How come there is no market for DIY laptops?

[Uninvited]

Ive seen where you can buy parts to build a laptop but not much out there nor seems to be a demand like there is for desktops. but how come no enthusiasts seem interested or demanding for a plethora of high end parts to customise a variety of sized laptops for your needs?
No one wants to build a mobile SLI setup? Custom cooling options, thicker cases for room or whatever?

Just curious on your guys thoughts seeing how the mobile market is expanding while desktop use is indecline. Not easy to find an OEM lappy with only the parts and look you want without buying an alienware or something

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Ive seen where you can buy parts to build a laptop but not much out there nor seems to be a demand like there is for desktops. but how come no enthusiasts seem interested or demanding for a plethora of high end parts to customise a variety of sized laptops for your needs?
No one wants to build a mobile SLI setup? Custom cooling options, thicker cases for room or whatever?

Just curious on your guys thoughts seeing how the mobile market is expanding while desktop use is indecline. Not easy to find an OEM lappy with only the parts and look you want without buying an alienware or something

There are a ton of botique vendors that offer various models; sager, MSI, Asus, etc. Places like xoticpc.com offer a huge selection and customization.

Theres no market because the actual build process is more trouble than its worth, the mobile boards are bound to the case they come in, usually the only "user changable" parts are CPU/GPU/HDD/Memory, of which are all easily accessable in the higher end botiques I mentioned earlier.

Theres no enthusiast market because theres limited/Unviable overclocking, its too much of a hassle to deal with the components/Compatability problems, and you lose all of the price advantages of a company that builds them in bulk.

Theres really no reason, and probably ever a reason to custom build from a barebones up Not that I don't like it, though. Working inside laptops is not fun at all.

My Sager was 100% unbranded and about as generic black as you could possibly get; a complete polar opposite from Alienware.

 

[FreedomEclipse]

there was a craze a few years back where barebone laptops were on sale. There quite a few manufacturers/OEM retailers out there who would sell parts directly to consumers if they called in and asked about them. Back then laptop parts like CPUs, GPUs and chassis were really hard to get and any online retailer who sold these parts put some serious mark up on them making them poor value for money.

I read an article in a PC enthusiast magazine where the editor and a few guys tried to do the same thing, they called up MSI and a load of other companies/OEMs to try buy parts and only a handful of retailers/OEMs responded or returned their calls/emails.

eventually, the best they could do was build a a half decent mid range one.


Parts are more widely available today compared to almost a decade ago but i think the market has moved past the 'build it yourself' laptop stage.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I know there are modular LT companies, but they are not cost effective to buy from really. I think the main reasons are that there's not a big enough market for it to be affordable becuase there's a MUCH smaller percentage of people buying high end LTs that can do more than mere tasking than there are buying high end desktops.

A big part of that is due to the micro size laptop part markup, and another is most use them for work or school, so they don't need to be high end. Secondary would be the higher learning curve required to piece them together as mentioned, but I feel that, since most DIY builders could probably learn that anyway, is not as big an issue as part prices and market niche.

Anyone that has built so much as one desktop can spend just an hour or so Googling and find tons of pretty good videos that aren't hard to follow on how to replace things like inverters and such in laptops. Once you learn how to take them apart and put them back together, esp the sccreen, it's not that hard.

Another solid reason you don't see affordable modular laptops, and perhaps even as big a reason if not bigger than the learning curve of assembly, is that the laptop market is much more driven by a few big manufacturers that make the MBs and the many, many brands that sell LTs whole as a unit.

With desktops there's always tons of various manufacturers making the same form factor parts with non proprietary connections. With LTs you have lots and lots of custom MBs that fit specific shells and proprietary connections. There'd be a serious amount of retooling required for ALL LTs to be as universal as desktop parts are part wise.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Anyone that has built so much as one desktop can spend just an hour or so Googling and find tons of pretty good videos that aren't hard to follow on how to replace things like inverters and such in laptops. Once you learn how to take them apart and put them back together, esp the sccreen, it's not that hard.

Every laptop is wildly different. Every laptop has a much different timeline for a repair; Screen replacement can take 4-6, or 14.

