T510, will it be my last Thinkpad ever?

Hi,

Just got myself a new T510 ThinkPad about 10 days ago.
I 1st had ordered a T410 but had to return it due to wrong screen resolution.
All in all, it took me 6 weeks to get my laptop.

I have been running on a T60 for 3 years, and that was the best laptop I have owned. So, no question about it, next one would have ot be a ThinkPad.

Well, it looks like it will be my last ThinkPad!

Firstly, the new 16:9 format is not for me, I loved my 4:3 and as a business laptop, I cannot see the point of 16:9 but hey...

First thing I noticed when I unpacked the T510 was that the HDD cover was sticking out! It actually looked like the cover did not fit the space it had to cover. Not very nice, specially when you spent nearly £1500 on a laptop.
It was easily sorted but it was not love at first sight as my expectations where of solid built, tough and high quality products.

Next, I noticed that the keyboard was not in place either! The bottom left of the keyboard was... sticking out! Gosh, who built this laptop?? How is it possible to ship a laptop with 2 very visible issues like these?? I did not need a magnifier to spot them, both the HDD cover and the keyboard were really sticking out, this product clearly had not been inspected...
I got worried as I though what about the 'inside' then?? If quality control can miss such built errors what did they miss inside?

So I fired it up and all was fine, until I removed the power cable to run on the battery. My screen started flickering :-(
Yep, flickering, not continusously but often enough to render reading impossible. There are various threads about screen flickering on the the Lenovo forums but mine is not the same, no brightness change, no, just everything becomes 'blurred'. It lasts for 3-4 seconds at a time, sometimes more. I updated ALL available drivers, but no change.
I then calles support on their pricey 0870 number and was on hold for 25 minutes before a lady tried to help me.
She pointed me to more updates which I installed but again, screen flickered!

Called again support today and they are sending a new battery on the way (when available as they are out of stock!). I have some doubts about the battery causing this but hey, let's try and we'll see what happens next.

In the meantime, I cannot really use that T510 as I have a feeling it will be returned to Lenovo at some point so, there is no point in me installing all the softwares I need etc... it is a nice brick on my desk. This is more than annoying since I ordred the T410 6 weeks ago and as of today I basically still do not have a functional laptop!

So, thanks to Lenovo for bringing us products that are way under par to what IBM used to!

Oh, almost forgot: the keyboard! One reason I fell in love with ThinkPads was the keyboards as most of you here... well you can wave goodbye to those good old keyboards, the new ones are nothing different from other manufacturers, the appeal is gone I am afraid....

 

if you don't like the 16:9 screen format, then sadly you will probably run out of option very soon, as most of the manufacturer have moved their LCD format to the 16:9 format, with only few selected models still using the 16:10 LCD format.

 

My sympathies, after waiting 6 weeks that is really bad news. I also have a T60 and I am very happy with it, I am considering the W510.

I wonder if Lenovo are downgrading their quality to reduce manufacturing costs. Quality control has also been very lacking in this case. Very worrying.

 

Worrying ...

Oh well, maybe look on the bright side. Maybe audilo is a DELL employee...

Unfortunately, that's probably wishful thinking.
My local store said you need luck these days with laptops.

- avi

 

I like 16:10. if you have a high enough resolution then you can get two documents side by side.

The square screens (4:3) were not so great for work.

With, 16:9, I understand we will have lost some height in exchange for even more more width.

 

For document comparison you don't need more width after 16:10. 16:9 is more resultant of the whole media use of laptops :|.

At least the 14inch T series is 16:10.

 

Sounds like a liar......just joking!
I personally owned the T60p for 4 years and now i am taping on my new W510.
The construction and finish both surpass my T60p.

May be your girlfriend is playing with your and open the case before head. She open the HDD cover, mess with the keyboard, the screen and then YOU!

May be the UPS guy didnt like you!

Laptop like this do not pass the QC. Because it will cost the manufacturer more to fix the problem later.

You know, Lenovo sell more laptops than HP last year in Asia. And that is hurting a lot of people!!!

