The main advantage of laptops over their larger desktop counterparts is the inherent portability. Another advantage is the laptop's ability to operate on battery power in the case of a power outage and less energy consumption.
Upgradeability
Laptops' upgradeability is severely limited, both for technical and economic reasons. As of 2006, there is no industry-wide standard form factor for laptops. Each major laptop vendor pursues its own proprietary design and construction, with the result that laptops are difficult to upgrade and exhibit high repair costs. With few exceptions, laptop components can rarely be swapped between laptops of competing manufacturers, or even between laptops from the different product-lines of the same manufacturer. Standard feature peripherals (such as audio, video, USB, 1394, WiFi, Bluetooth) are generally integrated on the main PCB (motherboard), and thus upgrades often require using external ports, card slots, or wireless peripherals. Other components, such as RAM modules, hard drives, and batteries are typically user-upgradeable.
Many laptops have removable CPUs, although support for other CPUs is restricted to the specific models supported by the laptop motherboard. The socketed CPUs are perhaps for the manufacturer's convenience, rather than the end-user, as few manufacturers try new CPUs in last year's laptop model with an eye toward selling upgrades rather than new laptops. In many other laptops, the CPU is soldered and non-replaceable.[5]
Many laptops also include an internal MiniPCI slot, often occupied by a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth card, but as with the CPU, the internal slot is often restricted in the range of cards that can be installed. The widespread adoption of USB mitigates I/O connectivity to a great degree, although the user must carry the USB peripheral as a separate item.
NVidia and ATI have proposed a standardized interface for laptop GPU upgrades (such as an MXM), but again, choices are limited compared to the desktop PCIe/AGP after-market.
In January 2007, Asus announced XG Station external video card for laptops. XG Station is connected to the laptops using USB-2 and Express card interface.
In February 2007, a new standard for external PCI Express cables and connectors was announced. Future laptops can be expanded using external PCI Express backplane and chassis.
Upgradeability
Laptops' upgradeability is severely limited, both for technical and economic reasons. As of 2006, there is no industry-wide standard form factor for laptops. Each major laptop vendor pursues its own proprietary design and construction, with the result that laptops are difficult to upgrade and exhibit high repair costs. With few exceptions, laptop components can rarely be swapped between laptops of competing manufacturers, or even between laptops from the different product-lines of the same manufacturer. Standard feature peripherals (such as audio, video, USB, 1394, WiFi, Bluetooth) are generally integrated on the main PCB (motherboard), and thus upgrades often require using external ports, card slots, or wireless peripherals. Other components, such as RAM modules, hard drives, and batteries are typically user-upgradeable.
Many laptops have removable CPUs, although support for other CPUs is restricted to the specific models supported by the laptop motherboard. The socketed CPUs are perhaps for the manufacturer's convenience, rather than the end-user, as few manufacturers try new CPUs in last year's laptop model with an eye toward selling upgrades rather than new laptops. In many other laptops, the CPU is soldered and non-replaceable.[5]
Many laptops also include an internal MiniPCI slot, often occupied by a Wi-Fi or Bluetooth card, but as with the CPU, the internal slot is often restricted in the range of cards that can be installed. The widespread adoption of USB mitigates I/O connectivity to a great degree, although the user must carry the USB peripheral as a separate item.
NVidia and ATI have proposed a standardized interface for laptop GPU upgrades (such as an MXM), but again, choices are limited compared to the desktop PCIe/AGP after-market.
In January 2007, Asus announced XG Station external video card for laptops. XG Station is connected to the laptops using USB-2 and Express card interface.
In February 2007, a new standard for external PCI Express cables and connectors was announced. Future laptops can be expanded using external PCI Express backplane and chassis.
Disadvantages
Parts standardization and compatibility issues
This article or section needs to be updated.Please update the article to reflect recent events / newly available information, and remove this template when finished.
