Next Laptop Wish List!

What components or hardware would you like to see most upgradeable on your next laptop? And what is it that a manufacturer can do to make you buy their brand laptop?


poll

 

I would like to have a GPU that's not soldered to the motherboard.
Not just to upgrade, but to have it be easier to fix.

I would really like to see more MXM notebooks.

EDIT: The manufacturer should also stop all whitelisting, and make the BIOS EEPROM removable and they should provide an easy way to get a spare BIOS chip.

I want to see more sockets

 

Me too i want more MXM enabled notebooks.

 

Current notebooks are already pretty upgradeable in my opinion except for gpus.

Even if it's annoying, that's understandable cause a mobile cooling system is in general meant for the stock gpu...A higher performing gpu would probably overheat unless it has same TDP...so people should be careful about that even if by miracle we can see a unique mxm standard and no bios limitations tomorrow ;-)

 

I wish there was a standard for laptops like there is ATX on the desktop. Maybe only for bigger 15+ inch ones, but still being able to put whatever components I want into a laptop and being able to upgrade it with whatever components I want. That will never happen, but at least I can dream.

 

A good reason to have a user changeable GPU would be that recent NVidia issue - I wouldn't mind that - as a non-gamer.

I live on an Intel card and its good for me
(could do with GPU acceleration in Photoshop though)

In the end, I suspect the GPU is one of the main components that people would love to be able to change - but as mentioned above, heat management would be a problem/having a heatsink to fit all.

 

I think computer companies are purposely making it harder to change GPU's... once the GPU is obsolete ur forced to buy a new laptop which will earn them more cash then selling you new GPU's to upgrade.

 

I suppose there is some truh in that - but what happens if you don't want to upgrade?

I use my Intel X3100 all the time and hardly ever my 8400m GS - just to make sure it'll last a few years - while Sony SZs run on them for a long time anyway.

If you could swap it, that wouldn't be a problem.

Also, if the GPU makers joined in, you could easily design the exteriros so you only have a limited choice.

Not from an 8400 to an 8800 but something in the similar range.

 

i'd love the ability to choose what material the chassis is made out of.. I love Al but I don't overly like apple

 

I think it's more that they don't care if you can upgrade it or not and that it is just cheaper and way less of a headache for them. There is just not enough benefit for them to do this for a small minority of consumers.

 

I think this depends.

As long as the GPU runs as it should its no issue with most people.

If you get something like the recent NVidia issue - which may become more likely if technology is going to be update more and more quickly an exchangeable GPU would be a very useful design.

Imagine if you could just swap out those NVidia cards - it would so much reduce the cost and inconvenience.

Obviously, if all works well there is only a minority that feels it needs to update the GPU.

 

I believe nvidia is footing the bill for their GPU defects, so that issue doesn't give the OEMs much motivation.

Besides, the vast majority of the world still prefers integrated cards, and if a laptop offers both integrated and discrete solutions, the OEMs would have to work around that somehow since integrated cards by definition can't be swapped out and the problem's only going to get more complex when Arrandale launches.

 

Well, there is a point.
But some laptops have dual graphics cards - for example my SZ or its successor the Vaio Z.

And I'm not sure if NVidia foots the whole bill...

I know that Sony officially has not accepted that fualty chips are used in te SZ...

 

Screen would be a really nice thing to be more user-friendly upgradeable(alhtough nto sure how they'd manage that). Lots of people complain that the screen resolution is the one thing in given laptop they don't like, so if there was a chance to upgrade that was noob-friendly, it'd be cool.

GPU is of course another popular vote, although they'd have to make proper labellings as to what GPU can work temperature-wise in what chassis.

 

Not necessarily... They could just use the BIOS to limit what GPUs would work, in the same way CPUs and mini-PCIe cards are restricted today.

 

Yeah, but nobody would really want a gimped GPU, it'd half defeat the purpose.

Also, if they locked the BIOs on a given set of GPUs, we as consumers would need to know WHAT those were no? Hence my asking of a proper labelling system. I'd suck buying a GPU and realizing the BIOs wouldn't allow it to work

 

I would have to a switchable graphics and have them both user upgradeable to SLI or have one be low power consumption.

 

You have a point there, but given how OEMs don't explicitly list which CPUs are supported by the BIOS (and most people doing aftermarket CPU upgrades rely on the CPU selection page of the online store to find out their options) I guess I'm just used to it

 

Well it is a WISH list, not a "according to whats going on now" list

Anther thing that'd be nice would be switchable graphics now that I think about it. Power and battery life would definitely be a plus for lots of people.

