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How many of us are using Thinkpad X1E?
- Thread starter hajime
- Start date
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I wonder how many ThinkPad users are using MacBook Pros now
I noticed that more people are using Thinkpads than before.
They have had some popular models lately between the X1E, X1C, Yoga, T480, T470, etc.
Beginning the December Quarter, Apple sales will be harder to gauge than ever, as "It’s clear that Apple is making more money by selling the same or fewer units of its devices." Emphasis mine, but I am betting that they are making more while selling fewer at a higher margin.
I'm using X1C. I would've purchase X1E, but couldn't thru Amazon at the time, and there were no reivews at all. And I mean at all. Not even one review was out. And I simply couldn't allow myself to order anything without reviews. If I received that device and it throttled, I would have just gotten another MB'P'. That's the one thing I couldn't allow.
But if I was in the market now, it would be either X1E (better keyboard, ports, better CPU, repairability and durability) vs SB2 (3:2 screen (one of the major things to me personally), quitter device and a better GPU). X1E seems like a great device. I will consider it next year or in 2020. Until then Lenovo can perfect their design
I'm using X1C. I would've purchase X1E, but couldn't thru Amazon at the time, and there were no reivews at all. And I mean at all. Not even one review was out. And I simply couldn't allow myself to order anything without reviews. If I received that device and it throttled, I would have just gotten another MB'P'. That's the one thing I couldn't allow.
But if I was in the market now, it would be either X1E (better keyboard, ports, better CPU, repairability and durability) vs SB2 (3:2 screen (one of the major things to me personally), quitter device and a better GPU). X1E seems like a great device. I will consider it next year or in 2020. Until then Lenovo can perfect their design
Does your X1C has noisy fan issue when playing full screen 4K youtube videos on a 4K TV?
Lisa of mobiletech review did not mention those noisy fan issue of the X1E. I wonder why? Could the noisy fan be the reason that all those professional reviewers delayed posting reviews of the X1E?
I just checked. It seems that I have a few more days to decide what to do with my current X1E. It seems that people with P1, i5 CPU also have noisy fan issues. Looks like X1E/P1 series is like that.
Seems like 8th gen CPUs with thin cases have noisy fans. Will the up-coming Intel Generation 9 mobile CPUs be better?
vs SB2 (3:2 screen (one of the major things to me personally), quitter device and a better GPU). X1E seems like a great device. I will consider it next year or in 2020. Until then Lenovo can perfect their design
The display aspect ratio is definitely one of those personal preference things. By far one of the biggest niggles that I have with the X1E is that I really dislike the 16:9 display aspect ratio and that is one of my major annoyances.
I find Apples 16:10 marginally better. I much prefer the 3:2 or 4:3 but I don't really use the laptop for media. To each their own for sure
The display aspect ratio is definitely one of those personal preference things. By far one of the biggest niggles that I have with the X1E is that I really dislike the 16:9 display aspect ratio and that is one of my major annoyances.
I find Apples 16:10 marginally better. I much prefer the 3:2 or 4:3 but I don't really use the laptop for media. To each their own for sure
I don’t have a preference on display ratio. So far, I am not bothered by it.
I like the 3:2 for photos and height, but it isn’t great for video and such. 16:9 is far better for video and probably gaming, but you lose some height. Only time I ever watch a movie is while on a flight and I don’t really game on a laptop, so I don’t mind the bigger bars the 3:2 leaves on top and bottom for movies, since it is the least of my use.
But it’s all personal preference right? Some people like 2 doors cars, some 4, some like trucks and others really don’t care
Don't really know, since I don't watch youtube in 4K. My screen is only 2K, so will have to test that out. At the moment I'm not near my X1C, but will report back as soon as I test it out.
I don't believe for Apple that is sustainable. For luxury brands, yes, but for what apple does I'm not so sure. There will be a point where people will be less willing to spend over 1,000 for a phone (at least on an annual basis) or 3k for a laptop every few years. I think not disclosing that will mean apple avoids discussions on those sales especially as thy go down.
