Warranty refused : broken USB port [ Edited ]

[justguy]

Ok, this is the final straw for our company's rollout of these tablets.

After 3 days use, the internal USB pins broke on the tablet.  Lenovo have said this is a consumer issue and not warranty and will effectively charge the full cost of a new tablet to "repair".  

Given phones have this as a charging route and take years of cables in/out without problems, I'd say it was either a faulty part or a sub-standard spec port.

100% unacceptable and I intend to escalate to resolve.  Business priced/marketed devices have to take substantially more abuse than any consumer units.  I treat my equipment delicately compared to the sales force - goodness knows the return rate I'd have from them.

[shonangreg]

Does the ThinkPad come with a much weaker warranty than the consumer-oriented IdeaPad line?

I don't want to cancel my order, but if Lenovo is not going to publicly stand behind its product, I will cancel and wait for the next, fully-functional N-trig tablet. The complaints about software alone here, and the silence from Lenovo staff, is well beyond what I would expect from even a second-tier vendor.

And new pricing is coming along for andorid tablets, but I've yet to hear anything proactive from Lenovo on this regarding the ThinkPad. Lenovo is risking all the products in the pipeline being cancelled mid-order. It is just dumb to not head off this eminent problem.

Come on, Lenovo. Wake up and say something substantial. Your early-adopter crowd is losing faith in you.

[FDP]

Looks real good Lenovo... why don't you make this forum believe in you some more by actually standing behind this "professional" product of yours? Or perhaps you should continue to fail in new and creative ways? @justguy, cancel the payment or call the local attorney general to complain about false advertising on the Warrenty. If you live in NY, CA or the UK you probably have some rights that have been violated. Lenovo, you had great support, I've had to talk to your current reps. They clearly know less about this tablet than most users on this forum. Incompetent is the word that comes to mind... fix yourself before you alienate your user base. What ever happened to the "consumer advocate"? That was a fantastic move, do more things like that and earn back our loyalty!

[justguy]

Update 2 : A member of the EMEA PR team dropped me a note to say they have escalated the issue to the product support team - not sure if this will have an effect but nice to see someone responded.  Of interest was the following comment : " there were some early charging issues with the product that was due to the power management software and has been resolved with an over the air update to version 65 of the preloaded software".

Update 1 : The UK IBM/Lenovo support team tell me it is my fault that 3 days of inserting the supplied USB cable broke the USB port.  I have the option or repair or being charge £70 to return the useless unit to me.  I have emailed a few execs in Lenovo asking if this is the quality product they wish to endorse and await a reply.  

[shonangreg]

FDP makes a good case that this launch of the TPT is failing. I want it to succeed, but Lenovo really is behind where they should be on this.

FDP's comment is at the top of page 2 of http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-slate-tablets/Xoom-gets-Ice-Cream-Sandwich-first-or-we-ll-get-H... (We seem to be unable to link to specific posts on these forums . . .)

[AlexDaryan]

Thus far Lenovo is doing everything possible to discourage brand loyalty to their TPT. My boss, who on a trip dropped his iPad 2 on the floor right on top of the volume button, which caused it to be permanently depressed, took it to the Apple Store to see if they could fix it. They just handed him a brand new iPad 2. Kudos to Apple! I'm not ready to give up on Lenovo yet. However, if Samsung or any other vendor comes out with a tablet with a real digitizer, I think Lenovo will experience an exodus, unless they change their ways.

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

Justguy,

Can you send me a PM with your contact info on this, case numbers etc?   We can look into this further and see what can be done.    Thanks!

Mark

[Woofster]

I have a similar issue, during my second week of use I dropped my tablet about 6 inches, and had a small piece of the rubberized backing break off, not even on the edge but instead where the screen and backing meet. The tablet works perfectly but when I called I was told that if i even wanted Lenovo to look at it I would have to pay shipping and put a $970 hold on my credit card. This is insane, especially after all the bull that occurring just trying to get the thing. Unfortunately has changed my opinion of Lenovo as being the best pc company to the worst. I am glad it's not just individual oppression.

[stuartv]

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AlexDaryan wrote:
However, if Samsung or any other vendor comes out with a tablet with a real digitizer, I think Lenovo will experience an exodus, unless they change their ways.

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The HTC Jetstream seems to be just that. Is there anything other than price to recommend the TPT over the Jetstream?

The Jetstream is only available from AT&T and is 4G-enabled, so the price is $849 or $699 w/2 yr contract and data plan.

[Mark_Lenovo Administrator]

Woofster,

Where did you call?  Can you confirm the phone # ?   I'm really astonished because while I could understand support telling you that this was not a warranty item and would not be covered for free unless you had a ThinkPad protection coverage upgrade on the warranty, I don't understand the $970 amount and any requisite to prepay or have a charge hold on your card.

This just doesn't sound right.   Could you please send me a private message with your case number from service? I'd like to follow up...

Even a top tier repair on a laptop for an LCD or System board is $595, seems incongruitous.   

Thanks for noting this.  

Mark