Well I received several replies to my last message and hope that they
were posted to the List as well.
I will be giving the url of the UltraLite Archives to someone I know
at NEC and I hope that everyone will take the time and effort to post
their feelings on these new batts.
In fairness to this person I am not in a position to disclose any
details of who, what and where. I am assured that this person is
concerned that there are dissatisfied folks out there due to NEC's
bad handling of the matter. Posting them to the list and inclusion in
the archives accessible via the Web is the best way for our displeasure
to be made known. I feel that the person who inherited this mess is
not to blame for past shortcomings. As many of you know this "hot
pototo" was passed around differemt offices.
For those who were not around from the beginning which started in January
1993 (!) ......
NEC was offering to send out free batteries and a modification kit
to replace the older MolyCell battery packs that were in a shrink-wrap
pack with wires that plugged into a jack on the motherboard. This
modification kit made it possible to use a drop-in pack in a hard shell.
Then in September NEC announced that they were recalling all these batteries
in both the soft and hard shells and replacing them with NiMH batteries
and paying a "rebate" of $100.00 per battery. They engaged the services
of a New York-based fulfillment house that handled their rebates, dealers
incentives, etc.
They were very slow at sending out the checks and the replacement
batteries which when received were practically worthless. NEC said the
first batch must have been defective and replaced them but the second
batch were in many cases not much better. The best one I've seen lasted a
bit over an hour comparing to 2:15 on the old battery.
Eventually the New York marketing firm handed the whole mess back to NEC
and they shuffled it off to another facility.
Anyways, I hope that this new person will be able to satisfy us but we
need to let them know how much we like our UltraLites and want to continue
using them as we did before this battery recall took place.
Cordially,
Michel Crestohl
mc@shore.net