Waiting for your Z series laptop???

I placed my z61p order on 10/20. I was told by a rep that my order is the oldest laptop order that is still outstanding. The original ship date was 11/18 followed by 12/18. On 12/18, I received an automated message asking me to reaffirm my order with a new estimated ship date of 1/18 within 5 days or the order would be cancelled. I reaffirmed.

I have been in contact with Lenovo three times. The first time I called was early December when the ship date moved. I was told by the rep that the laptop would ship the following Monday. After that passed and just before the Christmas Holiday, I contacted Lenovo again. This time I was guaranteed a ship date of either 12/27 or 12/28. On the 28th, with no update on my order, I contacted them a third time. My case was escalated and I received a call from a manager a day later.

All three of the reps were extremely nice and understanding of my frustration. I never got snippy with them. I explained that I understood it was not the reps' fault. The first and second rep told me that I could send them a configuration I snapped from early December that had my exact configuration for $300 less and I would receive a credit. I did not bother to ask the third rep since at that point I was more concerned with losing partial reimbursement from my company for my 2006 computer purchase (up to $1000).

The manager called and I was told that the laptop would ship on the 01/05. I explained to her how my faith in their estimated ship dates had been shattered long ago, and that I would suffer the loss of partial reimbursement because of their delays. She asked if I would accept being invoiced before the end of the year in order to meet my employer's requirement to which I declined the offer on the basis that I might never actually see the laptop in question.

During the call, she avoided the topic of compensation for my pain. So, I decided to throw it out just before she could put an end to the call. I explained how an earlier rep had promised me the lower price. She paused. Then she told me that she cannot make an adjustment on the grounds that I found a price that was lower after my original order date. Instead, she told me a 10% reduction in price was sufficient.

After taking a deep breath, I told her that I have been a Lenovo/IBM laptop customer for over 5 years, and that this experience has soured what was once a loyal customer. I told her that it was absolutely ridiculous to me that Lenovo cannot even get what is supposed to be their primary business to run efficiently. After a few minutes of long, but calm, verbal assault, I was greeted with a percentage knock off that would come close to the $300 discount. She acted like I was supposed to kiss her feet for bending the rules.

So, do I believe that it will ship on 01/05? No. With the delays so far and the fact that she managed to lie to me already about getting back to me within a day to tell me why the hold up, I have an inclination to cancel and to avoid Lenovo altogether.

BB

 

BobbyBrady,

You are a more patient soul than I - If I'm still waiting on this thing 17 days from now it had better be because it's waiting for me at my local UPS office.

Here's a tip for your dealings with them, based on what's been promised me: next level customer service and your original rep are in different departments, with different budgets and policies as to what they can and can't credit. The % you've been offered off the system is going to come out of the customer service "please don't sue us or make us look bad in the press by being unhappy" budget. They can't adjust your system price, only give you an x% discount off it, up to a max of $300, and apply it to the credit card you used to buy your system.

Separate and apart from that, the original price match you were promised can come out of Sales' normally available price match budget. Price matches are usually available only for prices within 30 days of your order date, but sales (rather than customer service) told me that if you've had to wait more than 30 days since your original order, they'll match any price that was available while you were waiting. They only do a price match once a unit ships, and they do it by crediting $XXX.XX to your credit card.

If you play your cards right (as was promised to me), you'll get whatever credit you've been promised by the next level customer service, and should then still be able to call sales separately, and ask them for a normal price match credit (just as any other customer could for an on-time order). The only potential wrinkle is the length of time since your order date, but if you get the right sales rep they seem to be able to waive that. Just don't tell them you've been escalated to next level, as they clam up at that point and tell you customer service needs to handle you.

Lenovo is absolutely positively disfunctional internally. At least on this issue, I have a very strong suspicion you, I, and others can use it to our benefit. If they're going to make us wait, we can make them pay.

 

Ordered my z61m last Friday. Arrived today (yesterday actually but I wasn't home for UPS).

 

Did you get a titanium or black shell?

 

the same second level rep called me back again this afternoon and offered me 100 bucks off my order. never mind that it's shy of 10 percent, it wasn't worth fighting for the extra 20 bucks or whatever. at least I got something out of it.

I asked her to reconfirm that it was going to ship this week and she says "our system says the 15th". This is after the first level rep told me that they had the parts in and they are shipping this week. I didn't even bother to push it, because I had already spent over an hour on the phone with them today. I already know how meaningless that date in the "system" is anyway...

 

It was titanium.

 

So far, so good. I've been using my z61t for a week and am very happy with it. It's an awesome system, that's for sure, but was it worth the 7 week wait? Hmmm...tough to tell. Like I said, it's really nice, but I don't think anything is worth that long of a wait. I ordered is b/c it had JUST what I wanted, so for that, I'm not dissappointed at all and once my bitterness over the order/shipping process fades, I'll be much happier, I'm sure.