 

Hmm, if you put it that way...

Can I have an i7-975 and a desktop 5870 in my next netbook?

 

One main point to keep in mind here is the rising prices of laptops these days. It's not like asking to have our cake and eat it too. At least with a premium laptop--some special capabilities should be the norm.

 

Rising prices? To me, they mostly seem to be staying about the same or falling, if anything...

 

I knew someone was going to say that. No doubt you're referring to the proliferation of netbooks. But admittedly, they don't "net" the biggest percent of profit.

In any event, it's the premium business, multimedia, and gaming laptops that concern me. With ever increasing prices beginning around $2000--and rapidly increase from there--that's a lot of money to spend to have your precious commodity become near obsolete in 6 months. I can't think of any other device that can go out of style faster...okay...maybe cell phones? But nevertheless, if this trend is to continue, a new paradigm will have to be established if this industry is going to continue as it is.

 

Number one wish: NO FAN. I have gone from Inspiron 9100 with 3, to EEE with 1, and now 3810t with one. I have one more stop (see sig), then after that I hope fanless notebooks arrive.

Wonder what the chances in 2012 with a 22nm Haswell quad core w/ integrated 8 series graphics having no fan?

 

Hmm, no fan? To be honest, I have to be in the library to even hear my laptop fan. Still, the influx of SSD's should at least reduce (maybe?) some of the need for fans.

 

No fan is a good idea, less moving parts means less to go wrong.
But they would have to start using those solid state fans.

SSD + SSF would be good.

 

Actually, prices for mainstream laptops are falling. I doubt you could find a 15" laptop for under $500 5 years ago. If we go back even further, any laptop, even one with a Celeron, would cost over $1000 in 1999.

I'm not aware of any laptop hard drive that needs to be cooled by a fan. I suppose some of the Sagers and Alienwares might have one, but it's definitely not commonplace so I don't see how an SSD make a difference.

 

Looks like I'm the lone vote for ports. I know it probably won't happen for a while yet, but I'd love it if all ports were modular so you could place what ports you'd like into your laptop, where you'd like. Goodbye VGA, hello...pretty much anything else.

 

you know if you have an express card slot, you can pretty much have any port you want.

The express card slot has access to a usb port and a 1x PCIe lane.
You can even use an external graphics card with it.

 

While mainstream laptops may show marginal decreases in price, the price of premium laptops continue to rise.

Maybe not, but heat is heat; and it's all cumulative! So despite the necessity of direct cooling necessary for CPU and GPU, it does not dismiss the fact that an overall lowering of a laptop's operating temperature (by replacing hard drive with SSDs), would be beneficial.

Still, there's something to be said about direct connections--which tend to be more stable.

 

All laptop HDDs benefit from a fan.

In two of our notebooks HDD temps dropped by about 10°C after the fan which was clogged was cleaned.

And these were average 5400rpm drives, one may have been 4200rpm

My external Seagate in a plastic enclosure can get hot too - simply because there is no decent airflow - laptops are the same.
Without a fan the HDD would sit in a reasonably well isolated (temperaturewise) box.

 

I'm not so sure about that. When I was last looking at laptops (back in late 2006-ish, I think it was) I seem to recall that a fully kitted out Alienware would run you about $3000-$4000. Heck, the computer I'm using now, which I bought then (Gateway NX860XL) cost me a bit over $2000. Toss in inflation, and I'm not sure laptop prices have gone up all that much. Now, if you're talking about showpiece halo models (like that new 16" Latitude Z), I'm not sure if we had anything like that back then, so I'm not sure there's a fair comparison there. I don't know what things are like when you start talking about business machines, though...

 

my notebook appears to be mxm but finding a gpu to work with it is pretty hard.
i hate how there are different sizes and all.!
just wish upgrading my gpu was like the cpu...
pop, lock, and drop it in!!

 

Forget that, replace every port with Light Peak and I'll be happy.

 

Discarded like a red headed stepchild.

 

i wish my laptop comes with upgradable cpu and gpu both.rest all is upgradable

i know that laptop makers wont make it possible.

then who will buy new laptops.

 

The ability to upgrade didn't stop people from buying desktops; and there's not reason why laptop consumers shouldn't expect that same capability. For my money, that will be what I'll be looking for most in my next laptop.

