How is the quality of construction and customer service on today's Thinkpad's - a repeat survery

Seven months ago I started this thread; http://forum.notebookreview.com/len...s-many-have-reported-last-years-models-2.html. I was about to purchase several laptops for a client and had been hearing so much anecdotal evidence that long time Thinkpad devotees were finding the 2012 and 2013 (and now 2014) Thinkpad X, T and W lines to have a disturbingly high level of quality problems including cases not fitting and creaking, screen problems, a variety of electrical problems, and generally reports sounding more like HP consumer laptops than the "world standard" Thinkpads of yore. What compounded concerns were reports of buyers who returned units for multiple replacements and each was worse than the last, and customer service response was nothing like as attentive as it used to be. (An exception to the service issues - but not the quality problems - were small to large enterprises, got more attentive service.

Overall in the thread there were about 40 posts and about 75% were negative, most highly negative

I'm looking to repeat the same thread, as I have since participated in numerous "What Notebook Should I Buy" threads where the pro-Thinkpadders have been lined up against the, er, not-pro- " " In the February 2014 thread there were about 40 responses and the vast majority were shockingly negative. In retrospect, I did not word the earlier thread to solicit negative opinions so I hope this one is titled more neutrally. Please send in highly praiseworthy reports of your personal experiences, not just negative ones!

A couple of ground rules:

1) This is purely about the quality of the product out of the box and the experience dealing with Lenovo when there are problems.

2) Please do not use this thread to to post your feelings - pro or con - on design changes to TP product (eg, loss of Trackpoint buttons, 6 row keyboard, chiclet keyboards, etc.) This is just about the quality of construction/performance and service response to your problems.

3) Please, no "hearsay" opinions of "I know a guy who had "......." experience. Only purchasers of 2012-2014 Thinkpad X, T and W products should reply, and only the x30 and x40 versions. One important exception to this "rule" :

4) By all means, feel free to respond to the posts made on the thread by recent owners if you feel they are factually incorrect or relate to one-off model problems, including problems that have long since been corrected by Lenovo. Also, if you have any factual knowledge of changes afoot - pro or con - feel free to site those as well, preferably with links. Also, feel free to comment on why you think the issues raised may be occurring.

Thanks so much. The vast majority of non-gaming notebook recommendations in the WNBSIB thread are for Thinkpads, and I'm not biased to believe these are innately bad recommendations, but I do know that things have changed dramatically in this market segment over the past 3 years yet old reputations - good and bad - die hard.

Best,
Jeff

 

My suggestion would be to specify which range of ThinkPads you're actually interested in, since issues at hand differ widely within the *40 generation. That's not an opinion, it's a fact.

 

I have a T440s purchased in Nov. 2013. Out of the box, the device looked wonderful but upon closer inspection, there was a small manufacturing defect on edge of the plastic wrist rest surrounding the keyboard and mouse. The method used to hold the screen bezel to the laptop caused it to not sit smoothly. The speakers also exhibit a awfully loud buzzing sound which required the use of duct tape to mute. Besides these three problems, I have been able to enjoy my T440s. It fits my needs and has the durability I want. I didn't bother talking with Lenovo support about any of my issues because I would be a greater hassle to send my notebook back. Considering this is a top of the line business machine, I would expect higher quality control. I would still consider purchasing a Lenovo because the quality is much higher than most brand.

 

Your point is well taken, but I wanted to keep this as simple as possible. That plus, it will be useful to know if, for instance, - purely hypothetically - the T440 is very well built but the T440s is giving people lots of problems.

Note : this informal survey is for "X," "T," and "W" 30 and 40 models only, with suffixes, such as "s," "p," "t" etc included.

Thanks for the suggestion; I'll change the OP if it's proving to be a problem. Best, Jeff

 

I purchased a W530 shortly after it was released in 2012. Within a month, I ran into an issue where the integrated Intel graphics did not work and the computer would freeze whenever using it. I contacted Lenovo, and after ensuring it was not a software issue via tech support, they sent a box the next day for me to send it to the depot for repair. The depot was slow to diagnose and repair the problem, and I made a number of calls to check on the repair status. After my system had spent a month at the depot, Lenovo replaced my computer with a new one with identical specifications and extended my warranty by a couple months to mark delivery of the new unit. That unit has worked flawlessly for the past 2 years, and I am quite happy with it.

 

I find that the quality of the materials that Lenovo uses seems to be cheaper. I've owned a W500, W520, X301 and X220. The newer models just have a cheaper feel to them, like Lenovo is using cheaper plastics.