It's still nice and shiny (really liking the titanium) and not loaded up with all my installed programs so what's not to love. No major problems so far and there's not much I'd change with it. I considered cleaning up the install or doing a whole restore and reinstall to remove some of the bloatware and thin the processes, but opted against it for now just so I can put it through its paces. Should I decide to do that...I thought I saw some posts recently about some good "out of the box" techniques to test (dead pixels, etc.) and clean up a new machine for max performance. Anyone care to post the links to them if they have them handy? Thanks.

Oh, and I did eventually get the 10% credit the complaint rep promised me, it was processed separate from the invoice for the system and showed up on my credit card statement a few days later.

EDIT - I'm going to start a new thread..."Finally got your Z series laptop"...and post some of this there.

 

Update: My order shipped yesterday with Express delivery. I will be calling as soon as I get it to get my discount from level 1 and level 2.

BB

 

It shipped, it shipped! Right now it is at the airport in Hong Kong, waiting for a flight stateside. Of course, it ships the day I leave on a 10 day trip, so I won't get to open it up and play with it until I return. I'll be sure to post again with info on the machine and info on whether I get my promised credits.

Good luck to those still waiting.

 

Here we are on 1/15, and the Z61m I ordered on 11/24 still has not shipped. Nobody at Lenovo can seem to give me a straight answer on when the thing is ever going to ship. I've already gotten 10 percent off and a free laptop bag thrown in. The problem is, these things do me no good if nobody can even tell me when the **** things is going to ship.

I'm canceling my order today and ordering a Dell Latitude 820 instead.

screw Lenovo...

 

just to add my story to the mix...

i ordered a z61t on 1/2/07, and i explicitly asked about the reported delays in delivery times, and i was told that they had gotten over the hump in Z series production, and that my product would be there in 3-4 weeks.

they gave me an estimated shipping date of 1/22/07 (That's 4 weeks), and just today they bumped it back to 2/2/07 (for a total of 6 weeks).

grr


edit: just got off the phone with a rep, and he told me all the core components were in stock, but that the a/b/g/n card and xp pro were not. he said since those aren't the bigger supply issues (like the memory and shells that plagued the holiday season), he thinks it still will ship sometime next week, but maybe he was just saying that to get me to hang up.

to his credit, though, i noticed that the estimated shipping times is back down to 1-2 weeks on the website, so maybe they finally are catching up with demand

 

I just ordered an R-series last saturday...


how long do you think it will take to go through the whole processing thing?

I get so crazy about ship dates.

 

Finally got my z61p ordered on 11/7 on Monday of this week (it was build 1/5, and first delivery attempt to my house was 1/11 - I was out of town). They've already applied the 10% credit I was promised, and I'm working with them on getting an additional price match credit for a lower price that was available while I was waiting.

As for the machine, the overall build quality is sturdy, it seems quite fast (2.0 GHZ Core 2 Duo with 1.5 GB ram, did Super Pi to 2 million places in 1.04, which is about what I'd have expected), and although it has 74 listed processes out of the box (most of them bloatware), they don't seem to consume much in the way of system resources. Keyboard is the Chicony, which is a bit clunkier than the keyboard in my old T42, but I think I'll come to like it.

Only real complaint I have is with the UXGA screen, which is why I waited so long for a "p" in the first place. I have no problem at all with how super tiny everything is, but the screen is not evenly bright, with noticable light bleed at the bottom edge and a darker band above that across the lower third depending on your viewing angle. It isn't bad enough to send it back, but certainly makes me feel that the long wait was NOT worth it.

Good luck to those still waiting.

 

Haha. I just got the "p" joke


Quoted by hoopics: "Finally got my z61p ordered on 11/7 on Monday of this week...Only real complaint I have is with the UXGA screen, which is why I waited so long for a "p" in the first place."

 

by the way, they actually shipped my laptop on friday (1/19), so it beat their original estimate (1/22. i believe they upgraded shipping to express as well. -=)

so, lenovo was honest and it seems that the delay on the z's is coming to an end.

hooray

 

Actually, didn't mean for it to be a joke - I just meant that I waited as long as I did to get a z61p, as opposed to a z61m or z61t (or even a T60ws), because only the "p" series z61's have the WUXGA high resolution screens.

BTW, having played with it for a few more days, the screen isn't quite as bad as I first made it seem to be. At least with the p series machines, the ATI FireGL graphics card comes with its own control software, which lets you adjust contrast, brightness, and gamma for the display, both for the screen generally as well as for video playback. Tinkering with this makes the brightness issue mentioned in my prior post a lot less pronounced, but not eliminated.

 

Thanks for sharing your experiences here.

I ordered a Z61m on December 2nd- and I'm STILL WAITING!
Estimated shipping date is Feb 5th. More than 60 days.
I've been dealing with "customer service" but now will try the "complaint dept"
Part of the problem is that in my limited time to research other laptops I haven't found anything comparable. Anyway, it's gotta ship soon!

 

I am sharing my experience with lenovo.

I ordered a Z61m 9450-D6U on Friday night Jan 19. I was expecting a long delay given the horror stories I have read here. I choosed standard shipping since it was free< I felt it did not make a diferrence since I was going to wait for it.

