T61P review - poor CS, defective screen,

Some of you are aware that I’ve been waiting for the promised T61P since May of this year. Now 4 months. Numerous lies from Lenovo Customer Service got me to wait, wait wait when if they’d been honest with me I’d have long since moved on to a machine that was real and actually available.

Finally mid August I called Lenovo only to learn that they had somehow ‘lost’ the order (as so many of you report) that I’d been waiting on for 3 months already and not only that, but the machine I’d ordered was no longer available and they couldn’t order it for me.

A call to the BBB got the attention of Tony Bumarch who was able to clear a logjam and get it moving.

Finally the machine arrives. As I open it and turn it on I’m struck by the worst light leakage and the dimmest screen I’ve ever seen. The light leakage is 1/3 the way up the screen and when comparing brightness to other displays like the Dell LCDs the Lenovo Thinkpad’s is very dim even at full brightness when compared to the Dell’s with the brightness set at half.
In any kind of sunlight it’s unreadable.

So I called Tony about this defective machine.
He refuses to admit that it’s defective, says that the screen probably meets lenovo’s low standards for quality and that this is acceptable. NOT.
I asked him to upgrade me to onsite warranty ($50 difference) so that I didn’t have to wait more months for this defect to be corrected. Tony Burmarch REFUSED again stating that the machine is probably within Lenovo’s low quality standards. That I’m welcome to send the defective machine in for service and they’ll evaluate it.


In the world where everyone is going to thin and light, Lenovo has gone in the opposite direction. The T61P is a tank. The lid alone is 4 times thicker than the Sony and twice as thick as my 4 year old Dell Inspiron. The bezel around the screen is very large wasting a lot more space. The whole machine is very big. Not to mention it’s very heavy at nearly 7 lbs and poorly balanced. A friend’s 17” dell ‘feels’ smaller, lighter and better balanced even if it is a pound heavier.

The 1920x1200 WUXGA is way too small resolution for any kind of web browsing where pages don’t follow ‘large font’ but their own font. Reading CNN’s website is just about impossible with the letters measureing just .100” tall. The only way to read a webpage is to change the resolution to something higher and accept the ‘fuzzyness’ that comes along with not running at native resolution. I had fear of this being the case, but assumed Lenovo would only put out a quality item and it being the only screen available

I’m having problems with suspend and hibernate, a problem that seems to be rampant on the forum. Machine will go down but not stay down, waking up on it’s own even with the lid closed.

The T61P is pretty fast on benchmarks, but is very slow booting up, launching programs etc. I have not done a clean install, but it doesn’t have much more running than it needs.

You have to be in a dark room to see the screen.

Keyboard feels nice.

There's really not much more I can do with the defective machine. It's got to go back and CS is notorious for reformatting drives so I'm not wasting any more of my time installing stuff that I'll just have to reinstall when it gets back from it's adventure.

So that’s where we are today.
4 months of waiting
Countless hours of my time spent on the phone and chasing Lenovo contradictory stories.
Defective machine shows up and has to go in for repairs.
Needless to say I’m very dissatisfied with the most unethical company I’ve ever dealt with. I will never, ever deal with this company again. In my 20+ years in the computer industry this has been the all time worst experience.

 

Why didn't you just cancel the order instead of waiting for so long, plus you were unhappy with Lenovo long before you even recieved the laptop and had enough time to realise that things were not looking good and might as well get out before it's too late. Reminds me of the saying "fool me once....". You have been whining over and again about how bad Lenovo is and all that and yet you waited for 4 months?! Sorry, but after a month or two you should've learned your lesson but you still went ahead with the order instead of canceling it and just ordering from somewhere else like Dell or Sony.

To be honest i'd take the thickness of the thinkpad lid over Sony's LCD flex anytime.

 

Firestarter, either you are an idiot or a lenovo fanboy, how can you possibly think I'm to blame for this?

Lenovo is the one who LIED.
Lenovo is the one who LOST THE ORDER
Lenovo is the one with poor Customer Service requiring a BBB complaint to get anywhere.
Lenovo is the one who puts a DEFECTIVE product out there and then refuses to correct it.

How is this my fault?


I have legitimate complaints about Lenovo, just because you want to brown nose them doesn't make the things Lenovo does wrong, right.

 

Man, I am really sorry to here that. That really sucks. That light leakage is very bad as well. What a shame. What are you next plans to deal with the situation?

