I was prepared to have the third Lenovo T61P, but to my surprise the supplier offered a full refund, including the extra memory and the battery I had bought. Very descent of them. I just cannot believe how inconsistent the built quality of this laptop was, one came with faulty display, another with totally different faults. I shall be checking out Asus range now. Good bye Lenovo. It could have been a perfect laptop if it was put together properly.

I was very pleased to hear that I would not have to wait for the replacement laptop for a month. It arrived in a bout 7 days. The display was fine - good start. However, my joy soon changed to sorrow.

1. It had a dent from poor molding process rather than an impact at the lower part of the lid.

2. The plastic frame surrounding TFT panel was coming off at the upper part of the display, just below the catching mechanism.

3. The catching mechanism was making squeaking noise every time you shut the lid or just move it to simulate opening and closing.

4. There was some loose part inside the laptop. 
Moving the laptop from side-to-side whilst holding it flat would make a rattling noise inside the main body.

5. The outer surface of the lid just opposite the keyboard illuminating light was protruding. If you run the palm of your hand over that area, you'd notice the surface change from flat to bulging.

The Dent

Poorly attached plastic frame

 

 

 

 

I ordered a Lenovo T61P notebook advertised at £1395.00 + VAT + Delivery with Hemini Plc. Then I had a confirmation e-mail thanking me for the order and giving the cost break down. Guess what the total should be, given that UK VAT is 17.5% and delivery is £15? This is a copy  from their e-mail

1 x #1395ThinkPad T61p -  8889-ALG, Intel. Core 2 Duo T9500 NV 2.60, Memory: 2 GB/4 GB, 200 GBHDD, 14.1

Subtotal	£1,395.00
Delivery	£15.00
surcharge +  VAT(17.5%)	£344.08
Insurance
TOTAL PAYABLE	£1,754.08

I wish my wife wasn't giving a birth at the time so I could have a really good look at those figures. It turns out they charged me £97.33 inc. VAT to process my DEBIT card payment!!! Apart from this, they also debited the amount from my account a month before I received the goods. Plc company ?, you gotta be joking. And to top this all up, the machine had a screen defect and now is going back to Lenovo. Total fiasco!

I sent then a mail, explainig that I felt it was unfair. Even though their Terms and Conditions mention the 5% surchage on Debit and Credit Card payment, why the hell this was not shown at the time I was making the payment?

Early this week I had a call from Hemini. Good news, they are prepared to refund the surcharge. But it looks like a very strange of doing this. First, they want me to pay again. This time the full amount excluding the £97 surcharge, then they said, they'd refund the full amount that includes the surcharge. Why not just refund £97? Strange, still haven't had this confirmed in writing from them.

Had a mail from Hemini today. They got in touch with Lenovo and Lenovo promised to give this matter "high priority" with regards to quicker replacement. Hopefully it will be less than a month.

Well, Lenovo were very quick and I had a visit from their engineer today. I thought that he would just replace the entire LCD including the housing. Unfortunately in this case Lenovo's policy was to just replace the screen panel. This involved removing display hinges, keyboard and the plastic frame that sits around the TFT display. That frame was well glued and took some effort to remove. Then the new TFT display was fitted but in the process of doing this a couple of tiny plastic lugs were broken. These lugs hold the LSD plastic surrounding frame in place. Never mind, the engineer said that he'd come back with the new frame.

When all parts were put together, he turned on the machine. The screen appeared to be cleaner and without major "shadowing effects" - just slight darkening at the corners. Now the sad part is it was a wrong LCD panel. It could only display 1024 x 768, whereas the original was 1400 x 1050 (here's my laptop spec from Lenovo UK site).

The engineer called Lenovo, explained that the lugs got broken. Lenovo offered a complete machine replacement. According to their policy the fault was classified as "Early Life Failure" (my understanding was because the laptop was less than 10 years old).

I was advised to get in touch with my supplier - Hemini Plc - and arrange for the replacement. Just spoke with a chap at Hemini and mailed him relevant information. Had no reply for a while so I though I'd call them.... they had a power failure. Anyhow, they will start the replacement process but it will take another month for a new machine to arrive.

Shame... see what happens next.

Just a quick update. An IBM engineer is coming today to replace the screen panel. This is a very good news :)

I spoke on the phone with Lenovo Support. They were very professional. They will be sending their engineer to replace the screen panel. Right now, however, they don't have the panel in stock. I was told that somebody will call me to schedule the visit when the part becomes available.

So far, so good...

Model Name:  8889 ALG
Part Number: UI0ALUK

Another issue. On the under side of the laptop there's a missing screw and the plastic plug that should be placed over it.

Update
Lenovo engineer explained that this whole is intended for preventing people using CD tray. When the screw is incerted - the CD tray becomes inoperable.

Model Name:  8889ALG
Part Number: UI0ALUK

Here is the picture of the Lenovo T61P laptop display was delivered last week.

The machine is incredibly fast and I am very pleased with the performance (here's the spec from Lenovo UK site)

However, the display has manufacturing fault - the white shade streatching from the top of the display on the right side. It seems as if the TFT is not evenly attached to the base. I used IBM laptops before and never seen any issues with their displays. But this is not what one would expect after spending £1700.