Dell laptop burns in China
Another Dell laptop has gone to the great warehouse in the sky, wafted aloft on a cloud of smoke produced by a burning battery. The incident took place last week in China.
Details of the Dell destruction were posted on Chinese-language blog HiPDA, along with a heap of pictures showing the blaze and its aftermath. Here are a couple:
The onlookers don't seem worried...
...but maybe Dell should be
At this stage, it's not known whether the Dell in question was a model covered by the PC giant's August 2006 battery recall and if so, whether the owner took advantage of the free replacment batteries Dell is still making available.
The onlookers appear entirely unfazed by the blaze. A sign there's more to the fire than meets the eye? Or are notebook owners becoming to blasé about this kind of conflagration it simply doesn't bother them any longer.
Thanks to Reg Hardware reader Emmanuel for the tip.
COMMENTS
Setup, Not really
Hi Guys,
This laptop in question belong to one of employee in my company. The location is in Shanghai industrial area.
The model is Dell Latitude D610 (We have a couple hundred of them). And in contrary to a lot of your guys think the battery location is where it caught fire.
The Red think as "M" point out in front of the laptop is a lipstick glue (Manufacture by Pritt)
And the fire proof tray is a standard keyboard tray that can be found in most of computer desk in China. although the use for a laptop is a bit unusual I admit it.
Now the fire it self. Although I do not know the owner of the laptop personally but I can guarantee you that it is genius and not fake.
The laptop was in the batch Dell suggest to replace and it has been replaced. The firework comes from the new battery !!!
Strange laptop position
"But I agree, this does look like a set up! Who rests their laptop on a fire-proof tray like that?" - M
"And my friend uses their laptop like this, so entirely possible :) Still, nice to sit and watch it happen guys" - Henry Williams
First off, it's clearly a keyboard tray. Secondly, when all I have available is a keyboard tray on a too-tall desk, I've been known to use my laptop like that, too. So that's at least two data points (me and Mr. William's friend) for you.
what makes it look bad
is the grimace/grin from the man opposite the camera however I hasten to add that some people always do that when there is a picture taken and this looks to be a flash moment. It's normally frowned on to burn stuff like laptops in most offices and this looks to be an office if it
is a set up they are really brave pranksters.
Colour
Well, the colour of the flame in the first picture appears to be the reddish-violet that lithium gives off... and the angle it's sitting on in the tray could just be how they work on it.
Dell battery, even?
Of course, there are a lot of non-official batteries available for all sorts of machines all over Asia - I don't think Dell will be organising any recalls unless they prove the battery really was an official one!
