Here’s a grid showing the alignment on my unit (Basic). The major grid lines are 1", the minor are 1/8".
As other’s have stated, the problem is with the “Preview”, not the actual cut. The actual crosshatches you see in the picture are cut pretty much exactly where they should be. I did an experiment on this, and measured that they within better than ±.003 of where they were supposed to be across the sheet. Pretty accurate for a “hobby grade” machine.
The correction is done in the cloud, not on the machine, and the amount of correction required is very machine specific. The data needed for this correction is reportedly recorded at the factory as part of the final checkout. In his October update, @dan stated that “[w]hen it’s ready, it will roll out with new machines off the assembly line - but then we’ll wave a magic wand and start applying it retroactively to all the machines in the field, reprocessing their current photos and original calibration images to bring them to exactly the same precision as new units.”
No date announced, which is SOP for Glowforge.
But, hey, in other news, they are apparently allocating resources to develop an app unrelated to pre-promised features. So, you know, priorities.