Thinkpads Forum

I just called EPP and they told me the t61p would never be available in a standard 4:3 display

They tell more BS over the phone

FWIW, if you do a 8889CTO T61 4:3 14" you can add the Quadro FX 570m as a video card (and the 9 cell battery). I can't pull up the quote I made with the FX 570m, but when I added that video card, I seem to recall one of the itemized parts on the CTO saying T61p (cl.plate or case badge or something).

I'm really irritated at their attitude about all this. Secret models that they make but won't sell you, lying CSR tools, etc. Lenovo is well on their way to alienating a bunch of longtime customers.

It seems that it exists, for example in Germany or France (search UI03DFR)

Regards,

bitvector wrote:Secret models that they make but won't sell you

They will sell a customer almost any manufacturable configuration if they will commit to buying enough of them. There never been anything secret about that

IBM always had custom builds for bulk purchase customers..... how did you think the huge numbers of configurations that show up in the support "manually identify your Thinkpad" selection boxes got to be there?... and Lenovo continues that approach.

lying CSR tools, etc.

If you ask a retail CSR a low volume retail purchase question you will get a low volume retail purchase answer. If you ask high volume commercial account rep a high volume commercial purchase question you will get a high volume commercial puchase answer..... which may be quite different from the low volume retail answer.

There is also nothing secret about that either... and its exactly the same as all the major laptop suppliers do too!

Cheers,

Bill B.

You can configure an 8889 model and almost get a t61p-spec machine... the nvidia 570 is an option but it only states 128MB of video memory. Not sure if that is a typo or not. Everything else can be top of the line and that'll give you a 4:3 14.1" screen.

bill bolton wrote:They will sell a customer almost any manufacturable configuration if they will commit to buying enough of them. There never been anything secret about that

I know how it works; I work for IBM. The fact is, these 8889CTOs are being sold through a few alumni sites; that's not likely to be high-volume and the fact that they are CTO means it's not an issue of volume. If the models were somehow subsidized and sold at a loss for educational purposes, I could understand that, but the 4:3 models are substantially more expensive than comparably spec'd widescreens, so I'm not sure about that.

bill bolton wrote:

lying CSR tools, etc.

If you ask a retail CSR a low volume retail purchase question you will get a low volume retail purchase answer. If you ask high volume commercial account rep a high volume commercial purchase question you will get a high volume commercial puchase answer..... which may be quite different from the low volume retail answer.

I called and asked for a 4:3 14" T61. They have three US models in the tabook, one of which is not marked "educational." I tell them this and they still tell me it doesn't exist. Something like three CSRs told me that it didn't exist and I couldn't have it. Two others priced it for me. A few CSRs went on to tell me that non-widescreen T-series Thinkpads would never be offered again. A few even told me non-widescreen T60s didn't exist. I've been given more misinformation by the CSRs than correct information and, low or high volume, I don't appreciate that.

bitvector wrote: A few even told me non-widescreen T60s didn't exist. I've been given more misinformation by the CSRs than correct information and, low or high volume, I don't appreciate that.

I've found CRS to be like car dealers. They are clueless about most things and all they wanna do is make a sale.

And coming soon to a lenovo call center near you... a strong Indian accent!

But seriously, I worry that Lenovo is going to dumb down its consumer support even more in the coming years (though hopefully not as badly as Dell with its utterly clueless Indian call center staff) leaving only business customers with half-decent sales and support.

mattbiernat wrote:I've found CRS to be like car dealers. They are clueless about most things and all they wanna do is make a sale.

Most of the ones I talked to didn't even seem to want to make a sale. When I ask for a model with feature X, I'd expect someone who wanted to make a sale to say "I'll try to help you find what you want" or "let me check on that" or "let me see what I can do" rather than the variety of brusque responses I got.