I see quite a few on campus these days, as well as many generic-looking budget laptops. I think most students have realized that they all get the job done just the same... no point in blowing thousands on a word processing browser. There's only a handful of Macs in the STEM fields. Most of the Macs I see on campus are Airs used by Arts/Social Studies students, and that's because they can use pretty much anything and just get whatever everyone else has so they don't have to think about it.
Apple making more profit per unit means the buyer gets less for their money than they had previously. CAD $1500 for the base Air with a Y-series CPU and 128 GB storage... CAD $1729 for the base 13" "Pro" with 128 GB and dual-core. CAD $3200 for the base 15". Tough for most people to justify that kind of money for base models.
I agree that there is the less for your money aspect to the computer itself. There is also now a nearly mandatory requirement for Apple Care + these days with the required logic board replacement or top case replacement if anything goes wrong at all. And Apple Care is expensive for what it is. $379 for 3 years coverage on a 2018 and you *still* have to pay $99 for screen damage and $299 for other damage on top of that?
Lenovo charges $139 for 3 years Premier support coverage and an additional $99 for a total of $238. No additional charges/deductibles and claim that they will replace the machine if it is deemed unrepairable.
I think for anyone, particularly a student that $299 would still but a big financial blow if something happens that is not screen related. Especially after the $379 you already paid Apple just for the right to pay them another $299
But I think that kind of thing fits into the "services" that increase the profitability of the MBP amid declining unit sales. Expensive warranty, high deductible, expensive repairs.
I am on a mission to own the Thinkpad X1E but Lenovo is making it really tough to own one. For some reason, they keep rejecting my credit card. Tried my friend's card as well with the same results. I will have to call their credit card department. I wish Lenovo made it easier to do business with them.
In Canada, they are having a Black Friday sneak peek sale. An X1E with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 4K screen is going for 2495 + taxes. Although this model is now OOS, they have another, not as enticing but still a good deal, a 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 4K for 2200 CAD + taxes. I have been trying to buy the latter since the past 3 days but to no avail.
<Rant>
But whatever maybe the case, I am on a mission to go all Apple free. My beloved MBP 2015 is sold. I still have 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 Apple TVs, 1 MBP, 2 Apple Watches and 2 Homepods in the family and all of them will go. In fact, I think the Homepods have already found a home
I was reading an essay by Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard (which I will put here for your perusal since the Patagonia link seems to be broken). It is apparent to me that Apple is going to be a leader in the destruction of our planet cause it is a company with mass market appeal but one that discourages product re-use and repair and instead encourages you to buy more.
While my annoyance with Apple's prices started a few years ago, their attitude and scummy tactics they employ right now has converted my annoyance into rage. I just can't stand the company anymore and view the management led by Tim Cook as gluttonous sinners and wish the worst for the company. Even if it means that I have to use Windows or Linux, it is a small price to pay cause I can sleep better knowing fully well I no longer support a selfish company such as Apple.
</Rant>
Apologies for the rant and in case I might have offended anybody.
In Canada, they are having a Black Friday sneak peek sale. An X1E with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 4K screen is going for 2495 + taxes. Although this model is now OOS, they have another, not as enticing but still a good deal, a 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 4K for 2200 CAD + taxes. I have been trying to buy the latter since the past 3 days but to no avail.
<Rant>
But whatever maybe the case, I am on a mission to go all Apple free. My beloved MBP 2015 is sold. I still have 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 Apple TVs, 1 MBP, 2 Apple Watches and 2 Homepods in the family and all of them will go. In fact, I think the Homepods have already found a home
I was reading an essay by Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard (which I will put here for your perusal since the Patagonia link seems to be broken). It is apparent to me that Apple is going to be a leader in the destruction of our planet cause it is a company with mass market appeal but one that discourages product re-use and repair and instead encourages you to buy more.
