Acer recalls CULV notebooks

This is not a good way to launch a whole new design of notebooks.

Acer has been forced to issue a recall of the company’s consumer ultra low-voltage (CULV) laptops because they may overheat in certain conditions. The problem, though, is not in the Intel CULV processor but the super-thin design.

The affected units are Acer Aspire Timeline AS3410, AS3810T, AS3810TG, AS3810TZ and AS3810TZG, all manufactured prior to September 15, 2009. The problem is associated with a microphone cable, which may overheat when extreme pressure is applied repeatedly to the left palm rest.

“Acer has voluntarily instituted a safety recall program to proactively replace the microphone cable in the affected units to eliminate any risk of overheating,” said an official statement by the company. The company also provided instructions on how to check if you own an affected model.

CULV is a whole new style of notebooks attempting to find a niche between regular notebooks and netbooks. They are notable for being extremely thin, very light and having a long battery life. As such, they sacrifice some performance to achieve this battery life.

Both Intel and especially AMD have made big pushes into this space but product has been slow to emerge on the market. More will hit the market with the release of Windows 7 next week.