Concept question

[forkedt]

I hate my laptop cant be upgraded easily (or afforably) - and dont like buying new ones whenever something ages out. Has anyone heard of building a laptop with desktop components? I'm not talking about those "in a suitcase" designs either. If its possible I'd love to learn about ideas for a laptop-esk design with a desktops power and parts.

Haha, am I crazy?
Thanks!

 

[thrawn86]

not sure what you mean. laptops use really special components that are designed to be small and lay flat on top of one another. about the best you could do with desktop parts are the suitcase designs.

 

[forkedt]

Yea I thought it might be a long shot, but had to ask. I dont mind a thicker case if I could spread the motherboard, fan, and drives in layers similar to a laptop but able to provide the robustness and upgrade capabilities more in line with a desktop. Just wondered if there was a design like that out there that was thinner than the suitcase builds as they dont truely come off as "portable" in my book.

 

[Yoda4561]

I'm sure you could build something to fit in like, a slim attache case, but any smaller and you'd need a real laptop. Even then though there won't be much of an upgrade path, since there's no way to fit discrete graphics cards or upgrade your cpu past what the motherboard supports. You would have to custom fab the monitor connection and power supplies/battery system. With decent laptops these days around 400-500 dollars there's not much sense to it.

 

[Nenu]

There used to be chassis and separate parts for sale to effectively build much of the laptop yourself.
I havent been associated with that side of things for some time though so I dont know the current situation.
It certainly was possible a few years ago but upgrades were still limited.
ie a graphics chip update required a new motherboard and maybe a new cpu if not socketed or has a different socket. It might also require a better power supply.

Nvidia brought out replaceable graphics chips last year (or the year before - a bit hazy on that) but I dont know if they still make them.