Sony Battery Recall Expands

by , 1:00 PM EDT, September 29th, 2006

Toshiba this week added 830,000 Sony-made laptop batteries to its recall list, while Dell on Friday bumped up its number by 100,000 and Fujitsu said it was considering joining the program. Toshiba had last week said it would recall 340,000 laptop batteries; the new amount is a separate program on top of that.

An IDG News article quoted a Toshiba spokesman as saying: "There is no safety issue, we will voluntarily exchange the battery pack used in certain notebooks." The company said that it was replacing the batteries because they could lose power unexpectedly; there have been no reports of Toshiba laptops catching fire.

The new recall covers these laptops: Satellite T10, T11, T12, T20, A50; Tecra M3, M4, M5, M7, S3; Portege S100, M300, M400, M500; Dynabook SS LX, L10, L11, M10, M11, M35, MX, MXW; Dynabook R10; Dynabook TX/2, TX/3, TX4; and Qosmio G30 and F30.

Dell upped the number of batteries in its recall, which is due to potential fire hazard, because it "received new information," according to IDG News. The company didn't say what that new information was, but it did ask consumers to visit the Web site it has set up for the recall to see if they own one of the 4.2 million batteries now included in it.

Meanwhile, Fujitsu is "also likely to join the voluntary recall," according to IDG, but it hasn't released details yet.