Gaming/High End Notebook Dream (Standardizations)

Just thought wouldn't that be awesome? Like desktops. So the placement of speakers and ports and the motherboard design would be standardized.

That way aftermarket companies can get in on the action. If you had standardized power plug like desktops, you can decide which PSU you wanted. If you need bigger or smaller, depending on how you overclocked, downclocked, voltage etc. Clevo sent you a fat hot 180? Get a slimpack 240 instead, no modding needed. Sweet.

If that year the CPU changes, you don't have to get a whole new notebook, just change out the motherboard and CPU, keep the keyboard, LCD, chassis, etc. Don't like the motherboard Dell uses? Upgrade to a sweet Gigabyte monster instead.

Aftermarket fans that are more powerful and quieter. Maybe some ingenious companies designs thinner and more aesthetic chassis to fit the standardized motherboard etc. You don't have to constantly check to see if the new awesome IPS display port will match what you need. You won't need to check to see if the BIOS or slot will support the upcoming new GPU etc.

Eh, whatever. Just a thought. No more discussions of what notebook or what company is best etc. You would have the freedom to customize and design your own notebook. Choose the chassis you want, the PSU, fans, display, motherboard etc etc. You won't have to be screwed by Asus with their crappy GPU when they do something funky, and maybe get a EVGA GTX 780M instead. Don't like the speakers? No problem, get crap from Onkyo? Get one from DynAudio instead.

 

It's not the chassis that needs standardization now. We need to standardize all the "looks standardized but in fact not" proprietary connectors first. Then we will be 3D-printing notebooks happily.

 

If only it didn't go against the best interests of all of the manufacturers to standardize notebook design and components.

 

Yup, nailed it. I like the idea of standardization and modular components but the only way i see that happening would be for one OEM manufacturer to have a monopoly. So you'd end up with the standardization you crave but not as much choice.

 

How did the desktop world got its relatively better standardization? Is that market somehow different?

If one OEM decides it'll cover all the popular components and make (internal) standardization its selling point, its still better than what we have now. But this is an niche market, something the big players simply won't touch.

 

Desktops can be big and bulky and usually rectangle boxes. Laptops on the other hand would also need to be big and bulky to have interchangeable parts, and the trend is smaller and lighter and thinner which means more components embedded and not more connectors and wires which add cost, weight, and bulk.

There are already standards for disk drives, LCD's, CPU sockets, RAM slots, wi-fi adapters, and the like. Even MXM slots are pretty much common with the larger machines. Just the mainboards need to be different to fit the style of the laptop.

 

MSI has been using the same or similar cases for years.

That's probably the closest we'll get to standardization.

 

The only way we will see this happening is if an independent organization created deigns -specs - schematics of the dimensions of mobile mobos , connectors fans etc and then branded it like for example giving it a name "babel" and then selling or giving away that characterization to laptop manufacturers. So like some past laptops carried the badge centrino which meant that it had specific intel components inside, this time if it carries the badge babel it means that it has universal standardized components that can be interchanged between laptops with that specific badge.

But that should mean something after some big manufacturers started getting on that wagon. But I BELEIVE it would give these manufacturers an advantage. Like for example if I knew that Clevo acer toshiba and hp were in babel project and if I bought a laptop from them I would be able to interchange components from each other , then I would prefer to buy a laptop from them and not Alienware who (theoretically in my example) is not babel badged

 

Like I stated before, today you already have some pretty good compatability: HDD/SSD (SATA/mSATA), RAM, optical drives, Wi-Fi cards, CPU sockets, MXM, LCD connectors, even some keyboards. Just the fans are usually tailored for the specific TDP of the components, as well as heatsinks, but those are usually interchangeable among the same manufacturer.

 

We wouldn't get forward thinking designs like the Razer blade and the dual card alienware 18 with standardization. Be lucky the gpu mxm standard at least allows you to change that when implemented properly. You can almost always also change the hdd, wireless and add RAM.. what else do you really need?