Print this article | E-mail this article | Comment on this article

Sony: LCD Problem in Digital Cameras

By BetaNews Staff, BetaNews

November 27, 2006, 2:06 PM

Sony on Friday disclosed a manufacturing defect within some of its digital cameras carrying the Cyber-shot brand, which involves the LCD displays models that sold from September 2003 to January 2005. The cameras can malfunction in warm and humid conditions, it said.

Approximately 4,000 of the 1 million cameras sold during the period are expected to have the problem. The affected models include the DSC-F88, DSC-M1, DSC-T1, DSC-T11, DSC-T3, DSC-T33, DSC-U40, and DSC-U50. Repairs would be made free of charge to only those customers affected, Sony said.

Add a Comment (36 Comments)

BetaNews reserves the right to remove any comment at any time for any reason. Please keep your responses appropriate and on topic. Foul language and personal attacks will not be tolerated.

By charneski

edited Nov 28, 2006 - 7:18 PM

After filling out the appropriate internet form
and waiting more than two weeks for a shipping label to arrive I called the local service center...two more calls and a hour later they finally said they would e-mail me a UPS shipping label in the next 5 days.

Why does it take Sony take 5 days to send an e-mail? Are their computers just that slow?

I doubt if I will ever get anywhere with them, but I tried. Good thing I already replaced the with a different brand.

Sorry Sony you just lost yet another customer, for life.

Mark

Score: 0

By il-loostya

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 1:40 AM

OMG!

Checkout this patent:

http://appft1.uspto.gov/...1&RS=DN/20060252371

Sony's next plan is to replace wires connecting earphones with MP3 players by using the body as a conductor. Somehow I don't think too many people would trust Sony using their body as a conductor... or maybe its just me.

Score: 0

By _jaz_

edited Nov 28, 2006 - 12:09 PM

But... erm....

Didn't microsoft invented that some years ago??? (And said they didn't have plans for a product at that time)

http://www.theregister.c...osoft_near_field_patent/

Now, it is when I can't anymore trust the Patent system. *ANYMORE*

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 9:51 AM

Well, lets hope there aren't going to be any 'human recalls' because certain people's bodies will short out with the devices :D

Seriously, the human conductor idea is extremely ill-timed, being right after massive battery recalls!

Score: 0

By crkwhr

edited Nov 28, 2006 - 12:31 AM

http://www.engadget.com/...ving-customers-in-lurch/

nice fix for their ps3. wonder if they will try this for their cameras.

Score: 0

By glock__17

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 8:43 PM

Anyone know the link to this info on Sony's site??

Score: 0

By dwaterman

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 11:21 AM

I don't think you will find it on Sony's web site. If you do, it will be buried pretty deep.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 4:31 PM

Call Mark Gillespie,

He can spin any bad news regarding Sony.

Score: 0

By mjm01010101

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 3:31 PM

4,000 out of a million is barely worth even mentioning in a shareholder report. It's not like anyone's life is threatened.

Slow Monday?

Score: 0

By Banquo

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 7:02 PM

"Slow Monday?"

Defensive much? Sorry you don't like it but this is news. Sony made this announcement but you believe Betanews shouldn't report it because you happen to be in love with Sony? Come on...

Score: 0

By dwaterman

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 3:38 PM

Seems more like a FYI than a jab at Sony, don't you think?

Score: 0

By Theoldwino

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 3:04 PM

Well they sure know how to build good root kits

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

edited Nov 27, 2006 - 2:48 PM

To the reader: Sorry--even though I dislike Sony, this article could potentially be misleading for the non-careful readers, let's highlight the big understatment in it:

"Approximately 4,000 of the 1 million cameras sold during the period are expected to have the problem."

One sentence--without it, this article would be blatently misleading. I'm not saying anything about the 'betanews staff' like it's their fault, they're just emphasizing the big news part and de-emphasizing the no-news part, that is what any and all news folks will do in the end, I expect it.

I'm just reminding folks that are the readers of these articles to take more care to catch this stuff on their own to avoid taking the wrong implication from these articles. Most every article has a hidden statement like this one--it is easy to point out, and you probably think I'm just rambling over the obvious, but nearly every news article, be it betanews, tomshardware, NYTimes, USA Today, etc., will have a statement (usually much harder to notice than this one) that hides the real story behind all the clutter.

4,000 camera LCD recalls are nothing, this type of recall could happen to almost any company (and in fact does happen to every big company all the time). The only news is that betanews has their eye on sony because that's what we eat up, but they're doin what news people do, and again this is for the readers, not intended to bash betanews at all.

To Nate, Scott, and the rest of the Betanews gang: just keep doin what you and every other company strive to do best--make money and allow the company to continue to do so even when you leave :)

Score: 0

By arossetti

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 2:43 PM

Sony's become a bad joke...

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 6:44 PM

Actually this site has become a bad joke...

4000 out of a million cameras...

Just shows that ANYTHING bad about Sony is reported here, and everything bad about Microsoft is simply glossed over....

What's worse, is the readers that are sucked in by the selectived reporting here...

Score: 0

By iamtux

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 9:13 AM

4000 out of a million IS a joke and it IS a bad thing. It's ridiculous! There have been plenty of articles on this site about bad things MS has done. But the cameras stop working when it's hot or humid out? How ridiculous is that?
Just because you're in love with Sony doesn't mean they don't make mistakes my friend.

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 9:22 PM

There's the spin machine.

Mark, if you don't like it here, leave, and take the Blu_Ray loser DaveBG with you.

