility. They are willing to pay that cost in order to facilitate innovation.
Made me think of Apple refusing to switch iPhones to USB-C because they’re not willing to give up all of the Lightning licensing revenue. Or, as Apple puts it: It would create too much waste!
Apple certainly has advantages over competitors, but I don’t think that was it. Perhaps the advantage is having the biggest horde of loyal defenders.
Every bit of that gorgeous Apple packaging is paid for with toxifying our own habitat, air, and water, slave labor, plant and animal habitat loss, and that’s just the manufacturing. Then add to that transportation to the assembly factory. And then it goes in the landfill.
I enjoyed opening up my iPhones and MacBooks back in the day as much as anyone, but once I realized the above, I stopped perceiving them as beautiful. They just look ugly and horrifying.
I’m not sure that cardboard packaging which is increasingly being made from recycled materials is quite the blight on the environment you’re painting it as here.
That “cardboard” packaging has a lot of plastic in it, and if you add in the glue, ink, coating, plastic insert, and transportation of all these ingredients into the box-making factory, adds up to quite a footprint.
Trivia: It seems going back does not even require you to write down the key. It remains in the ROM somewhere and Microsoft can auto-detect it upon install.
If you do not plan on going back, you can refund the Windows license that comes with the computer to get the money back for the license.
Trivia: That was not the first time Steve Jobs pulled the magic-trick trick. When introducing the Macintosh in 1984, he reached inside his blazer, to extract the floppy from his shirt. He floppy contained the program that made the Macintosh introduce itself
He also pulled the same trick for the original iPod, and then various models that followed. iPod nano is the one that sticks in my head, making use of the “useless” pocket in jeans.
And the original iPhone as well. (I didn’t watch that event live though, hasn’t stuck in my head so much.)
I remember watching that keynote, where Jobs repeatedly claims that he was unveiling the thinnest and lightest laptop ever. I watched it from a laptop that was both thinner and lighter. I think it was a Fujitsu somethingorother.
According to the specs, a 2019 14" X1 is lighter (2.2 lbs/ 1.0 Kg)
than a 2020 MacBook Air 13" (2.8 lbs / 1.29 Kg).
I would like to see a link to these specs. I have yet to see a 14” X1 that is under 2.49 lbs. And googling around a bit, I cannot find any today either. Maybe 2.2 lbs is without battery?
What, has the author literally never purchased a non-Apple branded product? Not everything comes in retail packaging, come on.
I also legitimately hate how the internet has gotten to the point that “will it run nytimes.com” is a fucking benchmark.
To be fair, that box looked pretty dirty. I’ve bought plenty of ThinkPads over the years and I’d frown at a blackened box like that as well. It looks like something happened to it while shipping.
Yeah that is fair. I guess I’ve just dealt with enough kinda crappily-handled boxes that the box pictured didn’t look super beat up to my eyes haha. Usually I’d be more concerned if the seals were broken. But yeah, that’s understandable.
Mimetic desires and generations of consumerism that have led to the pleasure of opening new items - even if it’s not you opening them.
I’ve received beautifully packaged laptops with a fancy retail box from Lenovo, Dell, and Asus. I’ve received phones packaged like that from Google, Samsung, and Sony. I’ve received an exquisitely packaged headset from Valve. I’ve literally never bought a product from Apple.
I’ve never received a new piece of consumer electronics in a “bare” cardboard box like that.
(To be fair, the thinkpad series is theoretically targeting a non-consumer market, but…)
I don’t understand people caring about boxes and packaging. The problem is obviously with me, since there’s millions of YouTube videos of people talking about the boxes of products. But I really don’t understand, why do people care?
I’ve watched them sometimes to get a better impression of a product before I buy it online. Images just aren’t quite the same, and promotional videos tend to be too flashy to really show whatever you’re interested in buying.
But other than that, yeah, I don’t really get the whole “unboxing video” phenomenon. Then again, I watch medical training videos on YouTube in the evening as I find it a good way to fall asleep sometimes 😅 If I were to guess, I’d say that for a lot of watchers it’s not really about the packaging, but just something soothing to watch.
I don’t understand the videos at all.
The only reason I would care if I was op is exactly the reason op did care, it’s a potential signal that they received the wrong thing.
Many people also value “beautiful” and “premium” things, which is a potential reason why fancy packaging could make them happy. Well made packaging is also useful to protect items while moving, but that’s not terribly applicable to a laptop and the packaging op received seems like it would do that.
