X220 Quality Control - there is none

dell does have a plant in penang, malaysia. know quite a few people who work there. its right next to AMD's assembling plant.

ireland production has since been shifted to poland (actually i thought they were shifting to romania?). its strange that your E6410 was from china, last i heard, ireland/poland and malaysia were where they assembled the enterprise notebooks.

all the dell's ive had in the past were assembled in malaysia (probably because i order them in malaysia), except for my current precision that was a replacement unit while i was in the UK, they replaced my malaysian assembled M4400 with an ireland assembled one.

i know this is not lenovo, but with dell i did not see any quality difference between the two

 

Argh. Got my X220 today and had just enough time to play around with it to see that it might need to go back. :-(

I was moving the screen forward and I heard a noise like something clicked into place at the top left of the screen - and the Thinklight came on (that LED light in the top center of the screen bezel that illuminates the keyboard).

Now I can't turn off the Thinklight. I'm hitting Fn+PageUp and the icon changes on the screen (icon of a light indicating ON, same icon with a line through it indicating OFF) - but the light does not go off.

I briefly tried getting into the BIOS by tapping and/or holding down the ThinkVantage button at boot - but that didn't work either.

Also, it seems like the complaints about the fan are merited. The fan noise was noticable and the machine certainly wasn't under load.

Argh.

 

fan noise is easily solved as time passes by with gradual refinement of the BIOS, but hardware issues are worrying....

i hope these just affect a small batch

 

Will my W520 has been absolutely perfect for 3 weeks now.

Hopefully my X220 will follow its lead.

But it is a bit dismaying to hear this many out and out problems in assembly.

Perry

 

thats good to hear, im seriously considering replacing my M4400 with a W520 since the precision M4600 has that nasty offset touchpad. a num pad on a laptop kind of ruins it for me because i have to keep leaning to one side if you know what i mean to type on it.

 

Yeah, my X220 is fubar out of the box. The Thinklight won't turn off. Fn+PgUp toggles the on-screen icon but the light stays on. And there is no BIOS option to just disable it outright.

Of all the lame ways a laptop could go wrong - the stupid LED light that I could care less about using can't be turned off. Technology can be so soul-sucking sometimes.

 

yeah, they've bitten off more than they can chew by pushing for as many sales as they can physically push out the factory- to the detriment of consistency and quality. They're even offering an additional 5% discount on the UK site, as of today.

Great notebook if you don't have issues though.

 

Quality control means to me the total "package";
1. unit lastS reasonably long (my original inspiron 7000 is still around but one of the keys is stuck; can't speak about present generations)
2. paid support works

I used to order Dell because they stand behind their products; but after the last 2 (and 2 more in the family) overheated, they've lost me.

I have the Asus N81VP and that one runs really cool - just tested wprime for 600 seconds, and the temp climbed to around 57C.
If you were to saturate the X220 - see how fast it goes past 60C - I think it's around 10 secs.
point being - it's like having a muscle car with no thoughts for braking power.

 

Many posters in this Lenovo forum swear by that "stupid LED light"! Please, be kind and gentle.

 

lolwut? My T410 has the latest 1.36 BIOS (I have upgraded many times) and fan noise is still a problem. Currently running at 42C and the fan is on at 3,500 rpm.

 

The N81VP uses a Core 2 Duo which doesn't turbo. The X220 uses a second-gen Core i processor, which turbos until it's too hot. Invalid comparison. -_-

 

LOL OK!
I'll say - my point is that with the turbo, the heating solution needs to be better~
Wondering if it makes sense to take apart the unit and apply some other thermal paste

 

Strictly speaking, Core i3 does not turbo.

Regardless, heat is one of the issues with the X220. YMMV.

 

WOW ! After reading all the negative posts about the X220 on the various threads of this forum, as well as other forums, they could offer a 90% off coupon and I still would not consider it anymore. Thanks China; First you destroyed the quality of household goods (Walmart), then came home improvement items (Home Depot), and now consumer electronics (Lenovo). What's next.....toilet paper.

 

Hitting the F1 key during boot up will get you into the BIOS.
Having these issues I would consider just sending it back. Just my opinion. I sent mine for the backlight bleed and ghosting.

 

Blah. Forgot they specced X220's with i3's.

Bad cases get way more publicity than good cases.
Also, China-bashing isn't cool, yo.

 

Stop being so dramatic, gees. At 90% off you wouldn't buy it? Give me a break.

I have the 2520, 4gb, 320 7200. My only issue is the fan noise, that's it. My computer runs cool all day, in fact it is the coolest laptop I've had. The bottom is actually cool with a hint of warmness (basically you can tell the laptop has been on). The top is completely cool, I can't feel any warmth.

It seems some have the fan noise problem, others don't. I assume they pull their fans from different manufacturers if that is the case. Or those people simply can't hear higher frequencies.