Current compatibility problems in the laptop trade are reflective of the early era of personal computer hardware, when there were many different manufacturers, each and every one of them having their own connectivity and mounting systems and incompatibility was the norm. While there are accepted world standards of form factors for all the peripherals and add-in PC cards used in the desktop computers, there are still no firm worldwide standards relating to today's laptops' internal form factors, such as supply of electric voltage, motherboard layouts, internal adapters used in connecting the optical drive, LCD cable, keyboard and floppy drive to the main board. Most affected by this are users uneducated in the relevant fields, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.
Some parts, such as hard drives and memory are commodity items and are interchangeable. However, other parts such as motherboards, keyboards, and batteries are proprietary in design and are only interchangeable within a manufactures brand and/or model line.
A significant point to note is that the vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Original Design Manufacturers (ODM).[4] The ODM matters more than the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). Major relationships include:
Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and Lenovo/IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world.
Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell.
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, Acer, and Lenovo/IBM.
Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell.
ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell.
Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung.
Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ.
Uniwill sells to Lenovo/IBM and Fujitsu.
Durability problems
This section does not cite any references or sources.Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)
Please wikify this article or section.Help improve this article by adding relevant internal links. (June 2008)
Example of how laptop performance slowly declines after several years, due to dust and lint buildup on internal heatsinks. Simply blowing air into the vents is not enough to remove this buildup. Instead, laptop disassembly is required to properly clean the heatsink.
Due to their portability and tight integration, laptops are more subject to wear and physical damage than desktops. Components such as batteries, screen hinges, power jacks, and power cords are commonly subject to deterioration due to ordinary use. These components are usually expensive to replace, with a typical laptop battery costing US$130, the AC Adapter US$75. Other parts are inexpensive such as a power jack costing perhaps US$20, but replacement may require extensive disassembly and reassembly of layers of internal components. Other inexpensive but fragile parts often cannot be purchased separate from larger more expensive components. For example, the video display cable and backlight power cable that passes through the lid hinges to operate the screen will eventually break from opening and closing the lid hundreds of times over many years, and usually these tiny cables cannot be purchased separate from an entire US$400 LCD panel.
A liquid spill onto the keyboard, which is rather a minor mishap with a desktop system can damage costly components such as the motherboard or LCD panel. Dropping a laptop can damage the LCD screen if not break apart its body. The repair costs of a failed motherboard or LCD panel may exceed the purchase value of the laptop.
Laptops must also rely on extremely compact cooling systems involving a fan and heatsink that eventually fails due to filling with airborne dust and debris. Most laptops do not have any sort of removable dust collection filter over the air intake for these cooling systems, resulting in a system that gradually runs hotter and louder as the years pass. Eventually the laptop cooling is so choked with dust that it starts to overheat just from minor operational load. This dust is usually deeply buried inside where casual cleaning and vacuuming cannot remove it, and instead complete disassembly is needed to clean the laptop.
Rugged laptops
This section does not cite any references or sources.Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)
Some manufacturers have mitigated some of these problems by selling "ruggedized" laptops. These often have a rubber sheeting under the keyboard keys and special drain that safely routes all of the water out through a hole in the bottom of the case.
Additionally, the bodies of these laptops are typically made of a stiffer magnesium alloy instead of plastic, since it is the flexing of the circuit boards and fragile mechanical devices that causes the most damage. Hard drives are often mounted in soft shock-absorbing silicone mounts to greatly increase their chances of surviving a waist-high fall.
When a laptop hits the floor, the free-floating hard drive heads can slap against the spinning platter, scratching it and cause an irrepairable head crash that renders the hard drive unusable. Recently hard drives have been constructed which can move the read heads completely off the spinning platters, known as unloading. With the use of an accelerometer, the hardware can detect the sudden fall and park the heads off-platter before the laptop hits the ground.Disadvantages
Parts standardization and compatibility issues
This article or section needs to be updated.Please update the article to reflect recent events / newly available information, and remove this template when finished.
