Anyone get their U330 yet?

I ordered one a couple weeks ago and it's due for delivery 10/6. Been looking for "hands-on" reviews and they're limited. Today, MSN had a rundown of ultraportables that included several Lenovos. The U110 caught my eye because it looks like a smaller version of the U330. Lots of good things to say about it, but a particularly harsh criticism regarding the glossy/grainy screen and flat-key keyboard.

From pics I've seen, the keyboard on the U330 looks to have contoured as opposed to flattish keys. Is that right? The screen, however, has the same "double gloss" treatment. This quote was from a review on this forum:

"Still, the reflective protective layer over the screen genuinely makes this screen quite horrible to view on a regualar basis."

Now I'm concerned that not "test driving" the U330 before ordering could lead to buyer's remorse. I guess I could still cancel...

Any personal testimonials on the U330?

 

Nooope. Well.. ZeroFire claimed to have a U330 on hand, but when further asked about details about on the forum, it seemed he just fell off the face of the Earth. (He was probably lying).

Anyhow, to answer your question, these are the only two reviews I know of for the U330. Enjoy.
http://translate.google.com/transla...07/1358918.html&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
http://translate.google.com/transla...00/1003947.html&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&sl=zh-CN&tl=en

 

yeah... who knows with zerofire... his u330 that he was typing on could have exploded.

"we believe that this LED screen shows the effect of slightly better than an ordinary notebook's LCD screen, mainly to reflect the high-brightness, color, visual perspective of a more broad. 同时，我们也注意到它的发热量很小，不像普通笔记本那样，屏幕下方灯管位置总是那么热。 "
off one of the reviews......you never know tho.

 

admlam, whens your updated expected ship date? i ordered around the same time as you and we were one of the first to order. i keep looking at other laptops to see if ones better with the price but nothing comes close sadly....only other one that i want more is the Sony Z and that just is too much cost to justify getting it over the u330. i would also look at the SR but the no HDMI/displayport/DVI is a deal breaker for me. e4300 is nice too, but too much - the Z is cheaper and a better laptop anyway so no point (plus no hdmi/etc/etc)

 

I am in the same situation kickace, except I haven't placed my order for the u330. I Can pick up a Z for $1600, or a u330 for around 900-1000. I could buy a 32 inch flatscreen tv so I could actually use the HDMI output on the U330 with the amount of money saved.:laugh: I would feel better if the u330 would actually ship out and there was a couple more reviews up addressing the temperature control. Ugh, patience, patience....

 

What I see is 10/3. What Lenovo told me was 10/6. Tsk tsk.

I can wait. Glossy screens don't bother me so much as I'll be using this indoors for the most part. I rather be doing other things when I'm outside anyways. Temperature control is a mixed-bag. I don't believe we'll be seeing as comprehensive attention to the hardware and software in regards to power management and cooling with the Ideapads compared to the Thinkpads.

 

if it helps... mine say's 9/23 and i've been told the 10/3
ordered 8/20

 

It's not so much the "glossy" finish to the screen that worries me. My Inspiron 700m has a reflective screen that isn't intrusive. My concern stemmed from reading about the "double pane" treatment--glossy protective shell on top of glossy screen, creating an intermittent "second image/point of focus"... That could be distracting as all get out.

Do local electronics stores (Best Buy, Circuit City, Radio Shack, etc.) usually carry any Lenovos; or a are they mostly online only?

Would be nice to see in person....

 

Your not gonna see a u330 in stores for a while.

Bestbuys website carries the y510 so you might be able to find one of them in store. I believe they have the same style screen as the 330.

You could also try Frys. Frys usually seems to have everything...

 

What I'm seeing is 9/30 and what I'm told is 10/06. I do hope the U330 has decent battery life on the 6-cell. The heat is not as concerning to me.

 

The Chinese review said right at four hours. Which will be enough to get through my classes.

 

well my status still shows september 22nd, obviously that won't happen but wonder if its a good thing that it hasn't been updated yet or who knows....


what i wish i coudl do is tell them to ship the **** laptop without the battery and then just ship the battery when available - i would totally take that option for now

 

I would take that option as well, as most of the time I'm near an outlet anyways.

 

They are coming soon... 2 more weeks!

 

I ordered about a month ago with an estimated ship date of 9/26 for me. I am planning to call tomorrow to check up on the date as well as have them charge the difference to expedite shipping instead of the free ground as I really need it for school.

The way I see it, the U330 is a new model that still has not officially "launched". All they have done is taken our pre-orders. Does it suck that they seem to be pushing back shipping an extra week for whatever reason? Yes, of course. Is it worth the wait? I think so when you consider what you are getting for what you pay for. I mean, I am paying right at $1,300 for a laptop that is light, powerful, and a 3 year on site accidental full coverage warranty so I don't have to worry about anything. The next closest thing, most notably the Sony's as it has already been pointed out, are a good $500+ for something similar. Yeah I would get it now, but I would rather save the money towards buying the 2010 Chevy Camaro when it comes out next year .

Also, the U330, according to manual information you can pull up on the Lenovo Support website seems to indicate that the U330 will also have the ability to switch between the Intel integrated X4500 and ATI discrete it comes with. So battery life should average between 4 to 6 hours depending on what you are doing and what settings you have turned on and in use.

Anyway, it just means whoever is the lucky one to get theirs first needs to post info and pics ASAP. I know I plan to write a review.

BBGus

 

Thats true. The Z is spppendddddy.
2050 for a comparably equipped Vaio from Sony... plus 350 for the 3yr accidental damage.

so 2300(sony) vs 1300(lenovo) with 3 year accidental damage coverage.

The wait is worth the extra grand.

Ill take notes with a pen and paper for a week or two for that much.

