Tired of the world...well, not the world..but it seems....

[draco2527]

it is coming to and end......NO!!!

Is not that bad, but it has gotten to the point were I have to vent...Here is the story...

I have owned almost every model and designation that IBM/ThinkPad has ever come out with, the i series was something that should have not carried the ThinkPad name; they learned, they moved on!

The thinkpad 600E and 600X were what the 760's and 701's were...awesome!(770's sweet, but bulky)

The T2X series had their flaws and cheap plastics were common nature (for the sake of the article we will try to stay on the T series). So I had a T20 a few T21's and a T23, then I had two T30's..one was LOADED (blue- tooth, sxga, etc) the other was an average package. Up to this point I had no major issues with IBM, one of the 760's I dropped and I sent it in for an estimate on repairs..IBM replaced the plastics and motherboard at no charge! SERVICE UNMATCHED by any other computer manufacturer....

The SXGA T30 had a small "black" piece of lint on the back of the display from the minute I got it out of the box, I sent it in; they replaced the screen no questions asked! I have probably sent in my personal TP's to EZ-Serv about 10X's; my friends ThinkPads just as many times...their service EXCELLENT. Called at 10pm, the next morning (6-7am) I had a box in my door, IBM got it the next day and by the third day it was back in the door-step..fixed to my satisfaction (99.9999% of the time).

Currently I have a T40 and a T41, I looked at the T60 "video" and "stills" at "lenovo.com"...PAY CLOSE ATTENTION:

If you look at the still, there is a screw missing on the top, left corner of the LCD (were it attaches on the side)....look at the video and you will see that EVERY single screw cover is missing....made me feel un-easy! Guess they did a lot of research! BS...and made sure their pics were TOP-NOTCH for that release....IF they are so sloppy with that....imagine what is next.....so...

the T41 developed a bad case of PCMCIA'tes "I do not want to work syndrome" and the high-speed usb ports stopped working as high-speed (every single controller, bios, OS update has been applied..and the lappy OS re-installed..still...no go). So I had another laptop doing the work, the T40 DIED...so I called IBM, got the box and sent it in.....they got it today.....

Well, I check the status about 10 times today...stuck in the same "received" status....called EZ-Serv..."waiting on Tech"...OK! Usually it would have been fixed and in-route to inspection for shipping....5pm called again..."Waiting on Tech"....WT*IGO?...Well they NO LONGER repair SAME DAY...now is a 3 TO 5 BUSINESS DAYS wait before a tech will even look at it....tach another 3 TO 5 BUSINESS DAYS before it will be ready to ship back..... I think I almost cried!!! They have become the Toshiba's, Compaq/HP's and Dell's that I hated....


I had a T41p on order (used, with 2+ years of warranty remaining) for $1K. I will take the T41 for the PCMCIA to a local IBM repair shop and hope for the best....based on their response I will then re-order the T41p...I think my ThinkPad days are numbered......Toshiba tablets are starting to look really good! and I own a D810 with a 128MB video card, DVD burner USXGA screen and lots of goodies for under $1,700 (work lappy) and they did an awesome job with it....so even Dell is looking better then IBM/Lenovo.....aahhh...still mad...............

.........Tony

[christopher_wolf]

Ah...The Temptation of D(H)ell, eh? I wouldn't

I do think, however, that the Toshiba tablet is quite a good system

Every now and then; problems come up with systems; but looking at the T40 my friend got *when it first came out* and has worked on it solid, up to this very day, without any problems is all I need to scare myself into thinking straight (Egads, I don't want to know what else it went through ) I myself am quite satisfied with my T43 and I think I will be for a long time yet to come.

[BillMorrow]

since the sale of the service business so long ago things have ever so slowly become ordinary..
with luck one will get the old service level..

for 2 years i have recommended to my customers to buy the onsite warranty upgrade..
$180~ and the tech comes to you..
WELL worth the cost..
if for no other reason that it is the ideal repair sceanario..
a work table with you on one side and the tech on the other side..

[AlphaKilo470]

As far as service and quality go, I have to this point maintained a rather positve attitude thinking that not much is due to change as it would take a good while for the old IBM to start fading and the new Lenovo to start showing but now as various elements of Lenovo start to surface here and there, it's important to keep an eye out. Let's just hope that Lenovo's declining service levels are simply a result of common troubles associated with a harder time keeping focus from the midst of a major corporate transition and restrcuture.

As ofr build quality, I'm still rather confident in the ThinkPad brand and I'm sure that the production model T60s and X60s will have all of their screws and screw covers. If not, I'm sure it won't go long without being noticed and picking up widespread negative publicity. Until we see what the T60 is like in the flesh, we just need to hope that the missing screw in the publicity photos is more of a marketing mishap than anything else. After all, marketing departments do seem to run themselves and IBM's, as history has shown us, has not always been the best and maybe Lenovo was unfortunate to pick some of that up.

My experience with past ThinkPads has always been pretty good and the quality of the computer usually exceeds that of other brand names and the computer usually lasts a pretty long time. The worst IBM laptop experience I've had so far was with the keyboard and non-stop IRQ issues on various ThinkPad 760's though on the other side of the spectrum the 760 also has provided to me one of the best experiences in terms of upgrading and the screens on the 760's have even newer laptop's screens beat in the areas of brightness, picture quality and sharpness, even if they were only 12". The most durable ThinkPad I've ever used was my 380ED which has been dropped numerous times on accident and has even survived having a 5 pound marble paperweight fall off my desk shelf onto it without even getting so much as a scratch. The most comfortable ThinkPad I've ever used would be the 600E I'm typing my post on now. The wristpad is a perfect size, the rubber paint feels great (I wish new ThinkPads would have the option of a rubberized wristpad) and the keyboard is superior to any other. The screen is also worth writing home about as the brightness is great and the 1024x768 resolution just looks great on the 13" TFT panel.

I'm hoping that in the future, after the Lenovo transistion is finally complete and Lenovo has a solid feel for the marketplace, the ThinkPad models put out will be able to match or exceed the good experiences with past products from IBM I had mentioned.