Fair Disclosure: We too are a Lenovo Customer who purchased the notebook below and are also facing the same challenges.
Remember seeing that wonderful $180.00 Lenovo Notebook in your local Best Buy Circular? It was one of a handful of Best Buy doorbusters that garnered national headlines as one of the best bargains of the 2011 Christmas shopping season.
However, customers begin to cry foul when they poked inside their brand new notebook and realized that the notebook was not as advertised. To cut down on costs, Lenovo removed parts from within the system and customers were not notified until after purchasing the notebook. Presently, customers have thus far identified that one speaker is missing and one DDR3 memory slot is missing. As one customer put it, it makes you wonder what other cost saving measures were taken to achieve that $180.00 price point for Best Buy.
Both the missing speaker and DDR3 memory slot were not disclosed to buyers that it was removed to save costs during the initial point of sale and was only discovered after customers who purchased this notebook after opening the notebook to perform upgrades.
This entire debacle began with Best Buy releasing ad circulars identifying a beautiful Lenovo Notebook for the price of $180.00. Deal websites, and the Best Buy website all identified the notebook as Lenovo G575 IdeaPad Series Notebook. Even the pictures on the Best Buy website indicated it was a Lenovo G575.
Bargain hunters scoured documentation on the notebook from the official Lenovo website, and neither the Best Buy website nor official Lenovo G575 documentation indicate this iteration of the notebook was missing a speaker or DDR3 RAM slot. All documentation indicated it was a full model G575 offering less RAM, a slower CPU, and less hard disk space.
Upon receiving the notebook, customers were shocked when attempted to upgrade their Lenovo G575 and began to inquire with Lenovo on their forums.
Several customers have voiced on an eleven page thread on the Lenovo Forums that had they known it was missing a speaker and a RAM slot, they would have purchased the notebook from Fry’s, who also advertised a slightly higher model of the Lenovo Notebook for the same price that offered the AMD E350 Processor (compared to the Best Buy E300 Processor), 3GB of RAM (instead of 2GB of RAM in the Best Buy model) and a 320GB Hard Drive (compared to a 250GB Hard Drive offered by Best Buy). Of particular irony, the Fry’s model was not missing the speaker or DDR3 RAM slot.
This has infuriated several Lenovo and Best Buy customers as they felt they were mislead by Lenovo and Best Buy, with a few (including us), claiming deceptive and false advertising for the omission of key facts that would have altered the decision buying process.
The price is indeed a bargain however the above complaints have nothing to do with the pricing. It has everything to do with full disclosure. Customers had no reason to believe the notebook they were purchasing was not a stripped down version of the Lenovo G575. Details on Best Buy website pluralized speakers while indicating memory upgrading was possible up to 4GB (No where did it mention it was restricted to one DDR3 slot).
After customers confronted Lenovo on the stripped down version of the G575, a Lenovo representative originally stepped forward stating:
Sorry to hear that you seem to be missing the left speaker. This sounds like some kind of manufacturing error and we will definitely look into it. It will help us if you can each send me a private message with the model type and serial number of your systems.
This is not a case of cost cutting – it sounds like an unfortunate mistake. Lenovo depot service typically can repair a system in one to two days with an extra day for shipping to and from the depot. It should NOT take 3-4 weeks. I think that was inaccurate information provided.
Hours later, the same Lenovo representative retracted his statement stating that:
After a deeper investigation, it turns out that this is as some have suggested – that this particular G575 configuration identified by the 4383-43U model type was a specific configuration offered for the black friday promotion through Best Buy.
This particular model of G575 is equipped with 1 speaker, 1 memory dimm socket (ships with 2GB Installed) and has 2 USB connectors. The systems purchased through Best Buy are not missing components and were not a manufacturing error.
Lenovo has since gone on record saying they have updated their respective G575 product sheets to prevent any further confusion but this update may have come several days too late for customers.
Customers have since taken action into their own hands, seeking resolution from both Lenovo and Best Buy by filing complaints with the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, and their respective Attorney Generals. No resolution has been reached with customers yet.
We contacted both Best Buy and Lenovo for comment on this piece, but representatives from both companies were unavailable for comment.
This is really disturbing not because I am missing some components but the way Best buy and Lenovo treated me, keeping me in dark about the taking out of components. How can a person think that so called “laptop” will have only one speaker and on top of that it is located on the far side of one corner. There is speaker outlet on the other side but soundless. It seems to me like that lenovo and best buy still thinks that people are dumb and they can sell whatever they cut from the laptop. The worst part is these models are sold at the Black Friday as door buster which took me at least 6 hours to stay outside in mid night to get this deal.
It is something like “a lottery giving up a good looking car in advertisement but it turns out that the car is just a toy”, which used to happen in the past and probably is happening in some other part of the world. I can’t believe that something like this happens in the US as well. Wow what a smart business promotion lenovo and best buy.. hats off to you both!
This unfair by BestBuy as well as Lenovo to not distribute the correct specs while selling a product. How can these companies get away with this injustice?
Good article. i can’t agree with you more when you said ‘The price is indeed a bargain however the above complaints have nothing to do with the pricing.’
I put the problem on slickdeals.net, and people keep telling me you get what you pay for. The problem here is not how much we pay for. I do think this is a good deal and I am pretty sure they would’ve sold it all even if they said it has one ram socket and one speaker. but the problem is that they didn’t help us before, and this information could have helped people that thinks one speaker and one ram socket is just a deal breaker.
If it was simple as ‘you get what you pay for’, i would have just returned this laptop and be okay with it.
Oops, I didn’t mean to say ‘they didn’t help us before’, ignore that part.
all this over on a 179.99 purchase! I cant believe this thread continues. BB and Lenovo will use the “we aint responsible for misprints” defense and move on. Its Still a good buy and if you dont like it you got till Jan. 24th to return it (Feb 7th if your a silver rewards member) Regardless if you believe this was a PLANNED bait and switch by Lenovo and/or Best Buy or the fact Some design Enginneer(s) for Lenovo in china or somewhere decided to take a common build – g575 and remove componets to meet Best Buys price for black friday is up to you and PROVING either will be more effort than reward! I bought two of these laptops for My sons and they are Good (Not Great) 179.99 laptops… heck the WIN7prem. 64 bit OS is worth 100$ alone! Replace the 2gigs with a 4 gig stick for 20.00 and Enjoy! I DO ADMIT for those wanting to Max it out with RAM, single sticks of 8 gig are alot more$$ NOW but they will come down in price. so Enjoy a good Deal or get a REFUND and move on….Thanks Lenovo and BB for a Good 179.99 deal.
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Well. maybe everyone who bought one online are getting hosed too. I bought one online and cannot even get the battery to charge let alone a replacement because it is a “Black Friday” item.
http://forums.lenovo.com/t5/Lenovo-3000-and-Value-line/Lenovo-G-770-17-3-Laptop-doorstop/td-p/610641