Laptops not looking so good, or overgeneralisation?

[Modafroman]

It seems every week when I go to engadget, they report another laptop battery has exploded, causing fires etc. So my question is, are laptops not looking so good at the moment? Do laptop companies need to tone down their high capacity batteries, or, is this just an overgeneralisation, where isolated incidents are being made to look like its happening alot?

[MrSmith]

Theres been under a thousand reports of BAD batteries, and a minute amount (Maybe 100) acounts of the battery smoking.. And even less of it exploding (10<)

Just like the media, there overemphasizing the danger, Theres little to no danger.

Laptops are great ATM, prices are getting incredibly cheap (Except apple ), and what you get for your money compared to this time last year, and the year before - is significantly better.

[HarmSupJai]

Ive been working at officeworks for almsot 2 yrs and we sell about 10-20 latops a week.

And i have never had anyone come back complaining about battery exploding or leaking.

We sell brands like HP/Compaq, toshiba, ASUS , IBM , Acer etc etc.

So i think the media is over hyping it.

[SLATYE]

Let me put it like this. Dell recalled 4.1 million batteries. Less than ten have actually caused problems. A 1-in-410,000 chance of having a problem isn't bad odds - you'd do far worse just from buying a generic PSU.

That's also only considering the recalled laptop batteries, which made up a tiny fraction of the total batteries sold. For most people the recall has been good - it's made Dell cut prices to maintain sales, and a lot of people with a recalled battery now have a brand new one (right at a time when the old one would probably be just about useless anyway).

Overall, if you're worried about buying a laptop because the battery might explode, you should be worried about a lot of other things too (water, electricity, roads, and the chance of a terrorist attack).

EDIT: Personally, I think that now is an ideal time to buy a laptop. Merom's just been released, but there are no major price-drops due for a while (so there's nothing to be gained from waiting, for the CPU anyway). Similarly, it'll be a long time before decent DX10 GPUs are released for notebooks (Intel's GMA X3000 may have DX10 support, but it'll have plenty of trouble with most DX7 games). RAM prices are high, unfortunately - so just buy a laptop with the smallest amount of RAM available and upgrade later. The next chipset (Santa Rosa) is due next year, and it won't really offer a whole lot over the current chipsets (just a higher FSB, but that shouldn't affect performance too much).

If you waited 6 months or more, you'd probably get something which is significantly better than current laptops. If you wait less than that, you'll get exactly what you'd get if you bought now.

[AusKWiKsAnD]

Definate overgeneralisation I'd say.

It's unfortunate that batteries have had so much publicity recently, but I don't see how its any different than any of the car part or shopping/food recalls that happen every other day.

Really, it might be dangerous that 1 in 410,000 batteries might explode, but I think I'd rather run from a exploding battery than try and stop a car (recent Falcon/Commodore) with Brake/Braking system issues or Salmonella (I have no idea how its spent) from iffy chicken products.

[MrSmith]

Well put it this way, if the notebook is running in a different room, while your not in there, Blows up.. You can tell dell that it wasnt on the recall, and they'll get you a nice new laptop (Same or higher specs)

[stalin]

Originally Posted by MrSmith

Well put it this way, if the notebook is running in a different room, while your not in there, Blows up.. You can tell dell that it wasnt on the recall, and they'll get you a nice new laptop (Same or higher specs)

and probably a house too, after it burns it down....

Just think you can get new paint and new pictures on the wall, and those stains on the carpet.. gone!!

[MrSmith]

Originally Posted by stalin

and probably a house too, after it burns it down....

Just think you can get new paint and new pictures on the wall, and those stains on the carpet.. gone!!

hehe, don't think it'll burn the house down.. But it COULD (If you get my drift)