Lenovo is weird. On the one hand, it announces that it will pre-install Linux on ThinkPads. On the other hand, these configurations seem to be available only in selected countries. Also, this.
P.S.: there's an entertaining segment by ThePrimeagen in which he talks about his frustrating experience of ordering an X1 Carbon Extreme from Lenovo: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/909927791?t=00h32m16s
That's what I was thinking. Perhaps this shows just how disjointed Lenovo is as a company - there must be two very independent departments that know nothing of the others motivations.
I've also seen this rift, it was particularly confusing through the last 10 years to see Lenovo's lower end products being such dogshit, while their higher-end offerings were the best in the business. It seems like they're addressing this though, as some of their newer budget products are surprisingly robust. I recently picked up a new Ideapad for $400, and it felt much more robust than anything else I've ever used in the sub-$500 category. Same goes for the Duet, a $250 Chromebook with build quality that betrays it's lower-end hardware configuration. Modern Thinkpads seem to be making a bit of a comeback too, which I'm certainly happy to see.
They have a few local teams in China, plus ThinkPad teams worldwide plus NEC and Fujitsu operations. Lenovo seems to be operating like a brand name shared by those multiple teams each with its own ways of doing PC, controlled by the corporate in China, so depending on which team did a product, the designs can be wildly different.
Some of Ideapad 100 series were completely mini X270, for example.
My son is a member of the T430 cult, which is what I'm typing this on. After upgrades, I've been fairly happy with it. I've been purchasing X1 Carbons for customers of mine and that's been a really good experience as well.
I'd be happy to see Lenovo impose this high-end manufacturing quality across all of it's lines.
The only think keeping me away from Lenovo for my next laptop is their nasty habit of imposing a PCIe whitelist. I've replaced the wifi card in my XPS 9350 at least once (Broadcom -> Intel) and I've got an Intel AX201 card waiting to be swapped in at the moment.
This bad boy was on clearance at a nearby Best Buy. Pretty nice comeup for the specs, and it's given me a new appreciation for Lenovo's consumer product build quality.
I got a thinkpad E570 I got second hand/refurbished for $700 (from a guy whose clientele must be mostly old folks; it came with very large print instructions and windows already set up nicely with chrome installed.) I put Debian on it and it’s been my ride or die for a few years now. The body build quality is much higher than I was anticipating based on the hive mind’s opinions of the budget line E series. It’s got all the thinkpad niceties and only recently I’ve briefly considered getting a newer thinkpad that doesn’t have a VGA out... it’s a great laptop and a testament to the thinkpad budget line (which probably fits in their low to mid range across all their products?) Definitely a robust laptop, especially for the (retail) price.
That's common in large companies. Business units/channels/divisions do all kinds of stuff that is inconsistent with each other and even the stated company goals.
As an example, Aetna provides insurance to clients through Covered California and through other venues like the federal government. For the federal version, it's really easy to get stuff classified as out of network with a note from the provider that they don't accept Medicare assignment. For the Covered California version, it's virtually impossible to get out of network stuff covered because they will more or less trashcan notes from providers that don't accept Medicare assignment to avoid paying for those claims. My guess is the economics of each business unit/channel are different to the point where they make things easy for one plan and nearly impossible for another.
P.S.: there's an entertaining segment by ThePrimeagen in which he talks about his frustrating experience of ordering an X1 Carbon Extreme from Lenovo: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/909927791?t=00h32m16s