Waiting for your Z series laptop???

[ItzCooLz]

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

[guyoli]

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.

[hoopics]

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.

[guyoli]

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."

[ItzCooLz]

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

[hoopics]

Haha. I just got the "p" joke

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.

[Hamachigirl]

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!

[phoenix_one]

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.

[-Zeus-]

I am sharing my experience with lenovo.
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??

[phoenix_one]

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.