For a desktop part replacement, 3 minutes tops.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

Every laptop is wildly different. Every laptop has a much different timeline for a repair; Screen replacement can take 4-6, or 14.

For a desktop part replacement, 3 minutes tops.

Yes, but that is primarily the very proprietary LTs with big brand names, not modular ones. So what it really comes down to is brand control over the portable market, not learning curve. The big brands want it that way, so they can keep control. If LTs were to go as modular as desktops in design, that would go away, along with the control.

There's nothing written in stone that says an LT has to be a bitch to take apart and put back together, just like the Xbox 360 didn't have to be. Many brands purposely make their product that way to force proprietary control and keep repair only at authorized repair centers/stores, and in some case, to make DIY modding harder, as with consoles.

Like I said, I've seen videos that show how fast and easy even some big brand LT inverters can be to replace, and that's a major screen related part that often fails. A big part of what keeps people paying high prices for LTs and their repair is fear of the unknown, and much of it is imparted by the manufacturer, intentionally.

Now let's talk LT repair, authorized repair. They use flat rates and are worse than the auto repair industry. Jobs that can be done by someone whom just learned how in a half hour are chalked up as 3 or more hours of labor at $200-$300, it's ridiculous really.

Why do you think there are people on the net showing how easy it is and making money doing it as their own small business? Because SO many of their friends and relatives get fed up with high laptop repair prices, and they're blown away by how cheap a small time DIYer can do it for them.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

There's nothing written in stone that says an LT has to be a bitch to take apart and put back together, just like the Xbox 360 didn't have to be. Many brands purposely make them that way to force proprietary control and keep repair only at authorized repair centers/stores, an din some case, to avoid modding.

The problem is the mobile market is innovation driven; Businesses rely on a unique presentation, such as Backlit keyboard, aluminum chassis, keyboard quality, etc. Having all components standardized causes the DIY market inability to keep up. Want a laptop as thin as a macbook air? Can't build one if you had this model, because everything is BGA except the SSD.

In the desktop market, you have form factors that can actually be exaggerated and even ignored and still have the components accommodated in a majority of scenarios. (e.g. GTX 690) With a laptop, if you ignore the MXM GPU slot size, you now have lost all of your market for a unique model.

It's just not sustainable IMO.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

That's very true, the innovation and size/weight of the the shell and screens themselves change a lot as LTs evolve. I still argue that it mostly happens with the bigger more elitist brands though, and few of them have such high end features throughout their line, expect for Apple and others.

When you look at the mainstream LTs that most buy in a lower price range though, there's no reason they can't be more modular if it weren't for brand control, esp when you consider how many similar if not same parts are made for them.

I think it could easily be sustainable in mainstream price range LT shells, screens and parts, but you see, the manufacturers wouldn't want that. That would mean the majority of their consumer base retaining a lot of the parts a lot longer than they normally would and just upgrading now and then.

The last thing LT manufactures want is people buying their product less often and getting smarter about them. The parts are made for those manufactures, they control it all, including what you can and can't buy. It's a lot like console manufactures making easy money on simple systems with royalties paid by devs writing for them.

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

I think my only real huge grip with the unstandardized laptops is the lack of LCD connector standard. Most common replacement question I run into is "i dropped my laptop, it works, but the screen is broken! halp!"

 

[whitrzac]

I think my only real huge grip with the unstandardized laptops is the lack of LCD connector standard. Most common replacement question I run into is "i dropped my laptop, it works, but the screen is broken! halp!"

most of the screens I've seen us the same connector. There are others though.

I'm just glad that MXM is becoming more of a standard, 5 years ago ever man had their own proprietary video card...

Most laptops are built 1 of 3 ways, once you know how to work on those 3 it becomes much easier.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

We can only hope. Remember when most name brand desktops had proprietary connectors everywhere? You couldn't even upgrade the PSU if you wanted to put a more powerful GPU in. Now a days name brand desktops are a lot more flexible on upgrades.

Maybe one day LTs will follow suit. If they made most of them with non proprietary connectors, I think there'd be more hope for affordable modular ones, but it's going to take something like that first before we ever see it.

One of the best reasons to have them easier to take apart would be being able to clean them easily and often. It's really pitiful when people pay huge amounts of money just to have their LTs taken apart and cleaned.