Lenovo Class Action Lawsuit Says Yoga Touchscreen Laptops Are Defective

Customers who bought Lenovo Yoga touchscreen laptops were misled about a defect that left the device unusable after “days” of use, a class action lawsuit alleges.

Plaintiff Anthony MacKay says Lenovo practiced deceptive marketing when promoting its Yoga touchscreen laptops, also sold as the “Flex 5” or “Yoga Series,” and breached its warranty after failing to fix it.   

Filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, the class action lawsuit against Lenovo describes the frustrating process buyers went through sorting out the issue. 

Sold to the public starting in April 2017, Lenovo advertised its Yoga touchscreen laptops as a “2-in-1” device with “360-degree flexibility.” In marketing material, the devices were described as “laptops with touchscreen monitors that can be folded flat against the underside of the base of the machine to approximate the form of a tablet computer.” 

Additional promotional language for the Lenovo Yoga touchscreen laptop also included the following: 

• “Stay Flexible with 360-Degree Hinge . . . More than just a traditional laptop, the Flex 5 transitions with your schedule. Thanks to a durable 360- degree hinge, you can easily flip into tablet mode for browsing the web, or stream a TV show in tent mode. With this much flexibility, you’ll always find your perfect viewing angle”
• “With up to 15.6” FHD IPS touchscreen narrow-bezel display, you can watch movies and browse the web”

MacKay says he purchased one of these models in August 2017. Within a month, the Lenovo Yoga touchscreen laptop was not working, according to the class action lawsuit. The screen began to flicker, freeze and eventually blacked out entirely and the included stylus would not work, either. 

The Lenovo Yoga laptop class action lawsuit claims the touchscreen’s defect is triggered when the laptop is folded into “tablet” or “tent” mode. 

“The Defect is the result of ordinary stress on a vital component that is common in the Class Laptops,” according to the class action lawsuit. 

The Lenovo Yoga touchscreen laptop uses an “embedded display cable” to connect the display to the motherboard. This connection travels through the laptop’s hinge. 

“If the eDP cable is poorly routed, opening and moving the display (such as when folding the monitor into tablet or tent mode) could loosen the cable and lead to the issues associated with the Defect,” the Lenovo class action lawsuit states.

Plaintiff’s research on his Lenovo touchscreen laptop and its defects revealed similar problems were widely shared. Online forums multiple-pages long were dedicated solely to the topic of fixing the defect. Consumers were troubleshooting on their own, collaborating through the message boards several trial-and-error methods and sharing their frustrations with the device. 

“There are hundreds, if not thousands, of customer posts on Defendant’s own online forum complaining of the display issues described above in the Class Laptops. These posts date back to at least December 2017,” MacKay claims.

In the Lenovo class action lawsuit, the plaintiff alleges Lenovo failed to fix his Yoga touchscreen laptop twice. MacKay says many customers attempting to use their warranties were given wrong information, oftentimes being told it was a software issue, the screen needed replacing or the cable “rerouted.” Sometimes, Lenovo representatives “merely taped (the cable) into place.” None of these repairs reportedly addressed the defect. 

“Despite being aware of the cause of the Defect, Lenovo and its representatives have often engaged in, or directed frustrated customers to engage in, ineffective repair methods.”

Some customers who bought the Lenovo touchscreen laptop said they successfully fixed the issue by replacing the embedded display cable, according to the class action lawsuit, but the warranty only covered “reseating” rather than replacing that cable. 

Some Lenovo touchscreen laptop owners described being harangued by Lenovo’s customer service over the repairs after holding it for weeks, only to have it returned in a non-working state, according to the class action lawsuit. 

“I open up the bottom panel, all they did was tape the display connector in place, which is ridiculously ineffective,” one customer’s post in the class action lawsuit said. 

Plaintiff says Lenovo is in breach of the warranty because it promises “each Lenovo hardware product… is free from defects.”

Lenovo’s parent company, Legend Holdings, is headquartered in Beijing. Lenovo designs, develops and produces personal computers, tablets, phones and other electronic equipment. As of March of last year, Lenovo was the world’s largest personal computer seller. 

Lenovo launched the Yoga touchscreen laptop line in 2017 with a starting retail price of $799. 

Have you purchased a Lenovo Yoga touchscreen laptop? Let us know in the comments below. 

The plaintiff is represented by Bradford deLeeuw of deLeeuw Law LLC, Nicholas A. Migliaccio and Jason S. Rathod of  Migliaccio & Rathod LLP; David A. Goodwin, Daniel E. Gustafson, Daniel C. Hedlund, Mickey L. Stevens of Gustafson Gluek PLLC; and Kevin Landau and Evan Rosin of Taus Cebulash & Landau LLP. 

The Lenovo Yoga Touchscreen Laptop Class Action Lawsuit is Anthony MacKay v. Lenovo (United States) Inc., Case No. 1:20-cv-01149-UNA, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

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