September 20, 1995: PowerBook 5300 Recalled for the First Time

by Hadley Stern Sep 19, 2010

The PowerBook 5300 was a big product for Apple. The company had entered into a cross-promotional deal with the producers of Mission Impossible wherein the computer appeared (with a command line interface) throughout the blockbuster movie.

Apple was also charging a phenomenal price for the machine, a whopping $6,500 for the 5300ce partly because it was Apple's first PowerPC-based laptop. The good times didn't last long. Less than a month after it was introduced, the machine was recalled when preproduction units caught on fire. The problem was blamed on batteries manufactured by Sony, but Apple recalled all the computers sold to that point (claiming that was less than 100 units).

The 5300 went on to be recalled again for case problems, but the first recall (and the impetus for a lot of jokes) came this week in 1995 less than a month after the PowerBook 5300 had been released.

Comments

  • Boy that was descriptive…:P Why was it recalled?

    Xapplimatic had this to say on Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 15
  • I think this article should be recalled.

    soft_guy had this to say on Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 21
  • It was one of the worst Macs every built.  Very unstable, hardware often went bad - a crappy experience for those of us unfortunate enough to buy them.  Their suckiness was especially unfortunate as the 5300 was the first PPC laptop.

    jot had this to say on Sep 20, 2006 Posts: 2
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