What does the laptop made of?

Hey all,

I am not sure where to put this...but I wondering what does the laptop made of. Especially the Dell 1150, B130, and E1505 (my old, sister's, and brother's). I want to know about this because I found out my D600 was made Dell's Tri-Metal chassis (aluminum, magnesium alloy and steel). Is this why the D600 was so expensive 4 years ago, cause the different alloy made in this laptop?

TIA.

JC

 

I think you mean. What is the laptop made of?

 

Most laptops are made out polycarbonates and synthetic plastics. It is very rare to find a laptop made of metal.
Macbook's have a metal appearance, but it is not metal.
They simply have a punched tin chassis, which is why when you scratch a macbook, the scratch will seem wide because tin is a very soft metal.

When painting a plastic laptop, apply a plastic primer, which will allow the paint to stick to the chassis.
Before priming, you need to ruff up the surface with 100 grit sandpaper or so.
Then in between every coat of paint, wet sand the surface with 600grit sandpaper, and work your way up to 1200 to 2000 grit when you get to the last coats of paint.
Always make sure that the paint is dry before wetsanding.
Do not use a heat lamp or an oven to speed up the drying process, the results will be catastrophic.

K-TRON

 

Thanks K-TRON.

This is interesting. When I had my friend's D600, it had paint missing everywhere, especially on top of the lid, huge chunk of it. When I took look at it, it looks likes metal. Of course, metal-like isn't fully cover it, because I found a crack on the upper right to the right speaker.

Anyway, thanks.

JC

 

The D600s seem to be very prone to paint peeling and discoloring. We have a fleet of them at my school and nearly all of them exhibit some kind of cosmetic damage like this.

 

Some laptops, however, do have metal casing, such as mine, which is magnesium alloy.

 

my thinkpad has a magnesium roll cage on the inside.

 

To NetBrakr,

To clarify, pixelot and steggy's laptops are still covered in relatively thin plastic on the outside. But as we all know, it's what's inside that counts! (OMG that's cheesy :/)

The Dell laptops you listed are built out of small bits of steel and large bits of ABS plastic, or other hard plastics.

 

I have a Dell Latitude C400, think that was metal all around. Still no cosmetic damages after 4 years.

 

Ok, so Dell 1150, E1505, and B130 are mostly made of plastic...cheap. I am really glad that my D600 is mostly made w/ metal.

JC