Snap! Crackle! Pop! goes the T61 bezel

I love this!

Pinch the outer edge of the LCD bezel between your forefinger and thumb. Don't you just love the sound of poorly aligned/mated plastic err carbon?

In some places it's solid as as a rock and in others it sounds like Rice Krispies.

Couple this with the annoying light leakage and the $1394 price tag and this baby needs to go back. Time to place a call this Monday. Fortunately, my phone relations with Lenovo have been superb. Fast, friendly, and helpful.

 

That's because you've been dealing with sales not returns, lol.
Now there's the issue of the 15% restocking fee.

 

That's good. I like that. We'll see about the tone of the conversations on Monday. I suspect a lot of folks are playing around with their newly received T61's this weekend. I hope I can get through!

 

Seems fair to me you should not have to pay the restocking fee. But they might insist you either pay restocking, or get it repaired for free under warranty. I dunno tho. Ugh, one week old and it goes to the service depot, that'd suck.

 

Cant say I have the same issue. Now the dell I have next to me right now...touch anywhere on the shell and it sounds like firecrackers!

 

My keyboard sounds like crumpling cellophane when I type. Apparently when people say TP keyboards are the best they mean loud as hell and unresponsive. Worst keyboard ever.

 

Yep, I've noticed this in a couple places on my T61, as well. The screen bezel, like you mentioned. And also the part between the touchpad buttons and you... it moves up and down a bit.

Overall, though, I am very pleased with the build. Let's just see how it holds out over a couple years. The screen itself is amazingly sturdy.

 

Yeah, the sreen is sold, but the screenquality itself is ugly. Low contrast, low viewing angle..

Maybe my desktop screen with S-PVA panel is too good to compare with, buth...
Now I understand why you people where paying $250 extra for that Flexview IPS screen.

 

They did something with the keyboard T60 and on ... the older keyboards were much better.

(i have both t23 and T43) and i tried the T61, it was ok, but sub-par compared to an LG that i had for a couple of months and my old thinkpads.

 

Mwah, I really find my T61 keyboard better than that from the T22

 

I find there is a small pop if I grab the screen bezel around the lower left of the screen. It doesn't seem to be a big issue though, but time will tell. The keyboard is great. I got the Alps keyboard and the LG screen. That appears to a good combination as the screen is very bright and sharp as well. I got the nvidia card and I really like the performance. I have played battlefield 2 and gta San Andreas and both look great. My only complaint is the time it takes to charge a battery, but I hope this gets better over time.

 

Yeah it's a flexer allright, but that doesn't bother me so much. Stil better than most, just not as good as old thinkpads.

Keyboard I got (NMB) wasn't my favorite, but equally solid, just wasn't as loud and clicky like my chicony I like over the top feedback. There is one, must be the alps, that I don't like, but you might if it you thought the one you got is too loud and clicky. It's softer and quiet.

 

I'm glad I went with the 15.4 T61, almost no bezel to worry about

Also if you watched the crash test of the T61, you would notice the bezel is the first thing to come off.

 

That's an odd issue with the bezel "crackling". I can't say I can relate. I tried doing this on my ASUS and it's rock solid. Would someone describe it better?

 

Yes, the housing for the lcd panel is made up of two pieces. The front/face piece (bezel) attaches to the main (back) chassis/frame. The two should mate solid in all areas. In other words, no sound (nor movement) when you pinch the two pieces against each other along the entire circumference.

On my T61, my fingernail can fit between these two pieces along the entire left side of the housing. When you pinch it, the pieces meet do not meet correctly and the plasic (carbon) rubs against each other making a crackling and or snapping sound.

It's a poor fit that when pinched harder still does not bring the two pieces together in a permanent state. To put it better, it is a sloppy assembly and/or the tool and die mold was not cast properly producng a bezel that doesn't fit exactly.

I was in a Office Depot yesterday, and every model they carried fit tight and without noise - obviously. To have it otherwise would have resulted in a rejected item by the mfg and re-ran thru the assembly line again. Lenovo in a rush, simply shoved it out the door with fingers crossed

 

That does seem to be the case.

 

I have the same problem with my new x61 tablet; I can see the gap between the screen and the bezel, and the glue.

called sales for return, transfered to tech support for case number, called back to sales again, transfered to returns for RMA number.
I think most of the screen will show this problem if they just glued the bezel instead of screw.

this is the link of the pictures.
http://www.geocities.com/kkaite2/screen.html

right click and view image to see the full image.

