A battery of intrigue

Geek alert.

One thing that's been annoying over the past few months has been the lack of battery life of my G4 Powerbook. On top of running to below an hours worth of charge, I had noticed that my laptop appeared to be running much hotter than usual. Lithium ion batteries have had a long history of dodginess. Apple had been running a recall of select Powerbook batteries over the past year, but my particular model was excluded from this. Many users have been told to expect to replace a lithium ion battery between 1 to 2 years of owning a laptop, so despite my annoyance I had resigned myself to getting a replacement.

Towards the end of July I called Apple Australia to complain about the battery life on my 18 month-old computer. I was given a case ID and pointed to several Apple Support articles to prolong battery life. Needless to say I didn't get around to following the directions straight away, and a couple of weeks back one of the Support Articles I had been pointed to (#86440) was removed / deleted from the Apple Support site.

Strange I thought. I didn't give it much thought and resigned myself to purchasing a new battery. Since that time, the 'flaming laptop' story broke and now every geek worth his salt now knows of the Dell Laptop/Sony Battery debacle. I even threw in my 2 cents worth when it was reported that a certain approach to engineering wouldn't allow for such poor quality to hit the markets. Yeah right.

As part of breaking my post-GE funk, I planned to hit Xujiahui yesterday to pick up a new Powerbook battery for my laptop. Needless to say my laziness was too strong yesterday and I didn't make it out of the house until Linda me peeled off the couch to go buy Chinese souvenirs for our trip home. Shopping at the market was harrowing enough for this little black duck, so an expedition to Xujiahui around peak-hour was a laughable idea.

So this morning, I learnt that Apple had announced another battery recall of Powerbook and iBook batteries that were supplied by Sony.

Guess what? I'm now eligible for a replacement battery.

I'm sure there's been a growing consensus about my model of Powerbook and its battery concerns over the past year. How long has Apple known about this? And, was this announcement released after both Dell and Sony had taken the heat for this dodgy technology? I believe that they must have known about this for a long time.