Digital Daily » lithium ion

Insert HP "Hot Deals" Joke Here

John Paczkowski — Thu, 14 May 2009 22:30:34 +0000

If you’re reading this on an HP Pavilion or Compaq Presario laptop, you might want to switch from battery to AC power before going on with this post. Fearing they might burst into flame, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is recalling 70,000 lithium-ion batteries shipped with several types of portable machines. The recall, which affects nine makes of Compaq and HP laptops sold between August 2007 and March 2008, was prompted by two incidents in which batteries “overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire that caused minor property damage” but no injuries, according a Consumer Product Safety Commission bulletin.

HP, which is now well practiced in programs like these thanks to three prior recalls, is providing free replacement batteries to those with affected machines.

Steve Jobs's Health: Chalk It Up to Hormones

John Paczkowski — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 18:34:52 +0000

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Zinc Different

John Paczkowski — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 08:00:35 +0000

Some last minute grist for the Macworld rumor mill: Word on the street has it that Tuesday’s Macworld keynote address will see the introduction of the 17-inch MacBook Pro that was omitted from Apple’s October 2008 laptop event. As with the machines introduced that day, the 17-inch MacBook Pro will feature a precision aluminum unibody chassis and a multi-touch glass trackpad. But it’s expected to feature something else as well: a fixed internal battery, not unlike the one in the MacBook Air.

While the notion of a fixed power source in a pro laptop will almost certainly send the dueling-battery crowd into paroxysms of indignant rage, the performance of this particular battery pack may be worth the design trade-off, lasting as much as 50 percent longer on a single charge than its predecessors. How is that possible? With silver-zinc rechargeable batteries, which not only offer vastly improved run-time over traditional lithium-ion battery technology, but are safer as well. Recylable too. Over at Apple Ink, Seth Weintraub ably lays out the case for a silver-zinc-powered MacBook, leading one to think that the announcement of such a machine in the near future is pretty much an inevitability.

With the life of the 50-watt-hour lithium-polymer batteries topping out at five hours, my guess is complaints about a fixed battery pack will be few and far between if Apple (AAPL) can deliver nine hours of charge from a silver-zinc battery.

Now if it would only begin offering that matte screen option again…

[Image Credit: ZPower]

Sony's Assaultin' Battery

John Paczkowski — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 18:00:16 +0000

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Sir, We May Want to Rethink That "Blazing Speed" Ad Campaign

John Paczkowski — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 12:45:03 +0000

Sony’s battery brouhaha certainly holds its charge well. Two years after initiating the largest battery recall ever in the electronics industry, Sony (SNE) announced another after customers reported more than a dozen incidents of faulty lithium-ion notebook batteries bursting into flame.

According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission there have been 19 separate incidents of batteries overheating. Of those 19 incidents, 17 involved flames and 10 minor property damage. At least two people suffered minor burns. All told, the company is recalling about 100,000 2.15Ah battery packs used in Dell (DELL), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Toshiba laptops. That’s only a fraction of the 9.6 million incendiary lithium-ion notebook batteries Sony recalled in 2006, which cost the company around $360 million.

But it’s a start.