 

utopian3

Which screen do you have with your W510 and what is your opinion of it.?

 

Oh! I have the HD+ on my W510. It's much better than my 14" T60p TN panel. Since i have the color senser, color accuracy are much better and definitely much much brighter on my W510.
BUT, if i were you. i would wait for 3-6 months for the FHD screen.
Why??? Because i saw an FHD W510 few weeks ago and the screen are wonderful. And the new i7 Quad mobile core just announced, the new i7 740QM, 840QM 940XM. Probably lenovo might upgrade the 880M GPU to 1800M GPU too.
A quad core laptop + FHD Screen + color senser + 4 DIMM slots + thinkpad Construction and best cooling system. This system will serve you a good 4 -5 years.

 

Good for you utopian if your W510 surpasses your T60p.
Call me liar if you wish, blame the UPS guy if you prefer, but fact is my 510 is way off the mark compared to my T60.
How would you want the UPS guy to mess up with the HDD cover?
That a laptop get broken because it is thrown in the back of the van, I can understand, but no way the HDD cover would be bulging the way it was.
Same goes for the keyboard btw, and do you explain the flickering?
I knew I should have taken a picture btw lol.

I know MOST of you worship the ThinkPad brand in a Jobsian cultish way but wake up to reality, the new Ts are far off the old ones.

Having said that the worst bit is the flickering! I do hope they will find a solution as I am gutted to be on my 2nd T in 6 weeks and it is still unusable.

Oh and no, I do not work for Dell, or anyother manufacturer for that matter, I am just a poor bloke who got shafted by Lenovo, nothing more

 

I don't know that the fact you've had a bad experience makes for a trend.

 

When I first got my T510 I had something similar to what you are describing. I did not see what graphics choice you had on your system but I had something similar on my T510 with discrete graphics when I got it. For me it turned out to be a power saving setting for the nVidia card. All I had to do was to go in and change the setting.

These are the steps I followed:

1. Go to the Control Panel
2. Navigate through Hardware and Sound to Power Options
3. Choose Change plan settings
4. Choose Change advanced power settings
5. Scroll down to display and open it then open NVIDIA Display power saving technology
6. Make sure that this option is disabled
7. Save and exit

This change will cost a little battery power but it helped my system greatly. I hope that this helps you.

 

Can you post a picture of laptop defects, so we can get a reference of what you are actually talking about?

 

Thank you!

Actually some UPS Guy handle package much worse than your angry girlfriend. I had a Lenovo D10 workstation once and the case are bang up pretty bad and lenovo change a new case for me. The D10 has the most rigid case for a server. And the package are well packed. If any of your ever own a Lenovo workstation desktop,you will know what i mean. The technician and i both agree that the UPS must have drop my package from at least one or two store height.

No, i dont. I use Japan Brands/made computer until my first Thinkpad T60p. Japan's made laptop are much better in finish than my T60p but, they dont last. And to fix/upgrade a japan made laptop are too expensive. Thats why i bought the T60p. After 4 years usage, it still working perfect except the fan start making some noise. And it cost me about $30 to get a refurbrish one on ebay.
The position feedback from my T60p lead to my second Lenovo Thinkpad (W510) 's purchase. And surpise buy the quality of W510. It is much better than my T60p.
See! I am a very reasonable man.

 

Thanks for the tip flopp900, I will give it a go and keep you updated!

 

Hi Leadorg,

As I wrote in a previous post: 'I know I should have taken pictures' lol!
So no pix am afraid. I do not have a camera in the office and my E71 is pretty BAD when it comes to pictures lol.

When I 1st opened the box, I immediately noticed the HDD cover bugling and sticking out, so I took a screwdriver and opened it to reinsert it properly.
Oddly it was screw very tight so the person who did it must have know what he/she was doing!
It took me 2 or 3 attemps to insert the lid snuggly and screw it.

