Lenovo recalls 526,000 batteries

The batteries were designed by Lenovo, but Sony produced the lithium ion cell. The recall impacts notebooks produced from February 2005 to September 2006, according to Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman. For now, the recall will only impact about 5 to 10 percent of notebooks produced by Lenovo, Gorman said, but the company recommends that all customers go to the Lenovo site and check to see if they have one of the faulty batteries.

With the recall, Lenovo becomes the fourth major PC manufacturer to haul batteries back due to safety problems. Dell said that it would recall 4.1 million notebooks in August, and Apple Computer subsequently announced it had to recall 1.8 million notebooks. Toshiba, meanwhile, said this month that it would recall 340,000 machines.