 

ill take my $900 u330 with 1 year accidental

but thats cuz i got very lucky with the prices/coupons....and plus i like having the best so usually a 1 year warranty is all i need maybe 2 year to be safe but whatever

 

I called Lenovo this morning and the rep was very helpful in explaining a few things.

1) The quoted times on the website are not currently based on information provided by their supply team once your ordered laptop goes into production. This explains why their is a trend of the website being anywhere from a few days to a few weeks off in prediction. I told the rep that he may want to tell Lenovo that they should assimilate those systems as many customers prefer to check the website because of the ease of use it provides us. He said he would make a note and pass it on. Whether he does or doesn't is up to the company and beyond my control. Furthermore, the rep said that the best way to get the most accurate information about your order was to contact them via phone as their systems at customer service do have direct connection to the supply side and are able to pull up your information more accurately.

2) The rep was very polite and did apologize for the delay stating that Lenovo was not as prepared as they would have liked for the launch of the IdeaPad U330 because of two main reasons. First, the previous version of the IdeaPad (Y510, U110, etc.) were not as big of sellers as they hoped, so Lenovo did not anticipate such a huge pre-order to come in for the new models. A mistake, yes, but unfortunately it happens in the corporate world. Second, the new ThinkPad SL and T series notebook were scheduled with a earlier launch date than the new IdeaPad models. Because they had a larger than anticipated pre-order of units with the ThinkPads as well, they have had to spend more time and resources for those customers and their orders first because they were processed and accepted before the customers like us for the U330. In other words, you can only produce so many laptops depending on a given setup and they are at full capacity trying to meet demand. They are cranking them out as fast as possible, so we, the consumer, just need to have a bit of patience. As others have said, I would rather receive a quality made product 2 weeks late then a hastily made rushed product that dies within a month if it meant I would get it tomorrow.

3) While the rep stated that the shipping date was typically a little later than the first given date on the website order status checker for the time being as they catch up on the demand, he also stated that they have been beating the supply side estimated ship dates as well. This seems to be true as other members have said they were told it would ship 10/6 for instance and it ends up shipping a week earlier.


As for myself. I ordered the end of August, was originally quoted a 9/26 ship via ground UPS, and was told when I called today the more accurate estimated ship date would be the week of 10/6. So, I expect to see mine ship probably sometime the week of 9/29 - 10/3 if I am fortunate enough to follow the trends, and that is perfectly fine with me .

BBGus

 

Fry's in Dallas doesn't carry Lenovo.

The Microcenter in Dallas has a U110 that you can examine. (I will examine the screen soon regarding the glare issue)

 

I just ordered the U330 and I have never owned a laptop before. How hard do you think it will be to replace the memory and the hard drive? I ordered the 2gb/250gb hd and I am thinking if I should order the 3gb/320gb hd since I don't know if 2gb is enough. But then I wonder if it is worth to pay $100 extra just for 1 more gb/70gb hd.
I don't play games or video editing, just basic computing and using virtualbox.
Thanks!!!

 

You would do just fine with the 2gb.

 

I saw somewhere that yes, this will be possible. Thought it was on the documentation on Lenovo's site but I can't seem to find it, maybe in the user's manual. Had pictures and instructions and everything.

What remains to be seen is if doing so will void the factory warranty. Anyone know Lenovo's typical policy on this?

 

Lenovo will not void any warranty you have with them should you choose to repair/replace parts at a facility or on your own. What happens is the new parts you installed will not be covered nor guaranteed to be supported by Lenovo. The only way for you to void your warranty with an upgrade is if Lenovo can prove that the part you switched or the process by which you did the upgrade is the direct cause for the parts that failed with which you are trying to repair.

BBGus

 

Monday came and went and of course no shipment of my U330. So I called up to get the next day shipping upgrade that I was promised, at which point they said nothing of the sort was stated on my account.

So I stated that I was disappointed, as not only was this not notated on my account, I was not kept up to date on any delays via e-mail. So he is going to send an e-mail to his executive supervisor for me to get some compensation for all the delays. (ex. more money off my order)

I'm interested in finding out if I get anything at all out of it and if I do to find out how much it will be. I suppose potentially I am alerting my order to the higher ups, who might catch onto the fact that I got in on the price mistake. However at this point if it's canceled so be it, as I'll just swear off Lenovo and hold off for one of the new Dell's. I'm still a bit miffed by the fact I've had this order in for so long as it is; the longer they delay the less and less the features of this laptop will be "unique".

 

I'm in the same situation. Just PMd you.

 

I ordered the U330 yesterday, and it says that the est. ship dates is octover 6th =). I hope it's true.

 

Let's see if they will be able to ship all of their units on October 6th ;-) I've never owned a Lenovo and I hope the machine is worth the hours spent on the phone trying to get the status of my order and being given different excuses with every call.

 

just got an email saying my order shipped

Dear Customer,

Thank you for choosing Lenovo!

All or part of your order has shipped. In some instances your order may be
shipped from more than one location, which will result in multiple notifications. You will only be invoiced for products that have shipped.
Please visit our online status tool to view the latest information on the
status of your order:


i ordered on 8/23...had a ship date of 9/22 that got pushed to 10/6 today morning...just got the email minutes ago

 

Mine shipped as well! Really hope I get this before the weekend!

 

I also just got an email saying mine shipped. Ordered 8/26, was told yesterday it should ship the week of 10/6. Guess their production sped up

 

as mine did also

 

They gave me a $50 credit earlier today for all the delays that have occurred, which makes the wait a little less painful.

 

order status page now says shipped via ups ground (no tracking info yet)

 

Greensboro NC is where its at.

 

i ordered the free ups ground, it was shipped 3 day select so will it have friday