Submitted by Sony has finally bitten the bullet and issued a worldwide recall of all Sony-manufactured lithium-ion batteries used in notebook computers. Earlier in the day, Lenovo/IBM joined the ranks of Dell, Apple, and Toshiba in issuing a recall for all Sony batteries that ship with their notebooks.
Maybe I’m wrong but I’m glad Sony is finally taking responsibility here. It’s been a long time coming.
Now, hopefully my once not-recalled Japanese Dell battery is on the new list.
Good for you that you can be made glad so easily. I’d be glad if, for once, we as paying consumers wouldn’t be screwed over with bad quality junk for a sh*t load of money. You know, there were times when you could buy good quality products, when you could be faily sure about the general quality of certain products. This day, you can never be sure of anything anymore. Even the big guns drop loads of crap on you so often it’s not even surprising after a while anymore. They give you f*cked up rootkits with non-standard-conforming but such labeled disks, they give you junk batteries to break your valuable data and your belongings, and they get away with it. And hey, they can, since we don’t even complain anymore, when they issue a recall of their junk we say ok, how nice, they are thinking of us. I say frack that, you screw me once, I’m not giving you my money anymore.
Allright, I’m done, you can score me down but I had to let it all out.
There was a time when SONY == QAULITY
That time is no more.
Everything I’ve bought from SONY over the last 8 years, from CD players, digital cameras, WEGA TV, VIAO notebook, plasma TV…everything, has broken down within 1 year of use.
Contrast that with my 21 year old SONY trinitron…which today is still running like a champ.
Where did it all go wrong?
Add in the rootkit fiasco…and they’ve lost me as a customer forever.
Edited 2006-09-29 16:43
Could not agree more. Sony was the Japanese company that you could trust in build quality along with features. If you were faced with the choices of Sony, Sanyo, Sharp in a department store and you had the cash you would be likely to choose Sony for the better device.
Now, like many corporations, they have gained brand awareness and fall back on that to be able to push crap out of the door.
I stopped buying Sony a decade ago, after repeated personal experience with declining quality.
For general consumer electronics, I now choose Panasonic (Matsushita). I’ve been pleased with my phone, VCR, and TV. Some of the other Japanese brands are also good.
Samsung has improved to the point where I would choose them over Sony, but I wouldn’t extend that to other Korean companies.
Three different Sony DVD drives have failed at home in three different computers over one year.
First the combo unit in my laptop stopped writing, then a DVD rewriter in my partner’s Dell notebook stopped writing (a NEC was sent as replacement), and then the CD writing capabilities in my desktop computer went down (still writes DVDs though).
I have no proof, but with all the trouble with the rootkit, I strongly suspect the three drives knowingly commited suicide after being asked to rip copy-protected CDs for reproduction in an iPod.
Anybody out there has had a similar experience?
I’m never EVER buying Sony stuff again, unless things change A LOT. I really wanted a PSP, buth a Nintendo DS will have to do.
Between bad batteries, delayed launch of PS3, poor sales of walkman due to DRM restriction. If the PS3 fails will we see Sony go away. They have put billions into PS3 and Blu-Ray.
The only real thing I would worry about would be we would be left with HD-DVD vs Blu-Ray and Microsoft dominating the game hardware industry. I guess Sony game division could do like Sega and become a software house.
Edited 2006-09-30 17:36
So, where would people go to find out what devices are fitted with Sony-made Li-on batteries?
Are they simply alerting their OEM customers and leaving it up to those vendors to notify their customers?
Update: NM, i see at the very bottom of the article it states that OEM vendors will be notified… So I guess we are expected to scan various manufacturer websites for a couple weeks to see if any of our devices use Sony batteries and are recalled… seems like a pain.
Edited 2006-09-29 16:45
Where does it say that _ALL_ Sony Li-on packs are being recalled? I suspect this is still a targetted recall (albeit with a rather large target).
Uh, in the first sentence. No offense but what article were you reading.
“Sony has finally bitten the bullet and issued a worldwide recall of all Sony-manufactured lithium-ion batteries used in notebook computers.”
Ok, let me rephrase… who other than Ars Technica says this?
Here are a few other articles about the recall:
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,23636,20496775-31037,00.htm…
“Sony will offer to replace certain battery packs for notebook computers in response to concerns over recent overheating incidents, the Japanese electronics giant said.”
http://www.japancorp.net/Article.Asp?Art_ID=13456
“Sony Corporation will initiate a global replacement program for certain battery packs…”
And the closest example:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/business/20060930TDY01008.htm
“Sony Corp. will recall about 10 million lithium-ion batteries for notebook computers over concerns that the batteries could accidentally catch fire. The recall targets all computer makers worldwide that use the Sony-made batteries.”
I think that last one is what confused Ars, actually. It’s all computer makers, but not necessarily all packs (you can be sure there are a lot more than 10 million Sony Li-on packs on the market).
Someone should do a case study on this company because they are totally f–ked up.
HP laptops is out of this theme? I have nc6120…