X1 Carbon Shipping Thread

Consider it forgotten.

 

Got an email from my Lenovo Rep. He says the 9/25 Date is wrong and he is looking into what the correct date will be... Crossing my fingers, that I'll see my new laptop before I start a class on 9/10.

 

Base System (i5/4gb/128gb)
Order Date: 2012/08/15
Estimated Ship Date: 2012/08/26
Status: Released to Manufacturing

So it's about to be 8/29 in China... and I can't seem to get a rep to tell me anything but, "it will ship tomorrow". I've talked to various phone and online chat reps every other day. This is getting a little ridiculous.

Is Released to Manufacturing the last "status" before it actually ships? Mine's been in this status for a week.

 

Mine still says "In Production" and estimated to ship tomorrow, 8/29. Weird.

 

I think "In Production" is the next step. Mine has been "In Production" since last Wed or Thu.

 

I could be wrong but in my case it went from Released to Manufacturing to "In Production" My ship date was yesterday and there has not been a update to that date yet!

 

I know that this is dreaming but I have these visions of me clicking on my Order Detail page and looking at the status and it showing Shipped!

 

They are not even updating the order status screen, so no one can ever tell whats going on.

 

mine has been in " in production" phase for almost a week, and mine is still not shipped. they'll send you an email before they ship it out.

 

I wonder if the higher current price has slowed down purchases and allowed them to catch up to demand.

 

Or all the cancellations! But doesn't appear to help.

Has anyone in this thread had their machine shipped? By my count no.

 

"I am sorry to inform you that the order is not shipped and we do not have the latest updated from our supply team. I have sent a request to our supply team to provide us with a better update on the order and will send you an e-mail once we get the information."

"I understand your concern. The order is delayed as there is constrain on few parts that is required to complete the order."

I asked them when I will receive an email from the supply team:

"By end of day today or at the latest by end of day tomorrow."

 

Keep us updated.

 

I have been waiting for that email from the supply team for 4 days now! I hope somebody gets some new info today! Some encouraging info! Maybe even some your lapt p has been shipped info today!

 

Wow, I received the same reply, word for word. When I mentioned canceling, he asked that I wait until tomorrow for that email. I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, but only until tomorrow afternoon. Then it's cancel city.

This really is silly; at least keep your customers in the loop instead of leading them on with false promises.

 

Well did not get my email yesterday. I knew the guy was lying. Don't much blame him. Just a poor working stiff. I really blame Lenovo. Lenovo could at least post on their website or send everyone an email telling us they are have supply or production problems. I did call today, even though my order status page still says "released to manufacturing. He claimed that the item has shipped and is being held up by customs. Once it clears it clears customs, Lenovo will send a email and tracking #. I should have it by the end of the week at my door. (like I believe that).

I would have cancelled but I saw this you tube video from 'HotHardware's Two and A Half Geeks. HotHardware's Two and A Half Geeks 8/1/12: Lenovo's ThinkPad X1 Carbon, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660 Ti, S - YouTube. The guy in the middle says toward the end of this long video, says that he hates to send the x1carbon back. It is that good of an ultrabook.

 

I just called customer service again (this thread has got me all wound up) asking to speak with a manger. Finally got on the phone with him, and went on a 15 minute soapbox about how lenovo messed up the excitement of buying this machine, how poor upper management handled information being fed to CSR reps, and how frustrating it was not not have updates coming through. Like all the other time I called they really had no new information, but said he was going personally reach out to me within 2 day to figure a real shipping date. He would not give me an ETA because he doesn't know, which I respect because Im tired of being BS'ed.

So I guess we will see what happens.

I just dont understand why they are so secretive about whats going on. Just release something officially (to the people that purchased the machine) saying what is missing and how they are trying to fix it.

 

Lenovo isn't Apple.

They announce products months in advance then let information trickle out on the specifications. They ship pre-production models to reviewers and you can never tell how close the machine is to the one you'll get. When they do start selling, they don't meet their shipping estimates much less exceed them.

It's like night and day.

