RSSNew Sony Laptop Battery Recalls Announced
By Ed Oswald | Published September 29, 2006, 10:56 AM
Sony's laptop battery woes got even worse Friday, as one computer maker announced a new recall and two others expanded their already existing recalls of batteries made by the Japanese manufacturer. With these latest announcements, about 7 million Sony batteries have been recalled.
Fujitsu has said it will announce a broad recall across 19 of its laptop lines, although it did not specify an exact number. Meanwhile, Toshiba announced a new recall affecting 830,000 laptops, and Dell said it was recalling an additional 100,000 units as part of its current recall.
Toshiba had initially called for a recall of about 340,000 batteries back in mid-September, although it was not for a fire risk. Instead, the batteries are affected by a glitch that prevents them from properly storing power.
The newest recall affects their Dynabook, Qosmio, and Satellite Portege and Tecra models. Exact information on dates of manufacture and regions affected were unknown. Specifics on the new Dell and Fujitsu recalls were not available at press time.
Sony directed manufacturers to launch recalls of laptops using its defective batteries on Friday. It confirmed that the cause of the fire problem was due to small metal particles coming loose within the battery and causing a short circuit, although it said that such an occurrence was rare.
It was for this reason the new recalls were announced on Friday, and it's likely others may follow suit. Sony estimated that the battery issue would cost the company at least $171 to $250 million, but that was only including the Dell and Apple recalls. With the latest announcements, some speculate that figure could eventually double.
This is just great! My son bought a Toshiba laptop in Sept. to take to Iraq with him while serving with the military. How the heck is he supossed to participate in getting a replacement battery if his is on the recall list?
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|Anyone found the link for Toshiba's battery exchange program? Not the old 340,000 one, but the new 830,000 one. Google is not my friend.
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|I wonder if this was really Sonys latest try at copy protection, a potentially illegal movie or song is detected on your computer and boom!! Your computer self destructs in five seconds. I sure wouldn't put it past them.
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|What did you say?
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|I wonder if this was really Sonys latest try at copy protection, a potentially illegal movie or song is detected on your computer and boom!! Your computer self destructs in five seconds. I sure wouldn't put it past them.
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|I wonder if this was really Sonys latest try at copy protection, a potentially illegal movie or song is detected on your computer and boom!! Your computer self destructs in five seconds. I sure wouldn't put it past them.
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|I wonder if this was really Sonys latest try at copy protection, a potentially illegal movie or song is detected on your computer and boom!! Your computer self destructs in five seconds. I sure wouldn't put it past them.
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|Here we go again. Just boycott SONY.
I hope this costs them a billion dollars, and it could.
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|I have a Dell laptop. Quite a while ago I got a recall letter, checked the battery serial number against their web site, and was told it was OK.
Now, I just went to Dell and checked again, and I find that it is being recalled. It's nice that they will now send me a new battery. But I never got a second recall letter.
I would suggest that, irksome as it is, everybody check their batteries again at their maker's website. Even if you did it once, do it again.
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|Why has Sony not recalled any of their laptops? Did they sell their "seconds" to other manufacturers? Just wondering.
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|Of course they are--why would they sell their best stuff to third party's? No--they want to own the market when it comes to battery life. Ironically, they are far from doing that :)
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|It's all about power consumption, laptop cooling design, and other factors.
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|Very true.. We should demand that the manufacture of the laptop (or any otehr product) disclose who made the parts inside. Then we can make a decision based on the source of the product. Everyone now OEM’s everything. Sony was the leader now is the loser. I used to buy all Sony because they made great product. Today I will not touch there products. But I’m forced to buy there stuff because IBM or Dell puts sony made product in the laptop and we have to suffer because of it. Since the DMCA makes it illegal to take products like this apart we need rights. Oh ya sony had a lot to do with the DMCA
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|Why would they want to recall 6 or 7 Vaio's :-)LMAO
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|Sony makes laptops? :-)
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