So it turns out that Sony, after releasing their last VAIO PC refresh before the division is sold to Japan Industrial Partners, have found an issue with Panasonic's custom lithium battery packs. The VAIO Fit 11A models, released February 2014, have the potential to overheat and catch fire, burning itself and the PC. They are in the process of creating a refund, repair, or exchange program but, in the mean time, request users stop using the devices for their safety.
In head-crushing formation. #HandsCheck
The affected products fall under the model number, "SVF11N1XXXX", where Xs are, of course, some random letter or number. This information is printed underneath the display, accessible using the "release-lock" latch when the laptop is open.
Of course, this is all just unfortunate for Sony. The last product they create under their VAIO brand requires what basically amounts to a safety recall — for a third-party component. Beyond that, Panasonic asserts that the flaw only seems to exist in the batteries that were customized for Sony. Panasonic, like many manufacturers, introduces slight modifications to existing products for a specific customer's needs. They do not believe that their other batteries, even of the same model, is defective outside of the shipment that Sony received.
At some point, you just need to feel bad for them…
Ill never feel bad for a
Ill never feel bad for a corporation maybe for its employees you know the 5k or so employees that will lose their job from the selling of the pc division.
nice one Jim- yet all
nice one Jim- yet all corporations are open for ups and downs, for Sony to separate a division was super tough being a Japanese company.
to have the additional shame of a product defect with the last products just makes the sting worse.
Japan is not like here were we are treated pretty poorly and watch jobs dissapear to low cost countries for tax breaks.
Sony’s laptops where always
Sony’s laptops where always on the high priced side, but at least they had a better build quality than Toshiba’s build quality(Crappy Toshiba system software, and never a driver update for their customized Intel HD graphics drivers). The Koreans bested Sony/Japan in value for the money, and price, but the Chinese are going to be the ones to beat, as they are buying everything in sight. To date the only laptop that I have owned, that did not have the letters begin to wear off the keyboard after 6 mo. is an HP laptop, but my ASUS, and Samsung should have come with an extra set of letter decals, and the Toshiba has a little less wear, but that is only because the letters are on the upper left of each key and not dead center. The HP letters look brand new, and the laptop is almost a year old. This crazy obsession with thin and light, has lost laptop makers as much business as the win 8 fiasco, as many were expecting laptops to become replacments for most of the uses that requried a desktop, except high end gaming! Intel and The OEMs made a big mistake in thinking that most PC/laptop owners where like the average Apple owner, how did that work out for the Intel Ultrabook initiative, Laptop OEM’s, and Touch laptops, never for me, what a waste. Phones are getting extra high resolution displays, but laptops remain stuck with lower resolutions mostly. If Google would put more efforts into designing a chromebook/laptop the could be incrementally updated, like the Project Ara smart phone, the laptop market would improve more.