im confused !

hi every one , im new to these forums and to laptops in general.

i am about to purchase my first laptop( http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152073 ) and was curious about doing some upgrades to it later on down the road.

i have been building PC's for years and tend to upgrade them piece by piece.
i was curious if that would even be possible with a laptop ?

i know i can swap out the memory and video card ect ect but what about upgrading the mother board , CPU and basically overhauling the entire laptop once it starts falling behind and i need a faster rig ?

anyway , thx in advance for the help

 

in some cases you can upgrade the cpu. the graphics card is a more tricky thing, in a lot of the cases you won´t be able to upgrade graphics.

you are right about the ram and the hdd, but the mainboard can´t be upgraded.

 

you should be able to upgrade RAM, HDD and optical drive without any difficulty. CPU and GPU should be upgradable too (within reason). upgrading the motherboard... probably not, as notebook manufacturers rarely, if ever, produce two different motherboards for the same case. most notebook motherboards are tailor-made for the cases/shells they'll go into.

 

If you want to truly build your own notebook you can look at the OCZ Whitebook. Otherwise you are limited to CPU, RAM, HDD, optical drive, and possibly GPU though probably not.

 

Don't forget about the wireless card.

 

i feel like 2009 is the year when barebones laptops will become more popular, and companies will really start sinking into notebook performance.

laptops are coming closer to desktop performance, and i think with ATI's 3870 and future 4870 coming out, Nvidia will want to make more standardized mobile gpu's as the ATI cards are much cheaper and run pretty nice too.

 

thx for all the help every one


the OCZ bare bones kit , i was considering getting one.
i would really like to upgrade as needed instead of buying a new laptop every couple of years.

now the only question i have is ... is it worth it ?
i guess this is probably the wrong forum for that question though.

 

Laptops are not like custom built desktops. With laptops, in general, the upgrades to the harddrive, memory and optical drive is basically all you can do(or really want to do). If you try to change the CPU, it voids the warranty for a lot of manufacturers. Laptop motherboards can cost like $700. This is the main thing I don't like about laptops, their lack of upgradability and expensive parts(if it breaks you better be covered by a warranty or in the trash your machine goes). And no I don't think it is worth it. I would just buy the best laptop you can afford with your budget and use it till it dies or sell it and buy another laptop if you need something more powerful when the need arises.

 

Exactly. Even if you get one of the FEW laptops where you can upgrade the GPU, you'll most likely be limited in your choices in what you can upgrade to (what will fit in that slot, heat considerations). I doubt you'd be able to swap in a new gen video card in 2 or 3 years.

 

So are many here my friend!

 

its definitely not worth it.

 

the graphics card is non replaceable. there's a sticky in the graphics section of the site explaining more.
motherboards are replaceable, but only with the exact same one so that it fits the case.
ram is upgradable, but currently no motherboard in a laptop will take more that 4gb, and there's no laptop ram that is higher than 2gb a piece.
processors are upgradable, and from what Ive heard aren't too difficult to replace.
optical drives, HDD drives, SSD drives are all upgradable, but dont forget some laptops come with an eSATA port for expanability like this. bluray would be worth considering as a future upgrade, especially with the graphics card that MSi has.
im not sure about replacing internal wireless cards , but most laptops come with ExpressCard ports or similar which can be used for this.
screens are also replaceable, as done by some users here after little accidents
sound cards are built into the motherboard, and are non replaceable, but external high quality sound cards are available, such as M audio and creative through USB and firewire.

i think thats everything covered really. remember to update all drivers as soon as you recieve the laptop. makes a huge difference to performance.

 

Theres a handful of laptops where you can replace the video card, but you're usually limited in what you can replace it with. I believe there's at least 1 notebook that takes 2X4gb sticks