Lenovo Computers, Soon To Be Made In America

http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/02/lenovo-computers-soon-to-be-made-in-america/

by andreiursan • 14 years ago

114 89 14 years ago

wmf• 14 years ago

BTW, although IBM is based in the US the ThinkPad line was originally designed and manufactured in Japan before the sale to Lenovo.

jmsduran• 14 years ago

The original design of the ThinkPad was said to resemble the shape of a Japanese lunchbox.

agumonkey• 14 years ago

Entirely ? I thought they had one lab there that worked with U.S based ones.

kamechan• 14 years ago

X1 carbon still designed in Japan, along with a couple of other models. http://blog.lenovo.com/design/developers-on-the-x1-carbon-in...

whichdan2• 14 years ago

I would love to see the resulting shitstorm from that sticker actually being on the laptop.

sliverstorm• 14 years ago

Are you saying people would have problems with any "Made in USA" sticker, or that one in particular (which is obviously a fanciful clipart made in MS Paint)

whichdan2• 14 years ago

Just that one in particular. I think putting stickers on laptops is an atrocious practice, and one that huge would be hilariously awful.

bduerst4• 14 years ago

From a business standpoint, what is the strategy here?

What does North Carolina have over Mexico? How does this cater to the corporate "custom" PC market?

I'm curious to see why the company is moving operations there.

cydonian_monk• 14 years ago

Though not an absolute requirement, the "Buy American Act" [1] gives preference to equipment that is made in this country and intended for government/military use. This could be a legal/marketing maneuver on Lenovo's part to get a larger share of government technology contracts.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buy_American_Act

bduerst4• 14 years ago

Ah, thank you - that makes perfect sense. I wish they would have covered this in the article.

HP has a large portion of the government contracts market for laptops.

eli3• 14 years ago

Currently, if you want a custom configured Lenovo PC, you have to wait for it to be shipped from China. This increases the average time it takes to get the computer and introduces the risk of a customs problem holding up your shipment indefinitely.

bduerst4• 14 years ago

I didn't think that larger exporting companies had problems with customs in China. Even so, wouldn't it be better to take advantage of your infrastructure and distribution already existing in Mexico?

vl• 14 years ago

Apple consistently ship from China to US in 2 days, presumably Lenovo should be able to do the same.

w1ntermute• 14 years ago

> What does North Carolina have over Mexico?

Safety? Properly functioning law enforcement?

Zak7• 14 years ago

More configurability? Great. When can I order one with a screen that isn't some low-res 16:9 TN monstrosity?

muhfuhkuh• 14 years ago

When people stop buying cheap bric-a-brac with just-enough-for-youtube-480p integrated graphics from HP and Dell for 499.

qdog• 14 years ago

Last time I bought the cheapest dell laptop with a discrete card it was maybe $600, now it appears to be $719. That's only on the 'small business' more brick-like ones, though. The 'consumer' ones don't even offer discrete, but hey you can get Skull Candy[TM] speakers for an up charge!

Even the cheapest comes with a dual core processor, though, so you can share your memory among 2 cores and an integrated graphics engine. Progress it ain't.

streptomycin• 14 years ago

Integrated graphics aren't bad these days.

zem• 14 years ago

my previous (bought in 2005) laptop was a dell inspiron 1440 that had a 1400x900 screen. when i replaced it (in 2009) the best i could do for a similar price and cpu performance was an inspiron 15 that had a 1366x768 resolution. it's not a matter of people being cheap, screen resolutions really have retrogressed.

viraptor• 14 years ago

And what's so wrong about them? I bought those when I was a student and I was pretty happy with the result. They're very reasonable quality and they're definitely enough for any work that doesn't require 3d, or heavy virtualisation. They're also very likely to be supported by linux - a long time has passed since that hardware became available.

mbrubeck• 14 years ago

The Lenovo ThinkPad x230 is available with a good quality IPS display (though still widescreen and low-resolution). I own an x220 with the same IPS display, and I'm very happy with it.

pearle• 14 years ago

Likewise. I also own a X1 and the X220 screen is far better.

dgudkov• 14 years ago

Yes, but 12" is too small for dev work and it's still not possible to order T430 or T530 with IPS display.

smhinsey4• 14 years ago

I just recently got an x230 with the IPS option. The display is great and really comparable to my 11'' Air except for the coating. Overall, I love the machine. It lacks the size advantage of the Air (they are generally similar, but the x230 is several times thicker) but I was able to swap out the drive with a 256 SSD and upgrade the RAM to 16 GB which has left me with a machine that is way more capable than I anticipated. I also am really surprised by how much I like the keyboard.

That said, the ultrabook market is still in a weird state. I looked at all of the major vendors and no one really had the ideal combination of components yet. Once you can get the x230 with higher res display and a multi-core CPU, it'll be an ideal machine.

JL20104• 14 years ago

This plus their tried-and-true keyboards. I'm not sure if I like where the new keyboards are headed, I never thought I'd see the day where a T-series would have a chiclet keyboard!