And right now the EPP price for the Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon is $338 higher than the EPP price for the Apple MacBook Air. That is before adding tax, extended warranties and shipping charges so it is an Apples to Apple comparison.

Lenovo needs to lower their price, estimate shipping date more accurately, and exceed customer expectations. They sure as heck did a false start on this model.

I guess it's really business as usual for Lenovo. They'll eventually get the factory machine cranked up and hit number 1 so they can pat themselves on the back.

 

I suspect there's no secret, just terrible inter-department communication to the point where some service reps start making things up just to get the customer off the phone.

I presume the real issue is that the people you speak with when calling and those responsible for production etc. are effectively two entirely separate organisations.

It's all too easy as a customer to see a single brand, but having worked in various large organisations, the reality on the inside can be terrifyingly different.

Apple are lucky in that they have few products and target all customers in a single base (vs educational, small bus, enterprise, consumer.....), but even discounting that, they are supremely good at integrating their entire organisation from the production to customer service side to give a solid customer experience.

I spoke to three service reps within 2 hours this morning as was told (1. I know nothing, 2. yes, it's delayed because of shortage of bluetooth chips and dongles and will ship two weeks into Sep. 3. it's ready in the warehouse and will ship in next day or so).

They really are beyond hopeless with respect to this.

 

It's hard to tell if you're trolling, which is I suppose the hallmark of a good troll. I'm going to just assume you are, since your post in no way sought to provide valuable information, commentary or insight into the subject of the thread.

Although, now that you mention it, the X1 Carbon may violate that Apple patent on rounded corners.


My own experience with customer service mimics everyone else's. They can't give me any more information, but promised me they'd get back to me "within two days" (this was yesterday).
Meanwhile, my order status still says "In Production" with an estimated ship date of 8/26.
Frustrating, and I'm very unsatisfied with the response, but I'm going to wait it out for now.

 

No, it isn't trolling.

The information is helpful for those of us that haven't been through this before. I cancelled my order and I am wondering what to do next.

The ASUS and Apple machines are likely my next choices but I am wondering if I should just wait until October or November.

 

So my status just changed to "In Production"
Again this is for an August 15th order of the base i5/4gb/128gb

Estimated Ship Date: 2012/08/30
Estimated Delivery Date: 2012/09/09

So at least it's out of "Released to Manufacturing" ... :-/

 

Just checked mine, it is also out of "Released to Manufacturing". Things might be on the move in China.

 

This is the latest e-mail for me:

Thank you for contacting Lenovo.
As we understand, you would like to check the status of your order.

As per our records we see the order is assigned for production. Estimated shipping date is the 29th, November,2012. Once the order ships you would receive a shipping confirmation email stating the same and then the order will be delivered to you in 3 to 5 business days from the date of shipment. Since 29th November is just a Estimated Shipping date, there are possibilities that it might ship out much more earlier.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

I ordered on the 14th btw.

I think I am done with these guys! What a bunch of yahoos!

 

I called and they said that it was Sept. 29th not November 29th! That's much better! NOT!! I have given up and cancelled my order!

 

LMAO. Sorry to get a kick out of your frustration. I guess we're all going through the same thing though. I imagine it won't be the end of september before you get it. It's hard to trust anything that is being said. Even before the release, we've seen an inconsistency in specs for the X1C. (IPS, 8.2h battery, etc.)

On the other hand, there hasn't been much confirmation of anyone being shipped their notebook either. I'm really curious what the hold up is. My expected ship date is tomorrow, but they've missed two of my ship dates already. First it was 8/21, then 8/25, and now 8/29.

My only sign of hope are the 3-4 Chinese members of the n1nb.com forum receiving theirs this week. It seems like they are among the first to be delivered their X1Cs.

 

I just wanted to confirm other people's experiences with this.