Next, I opened the screen and then noticed the keyboard sticking out on the left. I always replace my keyboards, as I live in UK but prefers a FR keyboard for use of the accents so I exactely know how to replace these without reading the instructions. So I unscrew the KB and inserted it back properly to the left and screwed it all back.
Actually there is still a slight bulge but guess I can live with that.

Rgds

 

Do you have a cell phone? Most cell phone can take decent picture nowadays. You are claiming some serious Quality Control issue here. It is ridiculous that something like this ever happen . I DON'T BELIEVE IT!

 

I have a E71, the picture quality is far superior than either the blackberry bold 9000 and 9700 that i have.

The left side of the laptop with the hdd cover and the keyboard sticking out, indicates that something had happened to the left side of the laptop during the transit (i.e. a heavy drop) during transportation.

 

This thread is pretty disheartening to me. I've been following the W510 forever in the hopes of buying one (if/when the FHD screens are available) and am concerned. I'm willing to pay a premium for build quality and specs but i'm beginning to hear/read whispers that the Thinkpads of today aren't what they used to be. I've got until the FHD displays become available to decide between thinkpad and Elitebook and will be watching related threads closely.

 

The Thinkpads of today are definitely not as well built as before, but as pointed out, they're much cheaper. Despite being less than before, they're still among the top of the current notebooks, along with the Dell Latitude/Precisions and HP Elitebooks.

 

Disagree!

Agree!

Agree!

 

damn lead_org! on top of being a a thinkpaddict you seem to be a crackberry addict as well
I was on the crack for the longest time before I switched over to the dark side and joined the "Steve Jobs for 2012" campaign

 

well, i don't like touch screen phones that much. I got a iPod Touch, so that is good enough for me, in terms of Apple Mania, which i got over long time ago after much of the iPod Mini battery failed on me (Thank you Sony and Sanyo).

 

I'm not sure how to respond to this thread. I think all computer manufacturer's suffer from some lack of quality control. Hell, I went through, let me count, 4 Apple Macbooks before I finally got one that I liked. All three before it had MAJOR quality control issues. Even then the fourth one, the optical drive died within 3 months, where it sat for more than a week at my local Apple store waiting to get a replacement optical drive.
My current T410, which I absolutely love, came with a scratched LCD, and some kind of hard matter inbetween the speaker grills. I wasn't too impressed, but it's turned out to be a great system and I wouldn't get rid of it for anything.
Either way, I believe all manufacturers have QC issues, and getting a perfect laptop is pure luck. It's the reality of cheap labor and mass production in this day and age. Hell, every single laptop I've ever owned has had issues of one form or another.
Don't blame Lenovo for the 16:9 screens, ALL manufacturers are moving to that format. The LCD manufacturers are producing less and less 16:10 screens, eventually they will all be 16:9. It's an unfortunate fact.
I guess my advice is, just keep trying until you get that perfect laptop, and learn to live with the widescreen format.

 

talin: of course, I know we have no choice with screen format at all! Costs of producing a 4:3 are probably ridiculously too high today if only one manufacturer buys them. Was just ranting over the fact that I much prefer 4:3.

Regarding flickering, am afraid the tip mentioned earlier on about changing battery settings did not work!

 

have you tried to update the bios? also what ram setup are you running? 2 pairs of equal sized ram?

 

bios updated yes
running 2 x 2GB

BTW still waiting on a new battery from Lenovo as they think it could be that...

 

This is, unfortunately, true.

 

Yes but as has been said many many many times before, latest ThinkPads are almost the same price as many mainstream cheap Dell's, if you went back to 2000 when a T20/21 was 3-4K USD for a minimal configuration, you'd be expecting exceptional build quality, and for the price back then, they were built very well, i have a T21 from 2000 that apart from loose LCD cables, works fine still, original Hitachi 20GB HDD.

 

just bought a t510...way to get me excited...not...

 

Just remember that out of most the posters on here.... 90 percent of them are probably the ones that have gripes or complaints. A lot of people come here for initial research and troublshooting. A lot of "happy" customers never return after getting their machines, so you never hear that side of it.