 

that screen looks awful. is this really indicative of other 15.4" WUXGA displays?

 

Awful?
This is a notebook screen.
Even a slight change in the viewing angle can produce significantly higher amounts of light leakage.
There is nothing wrong with that screen.

 

what you call lid thickness is partly due to the clamshell design which in fact protects more the screen than what you have on your Sony

 

Are you kidding?
I'm not aware of any notebook screen other than the LED backlighted that is readable under the sunlight.
btw, was it on battery when compared to the Dell?

 

If you think this is a $2500 quality I am amazed. This is absolutely the worst light leakage of any laptop screen I've ever seen. You should buy thing POS from me.

The little Sony I have has about 1/4" of light leakage, Sony immediately admitted that this was out of spec and will replace it. The lenovo is 10 times worse and lenovo says it's normal.

OK, let's drag all the blind faithful Lenovo fanboys out of the closet to attack when someone posts proof of poor quality...

I have numerous laptops to compare to, plenty of which can be read in sunlight, maybe not with the sun beaming down on the screen, but in 'normal' light amounts they are plenty visible. Not the T61P. You cannot read it at all in anything but a dark room.


Photos taken were on AC with brightness set to maximum on the T61P - you need every bit of that to be able to read it at all even in a dark room.

 

Haha. WTF. Some gripes you have, MonsterMaxx, are legit. Some are your own fault, however. WUXGA? Your fault. 1920x1200 on 15.4" screen? This is clearly not Lenovo's fault. The whole dim screen/light leakage thing is crappy, but Tony is right - it probably DOES meet their specs. You're also comparing a 13" Sony to a 15.4" Lenovo. Try an apples-to-apples comparison if you're gonna gripe. Shrug. You have some valid complaints, but people would be much more apt to listen to/help you if you would just stop being a total tool and focus on the facts instead of your insanely exaggerated and dramatic rants.

 

You've been long enough around this thread to know that the Lenovo screens are not the best in business.
The screen quality is not the Lenovo's selling point.
Besides, how did you come up with the $2500 figure?

 

You paid $2500?!! Oh wow. You know you could've gotten it for under $1300 with the recent sale.

 

No, based on the viewing angle that picture appears to have been taken at, it's either defective or simply very low quality. This is much worse than the "acceptable" level of light leakage common in notebook screens.

 

Griping about the thickness of the lid is laughable. Sorry you are disappointed with the quality of the LCD, that does look pretty sucky.

 

Dude, don't call me a fanboy.
I've returned the praised FlexView because of its overall diminess.

 

So let me see if I have your attack right
WUXGA on a 15.4" screen = light leakage 1/3rd the way up the screen and brightness so low it's barely readable in a dark room?
And this is my fault? I think you need to go hang out in the fanboy room with the other lenovoites

 

Such a drama queen...
If it's that dim, just return it for a full refund and move on.

 

Guess he is just upset no one showed up for his pity party. Maybe he could take pics of the Sony's LCD ripple effect too. Oh sorry, thats a feature.

 

You should have done more research before choosing the 1920x1200 WUXGA.

It's not Lenovo's fault that you did not plan enough before purchasing your laptop. Same applies with your complaint about the weight (What size battery are you using?). The weight/dimension specs can be found all over the internet. As mentioned before, the lid is designed to be thick in order to cover and protect the laptop.

Edit: The hibernate/suspend and long boot time is primarily Vista's fault. Even if you doubt it will help, try a clean install with Vista or XP and see if it improves. That way you can be certain whether it is a hardware (Lenovo) or software (Microsoft) issue.

 

Screen resolution is your own fault

A clean install will fix boot time. Or just change to XP or Linux

Comparing lid thickness from the top is misleading as mentioned before. Plus this notebooks lid is supposed to be thicker and more durable. Again you're own fault for not looking into it before buying.

Other than that the screen does look somewhat bad, and customer service hasn’t been up to par.

If you're that unhappy send it back and buy a different brand. Its their loss.

 

i was wondering if the viewing angle of the photo was more to blame. granted, the OP is pissed at lenovo, but i was hoping someone with objective experience could comment as to whether this really is indicative of displays at this resolution/size.

none of the half dozen laptops i've owned lead me to believe this is average, but all of mine have been low-end, 1024x768 (for work). It might have been average on my older laptops (eg 10 years), but certainly not now.

