Originally Posted by Final 3 Greens
Derek
That's great advice, but what is the problem with people just sorting their Dell batteries out?
Then there is no problem.
There have been some nasty incidents, which may or may not have been caused by charging the laptop.
Aviation safety is everone's responsibility.
Well hold on a sec there. Dell (and other manufacturers such as IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba etc) manufacture their laptops and power supplies such as to expect a 110V or 220V supply. Now Dell do make an optional extra car/airline-specific replacement power supply designed for the 12V/(15V?) that in-car and in-seat power supplies offer, but very few people actually use them, they all go for the dodgy (and more expensive) Kensington and Belkin 3rd-party adaptors, probably because that's all that Dixons in the terminal stock.
I'm really not sure you can start to pin blame for any airline laptop incidents past present or future on laptop manufacturers, unless the incident did involve the laptop manufacturer's own brand proper airline power supply and the battery had been taken out in accordance with the instructions (the airline power generally does not supply enough current to both run the laptop and charge the battery, that's why they say to take the battery out). Rather, it is the user's fault for using the laptop with some other company's power supply on a much lower input voltage than the thing was designed to operate on.
I see the Dell battery problem as being pretty much irrelevant to air travel.