Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 321 posts

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#81

Post by acchow »

gigel82 wrote: post #24

Lenovo left a sour taste for me after they pushed a BIOS update through Windows Update on my daughter's Flex that bricked the device (in the middle of a school-week, while she was doing online school). There were dozens of reports of the same problem from other owners of that model, yet they refused to acknowledge the issue was theirs or offer any self-serve option (I remember most laptops nowadays can re-flash the B…

This is an invisible advantage that Apple has. Because Macs don't have a long tail of combinations of hardware, BIOS, firmware, etc they can actually recognize bugs and acknowledge them. This gives a better customer experience.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#82

Post by NathanielK »

mhb wrote: post #64
gruez wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> PC laptops are now budget machines so they compete on price. Anything that competes on price tends to become a deflationary race to the bottom. That really only applies to the consumer line. The thinkpad line is still pretty solid.

> The thinkpad line is still pretty solid. Meh. The trackpoint and keypad on my X1 are far inferior to previous Thinkpads, like the X220, before they decided their overarching mission was to make things as thin as possible. The trackpoint is sometimes unusable and is a chore to use at all times whereas the older ones were fun.

FWIW, Intel has been forcing manufacturers hand when it comes to thickness. Since their high performance laptop processors have stagnated on the last decade, they've created programs to encourage thin laptops.

Both the old "Intel Ultrabook" and the new "Intel Evo" tightly restrict thickness in the 12-14" laptop segment.

I won't give Lenovo a free pass, but it's part of why keytravel and cooling solutions are pretty awful in modern small laptops.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#83

Post by superjan »

jollybean wrote: post #77

Microsoft needs to fix this. Edit: apparently I stand corrected I assumed this was a Windows Tablet, of course, the OS vendors should really step in here, they do have power in the equation. Ultimately, I would use the argument to the exec. team at Lenovo that the incremental revenue from these things just isn't worth it in the overall experience. Often teams are tasked with coming up with new revenue models, it's of…

This about an android tablet.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#84

Post by t-writescode »

mysterydip wrote: post #17
amelius wrote: post #14

Can we please get a law that says that on my devices, I control ads. Fine if bigcorp wants to show me ads, but then they must pay for the device.

I'm sure the response would be something like "oh we gave you a discount on it when you purchased it for $399 instead of $1399. It's all in the EULA you agreed to when you first got your device."

Well, in past experience of IAP and things like the Kindle, it’s not $1000; but this does already exist and I have paid for it.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#85

Post by PostThisTooFast »

sneak wrote: post #72
elric wrote: post #29

Gentle reminder that Lenovo jumped the shark quite a while ago. The whole Superfish debacle, the spyware, the crapware, the endless stream of shitty decisions. Year after year, the hardware gets worse. Customer support gets worse. The sad thing is that they're still better than everything else out there. Which says a lot about the laptop industry in general.

> The sad thing is that they're still better than everything else out there. They haven't ever been better than Apple laptop hardware, even in Intel-land. There seems to be this common bias in PC laptop evaluation that excludes Apple machines from consideration when doing comparisons. Apple makes the best x64 laptops, and has for years. Sadly, they will stop soon.

"They haven't ever been better than Apple laptop hardware, even in Intel-land"

Except of course for the monumentally defective and offensive keyboards Apple saddled its customers with for FIVE YEARS. And there are the soldered-in SSDs and RAM now, and glued-together chassis. And the hodgepodge of laptop & desktop parts crammed into the iMac to make it "thinner," which is absolutely asinine in a desktop computer.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#86

Post by fsflover »

swiley wrote: post #45
amelius wrote: post #14

Can we please get a law that says that on my devices, I control ads. Fine if bigcorp wants to show me ads, but then they must pay for the device.

That requires root and potentially open source drivers and unlocked bootloaders. Right to repair struggles with the progress it makes, that feels unobtainable.

Purism offers hardware that fits here. I wonder why all repair-activists don't promote them more. iFixIt did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCccpgposh4

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#87

Post by fffad6ca80dcc »

sneak wrote: post #72
elric wrote: post #29

Gentle reminder that Lenovo jumped the shark quite a while ago. The whole Superfish debacle, the spyware, the crapware, the endless stream of shitty decisions. Year after year, the hardware gets worse. Customer support gets worse. The sad thing is that they're still better than everything else out there. Which says a lot about the laptop industry in general.

> The sad thing is that they're still better than everything else out there. They haven't ever been better than Apple laptop hardware, even in Intel-land. There seems to be this common bias in PC laptop evaluation that excludes Apple machines from consideration when doing comparisons. Apple makes the best x64 laptops, and has for years. Sadly, they will stop soon.

I have always liked the keyboard more. My opinion is that Apple prioritizes how the keyboard looks and how thin it is over the actual function and experience of using it. It blows my mind that people buy their desktop keyboard which is basically a laptop keyboard in small case.

I believe the ability to repair or swap components has always been better with Lenovo.

Apple beats Lenovo in a lot of other ways though, audio quality being one that I personally experienced. On my old T430s the speakers were so bad I wished they had just not included them at all. They were like the speakers in those talking greeting cards.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#88

Post by fsflover »

bingohbangoh wrote: post #3
908B64B197 wrote: post #2

Does anyone actually buy Lenovos after what happened with SuperFish? [0] [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/superfish-to...

People seem to feel okay with it given they use Linux and thus everything is nominally open source.

The problem is that Superfish is BIOS malware. If Lenovo is willing to infect its BIOS for profit, I'm not sure that running Linux is safe on their hardware.

Re: Lenovo tablet forced update shows un-dismissable, un-mutable, ad notifications

#90

Post by cwkoss »

ithinkso wrote: post #12

I wonder if the ad bombardment we are suffering for some years now will eventually reach a critical point to trigger mass exodus or protests. TV got annoying with ads and viewership greatly decreased but that was caused by the emergence of the internet I think, what new technology options we have to escape the current ads to? The only other hope is that the massive amount of money in ads and data collection is actual…

I wish there was a good legal way to punish people who make bad ads.

Maybe we need some sort of consumer collective to organize boycotts?

Post reply on HN