Lenovo ThinkPad T61 Shipping Delays Frustrating Customers

Many Lenovo customers who have ordered ThinkPad T61 notebooks are experiencing shipping delays and are growing frustrated with how the company is dealing with the problem. Customers who placed orders last month received notifications that their notebooks would not ship until August.

Customers are receiving conflicting information from various Lenovo employees as to when to expect their T61 notebooks. Some who ordered first are facing extended delays, while some of those who ordered more recently have already received their orders.

Lenovo’s Tim Supples is trying his best to keep customers up to date over at Lenovo Blogs.

Supples wrote:

Because of a data entry error, the bezel â€âہ the frame that surrounds the LCD panel â€âہ was omitted from the bill of materials for certain T61 & R61 14.1â€Â widescreen orders which is sent to our factories to specify how to build the products. This omission caused a majority of the orders taken between May 9th and May 24th to âہ“hangâ€Â or get rejected by the manufacturing process. The missing part problem was discovered and we began to work with manufacturing to fix the rejected orders and get them fulfilled ASAP.

To say we are sorry is not enough. We intend to conduct a thorough post-mortem of this incident to ensure it does not happen again. Thank you for whatever patience you have left.

Lenovo’s offered a choice of a free batter, AC adapter or carrying case to some customers as a consolation for waiting so long. Customers are not impressed and are sounding off at Lenovo Blogs, with about 400 comments.

I canceled my order for a T61, which I think is a superb notebook. I placed my order on May 30 and was told it would ship on June 18. This estimated ship date did not change, but after two weeks of hearing about others’ experiences I canceled my order to avoid any possible delay. Waiting three weeks for a computer is bad enough, but I shouldn’t have to stress and continually check in on order status Hopefully someone who ordered before me will receive the T61 I configured.