Dell recalls batteries and charges $99 for a $29 keyboard
October 13, 2000
by Eric Svetcov
Until this morning, this article was going to be about Dell’s $99 keyboard that should really be $29, but in light of the 27,000 battery recall just announced, this little price discrepency is almost insignificant.
So, now for a little info. Dell is recalling notebook batteries shipped between June 22 and September 15 in the Americas and between June 22 and October 4 into Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The batteries were manufactured by Sanyo Electric for Dell according to ZDNet.
Why is Dell recalling the batteries? This from the Dell site, “These batteries can short circuit, even when the battery is not in use, potentially causing them to become very hot, release smoke and possibly catch fire.” This sounds bad....I recommend that all of you who have Dell laptops with these batteries take this problem seriously. Your company potentially could be held liable if an accident on a recalled product occurs and you had failed to act.
The models affected are:
- Latitude CPiA
- Latitude CPi R
- Latitude CPtC
- Latitude CPtS
- Latitude CPtV
- Latitude CPxH
- Latitude CPxJ
- Inspiron 3700
- Inspiron 3800 (see label on bottom of computer).
Information about the recall can be found on Dell’s website at http://support.dell.com/battery/
Now for Dell’s $99 keyboard
Now onto the other Dell issues. For the last several days, Dell has been selling its QuietKey keyboard for $99 when bought with an Inspiron notebook online. This wouldn’t be a problem, except that the same keyboard sold with the Latitude line is $29 and when you call a Dell sales representative they will quote you $29. I actually noticed the problem 3 days ago while configuring a system. I figured that they would correct the problem, but so far they haven’t.
I actually almost didn’t notice the price difference. I am so used to using the Dell site that I wasn’t looking at the price of this relatively minor piece of equipment, until after I had printed the configuration I wanted and submitted the Purchase Requisition to the Finance Department. I’m sure other folks buying this over the last few days haven’t noticed the pricing problem either.
When I called Dell’s Press Relations folks to find out what was going on, I was told that this was the first they had heard of it. And that they would research the problem. They promised to get back to me with information on how and when they will fix this issue - hopefully it will result in automatic refunds of the price difference. Once I know more, I will pass it along on IThell.com.
If you have any vendor antics that you would like to share, please send your story to letters@IThell.com. Not only do I enjoy reading them, but I’m sure all of the IThell.com readers will be interested as well.