Another Laptop Battery Explodes... But There's a Twist

Is this story starting to get old? Another laptop has gone up in flames. It's an Apple. It's in Australia. And its battery is not on the recall list.

The story, originally posted on a forum at MacTalk, has laptop users newly concerned about laptop batteries. Though Lenovo recalled 100,000 batteries about a week ago, the storm over melting, burning, and exploding batteries seemed to have tapered off in recent months. The Apple news has everyone (including me) wondering if the severity of the problem is greater than we've been led to believe so far, or whether this is just another isolated incident that should have been recalled in the first place. The battery was a Sony cell, of course.

The poster "mattyb" offers a number of key points in his story: The notebook had not been prone to running hot, but it had been having trouble holding a charge as well as an issue with the battery meter fluctuating between 99 and 100% while plugged in. If any of these problems happen to you (or excessive heat issues), remove the battery immediately. Remember, you can still use your notebook without a battery at all if you plug it in.

While we wait for a resolution on this, some are calling on unplugging your laptop and turning it off when not in use. (Many of these tales tend to revolve around laptops left idling for a long time while plugged in.) I know my laptop is never away from the A/C for more than a few minutes at a time... but I'm still convinced that the odds against my laptop blowing up on me are awfully long. What do you think?