I have dealt with support only once and had no problems with them.

 

Thanks for the responses to date. It's a little surprising that there are not more posts; Thinkpad surveys usually evoke strong emotions - pro and con. Anybody thing the title is misleading? I'm honestly looking for people who are ecstatically happy to those who rue the day they bought the model! Last time I got around 40 responses within 2 weeks or so. Thoughts welcomed.

 

I think that your thread title is fine in general but would personally remove the "repeat survey" part...

On a different note, if I were conducting such a survey and wanted to get as much user feedback as humanly possible I'd be posting it at Lenovo Forums...not at NBR.

My $0.02 only...

 

I looked over your previous thread, and you may have gotten 40 posts in 2 weeks, but only a handful of responses. Most of the thread was a few posters going back and forth. The thread also had somewhat of a leading negative title, which meant people with more extreme opinions (and typically the ones who post more) were more likely to participate.

I'd agree with ajkula66, though - if you want more responses, it would do best to post this on Lenovo's forums.

 

Let me tell you, ajkula, particularly when it comes to matters-Thinkpad, the value of your "$0.02" is off by several orders of magnitude.:thumbsup: I wonder what it would take to have the "repeat survey" removed - just ask mods, or one in particular, like Zaz, for this thread? I'm not yet 100% convinced I agree with you, as much merit as I see. The reason I added it is because it enabled me to link to the first one to give people the idea about what kinds of things I was looking for (see response to djembe, below, for a bit more on that. As for the Lenovo Forum, I haven't ventured there for some time. My guess is that they are loaded with diatribes. There's something about the NBR community that's particular "family" for me. Plus, I'm trying to develop some useful feedback to which to refer those who post to the WNSIB forum, which once had an extremely pro-Thinkpad bias, though anecdotally I sense that this has reacted to the times - with TPs, particularly the design issues, but mfg quality and cust service as well.

I totally agree that the title of my old thread was leading which is why I tried to make this one sound more neutral. As for the majority of posters being the same few going back and forth, I checked back on that original thread and here are some stats:

# of responses: 39

Repeat posters

akliua66: 8 (!)
Tsunade Hime: 4
Lovelaptops(me, incl OP!): 3
Zero000: 3
pepper_john: 3
Waru: 2
pipspeak: 2
livebriand: 2

Total repeat posters: 26
Original or singular posts: 20

Life of thread: 4 days! (Feb 19 - Feb 23) That surprised me; the thread was never closed. I guess of the many 100s of lookers, the latter ones had nothing to add - or were turned off by how many "insider" responses each new post seemed to get! Hey, not criticizing the multiple posters; that's the way these are supposed to work.

I do hope we get some more posters here, as there is way less than a consensus - as there was last time, though you need to adjust for the negative tone of the thread title.

Thoughts?

 

Sorry to double-post, but I had some more general comments and didn't want the preceding post to go any longer. Some additional observations:

Part of the reason I thought NBR was a good place to post this is that our numbers are not exactly puny and there is a wider representation of people who tried a TP (or more) and eventually returned them all and went to another brand - or read this (and specific model) thread and decided not to venture in.

I'm left unsure about mfg quality these days and even more so about service responsiveness to one-off owners. What is clear is that many of the TP diehards are so turned off by new designs that they are moving, principally to Dell, to a lesser extent HP - business class, of course.

One more contrarian thought: I have not paid over $1,000 for a laptop - ever, averaged about $600 - and about 2/3 have been used, open box or refurbs. I've owned over 25 in past 5 years, pretty much all very fine ones for their intended purposes - business class and consumer, but more the latter. I've never outlived any laptop and, other than some HP Elitebook 2740P's (tablet PCs), I've never had to return one for replacement (returned 4 of them!) I am increasingly a fan of consumer models - especially the likes of Lenovo Ideapads and Acer Timelines (I guess Acer calls them business class) and even select HP models (earlier, Envys - but no more - and lately anything from the Spectre line.) The benefits of buying these - especially refurbs, gently used and open box ones - is that they're dirt cheap, are lately increasing quality significantly - while b.c. models are going the other way - they have all the of best new features (FHD/+ IPS touch screens, Haswell U cpus, (on the last two, I know many here do not care for either, but for my use cases they work out well) all day battery life, 3 lb weights, almost always available with 8GB RAM and expandable SSDs), though they also have the worst of the new (including, buttonless trackpads, minimal user-expandability, expensive repairs). But at $600-$800 in today's market, they serve me very well until I get bored with them and I can buy 2-3 over 4 years and keep getting the best of new tech for the same price as one well-configured business class model. The way I handle lack of quick on-site service: first of all, some consumer brands have it and they usually utilize their business class techies, second of all, I always have 2-3 ready to go into service if one needs to be sent to the depot for a 2-3 week (sometimes, not always) wait for return. This works for me, particularly as new business class models are more like consumer Ultrabooks, but still cost 2-3 times as much. That works for me, but only in some cases. I like to have at least one rock-solid business class machine, it's just getting harder and harder to find one that has the virtues of models of old, though I guess I trust the Dell Latitude and Precision lines the most, and can often score some excellent deals in their outlet stores - or pay a few bucks more from reliable eBay sellers who scooped up the good ones and are only marking them up 10-15%.

