With more than tens of millions in use, laptops are now an essential part of modern life for students. They can be found in classrooms, dorm rooms, libraries and backpacks.
And at least 47 in the past five years have been found on fire.
Lenovo and IBM Corporation announced the voluntary recall Thursday of more than 500,000 lithium-ion batteries manufactured by Sony Corporation for ThinkPad computers, and Lenovo will offer customers free-of-charge replacement batteries for all recalled batteries, according to the Lenovo Web site.
Lenovo is the fourth company to recall laptop batteries after a laptop caught fire at a Los Angeles airport in December, following Apple, Dell and Toshiba.
“All the laptops purchased between February 2005 and September 2006 are being recalled,” a customer service representative from IBM said.
The batteries recalled are not the same battery packs recalled from Apple and Dell.
“Battery packs, which are commonly referred to as “batteries,” are composed of battery cells, and while we do use some of the same cells as our competitors, the technology behind the design and manufacture of the larger battery pack is unique to our systems,” according to the Lenovo Web site.
The companies recalled the batteries because of overheating, which could lead to smoking or a fire.
Sven Blackley, a supervisor at the Best Buy located on Glenwood Avenue, said while he doesn’t know the specifics of why the batteries are defective, the cause can be attributed to chemicals used in the battery packs.
“There’s a chemical reaction inside the unit that causes it to generate electricity,” Blackley said.
Xamul Vang, a lab technician for Lenovo and ’04 graduate in computer engineering, said he wasn’t sure what the outcome would be if a battery were to overheat.
“I’m not sure [what would happen],” he said. ‘We’ve actually never had one overheat in our lab. So, I can’t really comment on what would happen.”
Aaron Singer, a junior in mechanical engineering, said he was relieved his computer was not one of the thousands recalled.
“Well when I first heard about the recalls I immediately checked to make sure my battery wasn’t included,” he said. “Had it been, I would have been upset at losing my battery for however long it would’ve taken to fix the problem.”
According to the Lenovo Web site, it could take three to four weeks to receive a new battery. Replacement batteries will also have a one-year warranty.
Blackley said the battery recalls haven’t been a problem for the business because the store sells the majority of notebooks quickly.
“We cycle through them so fast,” Blackley said, adding that because the laptops sell quickly there are not many computers in the store that have been affected. “We have minimal computers coming in that are actually affected by it.”
Blackley said students and members of the community are visiting the store asking if their computers are affected.
“Some people came in to ask us to check for them but very few were actually defective,” he said. “We can check and see if someone’s model is one affected by it.”
Singer said he checked to ensure his battery wasn’t defective in part because of the convenience of having a laptop.
“I like the convenience of having a mobile computer and without the battery that is null and void, so I had to check,” he said. “Once I found that my battery wasn’t recalled I sighed with relief that they made mine correctly or whatever.”
