posted on Friday, August 25, 2006 9:40 AM
GEARlog.com
Who's Afraid of the Big, Bad Sony Batteries?

http://gearlog.com/blogs/gearlog/archive/2006/08/25/19641.aspx

I tell ya, this continuum of laptop battery recalls has become a national hysteria. Good thing it's not halloween, because instead of flaming poop at your doorstep, kids would be dropping a flaming laptop instead!

Is there really cause for alarm? Should we be freaking out? Do we need to hide our children? Do we need to start gathering in bomb shelters, afraid that laptops will be used as weapons of mass destruction? Will people start burning laptops, burning bras, burning books because they just can't take it anymore? Will Sony start The Up In Smoke Tour around the country, with Eminem and Dr. Dre headlining?

Seriously folks. You can calm down. You can rest assured that everything will be fine. You won't have to make another trip to your therapist this week. You won't need another Vicodin. Why? Because according to Larry O'Connor, president of Newer Technology Inc. (a replacement battery manufacturer for Apple laptops) says that the likelihood of your Apple laptop blowing up in your face is about one in a million. That's right--one in a million. You probably have a better chance at winning the lottery than your Apple notebook exploding from a defective battery.

O'Connor further explains that "It's not like one second it's perfectly cool and the next second you have fire on your lap. If it's a cell that is failing, it will be heating up and will have warning signs." It's not just going to happen out of the blue.

But what does this mean for the notebook industry as a whole? Will people be less adamant about purchasing notebooks due to defective batteries? Most likely not. We'll still buy notebooks people. We'll still go on with technology in our lives. Things like this happen. We live and we learn. Can we really blame Sony? Maybe partially, but just like life, nothing is perfect.

 

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