Have you heard the news.... laptop batteries currently have a bad reputation of, well, catching on fire. Now this isn't "End of the World" type stuff, but if you happen to say have your laptop in say your "lap" catching on fire could be a rather bad thing to happen. Laptops, formally referred to as notebooks, have always had a reputation for being rather warm to actually rest on your lap but catching fire puts a whole new "spark" into the issue. Sorry, just couldn't help myself.
Why do I care? Well, this weekend I determined that my PowerBook is one of the apple laptops that is affected by thy sony battery issue. I also need to verify if the Dell I gave Tracy is also affected by Sony's little battery cell problem. It seems likely that both notebooks may have to get their batteries replaced. The process is simple enough, but time consuming. The site for Apple says it will take 4 to 6 weeks, possibly longer and Dell is saying 20 days; but for some models it may take much longer.
I am actually not too worried. From what I have read Apple has only had two reported issues with their laptops and Dell isn't reporting too many more than that; it is simply the possibilty that the batteries could catch on fire. Apparently small, very small, pieces of metal made their way into the cells of the batteries during the manufacturing process and under the right conditions affected cells could catch fire.
Wanting to be safe, I have already placed an order for my notebook and will check Tracy's tomorrow and if her's is also affected place an order for her battery. While I am happy it won't cost me anything, I feel sorry for Apple, Dell and Sony. I read that this will cost Sony some $170 million dollars and they are only paying a portion of the replacement costs. I haven't seen what the total cost of this program will be or if any other laptops are affected.
I did read that at lease one Airline, Quantas, has restricted the new use of Dell laptops on their aircraft and are considering doing the same thing with Apple laptops. Does the phrase, "over reacting" come to anyone else's mind?