Looks like BIOS 1.15 has been released, however I don't think any fan issues were addressed.

 

lose the melodrama attitude and fake-posturing. the majority of the x220 owners have problem-free laptops.
.
.
.
i actually just shipped back my x220 to lenovo yesterday for a refund. but i had no issues with the fan noise or overheating, no flex anywhere on the case or keyboard. i did have two tiny spots of faint bleed on the bottom edge of my screen, but it was barely, barely noticeable and only at max brightness (15).

i had only two complaints with it:

1) i found the mid-level brightness settings (from 6-11) to be a bit lower than i preferred
2) the buttonless and moveable touchpad was crap and aggravating - many times i'd left-click and the touchpad interpreted a right-click instead. i seriously wonder if they did real-world useability testing before they decided to ditch the touchpad buttons. major mistake imo.

if not for the fact that i already own 5 laptops in the x200/201 lines and just recently bought an ipad2 (which now better fills ebook reader and movie player duties during those medium-to-long trips), i would have kept it.

i'm hoping that lenovo upgrades the screen resolution to something higher in the next model and i'll be certain to order it. the backlight bleeding is a known issue for those that have any problematic LG panels (ipad2 users have been having similar issues since the ipad2 launch) and has been finally addressed. in my cpu stress testing, i found that operating temps dropped 14C, went from a high of 89C to a high of 74C when the power-on profile is set to the setting just below turbo mode (i think it was called moderate), no significant drop is processor/system performance at the moderate setting, cpu load was 75-90% during the 3 hour stress test.

i actually had to convince myself with reasons to return it (an example would be my stated dislike of the buttonless touchpad when i am actually a dedicated trackpoint user), not because the machine was lacking or sub-par in any significant way.

 

Let me post a super-positive comment for you. Im 100% happy with my x220i and its far better than my previous notebook. (macbook white)
No problems with flex, keyboard, load fan or temperature (40-50 idle, max 75 on full load). Some people dont enjoy the touchpad - I love it (im used to double clicking and now started to use trackpoint right button, which is very comfortable).
Although screen could be a little better (its grainy on white background) - but I have a standard LED instead of IPS.

 

You can have whatever quality you want, as long as you are prepared to pay more (although higher costs doesn't necessarily guarantee quality). However, many of the issues discussed here are related either to the design or to various components, for which you cannot blame whoever puts the parts together.

John

 

I can't speak of Lenovo quality, but Dell's quality for their consumer-grade laptops has absolutely gone down the sh*tter.

Two of the XPS 15's that they sent me were defective. First one had a broken hinge which should have been evident had the screen of the laptop been opened/closed at least once (clearly not assembled properly). Can't blame it on UPS as the box was in perfect condition along with all of the foam inserts. The second XPS 15 had a fan that must not have been screwed in properly as it started to rattle. The entire right side of the keyboard flexed down, and the edge of the screen was permanently warped and bulged outwards.

I said I had enough and send it back for a full refund. I went onto eBay and bought a replaced video card for my 7-year old Pentium M laptop and now it's running beautifully...and still in better shape than these brand new Dell XPS 15's.


i did buy a Lenovo X120e yesterday for $396 fully loaded (Mastercard Marketplace promotion w/ employee pricing + 5%-off code + free 4GB memory upgrade). the lead time is rather long, estimated ship date of 7/4/2011. i'm thinking of calling them up 2 weeks from now and canceling the order in hopes they offer $$ off of a free accessory to retain the order. we will see...

as i'm reading these horror stories about quality, i just figured i would pitch in with my own experiences with quality control (or lack there of).

oh, another horror story. it took 7 Blackberry Curve 8530's before i got one with a fully functioning QWERTY. quality control of electronics has truly gone down the sh*tter

 

OK have to pipe up as well. VERY satisfied X220 user here, darn thing has more or less replaced my MBP 13" AND my MBA 13" which is in my eyes impressive for a graphics designer to stuff a pair of macs on the shelf for it

 

Maybe after destroying American electronics manufacturing and tool production they can work on eliminating that other oh-so-American institution: xenophobia.

 

This is the most scariest thread btw. I am about to receive my X220, now custom clearance, and hope the things didnt happen to me ... I have to agree that since Lenove bought Thinkpad quality has gone down, ie my X201 after a year thinklight was dead. The wireless switch goes haywire, put a little bit pressure it switches off and on ..

 

Hello ALL,

Wondering if you guys have this problem...I cannot adjust the brightness settings after my computer comes back from sleep. It's somewhat worrisome and annoying to keep shutting down and booting up again.

 

That's interesting. Having been weighing up whether to go for a MBA or X220. In what respects do you like your x220 compared to your MBA?

 

Check out this post, it might help.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/7495812-post655.html

 

My advice: just ignore the threads and form your own opinions about the machine based on the hardware you actually receive.