Then again, I won't have anyone to make fun of. Your posts stink of desperation and frustration, we all know you work for Sony.

here's the usual suspects

www.thedvdwars.com (Blu_Ray sales have gone down since the release of the PS3)

www.gamesystemwars.com (XBOX is still kicking a** this holiday season, thanks to Sony delivering half of their promised PS3's)

www.nexgenwars.com (Bad for Sony, good for Wii)

and www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com (The current format wars winner, HD-DVD and Toshiba)

Score: 0

By Banquo

edited Nov 27, 2006 - 7:12 PM

"Repairs would be made free of charge to only those customers affected, Sony said."

So you'd rather this announcement that Sony themselves made be kept a secret and not let these customers know they can get it fixed? Get over yourself, Sony doesn't care about you or know you even exist so stop wasting your life worshipping and sucking up to them. Betanews is not out to get Sony. They also report on Microsoft problems, Apple, and any other tech related company in the news.

Go to another site if you hate this one so much, or stop whining every time you post.

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 6:24 AM

"They also report on Microsoft problems"

Thats BS, they didn't mention the 1,000,000 Xbox cables recalled because some peoples houses caught fire.., they they report 4,000 Sony LCD faults...

Score: 0

By Setian^Stalker

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 6:46 AM

http://www.betanews.com/..._Cord_Recall/1109603771

Score: 0

By plague201

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 3:49 PM

LMAO, didn't notice this, good job shutting this retards mouth up.

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 11:41 AM

OK, so I missed that. The article didn't give any indication of the scale of the recall however..

Thinking about it, I'm glad they reported the numbers on this Sony article, as it shows how fickle Betanews is, as this affects less than HALF A PERCENT of these particular models shipped, and much lower if you include the entire Cybershot range...

Score: 0

By dwaterman

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 12:35 PM

Betanews is not responsible for the comments left in response to the article. The article was not an editorial and showed no bias at all. You need to get over yourself and Sony...

Score: 0

By dwaterman

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 11:23 AM

Ouch... that oughta leave a mark.

Score: 0

By bobthegoat2001

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 6:56 PM

No... just Sony. :-p

Score: 0

By Bogunch

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 2:30 PM

Can Sony manufacture anything correctly anymore????

Score: 0

By Hollywood__

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 9:25 PM

Ask Mark, he works for Sony.

Score: 0

By bourgeoisdude

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 9:53 AM

Actually, Mark may not even work for them. Most fanboys I know of do not work for the company they praise, because when you work for the company, you can easily detect the company's shortcommings. I did with Dell, but having worked for other PC companies as well, Dell at the time was the lesser of the evils :)

Score: 0

By Mark Gillespie

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 11:43 AM

It's easier for Hollywood to believe I work for Sony, as by acknowleding that I don't, means he has to accept that I like Sony for their quality products...

Score: 0

By bobthegoat2001

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 8:20 PM

More Sony advertisements. Quality my a$$.

Score: 0

By dwaterman

edited Nov 28, 2006 - 5:22 PM

No, it is actually just that difficult to believe you don't work for Sony, you treat them better than a lot men treat their wives.

Score: 0

By GS5

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 5:48 PM

They can always sell batteries to the military. The military is always in need of deadly explosives. LOL

Score: 0

By plague201

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 2:40 PM

They should start manufacturing trash bins...

Score: 0

By radioactive21

edited Nov 27, 2006 - 4:49 PM

iono at this rate, even their trash bins will probably fall apart. Can you recall trash bins?

Score: 0

By Das mod

posted Nov 27, 2006 - 2:43 PM

lol

Score: 0

By Ano

posted Nov 28, 2006 - 2:08 PM

You may wish to note that just as Sony outputs more (and more varied) products, it of course has more products that have problems. In much the same way that Microsoft's software tends to have lots of bugs and vulnerabilities because, well, everyone uses their products, Sony's hardware's vulnerabilities and foibles are more visible because there's more *to* screw up.

Now if we could find statistics detailing the number of hardware products Sony's made in the past year, and the number of those with serious mishaps, and then compare the ratio to another company, we might be able to pull some useful conclusions about overall quality of products produced by either company.

It's a bit hard, though, to pull a valid conclusion about the company itself from a collection of incidents taken in what may be an out-of-context (that is, without the scope or size of their hardware production) way.

I personally don't ever notice what brand of hardware I buy (never got into consoles), so I can't really say whether I'm biased towards or against them. I'm mostly commenting about the idea of making a judgment based on potentially incomplete datasets.

Score: 0

Dec 4 - 11:47 AM ET The storm hits AT&T, with a five-digit headcount reduction

Dec 4 - 11:42 AM ET TV sports adopts Web coverage, plays with iPhones

Dec 4 - 11:24 AM ET Microsoft seeks 'community' help to make IE8 Standards Mode work out

Dec 4 - 10:43 AM ET Hitachi GST and Intel make a solid-state deal

Dec 3 - 11:36 PM ET Yahoo cedes Internet radio operations to CBS

Dec 3 - 5:54 PM ET Big BCS bowl game to land at CES 2009...in 3-D!

Dec 3 - 4:58 PM ET Songbird 1.0 music player makes a landing

Dec 3 - 3:41 PM ET Ted Rogers (1933-2008), giant of Canadian tech and media

Dec 3 - 2:27 PM ET Analysts: PC growth will slow, while notebooks remain a bright spot

Dec 3 - 1:58 PM ET RIM's third quarter outlook shouldn't shock, but does anyway