By Matthew Henry
SYDNEY: Sony Australia today commented on the reported glitch in eight of its Cyber-shot digital still cameras, saying the fault applies to only a very small number of units and should not be cause for alarm among retailers or consumers.
“There has been some confusion surrounding a recent announcement concerning Sony Cyber-shot products with potential CCD faults, and I’d like to clarify this situation,” said Sony Australia national sales manager, David Hargreaves, in a statement to current.com.au this afternoon.
“Sony is offering an extended warranty and free-of-charge repair program to owners of a very limited number of digital still cameras that use a certain type of Sony-manufactured image sensor (CCD) and exhibit a specific fault.
“Sony has found that mainly in high-temperature and particularly humid regions, some LCD panels on certain models sold locally – including T1, T11, U40, U50, T3, T33 and F88 – may display symptoms such as distorted images, or no image at all, while in camera mode.”
Sony stressed that since the company is not asking all consumers to return their Cyber-shot products, and as there is no issue of consumer safety, the term ‘recall’ is not appropriate. Reuters reported yesterday that just 4,000 of the one million models produced are likely to display symptoms.
“There is absolutely no safety concern with this fault and it does not affect the entire production run of these models. The likelihood of this fault affecting these Cyber-shot cameras is actually very low.
“It is very important for me to clarify for retailers and customers that this is not a recall, it is an announcement to offer an extended free-of-charge repair service. This service is only for products that display these symptoms, and does not cover products that have not shown these symptoms,” said Hargreaves.
Sony said retailers should direct any customers whose Cyber-shot models have these symptoms to the company’s website: http://www.sony.com.au/articles/article.jsp?articleId=3865&categoryId=30546”