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

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131–140 of 321 posts

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

#131
post #78

This is despicable, and it's indicative of a trend I've been noticing over the years. Personal computing used to be about user empowerment. Today it seems to me that many tech companies treat their users as nothing more than either "eyeballs" to show ads to or as cows to be milked through vendor lock-in and subscription services. Either way, I feel the user experience has degraded in recent years, and I feel we incre…

> Thankfully alternatives exist. Linux and the BSDs keep evolving, Haiku and ReactOS continue to develop and may one day reach daily-driver status, there's still a thriving market for building your own x86-64 PCs (I'll be building a Ryzen 9 machine this weekend), and products like the Framework laptop, the PineBook, and the Librem laptop have me excited. Hopefully these alternatives will continue to evolve and take r…

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

#132
post #48
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…

>I remember most laptops nowadays can re-flash the BIOS from an attached USB with specific format and layout Source for this? I've seen it available on various enthusiast desktop motherboards, but I haven't seen it on laptops. I haven't even seen it on the pricier thinkpad line.

I had to do this recently on an old Dell XPS 9530 circa 2013.

It had been sitting in a cupboard for a good year or two and when powered on it produced no video output, or BIOS/POST screen. The backlight for the screen didn't even come on.

While it wasn't particularly easy to troubleshoot. I eventually managed to flash an uncorrupted version of the BIOS over USB and it's been working fine since.

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

#133
post #72
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.

Can I run Linux on them? Can I get them with keyboards that aren't awful? Can I get them with next-business-day-on-site warranty? Not trying to be snarky here, I haven't owned an Apple product since the iMac, so I literally don't know. But I suspect the answer is "no".

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

#134

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'm already there. My TV set hasn't been used as a TV since before the pandemic, even Windows 10 is a complete non-starter for me let alone Windows 11, and if one of my favorite Android apps decides to get obnoxious with ads (hello, Scanner Radio!) it gets the ax.

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

#135
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.

[deleted]

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

#136
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But because the hardware is proprietary, the length of that simpler tail still depends entirely on Apple's willingness to support it's legacy products.

This is true — and if you look at the history, it tends to support the person you replied to. They tend to support consumer hardware at least as long as most enterprise lines.

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

#137
post #81
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.

I consider it an extremely visible advantage.

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

#138
post #59
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surface Pro.

I know it works but it just feels wrong

It feels wrong to buy a Linux laptop from the company that makes Github?

The Microsoft of the 2020s is a very different company from the Microsoft of the 1990s.

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

#139
post #48
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…

>I remember most laptops nowadays can re-flash the BIOS from an attached USB with specific format and layout Source for this? I've seen it available on various enthusiast desktop motherboards, but I haven't seen it on laptops. I haven't even seen it on the pricier thinkpad line.

Just did this about a month ago on my hp laptop

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

#140
As much as I'd love to have alternatives in this particular Simulation, there are none. You either use Apple and minimize your suffering, or you don't use Apple and go live in hell, provided by companies running their product design & development by teams of chimpanzees (obviously & unfortunately).
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