Laptop manufacturers may seek recall restitution from Sony

by Blake Snow on Oct 16th 2006 1:50PM

Several Japanese laptop manufacturers announced Monday that they may seek lost business and/or brand damage restitution from Sony over mass battery recalls. An estimated 7.7 million Sony-made batteries caused overheating issues with some notebooks even catching fire. The recall, affecting nearly every major laptop maker, is expected to cost Sony upwards of $420 million in replacement costs alone, excluding said possible punitive damages.

The AP reports: "The battery woes are raising questions about Sony's reputation for quality, and come at a time when the company has suffered a setback in delaying the European launch of its next-generation video game console, PlayStation 3, because of manufacturing problems." Isn't there some kind of "give me a break" website that Sony can become a member of?

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Tags: PS3

Reader Comments (56)

Sony long ago gave up its reputation for quality when they decided not to make that a priortiy. I have had "quality" issues with every Sony product I have owned, including two Vaio's (both of which have overheating batteries and the first of which had a docking station in which every last extension broke down within about a year), a Clie (lasted one week), and two PS2's (each of which lasted two weeks.) Sony needs to take a long look at what is causing their financial demise. I won't be buying a PS3, ever. Too much risk when there are two superior options on the market (Wii for fun and innovation, 360 for traditional gameplay and graphics that may unlimately outdo Sony's machine, now that a 1080p software upgrade is on the way!) I trust Windows the operating system seven times as much as I do any Sony product, and that should scare Sony to death.

I happen to know I am not alone.

The highest quality Sony products are made by Samsung.

Tim, Sony is not the largest Japanese electronics producer, Matsushita is.

Before we feel too bad for Sony, perhaps we should take a second and remember the root-kit debacle from just a little while back.

OMG!!! SONY IS SO DOOMED!! LOL!!! I WARNED U 4LL!!!!

meh. PS3 sales will make up for most Sony financial troubles.

"perhaps we should take a second and remember the root-kit debacle"

yeah, and while we're at it we could also remember that M$ has a root-kit installed in almost every desktop computer in the world and is just as favorable to DRM measures as Sony or any other big industry player.

A laptop or cellphone - both devices that reside on your person AND GO IN PLANES - need to be subjected to stringent testing. Though that doesn't mean other devices should be unsafe.

Also, from what I understand, there are could be as many as a 100 million of these defective batteries floating around, which is a crazy number. This could end up being a litigous as all those tobacco lawsuits in the 90s!

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