ThinkPad and Volvo Comparison
The response to my If ThinkPad Was a Car blog and related poll has been very interesting. Clearly Volvo is winning the day by a wide margin. Not too big of a surprise to me. For years Volvo has been known for making exceptionally engineered, solid, reliable and safety minded cars with a reserved classic design. Sounds a lot like the ThinkPad brand attributes to me. Maybe Volvo needs to go back to making them a bit more boxy, or maybe we need a heated keyboard for those cold Swedish nights. Thanks for participating in the poll.
David Hill
January 17th, 2009 at 4:28 am
I guess I’m one of the few that didn’t vote Volvo. I voted BMW because to me, a BMW is a machine built for driving, and everything else is secondary to that experience.
In the same vein, a thinkpad is built for computing. It is an unadulterated _slab_ of computing, given physical form.
A Volvo, on the other hand, is built to distance the driver from the act of driving as much as possible, both from a tactile and responsive sense as well as from the consequences. It is like a giant metal prophylactic, shielding the user from the experience. And superficial facelifts aside, the Volvo S40s and C30s and their ilk remain entrenched in their wallowy sea of soft, mushy suspension and dead, unresponsive steering.
I always feel sorry for Volvo drivers, just as I feel sorry for Mac users. They don’t know what they’re missing ^_^.
January 17th, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Hehe.. I haven’t voted, but there is some Volvoness in Lenovo Think Pad.
Volvo was originally build by Scandinavians for Scandinavians and Scandinavian needs. It’s reasonable, tough and modest – what Scandinavians are and this makes Volvo cool even if it’s a “crap car”. Outside Sweden Volvo cars were sold to reasonable people who bought it as a commodity. They got a lot of a car for the price. In Branding the marketing people would say, they bought Volvo for its functional values. However many architects bought Volvo and Saab because of their non-functional value, for “Scandinavianess”
Volvo is not Scandinavian any more. It’s owned by Ford and it’s global. Under the skin Volvo is a mix of horrible cross platform parts, non of which has anything to do with Scandinavia. The only thing left is a few Swedish designers in a multinational Volvo design team who try to reason the design, because of their passion for what Volvo used to be.
When ThinkPad was bought by Lenovo it lost some of the charisma. It has kept its functional Brand values, but non-functional values changed.
What you are trying to do is to make a Volvo with a shape from 50s’ with great engine and suspension inside, having a Ford badge on it, and sell it to a crowd as “original”
Here is a link on Visual Brand Recognition where Volvo design is mentioned.
Car industry is in real trouble and no wonder why. The cars are all the same, there is too many brands made by the same maker. There is no difference except the outer shell. What you are doing is sticking to the old shape hoping it will turn into a value and sell. It might become a Porsche 911, but if that’s your plan then make some radical changes – put the IBM logo back OR develop a technology that makes others cry OR fly it to Mars. Just imagine Porsche 911 Brand being bought by Chinese who would put 911 next to any of their car ripoff logos. Even if the car would be better, calling it a 911 Jiangling is just not a 911 Porsche. And if you don’t see why, then…
People see Brands as persons… What kind of a person is Lenovo? What does Lenovo stand for? China design? Chinese way of living? Watching this video, I must say I could not relate to Chinese values. Compare this to Volvo.
I suggest a book called Authenticity: What Consumers Really Want for you to see why Lenovo ThinkPad in a form as it is today is not acceptable…
“Maybe Volvo needs to go back to making them a bit more boxy, or maybe we need a heated keyboard for those cold Swedish nights.”
If Lenovo is a consumer concious company then sure – make a heated keyboard of some sort, or wents that blow air hot air/cold from inside (like the cars do). But looking at those crash tests I doubt Lenovo cares.
The Authenticity rule would be “Make ThinkPad Chinese. Lenovo, be true to yourself.”
Watching this video I dwell “is being a fake actually being Chinese” Is Lenovo ThinkPad with its old shell and Lenovo badge actually an original Chinese product? Is the only way for China to avoid plagiarism ban outside China to buy Brands?
January 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Nothing beats my 245 Estate!
e.g. it drove in 80cm(!) of flooding water, while all electrics kept working and it stayed absolutely dry inside! That’s quality. With it I was pulling out of the water several more modern and more expensive 850s and V70s, which just gave up in water only as deep as 40cm. It in situations like this where cars or laptops can prove their qualities.
For me, the same is valid in analogy for the T42p UXGA Flexview compared to the more recent 15inch Thinkpad models. IMO Lenovo still has to find back their way to the good old trusty Thinkpad qualities.
SCNR
January 18th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
“IMO Lenovo still has to find back their way to the good old trusty Thinkpad qualities.”
I don’t know where I’m going to go to get my next laptop. Lenovo’s making (and announcing) complete crap, has pretty much ruined everything they bought from IBM, and seem unable to realize it.
January 20th, 2009 at 3:57 am
You should use your car analogy as warning.
What you associate with volvo is what Volvo used to be. Currently I see little reason to pick e.g. a Volvo c40/V50 over a Mazda 3 or a Ford Escort. Volvo is no longer saver than other cars, or more practical than other cars, and the coolness factor of having a car which is the essence of a car is also gone.
Make sure you are not following Volvo.. e.g. I would have huge problems recommending an Thinkpad SL over any otherbrands entry level model, which are likely based on a similar barebone
If you need a car analogy rather look at the french cars, e.g. renault. they are not bought as a fashion statement, they are not “ccol” in a fashion sense, but they are save, practical , economical and durable. Why they are sometimes ugly on the outside (Megane), they are usualy quite nice at the inside, where it counts for the owner.These are also roughly the reasons why I have a Thinkpad.
They try out-of the box design idas, even quite a lot of them are not sucessfull (Avantime), some changed the industry ( the renault espace basically invented the Van, at least for europe).
January 21st, 2009 at 10:46 am
It is alarming that people link thinkpad to Volvo, which has a shrinking market share and customer base. Maybe that is what Thinkpad is experiencing now, I hope not. I have been using Thinkpad all my adult life and would very much keep buying and using Thinkpads. I wish more people will link Thinkpad to BMW (or Mini).
I hope Thinkpad will introduce more innovations in laptop design. X300/X301 is very well done (and I bought one). W700 is not bad. T400 and W500 will need some redesign to bring it to the level of X300/X301.
Below is a list that I will be excited to see in future thinkpads.
1. a better screen (e.g. IPS on W500)
2. better keyboard/mouse (please use the X300/X301 keyboard/mouse on T and W series, I mean the blue stripes, etc). How about copying the W700 tablet to W500?
3. case material (again use the X300 material to add to the texture feeling).
4. internal improvements for performance (I like the switchable graphics on T/W, like turbo engine)
January 25th, 2009 at 10:05 am
Volvo is NOT AT ALL sexy, in particular nowadays, when are they sharing parts with Ford. ThinkPads, on the other hand, are reliable and still look sexy.
Linking the ThinkPad brand to the late Volvo – bad taste.
I’m still glad that Lenovo sponsors an F1 team.
January 27th, 2009 at 11:59 am
I own a Volvo.
It’s my second. And so far I’ve had 4 Thinkpads. I couldn’t think of a better connection. Volvo is reliable, as my Thinkpad has been reliable. Some human ups and downs also 
.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
One of the hosts of the BBC’s “Top Gear” (the best show on TV, by the way) recently described a Volvo as “a box that you keep your airbags in.”