Panasonic Recall Laptops Because of Battery Problems

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While not suffering from the same problem as Dell and Apple, Panasonic today announced that it's recalling certain Japanese models of CF-W4G Let's Note W4 laptop that were sold between April and May 2005. Unlike the Sony-supplied batteries found in the affected Dell and Apple laptops, the batteries in the Panasonic laptop—not made by Sony, mind you—will only malfunction if you smash it on a table. If this happens and the planets align just right, a spring in the battery latch can puncture the battery, leading to bad news. No shots of an exploded Panasonic have surfaced yet, so this old Dell will have to do.

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Again, this isn't a recall anywhere near the scale that we've seen in recent weeks (right now, only about 6,000 battery packs shipped with the Japanese W4 are affected), but never underestimate the power of the blogosphere to artificially inflate the event's importance. If Panasonic finds anything wrong with laptops found in the U.S., we'll have the before and after shots.

Recall Details (in Japanese) [Panasonic via Digital World Tokyo]