As for Thinkpads, I'm in a quandary. I really, really want a T or W530, but they're very heavy and there are too many negative quality reports here and though this thread didn't show it, I've read elsewhere - particularly in Lenovo threads - that the quality of the NBD service for one-off owners has truly deteriorated and that too often on-site contract owners are forced to ship their units to the depot.

Thoughts/conclusions anyone? Should people still be touting Thinkpad models that fit the criteria of people posting to WNSIB?

 

I've had excellent experiences with NBD on-site over the past decade, including a LCD swap on a T420 last week. The only time that the machine with NBD gets shipped to depot is if three on-site visits fail to resolve the problem. Only once have I gone through that, and ended up with a brand new ThinkPad since the "old" one could not be repaired.

Obviously, YMMV.

 

Well, I own a W530, and I was one of the folks you mentioned with onsite warranties who was told to go through the depot. Since my experience with the depot took a very long time to be resolved, I will insist on Lenovo honoring the on-site part of my warranty if anything goes wrong in the future.

However, that said, I have found my system to be very reliable in general and even the initial problem I had with my first unit didn't make it unusable. I'm not sure about negative quality reports regarding the W530. There have been 3 big complaints about it that I know of, and I'll comment on each in parenthesis: altered keyboard layout from previous Thinkpads (matter of preference), fan too loud under low load (fixed via BIOS update), and audio popping when docked (fixed by motherboard revision on later models, fixable on earlier models by motherboard swap). That's really it. Now, if you're thinking about the W540, then you're correct about there being many more complaints, including complaints about poor touchpad control and location (no physical buttons, poor software, not centered), another different keyboard layout (addition of number pad), screen issues (either quality or scaling), and worse than expected build quality.

I can't speak to how Thinkpads used to be, as this is the first one I've owned and only the third one I've used. But I can tell you the overall quality is better than what I've found in other systems. So if nothing else, my experience as the owner of a Thinkpad has convinced me that there is a substantial difference between consumer and business systems. And regarding service and support, people are going to have bad experiences with every brand. The better brands are the ones where it happens the least. Despite my unpleasantly long wait for the depot when my computer had a problem, I'm just one person and most of the reviews and aggregate data I've found shows Lenovo as one of the better brands for support. And as Lenovo is typically the highest-rated in service of the companies who make business systems, I see no problem in recommending Thinkpads in general. I'd just reserve my recommendation on particular models that seemed to have more than their share of issues.

 

Good points made re: NBD support from Lenovo still fairly good much of the time. Clearly the policy cited by ajkula66 of shipment to depot only after 4 unsuccessful on site efforts was not the experience of djembe, so your further point, "YMMV," is as always the best rule to be guided by - no rule at all, lol

I hope this thread has more "mileage" left in it, but as of now I have a couple of basic takeaways:

1) the x20 series was the last "true Thinkpad" but it's hardware is getting really dated and just isn't a viable purchase today except for the rare user who finds the rare mint model with the rare config that is viable in 2015.

2) the x30 series was the transition and, while much of the Thinkpad goodness was retained, the corner was turned on: trackpad, keyboard and, anecdotally, mfg quality.

3) Some current models - eg (and just "eg," you could choose any model in the current line for this point), the T440s can be found to be excellent products, well made, high end features (bright, IPS screens, M-series Intel silicon (vs U), still a decent keyboard, though only by today's standards: chiclet, short throw, but clicpads and no buttons, no F row, and some are reliable while some - particularly the first 6 months' runs - were awful. Others - eg, x240, pretty much no longer address the previous X/T-2x0 buyers' needs in the slightest, and deserve entirely new product brand designations.

