Toshiba Australia offers to replace customers' batteries

Stan Beer
Saturday, 30 September 2006 12:30

IT Industry - Strategy

The Australian office of notebook manufacturer Toshiba has initiated a voluntary battery replacement program for customers that have notebook computers with sony batteries.

• Announcements

Toshiba has stressed, however, that its action is voluntary and not a recall program as has occurred with Dell, Apple and Lenovo computers.

Mark Whittard, general manager, Toshiba ISD said: “There is no evidence to suggest that the problems that have been noted in other vendor notebook computers affect Toshiba. We have conducted extensive engineering analysis, in addition to Sony Corporation’s own engineering, which confirms that Toshiba notebooks are not affected.  We believe this is because of the design and safety protection systems we build into our notebooks to doubly safeguard against overheating.  We are, however, cooperating with Sony’s exchange program to ensure peace-of-mind to our customers.”

Toshiba models affected include:

-         Satellite A50, R10, R20

-         Tecra A2, A3X, M3, M4, M5, M7 and S3

-         Portege M300, M400, M500

-         Qosmio G30, F30

According to Toshiba Australia, it is currently developing a utility for customers to check whether their battery is affected.  Further information and instructions for customers wishing to exchange their battery will be available at www.isd.toshiba.com.au by Tuesday, 4 October 2006.  Customers can also contact their nearest Toshiba authorised service centre, Toshiba Mobile Care Service Centre (www.isd.toshiba.com.au/support ) or call Toshiba Support Centre on 1800-021-100 (Australia) or 0800-445-439 (New Zealand).