While my annoyance with Apple's prices started a few years ago, their attitude and scummy tactics they employ right now has converted my annoyance into rage. I just can't stand the company anymore and view the management led by Tim Cook as gluttonous sinners and wish the worst for the company. Even if it means that I have to use Windows or Linux, it is a small price to pay cause I can sleep better knowing fully well I no longer support a selfish company such as Apple.
</Rant>
Apologies for the rant and in case I might have offended anybody.
In my ¾ century of stupid stunts, I’ve had enough near-death experiences that I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to die someday. I’m not too bothered by it. There is a beginning and end to all life --- and to all human endeavors.
Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I’m OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems.
I saw the birth of my first grandchild last year, and I worry about the future she faces. When I was born, the human population of our planet was 2.5 billion. When she will be just 38 years old, the population will hit 9 billion. If everyone consumed the way an average American does, humans would be using up more than four planets’ worth of resources. Hardly ‘‘sustainable.’’
The reason for this crisis is very simple. There are too many of us consuming too much stuff, and we demand that it be as cheap and disposable as possible. (Have you looked at the junk in one of those airline mail-order catalogs recently? Does the world really need a special tool for cutting bananas?) No wonder we don’t want to face up to the cause of our problems: It’s us! We are no longer called ‘‘citizens.’’ Economists, government and Wall Street call us ‘‘consumers.’’ We ‘‘destroy, waste, squander, use up,’’ and that’s just Webster’s definition. The sad truth is that the world economy revolves around our consumption. The stock markets rise and dip according to the level of consumer confidence. And while we work harder and harder to get more of what we don’t need, we lay waste to the natural world. Dr. Peter Senge, author and MIT lecturer, says, ‘‘We are sleepwalking into disaster, going faster and faster to get to where no one wants to be.’’ Can we even imagine what an economy would look like that wouldn’t destroy the home planet? A responsible economy? During the next two years, Patagonia will try to face and explore that question. We’ll ask some smart people to write essays on that subject for our catalogs and website. We’ll ask you to tell us where you see responsible economies cropping up. We’ll use real-world examples, not a lot of pie-in-the-sky theories. Most of all, we’re going to feel our way into how this question affects how we do business. Can Patagonia survive in a responsible economy? Stay tuned. It is the most ambitious and important endeavor we have ever undertaken. Our other environmental campaigns have addressed travesties such as the depletion of the oceans, pollution of water, and obstacles to migration paths for animals. But these are all symptoms of a far bigger problem; the Responsible Economy Campaign addresses the core.
Patagonia has worked for some 20-plus years to try to behave more responsibly. In 1991, Patagonia was growing at a rate of 50 percent a year, and we hit the wall in the midst of the savings-and-loan crisis. The bank reduced our credit line twice in several months, and the company ended up borrowing from friends to meet payroll and laying off 20 percent of its workforce on July 31, 1991. That’s a day I still refer to as Black Wednesday.
We learned the hard way about living within our means. We had exceeded our resources and limitations. We had become dependent, like the world economy, on growth we could not sustain. I even thought about selling the company. But if I hadn’t stayed in business, I never would have realized the parallel between Patagonia’s unsustainable push for growth and that of our whole industrial economy. After that day in 1991, we added a third point to our mission statement: It now reads, ‘‘Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’’
Making things in a more responsible way is a good start, and many companies like us have started doing that, but in the end we will not have a ‘‘sustainable economy’’ unless we consume less. However, economists tell us that would cause the economy to crash.
I think we at Patagonia are mandated by our mission statement to face the question of growth, both by bringing it up and by looking at our own situation as a business fully ensnared in the global industrial economy. I personally don’t have the answers, but in the back of my simple brain a few words come to the fore, words that have guided my life and Patagonia’s life as a company: quality, innovation, responsibility, simplicity.
