T61 Warranty Issues...

Hi...I was all set on getting a T61 today, until I realized that it isn't covered under warranty in any country but the U.S. Thank God I figured that out; they don't make it easy. I imagine many past customers will be surprised. I know I had my T41 fixed in Chile under the normal warranty. (I bought it in the U.S. and was just living two months in Chile).

So a few questions....

1) Is it likely that the problem is the T61 (6465) is just a new model? Is there a good chance that the 6465 will be sold overseas in the next few months and that by November when I go to live in Argentina it will be covered under warranty?

What happens if my laptop breaks in a country without warranty service on that particular laptop? Do I just mail it back to the U.S.? And then will they mail it back to me overseas? How will customs work? Who pays shipping?


2) If I buy one I'd like to buy it with the smallest memory (512mb) and hard drive (60 GB). Then I'll buy 4gb of generic memory from newegg, and a 200gb Hitachi 7200rpm drive from zipzoomfly.

If I have a problem with the display or motherboard or something like that, will this be an issue? Do I need to put the old ram and hard drive back in before getting next day service?


3) Is the accident protection (ThinkPad protection) worthwhile? Are there any limitations I should be aware of?

 

Some models only include US warranty. I'm on the same boat as you as I would very much would like to order a 15.4" with integrated graphics but for now those models only have US warranty.

If it breaks I guess you would have to send it back to the US and when repaired I don't think they will even ship it to a non-US address.

 

Before the T61, thinkpads all had international coverage.

But because the T61 is made cheaply (cheap components, 98% of the carbon reinforcement removed from the case, outsourced to cheap plant where dells are built, dubious quality control and worse build quality), they also removed the international warranty coverage to cut cost. They also cut staff & support for domestic support.

Accordingly, the T61 is cheaper. But you get what you pay for!

 

Yay! More propaganda!

Check out this poll: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=135664&highlight=satisfaction+t61
Majority satisfaction with the T61 on a forum where most users are online to complain. People rarely take part of forums to praise stuff.

Last I called Lenovo support, I spoke to a white guy. Enough said.
Same plant as Dells? I say cheaper labor force without concessions in build quality. Dell designs cheap computers (Inspiron)- that's not the plant's fault.

 

Have you gotten yours yet?
I'd like to hear about your impressions after all cheerleading stuff you've posted on these threads.

 

I've had my T61 for weeks now. It's perfectly fine. Thanks for asking.

By the way, I'm not trying to be a T61 fanboy or anything. I'm just tired of SkiBunny's incessant flaming. I have never claimed that the T61 launch was perfect, EVER. Clearly you aren't stupid enough to not notice how I've blasted Lenovo for their delays and noted that some T61 owners received crappy laptops. Clearly you aren't that stupid. Clearly.

 

Like no issues whatsoever?
How's fit and finish, backlight leakage, BSODs and other "common" stuff?

 

Here's my honest, detailed opinion:

There is backlight leakage, but not that much. Near the bottom, when the screen is black, you can see leakage creeping up maybe in a faint 1 cm half circle, but in regular usage, you'll never see it. Nothing nearly as bad as what others have complained about. I have no dead pixels, I don't even use the top brightness setting, and the colors are nice and vibrant.

I have gotten no BSOD's. Period.

There is some flex at certain points of the carbon-composite-whatever but nothing I know will come into play as a disadvantage in normal wear-and-tear. I guess if I wanted to nitpick, I could say that one side of the lid is not perfectly adhered to the LCD bezel, but when I mean nitpicking, I really am nitpicking. It's hardly noticable, way less noticable than the off-centered screen. One more thing- there is a little bulge in the plastic where the cutouts are for the touchpad and buttons are, but again, not noticable.

So these are all the "issues," if you may even call them that, that I have with the T61. Everything else is perfectly fine.

So no, it's not picture perfect, but at the price which I paid for it, it only needs to be better than other laptops out there, and in my opinion, it is. Maybe ThinkPad connoisseurs (like SkiBunny) will balk at how I am supporting the T61 for its price and how past ThinkPads' only and most important selling point was quality, but honestly, if Lenovo didn't purchase IBM and use their resources to make more affordable laptops, I'd be riding an HP Pavilion or maybe one of those Playskool-white-plastic Macbooks right now.

 

Cool, thanks for the review.

 

Does that mean that the T60 I purchased last week comes with an International Warranty?

 

Yes most likely, almost all did, but check the warranty service page on the lenovo site (moved from ibm last month) to be sure.

 

Just called Lenovo. The rep said that the 3 year extended depot warranty is valid in Canada, Korea, US and Japan.

So what happens if I'm in Switzerland and I need repairs?