Hello all,

Everytime I look at one of thinkpad, my eyes are filled with tears, Lenovo just literary killed the brand ((

I bought myself recently brand new t420s, seeing that this would be their last machine with proper thinkpad keyboard, I paid premium and all, got top specs etc, was a hefty price.

When I opened the box, first 10 second I was super happy looking at my new beast, but then ... I saw this!

http://s8.postimage.org/54ec86hjp/IMG_1593.jpg
http://s8.postimage.org/9et03rmmt/IMG_1594.jpg
http://s8.postimage.org/g6jf6mbmd/IMG_1596.jpg

This is just not cool ...

And the back of the screen assembly -

http://s8.postimage.org/ajn29593p/IMG_1597.jpg
http://s8.postimage.org/axoe8qt79/IMG_1598.jpg


Well presumably this is premium quality brand, premium quality build at premium price, or is it?

I rest my case ((

I reported case to warranty team, havent got reply yet.

What do you guys think should be the reply? To my taste this is clear warranty case at least to replace the sticker, if not the whole cover with screen, although I would not want to have dissasembled and assembled again

Is it even possible to replace just the sticker?

P.S. I was just doing a couple of techincal edits, cos the links were broken, and was thinking about the case, well Macs, have unmatched unparallel build quality, thinkpads these days are just cheap chineese *****Expletives removed by Moderator*****, especially now that classic thinkpad keyboard is gone, I d say thinkpad is officially dead

OMG this is just simply purelly retarded *****Expletives removed by Moderator*****, this is like the last product I buy from Lenovo

They said its not covered by warranty and there is nothing they could do - fraking retards ! What kind of premium service is this, company sells electronics with obvious factory defect and refuses to repair it.... Thats just not funny at all.


So ok, here is the deal, I sill want my notebook in proper condition, so I'm willing to buy the part myself and install it myself - which is pretty stupid come to think about it.

I'm based in Russia, all of authorized service centers quoted me like approximatelly half a year waiting time and still not guaranteed repairs off warranty, because there are problems with suppliers, they suggested I call official lenovo technical support hot line to ask them how to order the part, in turn technical support told me that they can't order anything, and I have to go back to service centers.

Like , huh lol what?

Anyway, I have some friends in UK who can order parts for me via online form, which actually works in UK.

But I need some clarifications - from service manual I pulled this part number - [b]04W1682[/b]

However the description reads like this - [b]Clear plate for LCD bezel[/b], so I'm really confused, is this the right part number? Could someone help?

But then again, Lenovo service is as retarded as it could be - having a global warranty, and not covering anything, and not even being able to buy any parts properly myself which I'm not even supposed to do anyway.

Every year Lenovo is just getting worse and worse...

Unfortunately, this seems to be true.

One smart man once said: "If you have customers, never outsource customer service". I wish Lenovo (and other similar companies) would listen.

Consumers are still voting for Lenovo with their money though, because in the past couple years, Lenovo enjoyed the largest increase in the number of PCs shipped, whereas Dell saw the worst decline. Lenovo is popular because its laptops (mainly the Ideapads) offer a bigger bang for the buck compared to most other brands, and in order to sell these laptops so cheap, Lenovo had to spend less money on quality check and customer support. Hadn't this been the case, your T420s probably would have cost twice as much, meaning you probably wouldn't have bought it in the first place.

One of the reasons why I like to buy and restore thinkpad T42's (SXGA+) is because every time I get one for $75, I think, "now here's a $2200 laptop for only $75, I am a financial wizard" and the quality is indeed, in the product, it's a system like a bicycle and you can tune it up like-new with aftermarket or NOS parts (from the original factories in china) or from other models that are "partted out" on EBay.

The problem with newer laptops is that you pay dearly for the support, if any (none in this case, apparently). But still, the cost of a T420, the intellectual grandson of the T42, is half the cost of the T42 from 9 years ago! So Lenovo (and especially, Intel) have managed to take the cost out of these laptops !!!

Sorry to hear that. My advice is, just live with it, move on, and don't order a Thinkpad again. Order a replacement sticker on ebay (if possible).


In my opinion this is a bad excuse for Lenovo's sub-par Thinkpads. Same with the "it costs half of what a thinkpad cost 10 years ago" argument. Computer hardware in general has decreased in price. A little bit of QC and customer support wouldn't double the price.

