Battery recall program
A little background on the recall. Dell was the first manufacturer to recall over four million of its Sony-made power cells. When Apple followed suit, Sony assured that such incidents would stop at these two vendors. The issue seemed to be a contaminated batch of Lithium-ion cells. However, Toshiba soon joined the lineup, though it said that this was not an issue of fire safety. However, after a ThinkPad did the dance of the flaming laptop at Los Angeles International Airport, subsequent joint investigations resulted in Lenovo not taking any chances, exchanging the faulty cells, while Sony simultaneously announced its own recall program. Over the weekend, Fujitsu has joined the crowd as well, while Toshiba expanded its recall initiative from the initial 340,000 cells to 830,000. This brings the total to seven million Sony-manufactured batteries which will be exchanged. Though HP had actually started a battery exchange program in April for several of its laptop series, the company did not confirm if the cause was the same which started the latest round of recalls. However, the Palo Alto giant has released a joint statement with Sony that, after investigation, there was no safety issue with its power cells and hence HP will not be recalling any battery packs this round. Despite the fact that the percentage of recalled cells is relatively low, understandably this may shake consumer confidence, especially for the upcoming holiday buying spree. According to Lillian Tay, principal research analyst at Gartner DataQuest: "It is important for Sony and the various vendors to initiate a recovery communique to ease buyer concerns. The winner in this situation may be the one who can most effectively communicate such assurance." So it comes down to this: Is your notebook in danger of a flaming end? If you possess a laptop from Dell, Apple, Toshiba or IBM, check the following table to see if your battery needs replacing.
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April 26, 200--Acer joins battery exchange program.
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