 

I wish I could upgrade my keyboard to either make it backlit, easier to clean and keep clean, or both (ideally). I do remember reading a post (or even an entire thread) about how this guy removed his keyboard by himself and installed a backlit keyboard.

I was in awe, even though that might have seemed like an easy thing to do, but unfortunately, I have absolutely no experience with taking computers apart and putting them back together again, especially laptops.

Mr. Mysterious

 

Yes, I remember too. Is this the one you're referring to? It's the one that gave me the idea.

 

Am I the only one who voted for Ports? Lol

I have 4 USB ports and use every one of them.

In a good world, I would have 6+

 

I voted GPU like many others. Being easily upgradeable was one of the reasons I chose the E6400 over the Lenovo T400 and the HP Elitebook <something>. In 4 years, this laptop will still be great except that RAM will be a bit low (8 GB), CPU a bit slow (I might upgrade after the warranty expires). But the GPU will definitely be crap. The ability to upgrade the GPU would be great.

MXM has to become standardized.

 

For me, it would be CPU, RAM and GPU. These are the biggies I would like to upgrade, but I guess it is quite impossible to upgrade for CPU and GPU (that would take a lot of effort on the supplier's side). They only offer upgrades on memory.

But those are my choices.

 

Good for you man, you did your homework well in choosing this notebook. Yeah, I would also want to have an upgradeable GPU. Mine is a little outdated.

 

No, that's not the one, but this thread is even better! That's just awesome man, thanks!

He even has pics! *drools over them*

Mr. Mysterious

 

Here's an idea: Why not configure that optical bay to make it a multi purpose slot? Design the laptop to accept a variety of slot loaded configuration from an extra batter to extra ports. That way nobody ends up with useless components they don't want, and not enough of those plugs/batteries etc. they do.

 

Not a bad idea, although it would be limited by whatever type of connection the optical drive had, usually PATA or SATA. So it might not give you the full speed of USB 3.0 or 10 Gbps Ethernet, when those come out, but it'd give a good socket of capabilities, for sure.

I'm not sure which of those I'd vote for. The CPU comes to mind first, as I'd love to have a faster one (even considering the X9000 is the fastest that would be compatible, T9500 if the BIOS doesn't support X9000), and it's even more difficult to swap than the GPU in my notebook (although the GPU can't be upgraded - just swapped out with an equivalent or worse one built for my laptop), but CPU's are expensive. Even if I could upgrade the CPU easily, I doubt I'd be willing to spend the $250 necessary to get one that's better. $70 for a larger, faster hard drive is one thing, as is $35 for 4 GB of RAM, but $250 for considerably less than doubling the speed is not as alluring.

The GPU also would be nice to be upgradable, but I'm not sure if I'd be willing to spend for that, either. And I don't notice not having the fastest GPU as much. I just turn the settings down a bit, and the game runs very smoothly - not quite ideal, but my 8600M GT can run any game out there if I lower the settings. With my CPU, I notice if it's not fast enough - I'm waiting for it to finish its calculations. Hence why I'd take a CPU upgrade first over a GPU upgrade if both were the same price.

OTOH, Bumpgate has made GPU upgrades look more appealing. At this point, I don't know if my 8600M GT will still be good in 2011, and if it did burn out after warranty, I'd rather buy an ATI replacement. For that matter, I'd rather have Dell replace it with a similar ATI card even if it did burn out under warranty.

Screen/ports I'm satisified with - although I may have lucked out in the screen lottery. I've yet to need more ports than I have, or ones I don't have, and while USB 3.0 would be nice, I wouldn't want to upgrade my peripherals, either, so USB 2.0 will suffice for a few more years. Even HDMI/DVI seems unnecessary, with the prevalence of VGA. Not that I'd object to swapping my modem for HDMI - I just don't see a need to. And if those change, then I'll finally put my ExpressCard slot to use. Keyboard/chassis I'm satisfied with, and could replace the keyboard/palm rest with an equivalent model if I wanted to do so without too much difficulty.

Most of the "Other" is easily enough upgradable - wireless card, HDD, RAM, optical drive, even Bluetooth would be for me if my fingers were a bit smaller.

 

I find this oddly curious that this didn't get more hits, considering all the hullabaloo in the Alienware thread, and the mile long series of discontentment that continue to be expressed over the 16:9 screen controversy

Considering it's update is just over the horizon you'd think these would be the easily upgradable ports

That was an odd thing to say.

At this point, that should be the case with ALL laptops.

I'd expected more comments on chassis color, design and peripherals