Ben Metcalfe

Do you know who made your laptop battery?

As per my previous post, it now looks like Apple is recalling it’s notebook batteries manufactured by Sony, just like Dell has done with some of their laptop batteries produced by Sony .

It’s therefore not inconceivable that the manufacturing fault – whatever it may be – may be present in Sony batteries supplied with laptops sold by other companies too.

Do you know who made your laptop battery? I bet you would like to know whether it was Sony!

Most laptop batteries do not state the OEM manufacturer on their label, and sadly Windows’ Power Management control panel utility does not give this information even though it is available to the operating system.

I would recommend checking whether your laptop has it’s own battery monitoring tool which might tell you (my Lenovo ThinkPad’s ‘Power Manager’ does).

Otherwise try downloading a battery monitoring application such as PassMark’s BatteryMon (or others). BatteryMon will tell you who made your battery (see second screenshot), and then from there it’s up to you whether you uninstall it or keep it on your machine.

(You could also try Notebook BatteryInfo, a freeware alternative. I should point out I haven’t tried any of these options, I’m just going by their screenshots to confirm they highlight battery manufacturer)

I think it’s worth being aware that you have a battery that might explode (although the risk is very small) but perhaps more importantly it’s useful know that your battery could be subject to a recall.

If you have a Sony battery but couldn’t live without a battery in your laptop (maybe you’re on the road a lot, etc) then it might be prudent to source an alternative (non-Sony) unit now in case yours is recalled.