If you go into the experience trying to find problems you will invariably be successful. Same's true for any laptop...

 

Agree with ThinkRob, you can find lots of people hating on anything on the internet.

So I went to the Lenovo site to start a service request to get the Thinklight fixed on my new X220 (light won't turn off). And I ended up on the IBM Electronic Service Call (ESC+) page where I submitted the problem.

Is that the right place? That experience is a little confusing - one second you are on Lenovo's site and the next you are on a somewhat unintuitive "submit a ticket here" page from IBM.

 

yes it's should be the right place, although IBM have sold their Think brand to Lenovo but they are still servicing all the Thinks products.

 

My worst fear came true man .... I fried the HDD laptop when changing it to SSD ...

 

Uhh.. how??

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/lenovo-ibm/580719-helpppp-2100-detection-error-hdd0-main-hdd-2.html

 

Either you did something wrong, or there was some freak electrical fault in the drive...

 

The IBM ESC+ site was the right place. I will say the comingling of the Lenovo and IBM sites makes for a confusing experience. That site is hard to get back to just digging around in the Lenovo support pages. And I confirmed with them that they don't even send you an email when you submit the request. You are just expected to find your way back to the site and view the status there.

They called me the next day because I left off the Type (4286-CTO) when I submitted it so they couldn't find my warranty. We cleared that up and they said they'll be sending me a replacement machine and then I return my current one with the "always-on Thinklight" issue.

We'll see how it goes from here.

 

5 days after receiving my x220 (which worked perfectly and I loved during that time) I get the error 2100 problem.

I had it sent in and they replaced the motherboard (so it's not necessarily the HDD which I already knew since I tested it with other hdds).
Turn around was fast, overnight shipping and 1 day to install the new MB.

Received it yesterday, turn it on and off several times to see if everything worked, worked on it for an hour and then put it on hibernate. Later, completely dead.

Tech support suggest I return it, Sales agrees however they want me to order a new laptop and say they can't do an exchange. I haven't checked how much it would cost to get the same specced laptop but if it's significantly more I will be pissed (With Dell they charged or put a a hold the same amount, sent me the new laptop and refunded me when I sent the defective one, why can't lenovo do the same ?).

 

If they insist you order a new machine, they should do it at the price you originally paid. If not, I suggest you call again and speak to someone else.

 

Or just get your money back and look eleswhere.

 

there isnt much other choice is there? only the elitebook is comparable and its more expensive...although it has a optical drive, and the dell isnt out yet

 

MacBook Air, anyone?

 

Well, it took me the 3rd sales rep to be able to order my original config at the same price, with free 4GB RAM and 320GB HDD upgrade. Too bad I have 8GB of ram and an SSD i'll be putting in , again. Now I hope they will build and ship it out quickly...

 

did you swap any HDD after you got your new mainboard?

 

Looking again at your previous post, the quality of customer service is shocking. You have a 5-day old machine with all manner of problems and they won't replace it but insist you purchase a new machine at a higher price. Why did they hand you over to 'sales' anyway? Surely it should have remained a customer service issue?

It doesn't sound like business support, which is usually better than home user support, not worse.

So annoying QC issues and unconvincing customer service to boot

 

Yes, I switched back to UEFI and put in the SSD.

But I turned the laptop on and off with both the original HDD and then with the SSD without any problems.

Only when I went into hibernation did it stop working....

 

Not sure this is the case here, but if you boot up from a boot menu to the non-default OS and then hibernate, when it comes out of hibernation it normally will try to restore the default OS. Been there, done that. Doesn't work and can hose the OS install. Could also happen if you install or remove a hard drive while the laptop is hibernated, then turn the laptop back on.

 

I paid the same discounted price I paid with the 1st laptop with the current free upgrades added (4gb ram + 320gb hdd though it's useless for me).

The 1st rep said I couldn't rebuy at the original price paid. The 2nd rep transferred me to another rep saying he couldnt do much about it.

The 3rd rep asked her manager if she could include the upgrades, called me back promptly after there was a bug shipping to my address and needed some extra time to fix it.

The 3rd rep was the only one without an accent, she spoke like an american and was the only one who understood when I gave my info the first time around. DO they have different sales tiers ????
All the reps (including tech support) however were courteous, made the conversation go fairly swiftly.

I still shouldn't have to deal with all of this in the first place.

 

I can assure you that none of those factors happened.
The laptop is dead.

 

I have had a very bad experience with the Lenovo Sales in UK who have canceled my ordre twice because apparently they don' have the slice battery. What annoys me is that they don;t say it upfront, instead they lie and everytime you have to cancel the order put in a new one. The service is truely unreliable in UK so if you think you are buying IBM 3 year protection with the excellent service they had, you are a long way off the reality.

 

How about Sony SA or Sony new Z..but both are not out yet..And which dell are you talking about?

 

this ?
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