[Comment removed by author]
Well author was using 2011 MacBook Air, so I guess he wasn’t buying laptops recently. Other consumer electronics, like phones, typically have nicely branded packaging.
Hm, interesting. I hate the X1 with a passion, even though I’m using one right now. It has a crap-ton of tiny issues (especially the 6th and 7th gen). If you have one and you read this, I hope you updated your thunderbolt firmware after buying it. It may die spontaneously otherwise. It doesn’t properly connect to a relative high number of USB-C screens (it disconnects and reconnects frequently), but only if the battery is fully charged. To fit the form factor, it heavily throttles CPU speed very quickly, so the full computing power is only usable for very short stretches. Stepping is broken for some models in Linux, you need to reconfigure it. We stopped using them across out company. The T4xx(s) range is of similar size, a tiny bit larger, but with a lot less issues.
(Article about the TB issue: https://www.notebookcheck.net/ThinkPad-Thunderbolt-3-failure-What-s-happening-why-it-s-happening-and-how-to-fix-it.451207.0.html)
The problem with the T-Series is that Lenovo has dropped the ball and seemingly does not offer any with HiDPI screens. 1080p in 2020 is a joke, my T42p from roughly 15 years ago had 1600x1200. After using a Retina screen and seeing gorgeous font crispness I don’t ever see a way back to low-res screens. Even phones have surpassed 1080p a while ago.
You can buy the machine, then a screen and have it built in by a repair shop. The weird thing is that in some countries, they do sell those screens in student editions.
But yeah, if there’s one thing I like about Apple is that if a config exists, it can be bought all around the globe.
I am not sure buying a screen and getting it replaced (thus probably voiding the warranty) is an option for many companies or even people, given there is no reliable supply for screens than “random thing off eBay”. As a new hire it would be weird to ask for a T-Series, a screen and then to pay for the repair shop to replace it.
And I say that as someone who replaced their X200 screen with an IPS screen back in the day. It was certainly doable, but if I have to basically hack a brand-new product then this is just insanity. But then so is the maximum of 16GB non-upgradeable RAM in a top-of-the-line laptop; I have so many questions for people who design the specs at Lenovo.
Oh, we may have communicated past each other. It’s an absurd suck. You can even get all the parts at Lenovo shops and if a Lenovo shop does the change, you get warranty.
My company did that for machines, but then again, we’re 10 people.
I’ve had my X1 Carbon 6th Gen for nearly 2.5 years now and I’m also extremely happy with it. By far the best device I’ve owned (upgraded from a Macbook Pro), I am also a big fan of the keyboard and the HDR screen option is excellent. Unlike the author, mine did arrive in a beautifully packaged box. That part is quite strange.
Made me think of Apple refusing to switch iPhones to USB-C because they’re not willing to give up all of the Lightning licensing revenue. Or, as Apple puts it: It would create too much waste!
Apple certainly has advantages over competitors, but I don’t think that was it. Perhaps the advantage is having the biggest horde of loyal defenders.
Every bit of that gorgeous Apple packaging is paid for with toxifying our own habitat, air, and water, slave labor, plant and animal habitat loss, and that’s just the manufacturing. Then add to that transportation to the assembly factory. And then it goes in the landfill.
I enjoyed opening up my iPhones and MacBooks back in the day as much as anyone, but once I realized the above, I stopped perceiving them as beautiful. They just look ugly and horrifying.
I’m not sure that cardboard packaging which is increasingly being made from recycled materials is quite the blight on the environment you’re painting it as here.
That “cardboard” packaging has a lot of plastic in it, and if you add in the glue, ink, coating, plastic insert, and transportation of all these ingredients into the box-making factory, adds up to quite a footprint.
If you do not plan on going back, you can refund the Windows license that comes with the computer to get the money back for the license.
He also pulled the same trick for the original iPod, and then various models that followed. iPod nano is the one that sticks in my head, making use of the “useless” pocket in jeans.
And the original iPhone as well. (I didn’t watch that event live though, hasn’t stuck in my head so much.)
I remember watching that keynote, where Jobs repeatedly claims that he was unveiling the thinnest and lightest laptop ever. I watched it from a laptop that was both thinner and lighter. I think it was a Fujitsu somethingorother.
I would like to see a link to these specs. I have yet to see a 14” X1 that is under 2.49 lbs. And googling around a bit, I cannot find any today either. Maybe 2.2 lbs is without battery?
The X1C7 is 1.09 kg (2.4 lb) according to the specs. I have one at home. I measured it: checks out. :-)