Blinded by the (Thinkpad) Hype?

[jparr]

So I have had my T42 (2378FVU) for a few months now, and it has turned out to be just as craptastic as most other laptops. I have had the motherboard replaced due to a video failure. This resulted in me being without the laptop for two months. So much for Thinkpad reliability.

The case, although relatively stiff when new has loosed up to the point of flexing more than most Dells/HPs I use. I have tried backing out, and retightening the chassis screws, to no avail.

After coming back from the motherboard replacement, the right palmrest now creaks loudly when I rest my hand on it while typing. There were posts on this forum that recommend loosening the screws on the plamrest to fix this, and removing them, and reinstalling them has lessened the noise, bit it is still a noise that does not exist on any other quality laptop I have used.

Motherboard noise. When I drag a window around on the screen (or there is any other sort of screen update), I hear a hissing sound out of the system. It is not from the speakers, it is not the fan. Disabling the USB ports as suggested has no effect.

There have been many posts on here knocking Dell in particular, for their keyboards rubbing against the LCD. I feel very strongly that there is no excuse for this. What a surprise when I noticed the same thing happens on my Thinkpad. The ultranav cap rubs the screen, and this isn't a big deal, just annoying. You can easily wipe away the greasy spot on the screen with a soft cloth. The real problem is, that the middle mouse button (the blue one) scrapes the LCD. I now have about a 3/4" x 1/8" mark on my LCD that cannot be cleaned. The button has scratched in to the LCD.

The rubber coating on the lid is rubbing off on the outside corners as well.

So, before you run out and buy yourself a Thinkpad due to all the positive posts on here, remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. As for me, when its time for a new laptop, I'll avoid the 25% premium for a Thinkpad, and get myself another Dell.

[beerak]

You should return it to IBM, if you're not satisfied with warranty repair. They have to repair it if not you should call for refundation.

[K. Eng]

I have had the motherboard replaced due to a video failure. This resulted in me being without the laptop for two months. So much for Thinkpad reliability.

Wow. That is terrible. I had *2* system board failures, but each time my machine was fixed and returned to me within 48 hours

The case, although relatively stiff when new has loosed up to the point of flexing more than most Dells/HPs I use. I have tried backing out, and retightening the chassis screws, to no avail.

After coming back from the motherboard replacement, the right palmrest now creaks loudly when I rest my hand on it while typing.

If you remove the palmrest, you should see that underneath the right hand side is a notch that fits into a groove above the HDD cage. The reason the palmrest makes noise is because it is moving up and down and the plastic of the notch and groove makes the noise. You can fix this by taping a very thin slice of foam to the notch so that there is no up and down movement.

Motherboard noise. When I drag a window around on the screen (or there is any other sort of screen update), I hear a hissing sound out of the system. It is not from the speakers, it is not the fan. Disabling the USB ports as suggested has no effect.

I think it is from the GPU.

Re: screen - everyone seems to have this problem, especially Apple. What Dell did with their latest Latitudes was put rubber spacers on the LCD display itself to keep the screen from touching the keys. I wish IBM had done that.

So, before you run out and buy yourself a Thinkpad due to all the positive posts on here, remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. As for me, when its time for a new laptop, I'll avoid the 25% premium for a Thinkpad, and get myself another Dell.

I had two Dell notebooks before I had my current ThinkPad. The first was a Latitude CPi (built in late 1998) that had a really great keyboard, but creaky case. I bought a Latitude D600 to replace that one in April 2003. The D600 was much sturdier, but the keyboard was just awful. I bought the T40 two weeks later, and it was much sturdier than the CPi - and it had a keyboard that felt a lot like the CPi's.

ThinkPads are generally good machines, and I do like them, but I realize they have their quirks and are not invincible. Is the price premium worth it? I paid 20% more for this ThinkPad than the Dell. I'm not happy that I've had system board failures, but the service has always been fast. I know people with Dell and Gateway systems that went through hell just getting the repair on their machine done right. One person had their machine sent back broken (wouldn't boot), sent the machine back, and it came back a second time with a busted keyboard

[emorphien]

I think you've learned a good but unfortunate lesson here. Any brand, no matter the reputation, can fall apart or have failures. On the flip side you can get good examples of a machien, despite having two mainboards put in because of flimsy firewire ports and a busted fan controller, my Dell 8100 is a laptop that's help up well over the past four years. This goes against the conventional wisdom of Dell, that they make flimsy, creaky machines. They're not so much flimsy but they have made quite a few duds in recent years. I'm not impressed with the 600ms build quality at all, and some of their other units are atrocious. At the same time the 8600 and the 9xxx and XPS series are pretty well put together. Some of the Latitudes are fairly good as well.

My experiences with Apple (aside from the iBook which other than some mainboard problems is pretty tough) was that it's one of the worst. Overall each brand has some winners but I've always seen the best with the IBMs. Sure some duds, but overall they hold up a lot better. Maybe you got a "monday" machine, maybe not but it can happen. I think the previous poster was right, they are generally good machines, but not invincible or free from flaws.

[runixd]

jparr, thats very unfortunate you have all these problems. I'm not sure about your case problem, perhaps what K.eng suggests would help, other than that the scratching noise comes from graphics card, and is not unique to thinkpad. I had it on mine also, but it just dissapeared at some point and I don't even remember what changed. Keyboard rubbing against screen, I don't know, I haven't noticed anything like this on mine, if you are too bothered, perhaps you could put something in between? I don't have any scratches from blue button either, you think it could be ralated to all the case retightnenings you did ?

No comments about support as I only called them once and issue was resolved by disconnecting it from power and holding on/off button for 10 secs. If what you describe is really that bad and you think that overall dell is a better quality laptop than perhaps you should try to return your thinkpad and get a dell now. Or you can just sell it, and buy a new dell for the money.

[daeojkim]

Odd... I have my fvu for 8 months now and have had no problems.

It is unfortunate that your TP was not has good as my experience and many others in this forum as well as 5 other people that I personally know who got the fvu. I have not seen any problems.

[Plinkerton]

That's a shame that you're having problems. My first 2378-FVU had a single stuck pixel, that I was going to live with, but then the whole computer died.

After finding Sam Palmisano's email, and emailing them, someone called me back within 12 hours, and really bent over backwards fixing the issues I had.

My current 2378-FVU is awesome, and I haven't had any problems since. IBM's willingness to fix my problem in a way that was easy and fast for me, has sold me on them for sure.

My trackpoint will touch the screen sometimes, if there is weight on top of the notebook (like in a backpack), but the keys or ultranav buttons definitely don't touch the screen.

It seems like you got a dud. From my experience though, they'll make it right.