The flagship Chromebook of 2012 was simply called “the Samsung Chromebook”. This year, it was the Chromebook 11 from HP. Same internals as Samsung’s machine, different screen, and one awesome new feature: microUSB charging. In other words, the Chromebook 11 was the first “laptop” you could charge with nothing more than a USB cable. Turns out the charger that HP included in the box had one fatal flaw. It overheated, sometimes to the point of melting.

According to The Verge, the problem with the Chromebook 11 charger is so dire that the company is recalling all the chargers that have shipped between when the product first went on sale to the first day of December. Oddly enough, neither HP or Google are taking responsibility for the faulty chargers, instead saying that someone else built it. I’m sorry, but that’s not acceptable. It doesn’t matter which no-name Chinese ODM you called up, you’re the company that decided to put the product up for sale.

While I’m happy that this situation is being corrected, it’s something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place. The fact that the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission had to step in tells me that Google and HP wanted to bury this issue under the rug, but instead they had so many complaints that a government entity had to step in and force both companies to do the right thing.

Of course I could be wrong.