The battery pack for my wife’s ThinkPad T43 has been recalled. Fortunately, she has a second battery pack that’s not on the recall list. Lenovo’s FAQ indicates it could take 3 to 4 weeks to receive a replacement.
Toshiba also recalled laptop batteries but my Tecra M4 wasn’t on the list. The last time I remember going through this sort of thing was Dell’s recall of laptop batteries in 2000. They did a 2-for-1 exchange and since we all had backup battery packs, when all of the new packs arrived we were buried in a sea of them.
Not to make air travel more onerous than it already is but since more than 4.2 million of these battery packs have been recalled, I wonder about the safety of using laptops in flight. Lenovo’s FAQ passes the buck to the airlines:
Q: Is it safe to use a ThinkPad on a plane?
A: We will leave the issue of airline safety to the airlines. If your battery is affected by our recall, whether you are on an airplane or not, Lenovo recommends you remove the battery and power your ThinkPad notebook with an AC adapter.
You would think that they might be a little more concerned since a battery pack in a ThinkPad caught fire at a terminal at LAX a couple weeks ago. The owner says that the laptop was turned off and in his bag when it caught fire. Pretty lucky that he wasn’t on the plane when this happened.
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