Viability of building a laptop

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-08-15 01:25am

Now, I know any idiot can build a desktop computer, and, if you know where and when to buy, for about half as much as retail price.

My question is, how easy is it to build a laptop?

DarkSilver · Post by **DarkSilver** » 2006-08-15 01:28am

building a laptop?

I don't know....I suppose if you could find all the parts...it could be done, but the limited amount of room to work with in the case....

I'd still think it would be more viable to purchase the laptop outright.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-08-15 01:41am

Building laptops, IMO, isn't worth the trouble even if you really know what you're doing. Even relatively minor repairs and upgrades on laptops can be tricky, due to the difficulties with the cases and components. I suppose that it would be theoretically possible to construct a laptop yourself, since the components are generally available as replacements, but they also tend to be fairly model- (or at least brand-) specific and therefore rather expensive. I wouldn't bother with it, if I were you, but I'm sure you can find an enthusiast page using Google with good advice.

atg · Post by **atg** » 2006-08-15 01:46am

There are several companies that build barebones laptop systems. They basically only have the motherboard, screen and optical drive. You supply the cpu, RAM, hard drive, etc.

I can't remember the name of the company I've dealt with right now, but if you ask around shops in your local area you should be able to get something.

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-08-15 02:01am

The only thing I'm really concerned about is price. I have $700 to spend on a laptop, and I want something that at least has a video card, and I can't find shit. So I'm looking into building my own, because I know desktops cost about half price when self-built.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2006-08-15 02:10am

Dominus Atheos wrote:The only thing I'm really concerned about is price. I have $700 to spend on a laptop, and I want something that at least has a video card, and I can't find shit. So I'm looking into building my own, because I know desktops cost about half price when self-built.

Ummm... try and find a used one. $700 is not, realistically, a large enough budget to find a laptop with a good video card (I assume you mean a card that is superior to the integrated chipsets). Consider that a low-end gaming desktop, with monitor, is likely in the $500-ish range and it goes up from there. Now, miniaturize all of that into a laptop and you begin to see the problem.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-08-15 02:15am

Dominus Atheos wrote:The only thing I'm really concerned about is price. I have $700 to spend on a laptop, and I want something that at least has a video card, and I can't find shit. So I'm looking into building my own, because I know desktops cost about half price when self-built.

For $700, you could acquire a very nice Wish Computer. That's when you purchase some cheap pile of shit from Dell or Gateway or some outfit like that and wish you had a good computer instead of a cheap pile of shit.

Buy a used box, give up the video card, or give up the laptop. You're not going to get a machine that's good for much more than surfing the web and word processing at that price.

Dominus Atheos · Post by **Dominus Atheos** » 2006-08-15 02:42am

RedImperator wrote:For $700, you could acquire a very nice Wish Computer. That's when you purchase some cheap pile of shit from Dell or Gateway or some outfit like that and wish you had a good computer instead of a cheap pile of shit.

Buy a used box, give up the video card, or give up the laptop. You're not going to get a machine that's good for much more than surfing the web and word processing at that price.

That's what I was afraid of.

Oh well, looks like it's on to plan B: Cheapass used laptop, and the rest of the money spent on upgrading my Sempron 2800+ Radeon 9800 Desktop to non-obsolete status.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2006-08-15 04:50am

My Thinkpad R50e comes in around that price range and the integrated graphics havent failed to keep up with any games yet. It runs DoW just fine for example.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2006-08-15 10:01am

IBM used to sell barebornes laptops with no HD, RAM, WLAN and whatnot but I think Lenovo has discountinued that practice.