Online shopping has become a crazy pastime for many Singaporeans (me included). I remembered many years ago, I bought my first Lenovo laptop from a retail shop. At that time, as I did not research properly, I could only buy what I saw there. Thankfully, as a geek, I was able to get the specs that I wanted.
What if you are clueless on what you want? Of course, you can ask the sales person for help. In my personal opinion, sometimes the sales person might not be the right person to ask for help because not all sales people know the products well (my experience), especially in a trade show.
Actually, there are a few things you could do. Do a thorough research before you head down to a retail shop, or you could just buy online. In some of the cases that I heard, those that went down to retail shops are often distracted/misguided/dissuaded and in the end, they bought something else. As for online, you can actually do your research and purchase at the same time.
To me, online shopping is a better way to go. As you may know, shopping for a computer online is NOT something new. D** has been doing that for years. Here is where this review comes in. I wanted to share my experience shopping at Lenovo’s website. I went through the full process of getting my Lenovo laptop using their Lenovo e-Commerce site. Read on and see if your experiences is the same as mine.
First Impresssion
Here is my first impression of the Lenovo’s website. Instead of the usual “products”, “Shop” tab, Lenovo let the users see what’s the latest deals online (see above picture). I think this is good as the attention span for a person to stay on a website is super short. And Lenovo has very minimal tabs (which is good) – “Deals”, “Products”, “Support”. Scrolling down, you will see some of their recommendations of their latest products like the Lenovo Yoga 900 with the 6th Gen Intel Chip.
Lenovo has subtly put the “Shop Now” button on every product introduced (almost). Clever. Of course, it might backfire on some people who just wanted to find out more about a product because some people are just paranoid over the word “Shop Now”. They may just walk, no, click away. Hopefully, Lenovo have done their homework to understand the consumers’ habit.
Exploring
I wanted a very high end product and none of the first page information has that kind of details. Clicking on the Product Tab shows the different categories of their computers – from Laptop, to tablets, to desktop and etc. very clearly shown. The pictures on the products tab provide you a glimpse on what you might want.
As I am looking for a laptop, I selected the “Laptops” option. It shows 3 different broad categories of the laptops (i.e. Thinkpad, IdeaPad, Lenovo), each displaying a few sentences to allow consumers to choose what they need. Very easy to understand.
I set my eyes on the X series. If you notice (see below picture), there is a “customizable” on it.
I settled for the X1 Carbon Ultrabook. As you can see, there are again 3 tabs that you can click. One to view the different models, the other to view the features and finally the last one to view the Accessories and Service.
If you need to have an overview of the laptop, just click on the “features” tab.
BTW, if the device you have chosen does not have “customizable” option, it will have a “Tech Specs” tab which shows the full configuration. And when the model you selected is customizable, that is when the fun begins 🙂 .
You get to see all customizable selection with clear pricing on it. You can even downgrade the specs (cost deduct from the total value). When you scroll through the configuration, the total price will be “following” you on the right hand side. This price is updated instantly based on your selection.
I will not bore you with my selection. Instead, I like to highlight sometime that might help you to decide the configuration. On every selection, there is this “+Help me decide” link. Click on it and it will show you more about the configuration with description. 
However, I think Lenovo has to seriously spend some effort on them as some of the descriptions are NOT updated. Check this out: “Lenovo offers up to 3nd Generation Intel® Core™ i series processors”. It is a big NO NO
The model I chose is 5th Gen Intel Core i7 Chip and the description says up to 3rd Gen with a spelling mistake!!
Another issue I faced is that for Windows OS selection, there is NO information on Windows 10.
Other than these hiccups, the rest went on smoothly. Finally, after I am satisfied with the selection, I added it to Cart.
You will then come to this screen where you can choose options like warranty and etc.. At any time, you can go back to configuration or Warranty to change your selections.
Config–>Warranty–>Software–>Accessories–>Cart
When everything is done, you can see a summary of your selection (see below).
Click on Checkout and you will be asked to sign in as a returning customer or proceed as guest checkout.
There are only two options for payment: Credit Cards or Prepayment (Wire transfer). I think they can have more options like Installment schemes, PayPal and etc.
Once done, there will be an email notification to indicate your purchase. When the product is ready to ship, Lenovo will inform you via email with a link to check the status. Shipping time varies. Anyway, here is my spanking new laptop.
Summary
Overall, Lenovo did a great job in helping customers to narrow down their selection with pictures and clear, short sentences. The layout is not confusing or overly complicated. For a first timer, I think it is not overwhelming going through the process.
However, there are room for improvement in some areas like the description in the “+Help me decide”. They are not updated or with wrong spelling. For payment part, I would like to see more options like installment options, PayPal and etc.
Some other things that Lenovo might wish to consider like aligning the good deals during trade shows period (Comex, IT Show, PC Show and etc). For example, during trade shows, consumers can also shop for the same deal online. This will help those that do not like to squeeze with crowd. Again, this is not new. This company, C***** has been doing such promotions for a while. I actually love this idea. If Lenovo wants more, they can join in the “fun” like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and etc.
Finally, do give Lenovo Website a try. Anyway, it is free to configure your dream machine.
Click Here to Lenovo Website
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