Sony, a Japanese electronic giant, announced it would recall about 18000 Vaio notebooks due to risk of small electric shock. This risk is caused by faulty modems, pre-installed in these systems. There are some 13 000 such notebooks sold in Japan, about 3000 in the USA and about 2000 in Europe.

Sony especially noted that the electric shock from its notebooks could not result an injury and compared it to the shock from static electricity (I think, they mean something like shocks from synthetic clothes). Additionally, company representatives said that the shock may occur only under certain conditions and the company received fewer that 10 complaints. Registered customers will be notified about replacement by e-mail and a notice may be posted on Sony web-site.

Affected models are PCG-FR77E/B, PCG-FR55E/B and PCG-FR55E in Japan, PCG-FRV27 and PCG-FRV25 in the USA and PCG-FR215S in Europe. Recall costs are now estimated at about $4.2 million. Certainly, this is a preliminary figure, but anyway, costs of such size can hardly noticeably change company’s financial results, as $4.2 million account for only about 0.01% of revenue of Sony electronic division for 2002 business year. Nevertheless, such incidents will definitely not improve company’s reputation.