Laptop Deals So Hot They're on Fire! Act Now and We'll Send You a Fire Blanket and the Sony 'Stop, Drop and Roll' Burn Kit–Free!

Better to be safe than sorry or, rather, better safe than Sony. That’s likely what Acer was thinking when it announced a recall of about 27,000 Sony-made lithium-ion batteries—six months after claiming its machines were unaffected by a manufacturing issue that could cause them to overheat and catch fire. Today Acer said that, though it has received no reports of exploding batteries, it is issuing a recall out of an abundance of caution. In doing so, Acer adds its name to a list that includes nearly every major PC vendor in the world–Dell, Apple, Lenovo, Toshiba, Sharp, Gateway, Hitachi and Fujitsu. Some 10 million notebook batteries have been recalled worldwide since this issue first came to light, costing Sony an estimated $430 million and untold damage to its reputation in the consumer electronic industry.