1. Date Ordered: 08/15/2012
2. Configuration: Core i5 CPU/8 GB RAM/ 256 GB SSD
3. Shipped-To Location: Los Angeles, CA.
4. Estimated Ship Date (Original/Updated): Original date was given as 08/23/2012, updated to 08/27/2012 (which did not happen)
5. Actual Ship Date: N/A
6. Estimated Arrival Date: currently stated as 09/04/2012 but it probably won't happen since the 08/27/2012 shipping date did not happen. Customer Service Representative mentions that it won't arrive until the second or third week of september.
7. Actual Arrival Date: N/A

Called Lenovo to get more information about this order. Just like everyone else here, they mentioned to me that they are under heavy demand for this product and are short on components. They probably underestimated the amount of orders they would get. The fact that this is the Thinkpad that was built for the 20 year anniversary as well as the overall favorable reviews it has been getting on the various tech review sites probably caused a greater than expected demand for this product than Lenovo anticipated. While the wait is no fun for us right now, it appears that this will be a successful product for Lenovo which points to this device being in many people's hands (Hopefully this will also mean positive things like good Linux developer support, people posting guides on how the device works with various Linux distributions, Windows 8 installation guides, more people figuring out how to tweak the device for peak performance, hopefully aftermarket solutions for upgrading the current proprietary SSD, etc).

Just to put things in perspective, all of the other laptops I've ordered from Lenovo have shipped pretty much on time and I have received them within the timeframe they said it would arrive. This appears to be a special case as far as my own experience (think about this, for the first time in a long time, people outside of the core Thinkpad niche audience seem excited about an actual Thinkpad product!!!)

The Lenovo customer service representative mentioned that at this point in time there was no way he could give me a definite shipping day since he did not now and that I should expect to receive the X1 by the second or third week of September, though he said it would probably ship sooner. Just like others have posted, the Lenovo customer service representative also offered me a $154.00 concession for keeping my order. This is on top of the EPP discount and the 10% discount. Not a bad overall discount I got for the 20 year anniversary flagship Thinkpad. That said, if I did not have all of these discounts applied and had to pay full price for the X1 Carbon, I would have probably cancelled my order already and gotten something else If I needed a computer right now or waited until supply of the X1 met demand and a new discount coupon was available.

Therefore, still waiting along with everyone else here...

 

I just wanted to confirm other people's experiences with this.

1. Date Ordered: 08/15/2012
2. Configuration: Core i5 CPU/8 GB RAM/ 256 GB SSD
3. Shipped-To Location: Los Angeles, CA.
4. Estimated Ship Date (Original/Updated): Original date was given as 08/23/2012, updated to 08/27/2012 (which did not happen)
5. Actual Ship Date: N/A
6. Estimated Arrival Date: currently stated as 09/04/2012 but it probably won't happen since the 08/27/2012 shipping date did not happen. Customer Service Representative mentions that it won't arrive until the second or third week of september.
7. Actual Arrival Date: N/A

Called Lenovo to get more information about this order. Just like everyone else here, they mentioned to me that they are under heavy demand for this product and are short on components. They probably underestimated the amount of orders they would get. The fact that this is the Thinkpad that was built for the 20 year anniversary as well as the overall favorable reviews it has been getting on the various tech review sites probably caused a greater than expected demand for this product than Lenovo anticipated. While the wait is no fun for us right now, it appears that this will be a successful product for Lenovo which points to this device being in many people's hands (Hopefully this will also mean positive things like good Linux developer support, people posting guides on how the device works with various Linux distributions, Windows 8 installation guides, more people figuring out how to tweak the device for peak performance, hopefully aftermarket solutions for upgrading the current proprietary SSD, etc).

Just to put things in perspective, all of the other laptops I've ordered from Lenovo have shipped pretty much on time and I have received them within the timeframe they said it would arrive. This appears to be a special case as far as my own experience (think about this, for the first time in a long time, people outside of the core Thinkpad niche audience seem excited about an actual Thinkpad product!!!)

The Lenovo customer service representative mentioned that at this point in time there was no way he could give me a definite shipping day since he did not now and that I should expect to receive the X1 by the second or third week of September, though he said it would probably ship sooner. Just like others have posted, the Lenovo customer service representative also offered me a $154.00 concession for keeping my order. This is on top of the EPP discount and the 10% discount. Not a bad overall discount I got for the 20 year anniversary flagship Thinkpad. That said, if I did not have all of these discounts applied and had to pay full price for the X1 Carbon, I would have probably cancelled my order already and gotten something else If I needed a computer right now or waited until supply of the X1 met demand and a new discount coupon was available.