I recently read a book about 40 companies that have been in business for over 200 years. I thought if those companies could exist that long, maybe they have some guiding principles that a responsible economy should follow. The common traits they all had were quality, innovation and restrained growth. Coming from a background of making the very best, lifesaving tools for the mountains, we applied the same philosophy to clothing. We have been innovators using technology not for the sake of inventing new products but to replace old, polluting and inefficient products and methods with cleaner, simpler and more appropriate technology. Every garment we make, for example, can be recycled now, unthinkable 10 years ago. We are working with more than 103 --- and counting --- other clothing manufacturers on what we call the Higg Index, which measures the environmental impact of textile manufacturing and which will be, in the end, public facing: You will be able to see the impact and history of a pair of jeans by pointing your smart phone at the bar code on their label. By choosing to consume more responsibly, perhaps we can relearn how to be citizens again and be part of the strongest force in society --- civil democracy. I have always believed that a design is perfected not when you can’t add anything more but when you can’t take anything away. The illustrator becomes an artist when he or she can evoke the same feeling with simpler line and form. Simplicity is the way to perfection. As a mountain climber, it pleases me to see the new generations of climbers soloing and climbing free routes on El Capitan in Yosemite that took us multiple days, fixed ropes and many pitons to climb.
I enjoy manual labor and love using good tools that leverage the efficiency of my efforts. But not a tool or machine that takes away the pleasure of the labor. (I think of that banana cutter, which replaces a perfectly good tool: my knife.)
I think the simple life really begins with owning less stuff.
We are questioning what Patagonia can do, as a company making some of this stuff, to lead us into the next, more responsible economy. After we grew too fast in the ’90s, we tried not growing at all. That resulted in stagnation and frustrated customers who often could not buy what they needed from us. You do not need a zero-growth economy. (In the same way you don’t have to stop people from having babies in order to stabilize the population: People die, babies are born; you need a balance between the two.) What we are reaching toward is an economy that does not rely on insatiable consumerism as its engine, an economy that stops harmful practices and replaces them with either new, more efficient practices or older practices that worked just fine. An economy with less duplication of consumer goods, less throw-away-and-close-your-eyes. We don’t know exactly how this will play out. But we do know that now is the time for all corporations to think about it and act.
I hope Patagonia can find a way to make decisions about growth based on being here for the next 200 years --- and not damaging the planet further in the process. As my granddaughter grows up, I’ll do my best to see that, just as I did and her parents did, she has a life in nature that she loves. Then she will want to protect it.
Source: Yvon Chouinard, ‘‘The Responsible Economy,’’ Fall 2013, http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=87969, accessed January 2014.
Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I’m OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems.
I saw the birth of my first grandchild last year, and I worry about the future she faces. When I was born, the human population of our planet was 2.5 billion. When she will be just 38 years old, the population will hit 9 billion. If everyone consumed the way an average American does, humans would be using up more than four planets’ worth of resources. Hardly ‘‘sustainable.’’
The reason for this crisis is very simple. There are too many of us consuming too much stuff, and we demand that it be as cheap and disposable as possible. (Have you looked at the junk in one of those airline mail-order catalogs recently? Does the world really need a special tool for cutting bananas?) No wonder we don’t want to face up to the cause of our problems: It’s us! We are no longer called ‘‘citizens.’’ Economists, government and Wall Street call us ‘‘consumers.’’ We ‘‘destroy, waste, squander, use up,’’ and that’s just Webster’s definition. The sad truth is that the world economy revolves around our consumption. The stock markets rise and dip according to the level of consumer confidence. And while we work harder and harder to get more of what we don’t need, we lay waste to the natural world. Dr. Peter Senge, author and MIT lecturer, says, ‘‘We are sleepwalking into disaster, going faster and faster to get to where no one wants to be.’’ Can we even imagine what an economy would look like that wouldn’t destroy the home planet? A responsible economy? During the next two years, Patagonia will try to face and explore that question. We’ll ask some smart people to write essays on that subject for our catalogs and website. We’ll ask you to tell us where you see responsible economies cropping up. We’ll use real-world examples, not a lot of pie-in-the-sky theories. Most of all, we’re going to feel our way into how this question affects how we do business. Can Patagonia survive in a responsible economy? Stay tuned. It is the most ambitious and important endeavor we have ever undertaken. Our other environmental campaigns have addressed travesties such as the depletion of the oceans, pollution of water, and obstacles to migration paths for animals. But these are all symptoms of a far bigger problem; the Responsible Economy Campaign addresses the core.
