Laptop battery shortage should be over by Q3

Last month, we reported on a laptop battery shortage [1], caused by a fire at a South Korean chemical plant owned by LG, the manufacturer of batteries for companies like Dell, HP and Asus. Well, it looks like LG is ramping up production of the batteries again and any shortages should be over by Q3 of this year. Though you might not have felt the shortage yourself, OEMs certainly have: Asus reports that it could have produced far more Eee PC [2] units, had there been a more plentiful supply of batteries. "I think maybe the battery shortage may hurt every brand," Acer's chairman J.T. Wang said at the company's investor conference two weeks ago.

For more on the shortage:
- see this PC World article [3]