So far, Lenovo's shotgun launch of its new ThinkPad T, SL, W, R, and X-series has been a lesson in retail clumsiness. It started yesterday with that
128GB SSD freebie and culminates (after several missteps in between) into a Canadian $200 for the
14.1-inch ThinkPad R400, uh, Eee PC killer. This is not just a simple typo mind you, the pricing issue is systemic as that baseline price increments as you adjust your options all the way to checkout. There's no guarantee that they'll honor your order of course, in fact they likely won't. But at the very least, they should be paying our readers for doing the quality control they seem incapable of handling themselves.
P.S. While we have your attention Lenovo, how about axing those contrived "Sale" prices. You're not fooling anyone.
[Thanks, Geoffrey A. and Rahul G.]
posted August 6th 2008 1:50AM
just kidding
On the US Lenovo site, you can pull up the W500 (model 4058CTO) and the R400 (model 7443CTO) for $0.00 each. Both of them say "Transactional" as in test for the shopping cart. Make sure you add some accessory to make the value not $0.00 like the slim power adapter for $95 or the 1GB usb key for $17. On the cart, if you look at the page source you can see where the checkout button was and continue checking out by using http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/checkout.workflow:StartCheckout which will start the checkout process and check you out. Complete the checkout and pay. You'll get the e-mail confirmation shortly after.
R400: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/systemconfig.runtime.workflow:LoadRuntimeTree?sb=:00000025:000019F6:&smid=1CB9ACA6FD6C4BF49968F2C20F490CDB
W500: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/systemconfig.runtime.workflow:LoadRuntimeTree?sb=:00000025:00001A16:&smid=DB2DE710F65544D99FCE30CBF84F5627
all 3 links are already disabled...
Still works... clear your cookies
Gone now on US site too.
i think they disabled the check out button or something. can't find it.
Well hot damn, can it get any better than this?
This is all just a way to promote the company, I think. Think about it, how many of us sitting here discussing Lenovo and their computers. It is the ultimate commercial! :) lol
ya, can't find checkout button either
Yeah no checkout here either... just the option to save cart?
the check out in the shopping cart is gone.
They Probably caught it now. Every way to that page seems off limits.
And here i thought i would get my first laptop for free :'(
Um, guys, I just got an email from Lenovo... you know that 128GB SSD mistake yesterday? Turns out they are giving everyone a choice of a 64GB SSD or a 200GB 7200 RPM (lol) for no extra charge!
I also got the letter.. mmm thinking what to do because I dont really need a laptop, but because of the offer I was tempted to order one.. not what to do....funny enough you cannot order the X200 anymore. why?
First the 128 GB SSD debacle now this??? Someone at lenovo is either illiterate or using lab rats to do this work for him...
You'd think their programmers would have some way of checking that everything was set up properly before making the page or site go "live."
I guess if you thought that....you'd be 100% wrong because Lenovo doesn't seem to know how to fact-check before it puts up new products.
All their people are working on the Olympics.. No body is watching the store...
are they all gone darn and I wanted one but now they are all over 600 big ones http://shop.lenovo.com/us/notebooks/thinkpad/sl-series