Battery problems resurface with Acer recall

Stephen Withers
Thursday, 26 April 2007 03:23

Your IT - Home IT

Thought we'd seen the back of notebook battery problems? Acer has recalled 27,000 Sony-made lithium-ion batteries sold between May 2004 and November 2006.

The affected batteries are known to have been sold in the US and Canada for certain TravelMate and Aspire models. The batteries may also have been shipped to other territories.

Acer has published North American details at a dedicated web site and for other countries advises owners of its notebooks to call their local support line to find out if replacement is necessary.

With just 27,000 units involved, this recall is small scale. Other manufacturers using Sony batteries previously recalled millions of batteries - Dell alone recalled more than four million. Other affected brands included Apple, Lenovo and Toshiba.

The faulty batteries can overheat, and on rare occasions this may cause a fire. This led to some airlines banning the inflight use of notebooks from manufacturers that had issued recalls.