4) Support and service - I'm calling this one a wild card. Seems to vary by how/where you buy (resellers will provide better support than Lenovo to a one-off buyer, Lenovo will probably continue to do a fine job for its volume customers, and certainly sometimes it's single "retail" buyer. But it's much more a crap shoot IMO than it once was, and I think to advise new prospective owners posting in WNSIB other than that it is thus is potentially misleading them and encouraging them to spend more, get less and have more hassles than they might if you at least left them the opinion that, for many uses/users, a good deal on one of the well made Ultrabooks (which their OPs indicate they want) may prove to provide higher end configurations at lower costs and often, especially when price is $800 or less and time frame is 2-3 years than shifting them entirely away and going down the Thinkpad path in today's brand environment.

5) In sum: IMO, 2014 is not a very good year to be in the market for new Thinkpads for most people who have been devoted to this brand for a decade or more. Hopefully 2015-2016 will get better - or other mfrs - Dell, HP, even Acer (think "new" Acer, getting very good at exploiting niches and losing the quality problems in the higher price segments), will fill the hole while Lenovo pursues much, much, much bigger opportunities with mobile phones (egm Motorola brand), tablets, consumer products, etc.

We have no choice but to adapt, find the brand/product that, for you, has the fewest tradeoffs, OR...probably the best choice if you have the acumen and time... find or keep and nurture a "classic" (W520, etc.) and upgrade them with new screens, SSDs, possibly even new cpus, and hope that you can get good service (both in terms of usability/performance and actual repairs when needed) until, hopefully, as many optimists have predicted, Lenovo gets smart about the Thinkpad - business/professional class - market and turns the clock back and the reverses the negative changes.

I know I've thrown everything but the kitchen sink into this post and, I admit, I am as confused as I sound. One thing is clear to me from both this thread and the one I did in February: Thinkpads are no longer many peoples' darlings and the happiest owners are those whose last new purchase was 2012 and before. On the other hand, I believe that markets are - clumsily and slowly - able to adapt and just as Lenovo bought and expanded the franchise IBM was building with Thinkpad, there may even be a divestiture in Lenovo's near future in which they will harvest some cash for the brand equity of the Thinkpad brand and customer base and let a smaller, more focused company [re]build the Thinkpad line to its full potential.

Thanks all for contributing. Love to hear comments!!! :hi2: :hi2:

 

There are rules and there are exceptions to the rules. I've had hundreds of service calls over the past decade and only one instance where the machine ended up in Memphis.

I'm going to say that it all depends on what one needs the machine for. In all fairness, unless one is doing something incredibly CPU/GPU-intensive - where ThinkPads shouldn't be their first choice to begin with - *20 series has a lot of life left in it.

While I personally wouldn't take a *30 series machine for free, the QC aspect hasn't slipped all that much at that point in the game...

It's pretty clear that there is a lot of displeasure brought on by these laptops. The best "pick of the litter" if one *absolutely had* to buy a ThinkPad today would likely be the T440s, where the most troubled orphan seems to be W540.

Hopefully the next generation would address at least some of the concerns voiced by actual users of *40 series ThinkPads.

What you have to realize is that on-site support for "The Big Three" is subcontracted to the very same companies that maintain their presence in a given geographical area. A *lot* will depend on who you're dealing with.

Personally, I always considered my time to be way too expensive for dealing with depots - even in the IBM days - and have always paid extra for on-site warranty. My experiences have been excellent at two different states and three different geographical areas varying from metropolis (NYC) to middle-of-nowhere (Upstate NY) to suburbia (NEPA) and I'll continue to encourage people to pay extra for this type of service if they're purchasing a business-grade machine, be it from Dell, HP or Lenovo.

Agreed 1001%

Your post doesn't sound confused to me, and you've made quite a few very valid points. Probably the most important one is that we have to make our own decisions...

As displeased as I am with the direction Lenovo has taken the ThinkPad range over the past couple of years, I've also moved on and am not looking back. Maybe I should be thankful, after all...

 

Your post - just previous - does, as usual, a great job of summing things up. I thank you for your many wise contributions and for what, coming from you, is high praise indeed. Do keep posting and directing us to the best product being made.

Oh, one last point, I'm so glad you mentioned that all the bus. class (and now even some of their consumer brands) use the same third party contractors for on site service and that your region may say more than the brand of product as to the quality of your service. That said, each company pays different ratest to the contractors and authorizes different policies - eg, # of on site visits per complaint, what kind of repairs are authorized on different ages and prices of machines (I believe the contracts all permit the mfr to just junk your machine and send you a refurb).

Yes, we have to keep our ears to the ground (and to ajkula66's posts!) and make our own decisions. To this I add: diversify yourself as to # and types of devices and never be vulnerable to a single machine leaving you dead in the water!