More fire risk batteries recalled

Lenovo and Toshiba are added to the list of vendors affected by mass battery recall

Toshiba and Lenovo are the latest laptop manufacturers to recall laptop batteries made by Sony because of a potential fire risk. Lenovo is recalling 500,000 batteries and Toshiba is calling back 830,000.

Lenovo said the problem affects ThinkPad laptops sold from February 2005, under both its own name and the IBM brand.

The Toshiba recall involves its Dynabook, Qosmio, Satellite Portege and Tecra laptop models, however the dates of manufacture for the affected computers were not yet available.

Similar recalls by Dell and Sony have resulted in a staggering total of seven million laptops worldwide have now been affected: Dell is recalling 4.1 million Sony batteries and Apple 1.8 million.

Lenovo spokesman Ray Gorman said the company expects the financial impact of the recall to be "minimal", as Sony is "supporting us financially in this recall ".