Patagonia has worked for some 20-plus years to try to behave more responsibly. In 1991, Patagonia was growing at a rate of 50 percent a year, and we hit the wall in the midst of the savings-and-loan crisis. The bank reduced our credit line twice in several months, and the company ended up borrowing from friends to meet payroll and laying off 20 percent of its workforce on July 31, 1991. That’s a day I still refer to as Black Wednesday.
We learned the hard way about living within our means. We had exceeded our resources and limitations. We had become dependent, like the world economy, on growth we could not sustain. I even thought about selling the company. But if I hadn’t stayed in business, I never would have realized the parallel between Patagonia’s unsustainable push for growth and that of our whole industrial economy. After that day in 1991, we added a third point to our mission statement: It now reads, ‘‘Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’’
Making things in a more responsible way is a good start, and many companies like us have started doing that, but in the end we will not have a ‘‘sustainable economy’’ unless we consume less. However, economists tell us that would cause the economy to crash.
I think we at Patagonia are mandated by our mission statement to face the question of growth, both by bringing it up and by looking at our own situation as a business fully ensnared in the global industrial economy. I personally don’t have the answers, but in the back of my simple brain a few words come to the fore, words that have guided my life and Patagonia’s life as a company: quality, innovation, responsibility, simplicity.
I recently read a book about 40 companies that have been in business for over 200 years. I thought if those companies could exist that long, maybe they have some guiding principles that a responsible economy should follow. The common traits they all had were quality, innovation and restrained growth. Coming from a background of making the very best, lifesaving tools for the mountains, we applied the same philosophy to clothing. We have been innovators using technology not for the sake of inventing new products but to replace old, polluting and inefficient products and methods with cleaner, simpler and more appropriate technology. Every garment we make, for example, can be recycled now, unthinkable 10 years ago. We are working with more than 103 --- and counting --- other clothing manufacturers on what we call the Higg Index, which measures the environmental impact of textile manufacturing and which will be, in the end, public facing: You will be able to see the impact and history of a pair of jeans by pointing your smart phone at the bar code on their label. By choosing to consume more responsibly, perhaps we can relearn how to be citizens again and be part of the strongest force in society --- civil democracy. I have always believed that a design is perfected not when you can’t add anything more but when you can’t take anything away. The illustrator becomes an artist when he or she can evoke the same feeling with simpler line and form. Simplicity is the way to perfection. As a mountain climber, it pleases me to see the new generations of climbers soloing and climbing free routes on El Capitan in Yosemite that took us multiple days, fixed ropes and many pitons to climb.
I enjoy manual labor and love using good tools that leverage the efficiency of my efforts. But not a tool or machine that takes away the pleasure of the labor. (I think of that banana cutter, which replaces a perfectly good tool: my knife.)
I think the simple life really begins with owning less stuff.
We are questioning what Patagonia can do, as a company making some of this stuff, to lead us into the next, more responsible economy. After we grew too fast in the ’90s, we tried not growing at all. That resulted in stagnation and frustrated customers who often could not buy what they needed from us. You do not need a zero-growth economy. (In the same way you don’t have to stop people from having babies in order to stabilize the population: People die, babies are born; you need a balance between the two.) What we are reaching toward is an economy that does not rely on insatiable consumerism as its engine, an economy that stops harmful practices and replaces them with either new, more efficient practices or older practices that worked just fine. An economy with less duplication of consumer goods, less throw-away-and-close-your-eyes. We don’t know exactly how this will play out. But we do know that now is the time for all corporations to think about it and act.
I hope Patagonia can find a way to make decisions about growth based on being here for the next 200 years --- and not damaging the planet further in the process. As my granddaughter grows up, I’ll do my best to see that, just as I did and her parents did, she has a life in nature that she loves. Then she will want to protect it.