Real keyboard + 16:10 hi-res, high quality display and real thinkpad (IBM era) build quality and I would be willing to pay north of $1500

Scramblejams• 14 years ago

Am I the only one who misses 4:3?

I pull out my old T42 from time to time and it's so relaxing to code on such a screen ratio.

jkbyc• 14 years ago

Better speakers wouldn't hurt either. I need them occasionally but when I do I am not content with them. It seems like they aren't willing to make a no compromise product. Maybe there's a too little market for it?

rogerbinns2• 14 years ago

I don't mind the new keyboard. The crappy screens are really annoying. The new ones (T430) don't even have the correct ICC profile by default. I measure 2cm of bezel at the top and bottom (each - total 4cm) plus 1.5cm of bezel on the left and right sides (another 3cm of plastic). That would far better be used by actual screen.

(I actually wanted a 15" screen to replace my 15" T61 but the current 15" laptops are so frigging huge with so much wasted space that I had to downgrade.)

CountHackulus2• 14 years ago

Right now? I'm using a Lenovo laptop that has a 1920x1200 15" screen. It's great.

JL20104• 14 years ago

T61p?

mediaman• 14 years ago

Lenovo is probably doing this for a few reasons:

* The corporate market often prioritizes speed and ease of doing business over the absolute rock-bottom cost. Local manufacturing offers advantages due to a much shortened supply chain.

* The gap between an hourly worker's wages in the US versus China is shrinking, due to Chinese labor inflation and US collar wage stagnation.

* The hours of labor per assembled unit is declining due to advances in automation, rendering regional labor variances less important.

Labor is becoming less of an issue while local manufacturing continues to have major supply chain cost benefits, so Lenovo considers that the scales have tipped enough to justify a US presence for the market segment that values that responsiveness the most.

bryanlarsen• 14 years ago

Given that most components the computer will be made from are going to be made in China, wouldn't the supply chain cost benefits favor final assembly in China?

bduerst4• 14 years ago

I'd be more worried about the "Custom" PC aspect on your supply chain.

Because of the variability in demand, you are either going to expend resources on keeping a large inventory, or you are going to be ordering in smaller batches from suppliers who are a week to two weeks away.

zubiaur• 14 years ago

Yes, higher oil prices are starting to affect profit margins, the cost of shipping a 40 foot container has tripled since the 2000s. Shipping finished products is getting more expensive.

Lead times are also very important, it takes about a month to get something from china to the US. This means that you need higher inventory levels in order to be able satisfy the demand without considerable shortages.

When you take into account the variety of configurations available its very hard not to get low rotation items on your inventory. Specially if you are expected to always have stock and when your inventory levels have to consider that it takes a month to get an item to the US.

Shifting assembly to the US reduces the number of SKUs imported and allows an easier control over inventory levels and supply chain costs.

rogerbinns2• 14 years ago

BTW when you order a Thinkpad from their website and customize it then it is shipped from China using UPS and spends almost a day in Alaska going through customs. Shipping is "free" but of course you are paying for it.

tedunangst5• 14 years ago

Lenovo just has too many choices (technical term for this condition is SKUs up the butt). A T430 can be configured with one of 7(!) CPUs, some Sandy Bridge and some Ivy Bridge. There are two pairs of CPUs that cost the same. There are four wifi choices, even though the most expensive is only $40 (and is actually available 3rd party for ~$17 on ebay). Lenovo should just always stick the good one in there, and either eat the cost or bump the base price. Whenever Apple offers an option with two choices, Lenovo offers it with six choices, and then there's twice as many options on top of that.

rabidsnail• 14 years ago

> The gap between an hourly worker's wages in the US versus China is shrinking, due to Chinese labor inflation and US collar wage stagnation.

The system works!

derleth• 14 years ago

> The gap between an hourly worker's wages in the US versus China is shrinking, due to Chinese labor inflation and US collar wage stagnation.

And people say Americans don't need unions anymore.

nitrogen3• 14 years ago

Unionization is the wrong response to increasing manufacturing efficiency. The correct response is finding something else to do, with the help of subsidized retraining and education, if you prefer.

pasbesoin• 14 years ago

Assembly for custom orders.

Hardly a domestic industry, although I speculate it may also help in some political/contract situations.

mangler• 14 years ago

In all fairness, the US corporations probably owe more than a little to Mexico. On purely ethical grounds, I'd rather buy an IBM machine built in Mexico than in the US. It's that little personal satisfaction.... But it DOES make a difference if you're going to use it for the next year or two...

SkyMarshal• 14 years ago

Only 8 years after the sale of Thinkpad to Lenovo. Interesting how fast the economic dynamics can change.

xcirrian• 14 years ago

I hardly think this is a big deal. The cost for assembly is low anyway. Even though the laptop might be assembled in the US, the major parts of a laptop (chip, case, screen) are still made in Asia.

ThomPete• 14 years ago

It's the jobless recovery

witoldc• 14 years ago

This is going to be huge.

No more waiting 4 weeks to get a computer/laptop I actually want.

jarek4• 14 years ago

If you're a big purchaser ordering a thousand of them, anyway...

Lenovo Computers, Soon To Be Made In America

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