Jin

Back in Mid Aug, Dell start the recall program for 4.1 million laptop battery. Everybody was laughing at it. Apple, IBM(Lenovo) and other Japan notebook maker quickly comfort their customer that their product are safe to use. Their spoke person was still telling pretty word while Dell warning them that no PC company is immune to battery issues from time to time.
[ Read: zdnet news ]

2 weeks later, Apple finally stood up and stand at Dell side, started the recall program for their 1.2 million Mac-Book's battery. Shock and confusing customer start asking question wether their notebook is safe or not. I wasn't worry that much about it until one of my favorite notebook brand - Panasonic, also start the recall program on their notebook (Japan only).
[ More: Yahoo News ]

Thing is getting out of control, customer is panic and helpless, Sony blame Dell and saying that Dell design is the main cause. Other company also stood up and say their notebook design could prevent such incident from happen.

Sony has agreed to help financially with the Apple and Dell recalls resulting from faults with its cells. However, a spokeswoman for the company denied that the blame for Dell's battery cell problems lay completely with the Japanese manufacturer.

"It is the configuration. We use the same batteries in our Vaios, and have our own safeguards against potential overheating. Other manufacturers which use the same cells haven't come forward with any issues. On rare occasions a short circuit can occur but this is affected by systems configurations found in different laptops," she said.

[ More: Yahoo News ]

We see a lot of the spoke person telling us their product is better than Dell because they have protection design, one of those is IBM (Lenovo).

But even if two companies use the same batteries, they don't necessarily design the technology that connects the battery to the notebook in the same way, Kay said. For example, Lenovo's notebooks use software that's designed to shut down the battery if it notices a problem and they charge the batteries more slowly than others in the industry, a company representative said. A Dell representative was unable to comment on the specific technology it uses to enclose its batteries.

[ More: zdnet News ]

Guess what, my friend is laughing at me because i was thinking to get another Dell notebook, telling me Dell is cheapstake stuff and will explode anything. They recommend me get a IBM thinkpad and saying it is solid and safer.

Thinkpad? Think again...

Originally posted by engadget:

So we’re waiting for a flight in the United lounge at LAX, the flight next to ours was heading to London and in the middle of final boarding, when suddenly this guy comes running the wrong way up the jetway, pushing other boarding passengers out of the way, he quickly drops his laptop on the floor and the thing immediately flares up like a giant firework for about 15 seconds, then catches fire. About a hundred other people in the lounge jumped up and began a mix of gawking and general panic, I clearly heard a few fleeing individuals saying something about terrorists. The fire burned for a minute while everybody just stared at it, then another flare up, this one much larger than the first, drove a larger group of gawkers away. Eventually, the high intensity flaring calmed down and a larger fire kicked in, all the while letting off a thick cloud of white smoke that was slowly filling the terminal. Finally, an employee came over with a fire extinguisher and put it out of its misery.

[ More: Engadget ]

And this wasn't a china made Lenovo, this is an IBM Notebook. Ya, IBM battery mostly made by Sony too.

In my own opinion, Dell and Apple are doing a great job on this issue. Despair doing such large scale recall will affect their business and reputation, they manage to pull it off successful and try their best to comfort and satisfy their customer. Especially Dell, they even setup a official blog that update frequently to giving us some insight about their product. Direct2Dell is a must visit site if you own or interest about Dell product.

Last but not least, remember what SONY say about their VAIO product line?