Barebone laptops will it grow or fall?

I have been looking for Barebone laptops, and ofcourse there is not much to buy for me in DK, but it seems to be a little better outside DK. But imho the technology is moving in the direction were the PC is getting smaller so that speaks for a wider range of barebone laptops in the future.

But then again we - the selfmade people ^^, are a minority so perhaps the prices and the difficulties with only small changes to a barebone laptop (we buy the 'box', the mobo, sometimes CPU and the GPU as well as the screen etc. without the choice of altering) speaks for less barebone laptops in the future.

I sure hope that we will see more, since imho it's the way to go. What do You think?

Were in Europe can I buy Barebone laptops? (Do You have any good links)

 

Barebone laptops will cost more and not many choices (ASUS, MSI). The quality (short lived keyboard, battery pre-matured failure, bad screen, discoloration of palmrest areas, runs very hot etc. on ASUS models) is also not good as compared with other name brands such as Dell, HP, Gateway etc. I think its going down.

 

I thought Asus was better than Dell, Hp etc ???

 

i have the same thought as wearetheborg.

anyways, they are definitely cheaper than the name brands.

 

Barebone's are usually much cheaper in build quality and design, but alot more affordable for what you get(15.4" with x1600 for $13xx, etc.). Build quality can be somewhat of an factor, but usually its nothing and similiar to every other laptop, such as heat, etc.

Prices drops for barebones alone usually, unless the supply for LCD's, GPU, etc. get unstable and the prices jump. The real unstable materials are the CPU, RAM, HD and such.

 

Having used both a mainstream laptop and a barebones system, I'd say that many barebones do have more haphazard styling, but that build quality isn't really that bad; some parts are actually sturdier than others, but I suppose that also varies widely amongst different models and manufacturers.

Also, the fact that barebones laptops were designed to be built by users and resellers means that their components are relatively easy to access (e.g., removing one large panel on the bottom of my Quanta vs. removing over 12 screws and the entire bottom lid to get inside my Toshiba). This feature is also handy for dusting out the inside of the system.

 

I will read Your review of that Quanta, tx

 

I can see them growing in popularity for DTR sized units, but I imagine most of the smaller, thinner units will be primarily pre-built. Probably not enough of a market for manufacturers to develop a lot of component options designed to all work well together in that small a package.