 

Have the same issue on my T61 that I got today, is it worth sending it back, or seeing how it holds up?

 

Yet more empirical evidence of how the T61 is the worst thinkpad in history from a build quality perspective.

Send it back and get your money back if you still can.

Hopefully the X61 isn't as gawd awful as the T61 is!

 

You've been on these forums for more than 2 years. You know darn well that more people come to forums to complain than to praise. Moreover, there is even more empirical evidence of people satisfied with the T61 on these forums (T61 satisfaction poll). Why do you try to mislead those innocently in search of information about Thinkpads by ignoring countering opinions, especially when they are more widespread?

And don't say that many of the "satisfied" voters are people who don't own T61's, because that margin of error exists for every option in the poll. Not to mention, even you yourself voted in the poll as unsatisfied and you don't even have a T61.

 

The fact that more ppl are satisfied than dissatisfied with a laptop is an unacceptably low threshold -- even dell inspirons surpass that benchmark. What's troublesome is that the T61 defect rate greatly exceeds the defect rate for all its predecessors according to the retain defect statistics.

 

What do you mean by defect rate exactly?

 

well we have them at work and i've used them, thus i felt qualified to vote... excuuuuuse me!

by your standards of ownership, nobody at wired or pc magazine etc is qualified to have an opinion either, due to lack of ownership

 

They don't own the laptop per se, but their experience with the laptop is comparable to someone owning it for the first few weeks because they are given the opportunity to extensively test the laptops and whatnot. I can tell you've barely used the T61 because you recycle the same tried-but-false opinions and feed off of other anti-T61 threads on NBR.

 

And exactly how many other thinkpads have you inspected and compared the T61 with, in lab conditions on a side-by-side basis? And how many flavors of each have you tried?

I'm honestly happy that you love your T61, and I'm pleased that you're on board with the thinkpad family instead of HP. But that doesn't diminish the fact that in my opinion there's some major issues with the current T61 which I think lenovo needs to address, lest they become another dell (which alarmingly to me seems to be the direction they're heading).

 

I have to agree with SkiBunny....

Just look at the BSOD thread.. thats ridiculous. it's been 2 moths since release and lenovo is not acknowledging the problem.

 

What are your points guys? Did I ever say that T61s are all perfect? All I know is that SkiBunny is overexaggerating the problems of the T61 by pretending they're the norm and lowspeed is referring to something that a minority of T61 owners are experiencing.

By the way lowspeed, you posted on a thread that talks about how Lenovo released Turbo Memory drivers to counter the BSOD issue............

 

Yeah but if you read the posts... that driver release didn't solve the problem.


If they fix the BSOD and give a better screen i think it will be the laptop to beat.


right now i'm debating between a cheapo Acer (which are cheap but goody) or re-order another thinkpad and hope for the best. I'll probablly wait a little if i decide on the thinkpad.




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Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I gather that this BSOD problem is the fault of Intel Turbo Memory. In that case, just don't order Turbo Memory then? We haven't seen iterations of Turbo Memory from other manufacturers yet- it's fair to say that this could be Intel's fault.

And I don't see what the problem with the screen is.

 

The integrator has the responsibility to test the system.

I think the worst part is that they don't acknowledge the problem/pretend they didn't hear about it.

 

I don't think that really matters because if you agree that Turbo Memory is responsible, then just don't order Turbo Memory and you won't get the BSOD issues.

I think they acknowledged the problem by releasing a drive that fixes, or attempts to fix, the problem. Did you expect a party or something?

 

Have you been brain washed?



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I think you have. By SkiBunny.
Making something out of nothing. How melodramatic.

You're accusing me of being brain washed because it is impossible to substantively respond to sound logic. If you want to avoid the BSOD issue that Lenovo has acknowledged by attempting to release a fix, then don't order Turbo Memory. See? All you problems are solved.

 

hey you know that if you dont get a 14.1 screen it is make a minor sound. the thinkpad t series was originally 14.1 inches and the laptop is solid i am telling i have also ready dropped thsi baby and i can tell you this that if i did the same to my dell i am going to have a problem on thinking of replacing. but not for the thinkpad; this sexy beast is a monster.