Source: Yvon Chouinard, ‘‘The Responsible Economy,’’ Fall 2013, http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=87969, accessed January 2014.
I am on a mission to own the Thinkpad X1E but Lenovo is making it really tough to own one. For some reason, they keep rejecting my credit card. Tried my friend's card as well with the same results. I will have to call their credit card department. I wish Lenovo made it easier to do business with them.
In Canada, they are having a Black Friday sneak peek sale. An X1E with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 4K screen is going for 2495 + taxes. Although this model is now OOS, they have another, not as enticing but still a good deal, a 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 4K for 2200 CAD + taxes. I have been trying to buy the latter since the past 3 days but to no avail.
<Rant>
But whatever maybe the case, I am on a mission to go all Apple free. My beloved MBP 2015 is sold. I still have 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 Apple TVs, 1 MBP, 2 Apple Watches and 2 Homepods in the family and all of them will go. In fact, I think the Homepods have already found a home
I was reading an essay by Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard (which I will put here for your perusal since the Patagonia link seems to be broken). It is apparent to me that Apple is going to be a leader in the destruction of our planet cause it is a company with mass market appeal but one that discourages product re-use and repair and instead encourages you to buy more.
While my annoyance with Apple's prices started a few years ago, their attitude and scummy tactics they employ right now has converted my annoyance into rage. I just can't stand the company anymore and view the management led by Tim Cook as gluttonous sinners and wish the worst for the company. Even if it means that I have to use Windows or Linux, it is a small price to pay cause I can sleep better knowing fully well I no longer support a selfish company such as Apple.
</Rant>
Apologies for the rant and in case I might have offended anybody.
I was once 100% Apple, now only products I use is the 12" Retina MacBook which will be replaced this year, nor is it likely to be another Mac, a 2014 MBP that I only use for streaming, when it dies, it dies. I can easily afford Apple's pricing, however Apple's sheer greed, disregard and manipulation of it's customers sickens me.
More the principle and resounding lack of value Mac's now represent, with the Mac being now little more than a joke in many professional circles. 10 years ago a sub forum such as this on MR would have been absolutely unthinkable, in 2018 I can only see it growing...
Q-6
More the principle and resounding lack of value Mac's now represent, with the Mac being now little more than a joke in many professional circles. 10 years ago a sub forum such as this on MR would have been absolutely unthinkable, in 2018 I can only see it growing...
Q-6
I am on a mission to own the Thinkpad X1E but Lenovo is making it really tough to own one. For some reason, they keep rejecting my credit card. Tried my friend's card as well with the same results. I will have to call their credit card department. I wish Lenovo made it easier to do business with them.
In Canada, they are having a Black Friday sneak peek sale. An X1E with 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD, 4K screen is going for 2495 + taxes. Although this model is now OOS, they have another, not as enticing but still a good deal, a 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, 4K for 2200 CAD + taxes. I have been trying to buy the latter since the past 3 days but to no avail.
<Rant>
But whatever maybe the case, I am on a mission to go all Apple free. My beloved MBP 2015 is sold. I still have 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, 2 Apple TVs, 1 MBP, 2 Apple Watches and 2 Homepods in the family and all of them will go. In fact, I think the Homepods have already found a home
I was reading an essay by Patagonia's founder Yvon Chouinard (which I will put here for your perusal since the Patagonia link seems to be broken). It is apparent to me that Apple is going to be a leader in the destruction of our planet cause it is a company with mass market appeal but one that discourages product re-use and repair and instead encourages you to buy more.
While my annoyance with Apple's prices started a few years ago, their attitude and scummy tactics they employ right now has converted my annoyance into rage. I just can't stand the company anymore and view the management led by Tim Cook as gluttonous sinners and wish the worst for the company. Even if it means that I have to use Windows or Linux, it is a small price to pay cause I can sleep better knowing fully well I no longer support a selfish company such as Apple.
