A Few Days with ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2017

The ThinkPad X1 Carbon 2017 suddenly got hit with a recall notice.

The reason given was “a screw inside the machine may come loose, pressing on the battery and causing it to explode.”

Fine, loose screws inside a laptop aren’t exactly news. Even if it were loose I’d have opened it up and tightened it myself.

The recall and the screw aren’t what matter to me. What matters is that I finally have an excuse to register IWS global warranty for the ThinkPad I bought from Japan.

Delightful!

Before the recall I called Lenovo HQ and asked whether a laptop bought abroad, with the full customs clearance and tariff paperwork in order, could still get the recall service. The answer was: Yes.

They also said I could handle IWS global warranty at the service station with the following documents:

• Shipping invoice
• Tax payment receipt
• Machine accessories list

So I grabbed the paperwork and the machine and headed out.

The Lenovo service station here in Zhengzhou was smaller than I expected. A few middle-aged folks were dropping off computers, and the staff were friendly. Maybe because it’s almost New Year there was nobody around, no need to take a number, I could just walk up to someone.

The staff member looked at the machine, checked the machine code, and asked me: “You bought this in Japan?” “Yeah, bought abroad, taxes paid.”

The guy didn’t say anything else, just wrote up a slip and took it in for repair. Probably to tighten the screw.

A while later the machine came back out:

“First clear all the passwords in the BIOS, you can set them again after the repair. No need to clear the system password, we need the BIOS for testing.”

The whole thing took about 20 minutes, and the machine came back out. Checked it over, everything normal, no problems. None of that machine damage some Reddit users reported after service. And the work was done transparently — you can see what the staff are doing, which is just opening it up and tightening a screw. I could do that myself…

Of course the most important part was registering IWS. I noticed they never looked at my tax receipt after the repair, so I asked.

“Ah, you can get repairs without registering IWS.”

“I’d still like to register, I paid the taxes after all.”

At my insistence, a supervisor came over, looked at the tax receipt, and said they’d help me register IWS. The whole process seemed to be filling out a form on Lenovo’s internal site and sending an email. Then he asked for my WeChat and said once it’s registered, if HQ needs more documents he’d get in touch.

“The whole process should take about two days.”

And so the recall repair plus IWS registration came to an end. Overall a good experience, except that I saw on Quora that Lenovo fans in Beijing also get the machine cleaned. Mine didn’t get cleaned.