Intel Wants Notebook Components to be Easily Interchangeable

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1454' target='_blank'>http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=1454</a><br /><br /></div><i>"Intel wants to make laptops more accessible to users and would like to make devices more akin to their desktop counterparts. With the company's new Interchangeability Initiative, components including the optical drive, LCD screen, battery, power adapter and keyboard would all be upgradeable and can be swapped between notebooks. Hard drives are already for the most part interchangeable as long as you decide on PATA or SATA."</i><br /><br />I for one would welcome this - notebooks are notoriously short-lived, there's always a faster one coming out, and if the chipset supports it, being able to upgrade the CPU or GPU would breathe new life into a notebook.

[Jeremy Charette]

I have to disagree.

Notebooks use proprietary designs and components because the manufacturers are trying to cram 10 pounds of sh*t into a 5 pound bag. It ain't easy, and being constrained by things like standardized form factor designs will only make it impossible at best. The idea of a "modular" notebook is great in theory, but in practice it will only limit creativity and result in sub-standard products for the end user.

Nice try Intel, but good luck. You're gonna need it.

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

Maybe that's why Intel is pushing it now. Minaturisation of tech has gotten to the point it's somewhat feasible to start planning for it.

[Phoenix]

...The idea of a "modular" notebook is great in theory, but in practice it will only limit creativity and result in sub-standard products for the end user.

Like so many other things, I'm sure people were saynig this about desktops at one point, too.

I don't see how this could limit creativity. Modularity doesn't stifle it, it frees it.

And I've been waiting for this to be an option on laptops. I'd also like to see this capability with handhelds, and maybe one day we will.

But for now, if they can standardize connections that will allow for this on an industry-wide basis, we'll see amazing configurations, longer life cycles, and much more value for our money.

Bring it on.

[Jeremy Charette]

The problem is that all of the sub-systems needed to make a computer run are so interdependent on each other that if you make one small change, it has a ripple effect throughout the system. You can make the CPU faster, but then the bus speed of the motherboard becomes a limiting factor. To make that faster, you need faster memory to support it. Then the graphics chip/card becomes a limiting factor. After upgrading all these components, you need a beefier power supply. I'm at the point where once I build a desktop PC these days, I consider it done. I don't upgrade. By the time I want to upgrade a single component, it's more cost effective to upgrade the entire system. With laptop computers, this interdependency is an even bigger problem.

A year ago I bumped my Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop up to 1 GB ram, added a 60GB hard drive, bought an external DVD writer, and got a fresh battery. Wish I would have just bit the bullet and bought a whole new computer, because it's going to need to be replaced soon anyway.

[Jason Dunn]

The idea of a "modular" notebook is great in theory, but in practice it will only limit creativity and result in sub-standard products for the end user.

Well, hold on there, let's take a look at what's already standard on EVERY notebook:

- CPU socket (within the family of CPUs of course)
- RAM slots
- Hard drive (with the exception of 2.5" vs. 1.8")

Some high-end notebooks from Voodoo and Alienware have a graphics slot that's upgradable. So we're not really all that far off...I'd be SO happy if I could upgrade the CPU most of all, but I do know that thermal issues abound with notebooks. If you put a faster (hotter) CPU into a laptop that was designed to vent "X" amount of heat....you get a laptop that runs too hot.