 

Oh, everyone has heard my side of it. I LOVE my T410. It's the best notebook I've ever had. Definitely a happy customer over here.

 

So you are agreeing that your T60 has the same quality as the Dell inspirion laptop range?

 

I agree with you
When I came here a few years back, it was primarily research, and seeing if the T series (back then, the T61 was the new item out from Lenovo) was worth getting. Turns out I lucked out, and got one withOUT the discrete graphics, and got the integrated graphics lol
But anyway, I am 100% satisfied with both my Thinkpads, and would not hesitate to buy another one (if my funds allowed me to do so that is lol).

Sorry to hear about you Thinkpadders with such issues, hopefully Lenovo will start to strap down on thier QC.

 

Some posts are quite funny, and again, in a Jobsian way should I add. lol

On one hand some are saying that Lenovos are the best machines bla bla bla, on the other hand others are saying 'what do you guys expect, they are so dirt cheap...'

I bought loads of laptops in my life, 1st one back in 1990 (shows my age I suppose), I had Olivetti, Dell, hp, IBM, Acers, Tosh and Sony.

Of all, my 3 year old IBM T60 was the best I ever owned and many people here would agree with that. I therefore bought a replacement T510 thinking it would be on a par with that T60 at least. OK, I ranted about the screen format but that is an non-issue in a way.
But FACT is the T410 and T510 are NOT nearly as good as their predecessors, moreover, was it just me being unlucky, maybe, but the lack of quality control is scary.

Now to the $ argument. I found the invoice for my T60 and you know what, it is only £100 pricier than the T510, but then, I got a 10% rebate on that last one, so all in all, prices were the same, so don't give us the $4K crap, that applies to maybe 3 generations ago laptops, not the T60-61 ones.

Should we talk about the keyboards now? The famed ThinkPad keyboards? Non-issue again: they are dead, finished, buried, Lenovo moved on!

Once upon a time, there was a niche market for high end quality built business laptops, ThinkPads ruled. Now, Lenovo has turned those machines into the 'pro-sumer' category.
Maybe some smart marketing guys at HP (2nd best in my experience) or Dell, or whoever, will raise the game and grab that niche market...

Typing this on my still flickering screen, battery still not arrived :-(

 

There are some things I agree with you on Audilo. I would agree that as manufacturing volume has increased quality control has missed more often. I think as someone else said, this is an issue with all manufacturers and the cheap labor they use. I would honestly be surpised if there was much disparity at all in the QC miss rates between HP, Dell, Apple, etc.... It is very much luck of the draw there.

As for the keyboard....I'm not on board with that one. I don't have a 510, so I can't speak to them, I have a T61, and my experiences from the older Thinkpads of the 90's, and up to my T61 I've loved the keyboard every bit as much. Everything I've read on the 510 says it's keyboard is better then the T61. Again however, there are what, 3 different brands of keyboard that Lenovo used? Maybe you got one that you don't like? I would wager that every year new models have ever been released there have been those of us that have 'reminisced' about the days of old when thinkpads were rock solid. You know what..... if you really step back and look at them, for the most part, they are still rock solid.

Regardless, you got a bad one this time, I hope you get it resolved. Warranty claims seem about as hit or miss as quality control issues.

 

They won't grab it, or they will, enjoy partial success, then start losing money like IBM did. The idea with the purchase of the PC division of IBM was to retain brand recognition, as well as build up Lenovo's reputation to be along the lines that IBM had in ThinkPads, seems like all they're doing now is squeezing as much proffit out of the ThinkPad brand as they can, and one day there won't be anymore ThinkPads. Build quality seems to degrade every generation, so what good is coming from Lenovo? Innovations seemed to have slowed down since they aquired IBM, and they are milking the same old "internal roll cage" crap as they were when they first added it. It's not pulling it's weight, just to rely on the once innovative features that are old and don't appeal to the consumer much anymore, or Lenovo's apparently new consumer market.