Although there are inadequacies from the design point of view as well. For example that 16:9 screen with a giant bezel is a LOT of wasted space (not to mention the quality of the display). I can't get over how stupid that bezel looks. It says to me profit maximizing is more important than maximum usability. Thinkpad fanboys on this forum defended this screen by saying it would be impossible to find a supplier for different size screens, which is an absurd argument IMO. To me the Thinkpad was about getting the best performing laptop. Now it's not a lot different than any other laptop on the market. That's my mini-rant.

These days, all other brands except Panasonic have a similarly high percentage of duds. In my view, the best strategy is three-fold: dramatically lower our expectations for laptop quality, stop buying very expensive laptops e.g. by buying used, and start using desktops more. This is the strategy I have been using for about 4 years and it has made me a happy man. If a laptop has imperfections, I just shrug my shoulders and move on because I have spent only $200 or less on it.



But keep in mind that wages have gone up in the past 10 years, and picky consumers (e.g. the OP) aren't demanding "a little bit of QC and customer support" but a lot of both. Lenovo and others are still providing a little bit of QC and customer support but apparently that's not enough for certain consumers.



Believe me, I am no longer a Thinkpad fanboy and bought my last Thinkpad in Jan 2009. There are a few (well, VERY few) current laptops that I like, but the fact that every single brand is making mostly garbage has made it impossible for me to be loyal to any brand. 7 to 15 years ago, the vast majority of IBM's laptops were likeable, which led to my Thinkpad fanboyism. Today, I can't say that about any brand.

Can't you just send it back?

That's not such a crazy idea. The restocking fee would probably be at least 15%, but if the laptop's blemishes bother the OP a great deal, then 15% might still be worth it.

You might want to spend some time in the Apple forums over at NBR before you anoint Macs as the savoir. I would take a ThinkPad over a Mac from a durability perspective every time.

I saw the X230, T430 and X1C last year, and they all felt ThinkPad like to me. I'm not as plussed about the keyboard as some here. The new keyboard is still better than others on the market even if one is irked about the layout change.

The fact remains the notebook market is vastly different than it was even a few years ago. Due to fierce competition from netbooks and now tablets, price points are down across the board for all manufacturers. Few are willing to pay what they did in the good old days. That's not necessarily a bad thing. Many here have a ThinkPad that probably couldn't have afforded one back in the day. I marvel at my X220i. I consider it as good as any ThinkPad I've used. It's light and durable, faster, has a great screen and keyboard, and can dual hard drive. The fact that I paid less than half what a X6x would have cost me makes it all that more impressive.

[quote="pianowizard"][quote="jdk"]Can't you just send it back?[/quote]

That's not such a crazy idea. The restocking fee would probably be at least 15%, but if the laptop's blemishes bother the OP a great deal, then 15% might still be worth it.[/quote]


Well, I'm based in Russia, i bought system in Switzerland through my friends. Of course the general practice for electronics is not to buy it in foreign country, because of warranty implications, but comon, thinkpad must be quality or was at least and supposedly have good quality international warranty. I could not've even imagined that I'd face such horrible treatment, the worst thing I was expecting, is that it would take em sometime to recognize the problem, but I was 100% confident that it would be fixed eventually. I could not've even imagined that I would have to face something like that.

I escalated the problem to the highest level in Russia, and someone got back to me on the phone with negative answer, in the end I even spoke with the lady who was claiming she was the highest authority on the matter. We argued for a while about the sticker, after some ranting she all of a sudden replied - "oh so you are talking about the sticker on inside of the screen, not on the outside, let me have a look at it again" - well for the love of freaking jesus mary and joseph, of course I'm not talking about "energy star" sticker. That tells me technical support people didn't even read my e-mail properly, and simply refusing to work. I demanded that matter would be escalated to even higher level, to which she said there is none, and if I wanted to escalated it to higher level, I would need to send a letter to China. She refused to provide details for so-called "China escalation".

I tried to contact UK based warranty to try to get details as to how I could escalate my case or at least get additional assessment of situation. They said that could not provide any detail for additional escalation, advised me write to my country generic technical support e-mail again, and also advised me that they could not give any assessment of the situation.

So in effect its pretty much dead-end. At this point trying to get my thinkpad fixed seems like I would gonna have to battle Lenovo, and its consuming way too much time.

It is with great deal of dissapointment and anger I bid Lenovo and Thinkpad goodbuy. Maybe someday the industry will see similar quality PC.