</Rant>
Apologies for the rant and in case I might have offended anybody.
In my ¾ century of stupid stunts, I’ve had enough near-death experiences that I’ve accepted the fact that I’m going to die someday. I’m not too bothered by it. There is a beginning and end to all life --- and to all human endeavors.
Species evolve and die off. Empires rise, then break apart. Businesses grow, then fold. There are no exceptions. I’m OK with all that. Yet it pains me to bear witness to the sixth great extinction, where we humans are directly responsible for the extirpation of so many wonderful creatures and invaluable indigenous cultures. It saddens me to observe the plight of our own species; we appear to be incapable of solving our problems.
I saw the birth of my first grandchild last year, and I worry about the future she faces. When I was born, the human population of our planet was 2.5 billion. When she will be just 38 years old, the population will hit 9 billion. If everyone consumed the way an average American does, humans would be using up more than four planets’ worth of resources. Hardly ‘‘sustainable.’’
The reason for this crisis is very simple. There are too many of us consuming too much stuff, and we demand that it be as cheap and disposable as possible. (Have you looked at the junk in one of those airline mail-order catalogs recently? Does the world really need a special tool for cutting bananas?) No wonder we don’t want to face up to the cause of our problems: It’s us! We are no longer called ‘‘citizens.’’ Economists, government and Wall Street call us ‘‘consumers.’’ We ‘‘destroy, waste, squander, use up,’’ and that’s just Webster’s definition. The sad truth is that the world economy revolves around our consumption. The stock markets rise and dip according to the level of consumer confidence. And while we work harder and harder to get more of what we don’t need, we lay waste to the natural world. Dr. Peter Senge, author and MIT lecturer, says, ‘‘We are sleepwalking into disaster, going faster and faster to get to where no one wants to be.’’ Can we even imagine what an economy would look like that wouldn’t destroy the home planet? A responsible economy? During the next two years, Patagonia will try to face and explore that question. We’ll ask some smart people to write essays on that subject for our catalogs and website. We’ll ask you to tell us where you see responsible economies cropping up. We’ll use real-world examples, not a lot of pie-in-the-sky theories. Most of all, we’re going to feel our way into how this question affects how we do business. Can Patagonia survive in a responsible economy? Stay tuned. It is the most ambitious and important endeavor we have ever undertaken. Our other environmental campaigns have addressed travesties such as the depletion of the oceans, pollution of water, and obstacles to migration paths for animals. But these are all symptoms of a far bigger problem; the Responsible Economy Campaign addresses the core.
Patagonia has worked for some 20-plus years to try to behave more responsibly. In 1991, Patagonia was growing at a rate of 50 percent a year, and we hit the wall in the midst of the savings-and-loan crisis. The bank reduced our credit line twice in several months, and the company ended up borrowing from friends to meet payroll and laying off 20 percent of its workforce on July 31, 1991. That’s a day I still refer to as Black Wednesday.
We learned the hard way about living within our means. We had exceeded our resources and limitations. We had become dependent, like the world economy, on growth we could not sustain. I even thought about selling the company. But if I hadn’t stayed in business, I never would have realized the parallel between Patagonia’s unsustainable push for growth and that of our whole industrial economy. After that day in 1991, we added a third point to our mission statement: It now reads, ‘‘Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.’’
Making things in a more responsible way is a good start, and many companies like us have started doing that, but in the end we will not have a ‘‘sustainable economy’’ unless we consume less. However, economists tell us that would cause the economy to crash.
I think we at Patagonia are mandated by our mission statement to face the question of growth, both by bringing it up and by looking at our own situation as a business fully ensnared in the global industrial economy. I personally don’t have the answers, but in the back of my simple brain a few words come to the fore, words that have guided my life and Patagonia’s life as a company: quality, innovation, responsibility, simplicity.
