Toshiba issues faulty battery notice

Japanese notebook vendor, Toshiba, has issued a notice to distributors and resellers that a select number of its notebook batteries may not properly charge or discharge.

Toshiba ISD general manager, Mark Whittard, said the batteries came from a batch manufactured between March and May 2006. Of 10,000 produced for the local market in this period, he said about 10 per cent were potentially faulty.

"Less than 1000 will be affected and that's less than a day's sales for us," he said. "We've put the announcement on our service website and have told customers to contact their nearest service centre or Toshiba mobile care service if they are affected."

Whittard was keen to distance the faulty batteries from the heavily reported safety recalls issued by Dell and Apple.

"This is not a recall, nor a safety issue," he said. "It's just a warranty replacement as far as we are concerned."