Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter

Jamaican owners of Dell-manufactured laptops are being advised by the company to visit a designated website to see whether they are eligible for a free replacement battery following a recent recall.

Owners may visit the website www.dellbatteryprogram.com to verify whether their laptop is one of several models that have been affected by a production fault in their lithium-ion batteries. The fault has caused some batteries to overheat and even catch fire.

Owners of verified laptops should then call a toll-free number, 1-800-682-3639, to claim a replacement battery.

Electrical sockets only

Alfred Thompson, technical director of First Point Ltd., the local Dell service provider, told The Gleaner that replacements should be issued later this week, pending an announcement in the local media. Meanwhile, owners are advised to run their laptops from electrical sockets only.

Mr. Thompson said that, despite First Point taking over 100 calls from concerned customers, none had reported a fault. However, he advised refurbished laptops would not be eligible and, for those who bought overseas, they would need to contact Dell to transfer their warranty to Jamaica.

Product recall

In what is one of the biggest product recalls in United States history, Dell, the world's largest manufacturer of personal computers, had recalled 4.1 million lithium-ion laptop batteries, placed in laptops which were shipped between April 2004 and July 2006, which are manufactured by Sony. About 2.7 million of the batteries were in computers sold in the United States with a further 1.4 million sold elsewhere.

The batteries were included in some models of Dell's Latitude, Inspiron, XPS and Precision mobile workstation laptops.

According to Dell, there have been six instances since December when the batteries, placed in laptops shipped between April 2004 and July 2006, overheated or caught fire.