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back to article Sony battery recall as VAIO goes out with a bang, not a whimper

If you're one of the few people who bought a Sony VAIO Fit 11A laptop/tablet convertible unit in the last few months, you need to unplug it immediately and step away from the system, Sony has warned. "It has come to our attention that some of the internal, non-removable battery packs provided to us by a third party supplier …

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  1. ecofeco Silver badge

    Sony? What Baloney!

    I could go on all day about how Sony lost its lead as the premier electronics company of the world, but many an article has already been written about their problems.

    As for VAIOs, I learned my lesson the first time I tried to repair one years ago. The biggest problem is there is nothing industry standard about them. You need a part? ANY part? Sony ONLY.

    Off sizes, specialized connectors, weird voltage specs, you name it. Market lock in is good... if you are the only game in town. And the performance was nothing special.

    These days, Sony anything is overpriced for what you get. And that includes their professional gear as well.

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    1. csumpi
      Reply Icon
      Paris Hilton

      Re: Sony? What Baloney!

      Typing on a Sony Vaio, the best laptop I've ever owned. Second best was my previous Vaio. But a bit jealous, because the wife liked my tool so much, that she bought herself a Vaio Fit 15, with the super high res screen, touch, and pressure sensitive digitizer. So now I drool over my her asset.

      I guess the point I'm trying to make is, whatcha talking about Willis?

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      1. Anonymous Coward
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        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Sony? What Baloney! @csumpi

        You have never owned any other computer have you...

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sony? What Baloney! @csumpi

          Not the previous poster but we also have a Sony, and the previous was a Sony. The two best laptops I've had!

          And no, I've not only had Sony's! First was a mitac back in the early nineties, then a Toshiba, a dell, an Asus, another dell, a HP (the worst) two more Asus laptops, a Sony ultra portable (great, tiny machine that I dropped something on) an Apple (biggest mistake - almost as bad as the HP but bought with my money rather than my bosses!).

          The first Sony was updated with a zif ssd, the second with a Sata III Ssd. The rest was good enough that it didn't need updating.

          My current is not upgradable, but then a workstation level machine in a 13" chassis weighing in at less than 1kg means that I don't expect to be able to update it.

          Who knows if the.next one will be a Sony, it depends what's available when I'm looking, but the last three have been brilliant machines so far!

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      2. Martin-73 Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        Re: Sony? What Baloney!

        Maybe you've been lucky. If nothing goes wrong, and you don't have to repair, they're adequate for the job, and if much higher spec than your previous laptop, you'll naturally say they're the best. But I can echo the 'nothing standard when it comes to repair' sentiment

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Sony? What Baloney!

          If my luck means that I have three from three that are good, when they are that bad normally, then I'm a happy person!

          As to the Spec - tough one to answer... All of my laptops have been top spec (except for the Mitac, that was second hand and had to be cheap enough to buy for uni, and the Apple which is a mid spec ) and so they have all been good. So yes, they have been better than what they were replacing (As were the two Asus laptops that they replaced), but then they were newer technology (Core Duo to Core 2 Duo, to i7 Sandy bridge to i7 Ivy bridge). Then again, I have compared them to other laptops of similar price and age and still been very, very happy.

          As to repairability. The Asus also had Asus parts, the Dells had Dell parts and the HP had HP parts. So I am not sure what the problem is with Sony's having Sony parts (on my first Sony - 18" screen and easily accessible) I could put what drive, memory and wireless parts in that I wanted, anything else is soldered onto the main board - as most laptops are these days - and so yes, would need to be sent back to Sony for repair.

          Where is the issue?

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    2. LarsG
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      Did they not?

      Did they not consider testing them?

      Previous battery snaffu's were relatively easy to rectify, unclip the old one and replace with a new one.

      Built in is a little more complicated, replacement please.

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  2. Christian Berger

    Hmm. let's look at what Sony uses when they need a laptop

    For their (back then) new Betacam SX they obviously had to have an edit controller. They chose to go with the time and just have a laptop with some extra hardware to control the VTRs.

    Let's look at what kind of laptop they used:

    http://www.marcelstvmuseum.com/folders/sony%20betacamSX%20folder.pdf

    That doesn't look like a Vaio, does it?

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    1. ecofeco Silver badge
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      Re: Hmm. let's look at what Sony uses when they need a laptop

      Nice find! I've used everything shown there except the laptop editor.

      Have an upvote.

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    2. Anonymous Coward
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      Anonymous Coward

      Re: That doesn't look like a Vaio, does it?

      Could it be because they didn't make Vaios at the time?

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  3. John Tserkezis

    "internal, non-removable"

    (forehead slap) When will people learn!?

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  4. Patrick R
    Holmes

    The perils of having Panasonic as a partner???

    So in 2006 bad batteries were made by Sony. Now they make the mistake of having them manufactured by someone else. Ain't it easy to point such an obvious mistake...afterwards?

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  5. Alan Denman

    Coming to a sealed device near you soon?

    As all sealed phones, tabets and laptops get older I really do expect something to blow !

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The perils of having Panasonic as a partner???

    How many companies actually make LiIon batteries?

    Sony use Panasonic LiIon batteries in laptops.

    Tesla apparently use Panasonic LiIon batteries in, er, Teslas.

    Boeing use Panasonic LiIon batteries in Dreamliners.

    Looking at the news on this subject, is there a bit of a theme here? If so, why? Are Panasonic the only major supplier, or are they just 'unluckier' than the other(s)?

    If other companies do make LiIon batteries for these kinds of application, what proportion of their output is implicated in fires?

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    1. BristolBachelor Gold badge
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      Re: The perils of having Panasonic as a partner???

      Sony also make Li-Ion cells, but tend to be the cylindrical cell type more than coffee pack (although I believe that they do make coffee pack style). The standard commercial cells that they make are also used to make batteries for satellites (not Tosh laptops!).

      It was testing those cells that lead to the discovery many years ago that a machine on one production line was dropping small particles of zinc into the cells leading them to fail early, which in turn lead to a major recall.

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