Well it wouldn't be too hard to peel off that sticker and put it on right, don't see much of problem there, the deformed plastic is a different matter.

With the caveat that people come to these forums mainly to report problems. Anyway, I think Apple does provide better warranty service than most if not all PC brands, even though their Mac laptops aren't necessarily more durable than Thinkpads.



Despite the somewhat misleading subject of this thread, the OP really isn't talking about Lenovo causing Thinkpad quality to decline, but about poor quality check and customer service. When Thinkpads are assembled properly, they look good and work well, but when a dud leaks through QC and when customer support refuses to fix it, then it causes endless headaches. Again, I am aware that other PC brands are having the same problem, but that doesn't make this a non-problem.

Of course it's an issue. That said, I personally think it's a bit rash to ditch or favor a brand based on a unit or two.

If I did, I'd have to avoid Dell, Sony, Toshiba, Apple, Lenovo, (formerly) IBM, and HP.

I'd also have to purchase only laptops from Dell, Toshiba, Apple, Lenovo, and HP.

All that said, I really don't *need* a laptop. And, in fact, after my T420 dies, I'm going workstation-only for personal general purpose machines. (I'll still keep my other ThinkPads for their various misc. tasks -- like acting as server front-ends or control machines for various things... but I'm not really using them as laptops then as much as cheap all-in-ones.)

I don't see what you are criticizing with the last two pictures. If you are criticizing that the top of the lid isn't flat, you need to know that this isn't a bug, it's a feature. The top of the lid has a profile like an arc in order to avoid deforming to a concave surface when pressure is applied. Instead, when pressure is applied to a surface that has a profile like an arc, the surface will become flat. This is to protect the display panel.

When communicating with Lenovo, it might help if you use the correct name for the part that you call sticker. Lenovo calls it clearplate. And should they deny to fix this on warranty and if Adda's suggestion doesn't work, you can always order a new clearplate. They are not very expensive, e.g. in the UK they sell for £4.81. The part number is 04W1682.

I think the OP clearly stated that Macs have unmatched build quality, which has not been my experience. Apple is indeed very anal retentive about their packaging and QC, more than Lenovo. I don't see something like this as likely to slip through on a Mac, but I don't know that Apple service is any better. Would Apple replace parts for cosmetic damage? That seems unlikely.




I disagree. I think they were discussing both and I was just pointing out that was not my experience with regards to the decline of the brand. You're right that a lot of what was going on here is the QC from Lenovo should have been better, but unfortunately, that was not the case this time.

[quote="Adda"]Well it wouldn't be too hard to peel off that sticker and put it on right, don't see much of problem there, the deformed plastic is a different matter.[/quote]


Well its not about peeling or not peeling the sticker, why do i have to peel and reglue something in the first place?

Can I have some money paid to me by Lenovo, for extra job which I do for them instead?

And in effect this is very low quality ....

Even if I wanted to , I cant cos its one time use only, its like two-sided tape on the other side, if you peel it off you cant glue it back unless you use some third party glue, which is total mess.

I was looking through forums recently and it seems its a common problem, every now and then people get exactly same problem, why and how is that possible, maybe it was a defective batch of T420s...

~elvair

I understand, I'd be annoyed by it too, but which is better, to sit back and be annoyed or fix it and forget about it?

No it's not a one time only sticker, I have removed the clearplate on my W510 a few times as something got stuck on the backside of it, right in front of the wifi LED.
So I peeled it off, removed the dirt and put it back on, something got stuck again, I peeled it off, removed the dirt and the sticky tape in front of the LED's and put it back on.
Just wipe the clear plate down with alcohol before putting it back in, so that it's completely free of oils or anything that might interfere with the sticky tape.
Be careful when you peel it, you don't want to bend it too much as it will then want to curl up, not good.

As for the edges that don't seem to meet up well on the underside of the display frame, maybe loosening the screws that hold it in place, reseating it, and then screwing it down, would fix it.

After all this hullabaloo, it's not clear, WHAT we are seeing, and I have some serious doubt!
Is that an antenna wire all of a sudden popping OUT from behind the clear plate? (on IMG_1596.jpg)
Why is this not visible on the previously taken IMG_1593.jpg
Or is it something that YOU are pushing IN from the outside?
Why don't we see the rest of whatever pops out/pushes in?
Someone trying to create a bad publicity stunt here?