You know, I’ve been as shocked as anyone with Dell’s recent focus on industrial design but even I never thought it would come to this. Seems like some of Dell’s sleeker laptops–namely the brushed-aluminum XPS M1330 and XPS M1530 models–have been zapping users with electric shocks when their surfaces are touched. The folks over at CNET found this out the hard way, when they discovered that touching either one of these laptops while connecting a peripheral resulted in a zap “vary[ing] in strength from a gentle tingle to a sudden jolt.” Seems that the source of the problem is an ungrounded two-prong power adaptor (as opposed to the grounded, three-pronged sort) and Dell is reportedly volunteering to replace these adaptors when laptop owners call to complain. Still, the company officially denies that there’s an issue, stating that “The voltage (tingling sensation) does NOT present any risk of injury to the user.” As reassuring as that may sound, you might want to hit up the folks in Round Rock for some new power bricks, if you support either of the aforementioned notebooks.

For more on the shocking news:
– see this Crave story