Keyboards? "...dead, finished, buried..."? How can you say that one of their strongest points is finished? It has simply diminished, and i don't see why of all the parts of a laptop, the keyboard quality ThinkPads are known for needs to be cheapened or made cost effective.

HP-Hmmm, i thought they along with Lenovo had the highest 2 year age failures among the biggest laptop brands? I know this girl who was in university and bought a (cheap) HP notebook, had Vista on it, and didn't know much about computers, so she calls up HP support about a number of BSOD's she'd been having, and after a while HP "technical support" literally told her on the phone "for that price what do you expect?". I don't call that top service.

 

Quality for a price. Basically you get what you pay for (well using the US standards anyway).

We shouldn't be using price comparison from Europe, but rather we should look at the price movement in USA, where the largest Thinkpads market is. Europe prices are distorted due to the various tariffs and VAT.

Yes once upon a time, IBM made a lot of money out of their laptop company selling it strictly to the corporate market, then the price of other computer/laptops drop and IBM was losing money on its PC business. You could argue IBM compatible computers are non-relevant and Thinkpads should still be targeted at professionals only, but at the end of the day the company that own the brand name still needs to make a profit.

Just like the permanent employees from charities need make a living from their work.

Dell and HP? unlikely, much of their business is doing the same, one could argue it is HP that caused the start of consumerisation of the whole business laptop line. (Another hurray for HP, region coded and print page counting cartridge).

Oh, now that Acer is moving up the tier one ladder with their al-cheapo consumer laptops, i don't think Dell or HP would focus so much attention on their business laptop range.

So does your screen flicker in safe mode?

 

I'm just wondering one thing, from a pure curiousity standpoint and nothing else; does anyone think IBM should have kept it's PC division? And if so, why? I wish I would have known the brand while it was still IBM, so I could know what many are talking about.

 

IBM sold off most of its PC businesses since they did not make enough profits. After all IBM = International Business Machine, a money losing venture is certainly not something they want to own or keep.

The T4x laptops was not as great as some people make it out to be. I still have these laptops.

With the screen open, the laptop chassis feel extremely weak, which is certainly not the case of the later Lenovo thinkpads.

If everyone of these Thinkpad traditionalists paid up and bought 3 or 4 Thinkpads a year, then IBM could of kept the business. But sadly, most of these people only bought laptops when they needed to (which is not frequent enough), so IBM had to let it go.

 

Interesting. I really had thought they were better than you described. But again I never owned an IBM computer so I wouldn't know.

 

Yes. The way stuff broke was on par with a consumer grade laptop.

 

sorry not quite sure what you meant by that comment. Did you mean your T60 break like a consumer grade laptop? Can you elaborate on your comments, so that one can understand what you are really trying to say.

 

4:3 screens are no longer produced because it is too expensive with all of the consumer/media laptops having been 16:9 for ages, sadly.

I'd MUCH rather have 1600x1200 than 1920x1080.

 

At least 10 motherboard failures, optical drive failure, touchpad buttons fell off, hinges wore out (that's expected), battery died, 2 power adapters (one melted and the other went up in smoke, literally).

 

10 motherboard failures? I don't know if I buy it...you are either extremely unlucky or are very, very hard on equipment. One or two I could see because electronics are never produced 100% reliable...but 10? Did you operate it in a super dusty environment and never cleared out said dust? I don't know...

 

whoa, i can't imagine what sort of torture you put your laptop through. I have never seen so much failures on a T60. Do you use your laptop as a doorstopper or something?

 

I only used it to take notes, youtube, etc during class. Anything heavy was done on my desktop.

 

I don't know how 10 motherboard could fail in a such space of time. So exactly what failed on the motherboard?

 

Yeah 10 failed motherboards sounds like one of two things:
1) exaggeration
2) using the thinkpad as a hammer to construct houses

To put numbers to this 10 failed motherboards claim, even if one assumed that all motherboards fail 50% of the time (an astronomical amount), then the odds of getting 10 failures in a row would be .5^10, or .00098% chance.