Therefore, still waiting along with everyone else here...

 

How did you get another 154 Concession refund? Did you call or chat with them?
I placed an order on 8/20/2012 for the base model and last time I checked was suppose to ship today.
(nothing has changed yet and now the status link doesnt work)

 

Basically, the only units that were shipped out are the test units for companies and websites to do a review on. If you are an average consumer, you are still waiting for it.
I don't think anybody I know that placed an order has gotten theirs.

Edit: They should have put clear shipping times and estimated build times and give themselves extra time to process the orders, before they even opened up the orders to the general public ahead of their own launch date, which was suppose to be 8/21 . A bad move.

 

Hmmm...a standard Lenovo chat rep identified the reason for the delay as the manufacturer's running out of Bluetooth receivers/dongles. He/she told me I should expect my machine to ship in "the first couple weeks of September" as Lenovo is working really hard on the problem, etc. Based on some of the other experiences on this forum, though, I'm not sure whether to believe him/her.

I ordered on August 16. On the 25th, my estimated ship date was filled in as the 27th and the delivery date as Sept. 4. My machine's status, though, is still "in production."

 

That's great that you got $154 omarcastz. I only received $75, though if they miss their ship date for the 3rd time, I might have to bring it up again. Like I said, they missed the 8/21, then 8/25 ship dates. Now it says tomorrow, 8/29. So I hope they follow through.

I just spoke with an online rep again and did hear some good things.

----

Rep: As per our records the order you've placed it's been confirmed & assigned to warehouse for production. The ship date on the order is on 29th of August as per the update from supply team. There is no issue with the order it is good to go.

Me: That is tomorrow. I'm asking because it first said 8/21, then it wasnt delivered. Then it said 8/25, and it wasn't delivered.
Is it going to not be delivered again?

Rep: We apologize that there shouldn't any problem or delay on the order it is good to ship tomorrow.

----

Now I've learned to not totally trust the reps. But it does give a little hope.

 

Hey All,

1. Ordered 8/17 10am Central US via the web. $1929 + $259.35 (4 yr warranty plus accidental damage) - 10% discount of $192.90 (doesn't apply to warranty) + $108.51 est tax = $2103.96
2. i5-3427U / 8GB / 256
3. Illinois
4. Estimated ship of 8/26 and has not updated since
5. -
6. -
7. -

I'm in much of the same boat as everyone else. Yesterday 8/27 it took me 4 attempts and waiting over 30 minutes to connect to an order status rep in the chat application yet sales would connect right away. When I asked sales what the deal was they said they'd connect someone from the order status team. I said fine, but only if it's a warm transfer. Guess what, I went back in queue. I was told yesterday that it would ship yesterday 8/27 and that the order status website was wrong. As of today, 8/28 no update in website, no email update, and I once again went on hold through chat and reached the same rep I did yesterday. The story today is that bluetooth and dongle's are in shortage. Estimated ship is in the first two weeks of September. I'll spare you all the "we're sorry for the inconvenience" schpiel(s) since I got the same thing. I was offered a $100 convenience credit but that can't be applied until after the item ships, AND, its on me to remember to check back with them to request it.

I have been ordering Lenovo's for personal use for almost 8 years (since back when it was IBM) and have never had issues like this. Additionally, I advise clients who purchase hundreds to thousands of these machines when they could otherwise go with the numerous other reputable manufacturers. This is not sinking in well. It sounds like non CTO models are going out faster but who knows what is actually making it out and what isn't. The order website doesn't seem to be updating in general. Maybe the fastest way to get your hands on one is to work through your reseller (if you have one) and a main distributor like Ingram Micro. That obviously excludes custom builds.

