By James Wells

SYDNEY: Panasonic Australia has confirmed that the recall of notebook batteries by its parent company, Matsushita, does not apply to the local market.

A spokesperson for Panasonic Australia told Current.com.au that the recall is specific to the Let’s Note CF-W4 sold in Japan and that this notebook has never been sold in Australia.

“Panasonic Australia sells CF-18 and CF-29 Toughbooks, which have a different hardware structure and battery to the Let’s Note CF-W4 notebook,” the spokesperson said.

Panasonic has announced has begun recalling 6,000 laptop batteries due to fears that they may overheat.

The recall has been conducted following two reports in January and May of this year that the batteries had overheated and deform the plastic exterior of the laptop.

A Japanese spokesperson from Panasonic’s parent company, Matsushita, said the batteries may overheat, but they would not start a fire. He also confirmed that the manufacturer of the batteries was not Matsushita or Sony.

Last month, Apple and Dell were forced to undertake the two largest recalls in consumer electronics history after faulty laptop batteries manufactured by Sony were found to potentially burst into flames.

Dell recalled 4.1 million notebook batteries which were used in Latitude, Inspiron and Precision laptops sold between April 2004 and 18 July 2006.

Apple recalled 1.8 million rechargeable lithium-ion batteries with cells manufactured by Sony Energy Devices Corp and assembled in Japan, Taiwan and China for certain iBook G4 and Powerbook G4 notebook computers only.