It happens every day.  A customer calls into our help centers and finds out that his system needs a repair that is not covered by warranty.  Perhaps the warranty has expired.  Perhaps the system sustained accidental damage and was not covered under our Accidental Damage Protection Service. In any case, the customer is faced with buying a replacement part and is told how much that part + labor (if Lenovo is performing the work) will cost.  The next reaction is predictable and follow’s Kubler-Ross’ famous five steps. You must have put the wrong part number in.  Check again. Why does this part cost so much?  You guys are ripping me off Please oh please make an exception for me! I should have never bought this crummy model Fine.  Take my credit card and send me the part. While we can’t act as your psychiatrist, we can at least help you understand why spare parts may cost more than something generic you can find on Amazon.  When you buy parts from Lenovo, you’re buying an original, genuine part that has been regression tested with your particular model of machine.  This testing is performed during our initial development and continues through the life of the system as we receive warranty parts back and test for ongoing defects.  We guarantee that the replacement part you...

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Slim & light? Check.  Ultrabook? Nope.  Wallet friendly? Check.  Color options? Check.  So a Netbook then? Nope. Gaming ready? Kinda. At low to mid graphics settings.  That’s how I would describe the new Lenovo IdeaPad S300 & S400 laptops. These are not for those looking to assume the role of Alcatraz to beat the next Alien invasion in Crysis 2. Neither are these machines for people who must spend thousands of dollars irrespective of what they get in return. The S300/S400 laptops are essentially for value hunters.    We all know who the value hunters are. They churn out the endless excel sheets comparing specs of multiple products. It could be about the next car or even something trivial as a Bluetooth headset. They spend countless hours scanning forums, reviews and comments on Amazon.com. If you think these value hunters do this to save money, you would be wrong. All this effort is to ensure they get exactly what they are looking for and get the best bang for the buck!        These 0.9-inch-thick laptops may miss out on the ultrabook checklist by a mere 2mm but they hold their own when it comes to performing way beyond what was traditionally expected out of a budget machine. With a profile this thin, it’s remarkable that both the S300 and S400 offer Intel Core i5 processors and AMD Radeon 7450M...

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Mechanical Engineering student Joey Banks kicks off our new Road Test series where users test-drive Lenovo products in their daily lives. The Lenovo U-Series laptops have always offered an attractive design to consumers, and the U410 is no exception. Available in Sapphire Blue, Graphite Gray, and Metallic Red, Lenovo is certain to have a color for everyone’s personality. Immediately upon opening its lid, the first thing I noticed was its gorgeous screen. Embedded in a remarkably thin bezel, the 14” high-definition display stands out. Colors are extremely vibrant and using the device in direct sunlight comes without challenge. Lenovo has implemented a sleek metal design encasing the AccuType Keyboard, which enhances both the stability and durability of the U410, traits that are all too rare in today’s market. Unbelievably, although the Lenovo U410 weighs in at just over 1.8kg, users will find that the machine still packs quite a bit of horsepower beneath its exterior. Models are available to be fitted with the Intel® 3rd generation Core™ i3, i5, or i7 processors and can also harness up to 8GB DDR3 memory. If you’re like me and are continuously purchasing music, movies, and other content from the Internet, you may often worry about the capacity of the hard drive in your machine. In addition to the 32GB SSD cache, which is responsible for a 40 percent  faster boot time than a traditional laptop, the U410 can be configured...

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Media have crowned 2012 the Year of the Ultrabook, and from the scores of Ultrabook devices announced recently, there’s considerable consumer interest in these new devices. Intel has defined the Ultrabook category based upon specifications for thinness while also taking into account battery life, responsiveness and other performance measures. Since years of design and development tell us that each new product is about continually making laptops thinner, lighter and with longer battery life, it begs the question: Will all laptops eventually become Ultrabook devices? Ignore the market’s price factor since technology costs decrease over time, especially as demand rises, and the question becomes even more relevant. Ultrabook devices are just as much about the user experience as being thin and light. Think about tablets: they’re instantly on with long battery life, and they’re instantly connected to the Web. Ultrabook devices take these tablet qualities and combine them in a thin and elegant design coupled with greater performance. For example, our latest Ultrabook devices--the IdeaPad U310 and U410--come in around 0.7" (17.8 mm) thin and 3.7 pounds (1.7 kg). They get eight hours of battery life and are ultra-responsive in boot up and resume from sleep, equipped with either with a solid state drive or traditional hard drive.  With Lenovo’s Smart Update always-on, always-connected technology, the Ultrabook can automatically...

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Lenovo Enhanced Experience 3 PCs Start 40% Faster With RapidBoot Technology

With the recent announcement of the Lenovo Enhanced Experience 3, it’s a great time for me to provide some additional information – to expand upon the news with background, a little more detail, and (hopefully) interesting tidbits from a behind-the-scenes perspective. EE3 was heavily influenced by the success of EE2 and all the feedback we received after its release.  We demonstrated our ability to shatter boot expectations and our ecosystem testing showed Lenovo PCs were, on average, the fastest available.  The most common responses were “that’s great but…” 1)      What about modestly configured systems (i.e. non-SSD)? or 2)      What happens in a few months after I’ve used it, won’t it slow down? We took this feedback and made sure to focus on addressing it in order to better satisfy our customers.  This meant ensuring that any improvements would span across the breadth of our product portfolio, especially rotational HDD-only PCs (still the largest volume configuration), and continue to work – even thrive – over time. RapidBoot in EE3 exists as two sub-technologies: 1)     ...

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