Laptop on Fire?
October 27th, 2007
According to the close-enough Babelfish translation from Japanese to English, Sony performs drip tests on its Vaio laptops, indicating that “drip-proof test & quality test are done in the origin of environment of specification on the basis of the standard of our company. Quality test of this product is not something which non damage non breakdown preservation is proven. In addition, it is not something which the data of PC preservation is proven. When the water is dropped, please be sure to put out to inspection.”
Apparently, up to 200 milliliters of water can be channeled through the keyboard and out the base, as indicated by the small stream of “pee” leaking out the bottom of the laptop between the two supports. According to a rather pointless study by Japan’s Koshien University, that’s the equivalent of five grown Japanese men and one woman spitting out mouthfuls of water onto your laptop.
That’s not going to be much help when your laptop battery explodes.
I doubt the image will show up in an English version of the guide, as the American public will see the photograph not as a demonstration of safety, but as a mandate of something to do on a drunken Friday night — resulting in a frivolous lawsuit against the laptop maker when their house burns down.