Current compatibility problems in the laptop trade are reflective of the early era of personal computer hardware, when there were many different manufacturers, each and every one of them having their own connectivity and mounting systems and incompatibility was the norm. While there are accepted world standards of form factors for all the peripherals and add-in PC cards used in the desktop computers, there are still no firm worldwide standards relating to today's laptops' internal form factors, such as supply of electric voltage, motherboard layouts, internal adapters used in connecting the optical drive, LCD cable, keyboard and floppy drive to the main board. Most affected by this are users uneducated in the relevant fields, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.
Some parts, such as hard drives and memory are commodity items and are interchangeable. However, other parts such as motherboards, keyboards, and batteries are proprietary in design and are only interchangeable within a manufactures brand and/or model line.
A significant point to note is that the vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of Original Design Manufacturers (ODM).[4] The ODM matters more than the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM). Major relationships include:
Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and Lenovo/IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world.
Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell.
Wistron (former manufacturing & design division of Acer) sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, Acer, and Lenovo/IBM.
Flextronics (former Arima Computer Corporation notebook division) sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell.
ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell.
Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung.
Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ.
Uniwill sells to Lenovo/IBM and Fujitsu.
Durability problems
This section does not cite any references or sources.Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)
Please wikify this article or section.Help improve this article by adding relevant internal links. (June 2008)
Example of how laptop performance slowly declines after several years, due to dust and lint buildup on internal heatsinks. Simply blowing air into the vents is not enough to remove this buildup. Instead, laptop disassembly is required to properly clean the heatsink.
Due to their portability and tight integration, laptops are more subject to wear and physical damage than desktops. Components such as batteries, screen hinges, power jacks, and power cords are commonly subject to deterioration due to ordinary use. These components are usually expensive to replace, with a typical laptop battery costing US$130, the AC Adapter US$75. Other parts are inexpensive such as a power jack costing perhaps US$20, but replacement may require extensive disassembly and reassembly of layers of internal components. Other inexpensive but fragile parts often cannot be purchased separate from larger more expensive components. For example, the video display cable and backlight power cable that passes through the lid hinges to operate the screen will eventually break from opening and closing the lid hundreds of times over many years, and usually these tiny cables cannot be purchased separate from an entire US$400 LCD panel.
A liquid spill onto the keyboard, which is rather a minor mishap with a desktop system can damage costly components such as the motherboard or LCD panel. Dropping a laptop can damage the LCD screen if not break apart its body. The repair costs of a failed motherboard or LCD panel may exceed the purchase value of the laptop.
Laptops must also rely on extremely compact cooling systems involving a fan and heatsink that eventually fails due to filling with airborne dust and debris. Most laptops do not have any sort of removable dust collection filter over the air intake for these cooling systems, resulting in a system that gradually runs hotter and louder as the years pass. Eventually the laptop cooling is so choked with dust that it starts to overheat just from minor operational load. This dust is usually deeply buried inside where casual cleaning and vacuuming cannot remove it, and instead complete disassembly is needed to clean the laptop.
Rugged laptops
This section does not cite any references or sources.Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (June 2008)
Some manufacturers have mitigated some of these problems by selling "ruggedized" laptops. These often have a rubber sheeting under the keyboard keys and special drain that safely routes all of the water out through a hole in the bottom of the case.
Additionally, the bodies of these laptops are typically made of a stiffer magnesium alloy instead of plastic, since it is the flexing of the circuit boards and fragile mechanical devices that causes the most damage. Hard drives are often mounted in soft shock-absorbing silicone mounts to greatly increase their chances of surviving a waist-high fall.
When a laptop hits the floor, the free-floating hard drive heads can slap against the spinning platter, scratching it and cause an irrepairable head crash that renders the hard drive unusable. Recently hard drives have been constructed which can move the read heads completely off the spinning platters, known as unloading. With the use of an accelerometer, the hardware can detect the sudden fall and park the heads off-platter before the laptop hits the ground.Disadvantages
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