“The Professional Inventors Alliance has blasted Dell over the recent battery fiasco,” Nick Farrell reports for The Inquirer.
Farrell reports, “President Ronald Riley said that Dell systems failed to intall proper monitoring into laptops which could have spotted the failure and shut down the computer. ‘Dell does not in my opinion have the engineering expertise which other companies who actually advance the technology have,’ Riley said.”
Farrell reports, “He accused them of achieving low prices by cutting corners from both a design perspective and by specifying and buying product based on price.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “LinuxGuy and Mac Prodigal Son” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: Dell is just a commodity box assembler. There is no engineering expertise advancing technology at Dell. They are very efficient, but they company has even less to do with innovation than Microsoft. Sony made the batteries, so they should share the blame.
As we said in our original Take when the first Dell laptop blew up, “Almost always, this is an issue of shoddily-produced batteries. Virtually every PC company, including Apple, have not been immune to such issues in the past. Hopefully, this will never happen on a plane (or anywhere else again). Generally, we’re of the opinion that as PC companies race to the bottom in a desperate price race, we feel much safer with Apple’s quality vs. all others as Apple is not dependent on operating on razor-thin margins that might affect product quality.”
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Apple, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others working on battery standard – August 23, 2006
Qantas first airline to restrict in-flight Dell laptop use due to fire-prone batteries – August 23, 2006
Dell and Sony knew about battery problems nearly a year ago, waited for catastrophic failures – August 21, 2006
Dell issues largest safety recall in history: 4.1 million laptop batteries due to fire threat – August 14, 2006
Another Dell laptop goes up in flames – July 28, 2006
Dell laptop fires may have been downplayed – July 22, 2006
NY Times: Dell’s exploding laptop and other image problems – July 10, 2006
Dell laptop explodes into flames at Japanese conference – June 21, 2006
It’s a good thing Dell doesn’t make pacemakers.
Did you hear about the guy claiming that he lost his home because of a Dell notebook fire? Bummer.
http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/laptops/man-blames-dell-laptop-for-house-fire-195540.php
D…E…..L…..L……
BOOOOOOOM!
first.
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“It’s a good thing Dell doesn’t make pacemakers.”
Yeah, or hydrogen power cells. Spooky.
Dell isn’t a computer company. They just paste their name on anything they can sell.
Apple is the only real computer company that exists. Buying from Apple is the best investment for your money.
BTW, does this mean that Sony is off the hook
(not a manufacturing defect, but design)?
Thorin, the housefire story also mentions the laptop sitting on top of papers on the couch. Admittedly, a laptop should not be an ignition source, but tell me honestly that you think the victim’s house did not have at least a dozen other potential hazards from sloppiness or carelessness. Most people live the way they drive — looking no further ahead than the hood ornament. At least leave the laptop on the coffee table? (With the power cable strung across the room where people can trip on it.)
“He accused them of achieving low prices by cutting corners from both a design perspective and by specifying and buying product based on price.”
Do’h, tell us something we didn’t know. Too bad this is way above grasp for Dull customers.
Metryq,
Hey, I didn’t say it was a legit claim!
Just a story I saw.
“Dell should do the right thing and give the ashes back to the stockholders.”
Keith Oberman, on Countdown, reported on a story about a truck that burned – spectacularly – when a Dell laptop, left in the passenger footwell, ignited.
The geezer was near my age – half-a-century-plus
The truck was near half his age
The ‘spectacular’ part had to do with two boxes of ammo in the glove box
The man expected Dell to provide a new Ford F-150 plus the cash value of the laptop
Forgive my suspicious nature, but this very much sounds like a scam to me. I could be wrong. That he’s a geezer doesn’t mean he wouldn’t bring a laptop on a hunting trip – I bring mine on longer-than-a-day expeditions. That he wants to replace a ‘vintage’ Ford pickup with the latest model … is that totally unreasonable? Still, I’m wondering why the trees around the totally destroyed truck were not so much as singed. Not a leaf! Maybe I’m just a cynical geezer, myself.
About that house that burned … my brothers and I got together with the neighboring tribe – half a dozen teens/pre-teens – and built a shack in the woods when we were young. Hand-carried ‘used’ lumber to a clearing near a pond, did all the work ourselves. It wasn’t much, but we had a sofa and a stove. I swear the house that burned wasn’t much more than that shack – a bit bigger than our single room is about all.
Ours burnt down after one of the neighbors experimented with his dad’s cigarettes. Should we have sued?
Of their demise I could fortell
About that company we know as Dell,
Their service eroded
And their batteries exploded,
All us Macheads think this is swell.
What seems quite odd to me is that if this were mostly Sony’s fault, why don’t we see a rash of laptops from Sony, HP, Lenovo, Apple and others spontaneously combusting as well? Why are the overwhelming majority of them exclusively from Dell?
There is much more to this than just faulty batteries, there is obviously a fault in the design of the Dell notebooks themselves that is making this issue far more severe. Otherwise the exploding batteries would be spread evenly among all of the manufacturers that use Sony’s batteries.
There is a reason why old sayings become part of the culture. In this case, “you get what you pay for” certainly rings true.
I’ve HAD it with these motherf$&#xki;ng Dells on this motherf$&#xki;ng plane!
I see all the trolls, who just yesterday was saying “Apple need to compete with Dell on price” has shut up today. I suspect they will be back tomorrow unfortunately.
I don’t think we should blame Sony for the battery fiasco. Sony made these batteries to Dell’s specifications. Dell wanted cheap. Dell wanted corners cut. Sony accommodated Dell’s requests.
Sony had no way of knowing that Dell would not be monitoring hardware overheating. Sony had no way of knowing that Dell computers would not automatically shut down if the temperature of the high failure rate, cheap batteries approached their flash point.
The whole ‘cut costs at all costs’ attitude at Dell is responsible for the battery fiasco. Sony’s reputation is just collateral damage.
” . . . why don’t we see a rash of laptops from Sony, HP, Lenovo, Apple and others spontaneously combusting as well?”
Dell got a super cheap deal from the military for some surplus wiring. Unfortunately, most of them were detonators.
You spoke too soon, MDN. Apple have recalled 1.8 million. May not be as many as Dell, but Apple have sold far less laptops than Dell. You donkey fuckers.
Apple’s going the extra mile (as usual) but the feds have cleared the defective Apple-Sony batteries as SAFE. Unlike Dell’s.
Defective, in need of replacement (which Apple’s doing) but… SAFE.
Sorry, Alex, I know it hurts
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”smile” style=”border:0;” /> That jealousy you feel must sting! Try harder next time you feel like lashing out like an infant.