 

No. My argument was that WUXGA @ 15.4" = extreme resolution. That's why your fonts are so small. That's not Lenovo's fault. I said that your level of light leakage sucks and while it's a crappy situation, Tony is probably correct and it is within their specs(which is BS, but again probably a true answer, not a lie)

 

OMG, you fanboys should go put in an application at Lenovo. I'm sure they'd like suckups like you.

I did plenty of research on what I needed. Unfortunatly there is no way to research 'light leakage' 'defective screens' and very dim brightness. You simply have to assume that the company will not make a substandard item.
I wasn't all that worried about font size, but noting it for others who may want to actually read a webpage is important data.

The 'viewing angle' the photos were taken at has nothing to do with the lightleakage or dimness. The Light leakage is because it's defective. The dimness sounds like it's 'by design'.
The refusal to correct it is because of poor customer service.

 

For what its worth you might as well try and get money back on your $2500 that you spent on this laptop as the price has come way down, especially with the new discounts.

 

I agree with most of the people here. I bought the T61p during the recent sale, my first ever thinkpad, and I have gotten nothing but prompt customer service from Lenovo. Sure I had to wait on the line for 5 - 10 minutes, but who doesn't when they call a big company?
While you do have some valid complaints (the light leakage), your other complaints seem to be just whiny arguments based off of the fact that you received poor customer service and have been flaming Lenovo ever since.

1. WUXGA problem
Sure it sounded nice when you got a screen that said 1920 x 1200 pixels, but think about it. On a 15.4" screen, you've got to be kidding me right. People warned about it being small but you went ahead and made the purchase anyways.

2. Thin and light construction / Lid thickness
While we all like laptops to be as light and as slim as possible, you must have known when you buy a thinkpad, they're made for certain purposes, namely durability and reliability. The thick lid you notice is because of the magnesium alloy roll cage and the extra padding lenovo puts around the LCD in case you drop it or anything. Hell, you can even stand on a thinkpad w/o worrying the LCD will crack. (See the pictures of the IBM lab thread) I dare you to do that with your Sony.

3. Weight concerns
You are comparing a 13" Sony to a 15.4" Thinkpad. Of course the Sony will be much lighter. But can the Sony outperform the Thinkpad? No. Unless of course you give the Sony a clean install and leave the Thinkpad with all the bloatware it comes with.

I'm sorry monstermaxx. While I do sympathize with the poor screen (that definitely seems to be defective), everything else just seems to be a flame on Lenovo. You could have cancelled your order early on but persisted in calling Lenovo and filing complaints until you received your laptop. It might not have been the super machine you wanted, but it's not all too bad like you make it out to be.

On a side note: if you are that unhappy with the Lenovo, just return it for a full refund.

 

Give it a rest. I have yet to see one real fanboy post in this thread. Essentially everyone agrees that the light leakage sucks, and the CS is not dealing with it in the manner one would hope. However your other claims are exaggerated at best, and the tone of your subsequent posts leaves much to be desired.

No, this is not indicative of a normal 15.4" WUXGA display, it's most likely defective. (Note that defects seem to be more common in 15.4" WUXGA displays than others, most likely because of the rarity of such displays and the delicacy needed to produce such ultra-high resolution panels.)

 

Sounds like you got a bad machine alright, but how did you order a T61p in May? Looks like they were announced on July 10
http://www.lenovo.com/news/us//en/2007/07/workstation.html

 

i don't think he ordered it in may.
he originally had a t60p on order but was told in a few weeks the t61p would be available and that he would get a call when it was. he never got the call but found out anyways and was able to place an order...and his bad luck continued from there.

please correct me if i'm wrong. this is all based off of reading your previous posts monster.

 

Anyone who doesn't agree completely with him and condemn Lenovo to hell is a fanboy -_-

It's pretty easy to see how legit this "review" is.

 

it almost sounds like as if he's paid by Sony to bash on Lenovo.

realistically, he got a great machine with a defective screen. everything else pretty much fits the description of a thinkpad. i'm sure there are 10x or 100x more satisfied customers than dissatisfied ones.

 

Ignoring all the flaming here for a minute, you do know you can just press ctrl+ or ctrl- to zoom in or out of web pages don't you??

 

Return it and get a Fujitsu with Crystalview screen 450 nits vs 175~200 for lenovo.
Best customer service people.

 

Agreed - SCREEN IS DEFECTIVE.

Unfortunatly, Lenovo says that this level of quality is NORMAL.

Dim screens, severe light leakage and up to 16 dead pixels are NORMAL and perfectly within Lenovo's specification with the T61P.