I recently read a book about 40 companies that have been in business for over 200 years. I thought if those companies could exist that long, maybe they have some guiding principles that a responsible economy should follow. The common traits they all had were quality, innovation and restrained growth. Coming from a background of making the very best, lifesaving tools for the mountains, we applied the same philosophy to clothing. We have been innovators using technology not for the sake of inventing new products but to replace old, polluting and inefficient products and methods with cleaner, simpler and more appropriate technology. Every garment we make, for example, can be recycled now, unthinkable 10 years ago. We are working with more than 103 --- and counting --- other clothing manufacturers on what we call the Higg Index, which measures the environmental impact of textile manufacturing and which will be, in the end, public facing: You will be able to see the impact and history of a pair of jeans by pointing your smart phone at the bar code on their label. By choosing to consume more responsibly, perhaps we can relearn how to be citizens again and be part of the strongest force in society --- civil democracy. I have always believed that a design is perfected not when you can’t add anything more but when you can’t take anything away. The illustrator becomes an artist when he or she can evoke the same feeling with simpler line and form. Simplicity is the way to perfection. As a mountain climber, it pleases me to see the new generations of climbers soloing and climbing free routes on El Capitan in Yosemite that took us multiple days, fixed ropes and many pitons to climb.
I enjoy manual labor and love using good tools that leverage the efficiency of my efforts. But not a tool or machine that takes away the pleasure of the labor. (I think of that banana cutter, which replaces a perfectly good tool: my knife.)
I think the simple life really begins with owning less stuff.
We are questioning what Patagonia can do, as a company making some of this stuff, to lead us into the next, more responsible economy. After we grew too fast in the ’90s, we tried not growing at all. That resulted in stagnation and frustrated customers who often could not buy what they needed from us. You do not need a zero-growth economy. (In the same way you don’t have to stop people from having babies in order to stabilize the population: People die, babies are born; you need a balance between the two.) What we are reaching toward is an economy that does not rely on insatiable consumerism as its engine, an economy that stops harmful practices and replaces them with either new, more efficient practices or older practices that worked just fine. An economy with less duplication of consumer goods, less throw-away-and-close-your-eyes. We don’t know exactly how this will play out. But we do know that now is the time for all corporations to think about it and act.
I hope Patagonia can find a way to make decisions about growth based on being here for the next 200 years --- and not damaging the planet further in the process. As my granddaughter grows up, I’ll do my best to see that, just as I did and her parents did, she has a life in nature that she loves. Then she will want to protect it.
Source: Yvon Chouinard, ‘‘The Responsible Economy,’’ Fall 2013, http://www.patagonia.com/us/patagonia.go?assetid=87969, accessed January 2014.
I had that issue with Lenovo also. I called my bank and it seemed the issue was a result of Lenovo wanting to modify my address to meet some postal code standard, rather than what the bank actually had on file as my address . When I tried again without accepting Lenovo’s suggested address and stuck instead with the address as I typed it, it went through.
Hopefully you’re issue is a similar and easily resolved one. Give the card issuing bank a call if you continue to have trouble.
Same I most certainly do not class Apple as a luxury brand by any means. Apple produces consumer devices by the millions that are more premium than the base average, with that factor eroding year on year. What Apple does master way above and beyond any other company is the selling of it's brand, generating hype & kudos in a very cleverly controlled & managed manner, while prioritising the eradication of any negativity towards the company that may possibly impact sales.
Apple crushes it's suppliers by levering it's economy of scale (AKA bullying), makes it's users "pay through the nose" by nickel & diming them at every possible instant. Apple looks to "lock it's users into it's ecosystem. Thing is once you break out of the "Walled Garden" you'll find that the world offers so much more diversity, yep there's a few "nettles" that can sting, but that's all part of growing up, no.
Plugs in headphones, pours more Gin, turns up volume, hits execute, no disappointment's, no dongles, no throttling, no ridiculous 0.5mm travel unreliable keyboards, no random crashes, no reliability concerns thx to a standard 3 year OEM warranty, Apple can simply KCUF right off at this point in time, nor am I alone with such opinions, never seen so many switch and for very good reason...
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