I think the shortage of parts within two weeks of orders coming in is garbage planning for a machine they introduced earlier this year and had pretty solid hype. I as well could live without the dongle for a few extra weeks if that would help it ship faster. RE: the price increase a week after release maybe Marketing said holy crap, these things are flying like hot cakes lets raise the rate! Perfect, that way it almost offsets the standard $100 convenience credit IF you happen to remember to call back in for it. I'll be asking for far more than $100 to keep this order as it stands.

Does anyone have confirmation from a non pre-production model that the RAM is soldered on the motherboard? There seem to be only a handful of pictures exposing the internals of this machine. I see lots of rumors that the i7 option may be available with 8GB of RAM sometime in October. I chose the i5 because RAM is more valuable to me than a few extra hundred MHz and 1MB cache (note the i7 is dual core just like the i5). i7 vs i5 will likely be hardly noticeable given how powerful these are and just like in most virtualization clusters we build, CPU is in demand more than RAM. I could care less about the machine shipping with W7 instead of waiting for W8 (both will work fine) but if this machine is going to be delayed shipping a month and an i7/8GB option will come out not long after that's worth me pulling the plug on my current order.

 

Not sure if you are asking whether I got two concession refunds in your message above. Just to clarify, I only got one concession of $154.00. This is in addition to the EPP discount and the 10% newsletter discount many of us used. I called Lenovo via phone and they offered me this concession refund. They way it works, (as mentioned earlier in this thread), they sent an e-mail to me with the approval. They will charge me the original amount and will approve this additional concession amount after the order ships out.

Apologies for the double post guys.

 

my i5-256-8gb orderd 8/14, after two delays, finally has a ship date of 8/30 (delivery 9/9)....10 days for shipping? Does anyone know if one could argue/push for expedited shipping or something given the recurring delays?

 

I tried this, but they told me that once the order went to the plant, they couldn't change the shipping options.

 

I hear ya, I changed my order when I found out the RAM was soldered on.

This forum posting helped confirm for me:

upgrading ram/ssd on x1 carbon - Lenovo Community

But if that doesn't do it for ya, Mobile Tech Review has a pic of the X1 Carbon opened up here (near the end of the review):

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Review - Notebook and Ultrabook Reviews by MobileTechReview

 

With the way they process everything, and how automated everything is, I doubt they could do it after the order has been shipped. That is likely why they are giving everyone refunds that take affect as separate transactions post-order.

 

I am also curious who the individuals spoke with to get the $154 refund for keeping the order. My shipping date was moved back from 8/24 to 9/26. When I called to cancel, the Lenovo rep told me that it was too late to cancel and that there was no way to do it after the order was placed. I mentioned that I could not understand how an order that was not to be shipped for another month could not be cancelled and he said that is the way it is under the new system. This conversation occurred after a hour and 10 minutes on hold for someone to take the call. I have had 12 Thinkpads starting in the early 1990's. My experience with Lenovo has been that the drop in customer service has been huge. Back when I dealt with IBM, everything went so smoothly and it was really a class operation. I cannot begin to describe how awful my experience has been dealing with Lenovo over the past week.

 

When I called and cancelled they said that they would send the request forward and that it should be cancelled in the next 48 hours. He also said that if the machine did ship that I could return it for a full refund.
In my case this type of communication by Lenovo or there reps. is ridiculous! Pushing back dates and filling me with miss information is not the way to get my money and I think it will be awhile till they get it sorted out. This is why I cancelled! I think I would of loved the machine I just hate baloney!

 

order date: 8/14, i5-256-4gb base model
estimated ship date: 8/22 -> 8/26 (still 8/26 now)
status: In Production

The following is what I hear from a CSR today:

"The orders are scheduled to ship mid September."
"the orders has been delayed due to constraint on some parts."
"However, the supply team is working to fulfill the orders and ship it as soon as possible."
"I apologize for the inconvenience."
"That is just the worst case scenario and the order can ship early."

 

My order page is also not updating. It says "Release to Manufacture" and estimates a ship date of 8/27. I called yesterday and they said the ship date was 8/28. I called again today and the rep said again (different rep, I didn't mention the previous correspondence) 8/28 and that it would ship today. Last night I was charged for the laptop. I still haven't received any shipping confirmation.