The Sony is a nice little toy, but isn't what I needed. I'll probably end up back at Dell since my past dealings with them have been mostly good.

 

RMA it, and if they don't agree to replace the screen, ask for a refund.

 

Great!
Dell will make it right for you, that's for sure.

 

Well if you have 16 dead pixels, definitely RMA it or get a refund.

 

No, he doesn't.
I doubt he has a single one.

 

No.

He has 16.
And has waited since May.

 

:cry:

 

Guys stop flaming each other.
Thank you,
Tim

 

It really seems like all people here are fanboys set on flaming the original poster. Stop flaming him and let's be a little more understanding.

 

He never pointed out that he actually has any dead pixels. The Lenovo policy is up to 16 dead pixels from what I gather.

As others have said, it has a decent amount of light leakage. My T60p has the 15.4" WSXGA+ screen and I personally don't see any obvious leakage, plus the 1680x1050 resolution is almost perfect for that size screen in my opinion. Note that, of course, Lenovo doesn't make the LCD panels and probably uses at least two suppliers for the panels in your T61p. My T60p came with a LG panel, which has been known to be better quality than the Samsung that Lenovo also uses. Maybe you received the lower quality LCD in your case, and can request they replace with the other supplier (whomever that might be).

Some of your complaints are valid-long ordering process, light leakage-but the lid design and overall build quality is a definite benefit. In the end, you can't please everyone all of the time. Maybe it's best if you get a refund and move to another manufacturer. Sorry to hear of all of your troubles.

 

you're right, i'm sorry.

 

I think he was quoting the dead pixel policy, not stating how many dead pixels he actually has. I could be mistaken (searched the thread, did not see that stated).

I'm going to try the darkroom test tonight when I get home. I haven't noticed any issues with my display at all. If there is light leakage, it must not be apparent under normal operating conditions (I usually don't work in the dark).

 

Oh, and FWIW, my T61p is indeed slimmer overall than my Dell Precision M65, which is/was a comparable laptop (now the M4300). The screen bezel is thicker by about 3mm but the overall dimensions closed are smaller. I'd prefer to have the screen rigidity personally. My M65 has a WUXGA screen as well, and the brightness is about the same. I will run Everest on there and see what brand Dell uses.

 

The DEFECTIVE laptop has been boxed and is awaiting pickup from Lenovo's carrier.

 

I am still trying to figure out why you let them send you the laptop when you were complaining about the CS and the company in general for the better half of last month.

 

Are you his other screen name??

If not... no one is flaming him. Go search up on his other posts and you'll see why no one takes him seriously. He takes exaggeration and lies to a whole new level.

Other than the screen, his "review" is full of ridiculous complaints and statements.

 

Hey MonsterMaxx,
sorry for your bad experience.
I think I can somehow really understand your frustration since I had a very similar experience; I also ordered a T61p the first day it was available on the website and was of course really excited, since this was going to be my first thinkpad ever and after reading in this forum and elsewhere, my expactations where really very high.
So when I finally received the laptop ~3 weeks ago, I was really quite disappointed in the beginning, because, as you wrote, the screen seemed to be quite dim, the text was really tiny and difficult to read, I was not very impressed with the design at first and the build quality when finally seeing it in 'real life'.
However, I also have to say, that after using it for some weeks now, I think I start liking it more and more. As opposed to what I'm reading everywhere, after doing a clean install following Stallen's very nice guide, Vista 64x runs perfectly and very fast, I only had some crashes when playing games, which I think is probably due to software issues that will be ironed out in the future.
I also got used to the high screen res. and now actually really like it a lot.
I'm writing this not to oppose you, but to tell you, that maybe once you get your laptop back, you should just try to play around with it a little bit more and see how you like it.
If after that you find, it is not for you, I think they give you 3 weeks time to return your laptop without giving any explanations - only thing is that you might have to pay 15% restocking fee, I think...
Anyway, just wanted to share these thoughts with you!
Again, sorry for your frustration and good luck for the future!

 

You said it was built like a tank...GOOD! Thats why I bought the damn thing. Lenovo doesnt claim these are thin and light - these are made for the long haul.

The native WUXGA resolution is extremely high. I hardly understand how Lenovo is at fault for this...Isnt this what you wanted?


With that said, I really hope you get helped out with your light leakage issue. And the hibernate issue would bug EVERYONE - I can definitely see where you would be mad about this one...