Are you among the proud few that own a Sony Vaio laptop? Are you reading this article on said Vaio laptop? You might want to put that thing down and continue reading on your phone.
Sony has issued a recall for about 1,700 Panasonic-made battery packs packaged within its Vaio laptops due to overheating that could be a potential fire hazard, The Wall Street Journal reports.
A notice from the US Consumer Product Safety Commission has reported no related incidents or injuries as a result of the defective batteries.
You might be wondering, "Why is Sony recalling these laptops and not the Japanese holdings company it sold Vaio off to more than two years ago?"
That's because the laptops affected by these defective Panasonic batteries were released when Sony still owned the brand, back in 2013. It's not really Vaio's – i.e. the one now owned by Japan Industrial Partners, Inc. – problem then, is it?
The WSJ specifically cites the affected batteries to have the model number VGP-BPS26, as well as part numbers 1-853-237-11 and 1-853-237-21, which were found in laptops sold in 2013. (You might be able to suss out whether your Vaio is affected by looking through Windows Device Manager.)
We've contacted both Sony and Vaio to determine exactly which Vaio laptop models are affected by the recall and will update this story as soon as we hear back.
It's also important to keep in mind that this is far from the first time that a laptop battery has been recalled to avoid a fire hazard. The late aughts saw millions of laptop battery recalls for the same reason, a good chunk of which were of Sony's own make.