I checked on the following day on the status of my order and I was extremely surprised that my order was already shipped the following day and it was sent Express Shipping at no extra charge.

I received my Z61m today Jan 23 at 10:30am. I do not know why I received my laptop so quick. However, I did order thru Goverment Employees Purchase Program site. I paid $1,223.10 +tax on that configuration and I believe I got a good deal.

What do you guys think?

All I can say is that this thing is built like a tank. I did notice a little flexing on the wrist pad but it is nothing to worry about. Next to none on the keyboard.

I did have some problems with the Fingerprint reader it looks like it is not sensitive enough or not configured right. I kept getting a "too short" error for my right index finger ended up using my thumb to get a correct scanning. I just purchased a Toshiba Satellite for my wife and their FP reader is 10 times easier to use and faster than this one.

The screen is bright enough for me with the AC Plugged in. The WSGXA+ resolution is just right. Easy on the eyes. It has an amber ThinkLight.

I ordered a Pelican 1490CC2 case for my TP. Later when CPU prices fall I intend to upgrade the processor.

 

How do you update a laptop CPU??

 

I might be mistaken but every Laptop nowadays have their CPU socketed on to their mainboards. Its just a matter of taking your laptop apart, reach were it is located and swap it. For ThinkPads is easy because we have the Hardware Maintenance Manual which give us a detail breakdown of the machine.

Of course, this pretty much voids your warranty, however if this happens you just replace the old CPU, send it for repairs and noboby's the wiser.

 

I ordered a z61t on 1/10 and it got shipped 1/23 from Hong Kong and arrived in CA same day. My estimated ship date was 1/31 so it shipped within two weeks.

The UPS tracking says as of 2:08PM today:
"THE SHIPMENT IS BEING HELD BY BROKERAGE FOR REASONS BEYOND UPS' CONTROL;BROKERAGE RELEASED SHIPMENT. SHIPMENT IS SUBMITTED TO CLEARING AGENCY FOR FURTHER CLEARANCE"

like so many other Lenovo customers' orders said...BUT the nice thing about this is that my shipping somehow got upgraded to EXPRESS and I originally went with free ground shipping. I noticed random others also got upgraded, but I didn't write a letter, complain or interact with Lenovo reps to get this. It just happened. I can't complain though haha. I guess the Lenovo delays are somewhat over.

I called UPS and they said it's guaranteed delivery by tomorrow, 1/25, 10:30 am. Although the rep also said because of the customs delay, it might be a little later.

It's only 400 miles away from my house, so hopefully tomorrow is my lucky day...

 

I ordered my z61t on nov 29th and mine hasn't been shipped yet. They say it's gonna be shipped this week but i'm not sure if i should trust them or not. I was even told by a rep two weeks ago and that my notebook would be shipped on jan 19th. but it got delayed again and i don't know what to do with them. I got 5% off the price but i'm not satisfied with it

 

today i ordered a z61m 9450 d6u from lenovo epp and was told i would have to wait 3-4 weeks before it is shipped, lets c what happens, is the z series really being discontinued? bloody t series doesnt even have svideo out, sd card, or titanium lid, rubbish!

 

I placed an order for the Z61m, customized to my liking, on Jan. 24th and I got it today, Jan. 31st.

 

Wow. guess I'm the only one who's been waiting for two months now.

 

wow im amazed, juss received shipment confirmation today for z61m from epp, 1 day from time of purchase!!!!!!!!! and was told 3-4 wks

 

Ordered my z61t on 1/11 and it had an original ship date of 1/31 and now it says 2/15. I'm upset because the rep never advised me of the long wait and he has not answered two of my three emails to get a straight answer.

 

godawgs, fyi i'm in the same boat as you, i ordered a z61t on 1/18... found out on friday that the model is being discontinued (the specific one i ordered, not the whole z61t line)... so if you got a z61t c2d5500 titanium with no webcam, we're probably in the same boat.

 

Ordered a Z61m with titanium lid and X1300 on 2/1. It shipped today. Not including the weekend, that was 3 days. Not bad.

 

According to the original sales rep that was handling my order there was a credit card hold on the account and the CC was never even charged. So basically if I had not called yesterday this order might have sat there for a few more weeks. The Rep actually admitted his own fault for the CC hold (he said something about how he never forwarded it on) and now I have the problem escalated and I am awaiting a call from a manager to discuss how to get the computer in my hands this week or some type of compensation.

 

got my z61m today 6 days from purchase date

i gotta say, this is the most beautiful, built, feature packed, highly customizable laptop i have ever seen in my life!!!!, i use to use a lattitude and recently had a dell e1505, but god man, this thing has more features than anything i have ever seen, the dells let u customize to an extent, but this bloody thing has sooo many advance customizations that u can ever think of, im so glad i made this purchase, im just upset that i didnt sooner (sometime last year)

i love my z61m, im a hardcore gamer, CAD user, engineering student, and i really got the BEST bang for my buck, i doing a review this weekend with this compared to a dell e1505, cause the reviews on here really dont do justice, no offense guys and gyals