However... I have ordered a few laptops from Lenovo and I have gotten laptops at my door before I even got any indication that the laptop shipped... so I wouldn't be surprised if people started getting these things randomly later this week.

I know that Lenovo does not charge for the laptop until it has shipped.

 

My credit card was charged shortly after I placed the order on 8/14 and my estimated ship date is still 8/23 and has never changed.

 

Update: Web status has changed from Released to Manufacturing to In Production. Estimated ship date has changed from 8/26 to 8/30 and I now have an estimated delivery date of 9/9. My card now shows a lower available credit limit but I don't see any transaction pending.

 

I guess that's good to hear. What do they ship with? FedEx? UPS? USPS? Thanks.

 

Ok, I just had a wild ride between 5 people on the phone at Lenovo that happily finally ended with a very helpful manager.

Turns out Lenovo charged my credit card a second time (or more specifically, held funds on it, which they were very keen on pointing out is different). So they're currently holding about $4k of my money, and have no ship date for me.
They told me to call my credit card company and ask them to remove the first hold.

After telling them it wasn't acceptable that they've held $4k of my money and can't even give me a shipping date, they decided it was a good time to emphasize that shipping dates aren't guaranteed. Oddly, this response didn't pacify me.

After some terse discussion, in which I was initially told that there was no manager/supervisor/anyone who could help me further since they were closing for the day (4pm PDT -- I get they're back east, but really, stay open until at least 5pm across the country), they managed to find a manager in sales to talk to me.

Thankfully, he was very good at keeping me from simply canceling, and sought to help explain the issue. He gave me his direct line, and insisted he'd follow up personally tomorrow about the double charge. He also advised me that the problem was specifically the ethernet dongle (as others have said), and mentioned nothing about any other component.
He said he couldn't give me any estimate today, but that their current plan was to ship the laptops ASAP without the dongle. The dongle would then be sent out later as a separate package. Apparently this is proving difficult, as this constitutes in their system as the laptop being shipped out incomplete, and their system is designed to prevent that. In some weird bureaucratic way, this makes some sense. I half expected him to say I had to fill out a 27B-6 form first.

He said they have a meeting tomorrow afternoon to discuss it, and he was confident that they'd have more information for me then. He seemed optimistic, but refused to give any sort of guess on a shipping date.

Hopefully I'll hear something more concrete tomorrow...

 

Here are my specifics:

1. Date/time & where ordered (and price would be nice)
16/08/2012 20:00 CST via B&N Lenovo ($1,059.15 USD)
2. Configuration
i5-3317U, 4GB, 128 SSD
3. Shipped-To Location
USA/KY
4. Estimated Ship Date (Original/Updated)
2012/08/26 (no change)
5. N/A
6. N/A
7. N/A

Current Status: Released to Manufacturing (hasn't changed)

The link in my order email was broken, so I have to check Lenovo's site direct for the status of my order.

I emailed Lenovo yesterday to inquire, but have yet to hear back. My first impression of Lenovo isn't a glowing one thus far.

 

when I ordered mine yesterday (8/27) the ethernet dongle was not listed as a part of the order. As a matter of fact I had to pay 15.99 for the dongle. It was showing a ship date of 9/5. Maybe they left the ethernet dongle out so it could bypass the computer holding up the shipment. If it causes my 8gb/256/i5 to ship sooner . . i'll be fine with the 15.99 Like everyone else we shall see on Lenovo time. Mine is currently showing released to manufacturing.

 

Thanks for the tips. Getting my 5% now...Order date was 8/16/12...Original ship date was 8/27/12...new "estimated" ship date is 9/05/12...NOTE: You must call them back in order to get your refund!! They will put a note on your account for the 5% but wont issue it until you call back and ask them to!

PS: My order status online has not changed. Still says "Released to Manufacturing" with estimated ship date of 8/27/12.

 

Lenovo held the funds on my account twice, too.