How Lenovo (IBM) Lost a Loyal Customer

A Tale of a Dead Legion and a Living Lifebook

Image of a Fujitsu Lifebook next to a Lenovo Laptop — How IBM has lost a customer for life

Publish Date: 27^th March 2025Last Updated: 31^st October 2025

Author: nick smith - With the help of GROK3

At 58, I’m not one for extravagance. In fact, I’ve only owned two new laptops in my life—pretty impressive for a developer with over 20 years of coding under my belt. I’m not chasing the latest gaming rig or a machine that can render the Matrix in real-time. Give me a text editor, a server, and I’m good to go. Company hand-me-downs don’t count—those were just recycled relics from ex-employees, wiped clean and dumped on my desk. But when I’ve splashed out on something new, I’ve expected it to last. Oh, how Lenovo proved me wrong.

Let’s rewind to 2011. At 45, I decided to treat myself to a computer science degree and a shiny new Fujitsu i3 Lifebook—snagged for a cool £350 in an online sale. That little trooper became my trusty sidekick, surviving 14 years of global adventures, backpack hauls, and the occasional coffee spill (sorry, not sorry). It’s clocked over 33,700 hours of work, endured four hard drive swaps, three battery replacements, and the constant shedding of my cat. Apart from the odd tune-up, it’s been faultless—a true Lifebook, living up to its name.

Fast forward to two years ago, when a company handed me a brand-new Lenovo Core i7 Legion for a project. Premium product, premium price tag—surely this was a machine built to last, right? Wrong. Just over a month ago, the screen froze mid-work. “No biggie,” I thought, rebooting it like the seasoned techie I am. Cue the keyboard flashing like a disco rave, followed by… nothing. Dead silence. With 20+ years of laptop triage experience, I went for the classic fix: yank the battery, let it breathe. Easier said than done. Unlike the good ol’ days of pop-off lids, this Legion demanded I unscrew a dozen tiny screws and wrestle with a connector so fiddly it could’ve been designed by a sadist. After all that surgery, it still wouldn’t wake up. Diagnosis: a fried motherboard. At less than two years old. Two years.

“No worries,” I told myself. “It’s a Lenovo, barely out of diapers, and treated like royalty—no scratches, no spills, kid gloves all the way.” The company I worked with contacted Lenovo (via IBM, their corporate overlord), expecting a reasonable fix. Instead, we got a cold slap: “Sorry, it’s one month out of warranty. New motherboard? £1000. Labour not included.” A thousand quid for a part on a premium machine that shouldn’t have croaked so soon? We weren’t asking for a gold-plated replacement—just a repair that acknowledged this wasn’t our fault. But Lenovo wouldn’t budge. My Legion was officially a very expensive paperweight.

Now, here’s the punchline: I’m back on my 14-year-old Fujitsu Lifebook, typing this very article. It’s slower than a sloth on sedatives, but it works. Meanwhile, the Lenovo Legion—a name that once evoked images of unstoppable Roman armies—has become a monument to corporate indifference. I’ve owned three used Lenovo ThinkPads from the glory days (15+ years ago), built when quality wasn’t just a buzzword. Those relics still hum along when I dust them off. But this latest fiasco? It’s not even the failure that stings—it’s Lenovo’s refusal to do the right thing.

I get it, stuff breaks. But when a premium product dies prematurely and the company shrugs it off with a “tough luck” and a £1000 bill, that’s not a glitch—that’s a betrayal. Lenovo didn’t just lose a laptop; they lost me. Today, it’s one machine. Tomorrow, it could’ve been 5, 10, 50 for a big project. Guess who’s not getting that call? Here’s a hint: it rhymes with “denovo.”

So, farewell, Lenovo. I’ll stick with my battle-scarred Fujitsu, a laptop that’s outlived marriages, presidencies, and apparently, Lenovo’s customer service ethos. The Legion may be dead, but my loyalty to brands that stand by their products? That’s still kicking—just not for you.

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How Lenovo (IBM) Lost a Loyal Customer

A Tale of a Dead Legion and a Living Lifebook

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