Undisputed heavyweight PC champ Lenovo continues to buck the industry trend by positing double-digit gains in sales and profits as rivals struggle to peel themselves off the canvas. The Chinese dragon – which punched HP off the top spot in calendar Q2 – reported a 10 per cent year-on-year spike in sales to $8.8bn for its …

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Thursday 15th August 2013 14:09 GMT Dr Trevor Marshall

We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails

I bought Lenovo Thinkpads as they offered drivers fro Windows XP and Windows 7, and came with Windows 7 pre-installed, not Windows 8. Plus they have a Legacy Bios mode as well as the UEFI.

I guess I was not alone in avoiding Windows 8....

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1. Thursday 15th August 2013 14:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails
  
  "I bought Lenovo Thinkpads as they offered drivers fro Windows XP and Windows 7, and came with Windows 7 pre-installed, not Windows 8."
  
  Which is exactly what I figured when I was reading this story: Lenovo's numbers are being buoyed by the fact that they continue to offer Windows 7 machines to the corporate world, while everyone else jumped on the Microsoft Windows 8 bandwagon only to witness falling sales.
  
  There is no rocket science here. Offer the customer what he/she wants and you'll get the business.
  
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  1. Thursday 15th August 2013 14:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
    
    Re: We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails
    
    > Lenovo's numbers are being buoyed by the fact that they continue to offer Windows 7 machines to the corporate world
    
    What? Most big corporates install their own OS image anyway. The fact that Lenovo are offering {Windows 7 + bloatware} instead of {Windows 8 + bloatware} to corporates has approximately zero impact.
    
    They are going well for two reasons a) great hardware at a good price b) sales in China are a lot healthier than US+Europe.
    
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    1. Thursday 15th August 2013 16:25 GMT Nigel 11
      
      Re: We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails
      
      My thought also. It's not the big corporates who care whether Windows 7 is factory-installed. On the other hand, what about the small companies out there? (Four men and a dog ltd.) They also don't want Windows 8, and don't always have the downgrade rights that big corporates take for granted.
      
      If Windows 7 drivers aren't offered, that's a do-not-buy flag to any size of customer that wants to run Windows 7. And factory install maybe suggests a greater comittment to Windows 7?
      
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2. Thursday 15th August 2013 14:29 GMT Anonymous Coward
  
  Re: We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails
  
  They also have good Linux support. I dual boot Windows 8 (which I like. shoot me.) and Gnomebuntu on mine and it works great for both.
  
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  1. Thursday 15th August 2013 14:51 GMT Goldmember
    
    Re: We are seeing Lenovo riding Windows 8's coat-tails
    
    It's funny you have to hide behind an AC post to admit you like Windows 8. I actually quite like it, too (at work, anyway. It wouldn't suit my home PC as well).
    
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Thursday 15th August 2013 17:50 GMT Anonymous Coward

Is it Lenovo?

Or is that buyers are fed up with Dell and HP?

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1. Thursday 15th August 2013 19:17 GMT Phil W
  
  Re: Is it Lenovo?
  
  HP and Dell kit isn't inherently bad but with their kit you either get cheap tat or expensive quality. Lenovo generally seem to manage good quality and good price. I have a Dell XPS which is good but wasn't cheap, friends have Inspirons which are pretty poor.
  
  I've had a couple of affordable laptops from Lenovo that were both exceptional spec for their price and built more solidly than any other major brand at anything close to that price point.
  
  I'm writing this post on a Lenovo a2109 Android tablet which again is a fantastic mix of spec/build quality/price.
  
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  1. Friday 16th August 2013 08:43 GMT d3rrial
    
    Re: Is it Lenovo?
    
    Maybe they prefer the pre-installed Windows7+Bloatware because they don't have to purchase an extra Win7 License then? They can still play on their own image, but re-use the OEM license without a problem, whereas if you bought Win8+Bloatware PCs, you'd have to play on your image + buy a corporate Win7 license, all the while having dozens(/hundreds) of PCs with an unused, but paid for, Win8 license
    
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Thursday 15th August 2013 19:45 GMT Daniel von Asmuth

Desktop shipments were flat in units but fell 2.8 per cent in revenues to $2.5bn.

So, Lenovo is feeling the pinch, just like other brands of PCs.

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Thursday 15th August 2013 19:52 GMT Al Jones

Where did people get the idea that only Lenovo offer Win7?

Dell and HP both offer Win7 Pro on even the most basic models in their Small/Medium Business stores.

(You've really got to wonder about the mentality of people that will grasp as such flimsy straws to "prove" that their own dislike of Windows 8 is rational, but that's grist for a different mill).

Lenovo are currently at the top of the list for our next refresh cycle. We stretched our last lot out a lot longer than originally planned, so overlapping compatibility with our existing Dells doesn't buy us anything, and for basic Office duties, it's really just a beauty contest, as they all use the same components, and Lenovo seems to meet our needs on fit & finish, support and price. (The fact that the Dell website won't tell me whether I can attach a second monitor if I need to definitely puts them on the back foot - their documentation has gone to hell since we last bought office PCs).

I'd really like to buy these basic machines with a 100GB SSD (I'd even go for a 60GB drive - all the data is on the LAN anyway) rather than a 500GB HDD, but HP, Dell and Lenovo all want more than $200 for that "upgrade", turning a $500 machine into a $700 machine!

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1. Thursday 15th August 2013 21:06 GMT Destroy All Monsters
  
  Re: Where did people get the idea that only Lenovo offer Win7?
  
  Why would you want to "prove that a dislike is rational"? Nobody has got to prove anything. Are you implying that disliking Windows 8 is non-politically correct, racist, possibly antisemitic?
  
  Dislike of Windows 8: There ought to be a law against it!
  
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2. Thursday 15th August 2013 23:07 GMT xj25vm
  
  Re: Where did people get the idea that only Lenovo offer Win7?
  
  "Dell and HP both offer Win7 Pro on even the most basic models in their Small/Medium Business stores."
  
  Maybe they do - but when I was looking somewhere in the spring online for some Win Pro machines which came pre-installed with Windows 7 - Lenovo was pretty much the first manufacturer that started to ship Win 7 again (if they ever stopped). HP just started doing that with their SME machines recently - and last time I checked Dell in the UK they weren't offering yet Win 7 Pro pre-installed for their retail business machines. So is it a matter of Lenovo listening a bit more closely to their customers - instead of just believing the BS coming from upstream suppliers?
  
  As to "grasping at flimsy straws" regarding Win 8. Yeah well, you keep on listening to the violins on the Titanic deck with the head firmly stuck in the sand. I've nothing against those few people who might like Windows 8 - but it seems pretty clear that the market has spoken and those of us who use computers to do useful stuff - not just to toy about - can't find any sane reason to adopt Windows 8 (except for the fact that it is the "future" - whatever the f**k that means without any rational, supporting argument).
  
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Friday 16th August 2013 10:39 GMT Peter 48

I wonder

In all these Post PC doom and gloom articles where does the custom PC builder come into the equation? Are we in anyway significant to the market figures or just too few in number? My last branded desktop purchase was made back in 1996 , after that I have built all my rigs (I guess about 8 or 9?) How many retail CPU's are actually sold?

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