On Hold

がっかり (gakkari) - Disappointment

I've been thinking about my next laptop ever since my old one died back in April. There are tons of cool new options out there, so I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store. Hell, I even considered getting an Apple (it took about 30 seconds helping a friend with Excel on a MBP to talk me out of that one). But at long last I found the one: the Lenovo X1 Carbon.

They had only provided initial product specs at the time and would only say it would be available "Summer 2012". It didn't matter, it had to be mine. So sleek, so sexy, so light. There could only be one choice.

And so I waited. I borrowed my girlfriend's Sony, an awful tiny little bastard, for my last two months in Japan. Since getting back state-side, I've been surviving with my Dad's old Samsung netbook, another under-powered computer that is hard pressed to run much more than a web browser. For a guy who spends large amounts of his free time at a computer, it has been a trying four months. Not only is my regular computer use repressed, it also demotivated me from using my camera. Without a proper computer to run Lightroom, I have no way of processing my pictures. I've got boat loads of pictures from China and Thailand just sitting there, waiting for some lovin'. Cali is gorgeous and screaming for me to run around shooting. But all of that is on hold until I get a little more computing muscle.

With that in mind, you can imagine who pumped I was when Lenovo launched the product earlier this month. I put in my order, sat back, and day dreamed about the wonderful package that would be at my door shortly.

The day after putting in the order, I realized I had a one time 10% off coupon that I'd forgotten to use. 10% off of a $1,400 price tag is no small change, so I called up Lenovo's customer service to see if I could get it applied retroactively. That is when the trouble started.

First, I was told that my order had been cancelled. Apparently Lenovo has a policy where they won't process credit card orders where the shipping address and billing address are different unless both addresses are registered with the credit card company. Why they decided to just cancel the order without contacting me first, I don't know. Fortunately, the customer service person I was talking to was a good guy and quickly replaced the order for me with the coupon applied and I was back on track. I called up my credit card company, added my Cali address, and resumed day dreaming.

When I made the order, they had given me an estimated shipping time of one week, with an expected delivery date of Monday August 27th. As that date drew closer, I pulled up the shipment tracking site to check and was given a rather rude shock. The delivery date now said September 26th, almost a full month later.

I was sure there must have been some sort of administrative mistake. Maybe something strange happened when my order was resubmitted. I called up customer support again to sort it out and, after waiting forever and a day to get connected, finally got through. I was informed that they were having a supply shortage and there was nothing they could do. In no uncertain terms, I made it clear that this was absolutely unacceptable, but that only earned me an apology and the promise of a $60 discount. I continued to push and was put on hold while he spoke with people on the supply chain side. He told me that they were scheduled to get more parts next Monday, so my status might be updated as a result but that he couldn't guarantee anything. He promised to ask them to prioritize my order but, again, couldn't guarantee anything.

And so I am left waiting, praying that it doesn't actually take an entire month to get the damn thing. I'm committed to this computer and don't want to settle for something different, but this is definitely a disappointing experience. I've used Lenovo computers in the past and they make great machines, so it's a real pity that they can't get their shit together on the business side. You'd better believe that I will be back on the phone with customer service first thing next week, breathing down their necks if that shipping date hasn't come much much closer. I will not sit silently and tolerate this kind of nonsense...