Filed under: Laptops

Sorry to kick y’all laptop owners when you’re down, but Sony announced that it’s initiating another recall of 340,000 batteries, this time adding Gateway to the list of the affected, in addition to already-affected Fujitsu, Toshiba, and its own batteries. (It’s not immediately apparent if this also includes the 300,000 batteries of their own that they recalled earlier this month.) There are a ton of models being recalled for each company, so we’d ask you visit the Consumer Product Safety Commission for full details; also, if you haven’t already checked your battery, please note the following companies are now initiating recalls:

• Apple
• Dell
• Fujitsu
• Gateway
• Hitachi
• IBM / Lenovo
• Panasonic
• Sharp
• Sony
• Toshiba

Kind of scary, but at this rate it’s probably just safest to assume that no matter what your notebook, your battery is or will be recalled — so be wary, and keep an eye out for battery recall pages.

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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Filed under: Laptops

Hooray, Lenovo has joined the battery recall party! For those of you keeping score at home, that brings the number of manufacturers to five, including Apple, Panasonic, Toshiba and Dell. The recall, anounced today, affects nearly 170,000 batteries in the US, and over 350,000 additionally worldwide, according to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. The USCPSC also says that the recall was triggered by Lenovo’s confirmation of the battery that exploded at LAX a few weeks ago and that this latest battery recall affects the following ThinkPad notebook computers “sold between February 2005 and September 2006: T Series (T43, T43p, T60); R Series (R51e, R52, R60, R60e); and X Series (X60, X60s).” Furthermore, Lenovo has put out a press release stating: “Additionally, since these batteries can also be used with ThinkPad T4x Series or ThinkPad R5x Series systems, customers who ordered an extra battery or received a replacement battery for any ThinkPad T4x or ThinkPad R5x Series notebook PC between February 2005 and September 2006 may also have a battery subject to recall.” Now, Alan Cox’s exploded ThinkPad 600 isn’t part of the list, which leads us to believe that this isn’t the last we’ve heard about Sony’s exploding battery fiasco.

Read – US Consumer Product Safety Commission

[Thanks, JJL]

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops, Transportation

Hoo boy, the fun just doesn’t end with this little Sony/Dell/Apple battery fiasco, does it? Virgin Atlantic is now the third airline to take issue with Sony’s exploding batteries, and is playing it safe by requiring the removal of batteries from all Inspiron, Latitude, iBook, PowerBook, MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops. Of course, that includes a wide swath of laptops that aren’t affected at all by the recall, but them’s the breaks. Virgin was gracious enough to allow laptop use without a battery — if you’re lucky enough to sit close enough to an in-seat power supply — but otherwise users of two of the most popular brands in laptops had better bring a book or prepare to acquaint themselves well with a few in-flight magazines.

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SPONSORED BY: BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time.

Filed under: Laptops

Exploding Dell laptops get all the press, but that doesn’t mean other honest, hardworking laptops can’t get their 15-minutes of fame if they play their pyrotechnics right. And who better than Sony to produce an exploding Vaio featuring one of their very own infamous power cells? Today’s story comes from Shawnee, Kansas where firefighters were called after the Vaio burst into flames twice. The first incident, which happened while the computer was idly charging, was quickly snuffed by its owner’s fire extinguisher, but after the laptop burst into flames a second time a few minutes later, the fire department was called in. By the time the firefighters arrived they found the persistent Vaio on the driveway out front, fully contained by the fire extinguisher and its soul already ascending up to laptop heaven. So what’s it going to be Dell, are you going to sit back and let Sony beat you at your own game, or do you have a triple explosion planned to take back the crown?

[Thanks, Jason Taylor]

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