Barebones Notebook

Gsurface writes "The first barebones notebook makes its appearance. The barebone notebook features no display, no CPU, no RAM and no HDD, but only the case, with keyboard and touchpad."

Comments

No Display?

[rprata]

Where would one buy a display?

Create a market for Laptops parts?

[corsec67]

Will more laptops sold like this open a market for laptop parts?

Maybe this will cause laptops to be more similar to desktops, as parts are standard?

Re:Interesting, but

[ComputerSlicer23]

If buying in bulk was really all there was to the price, I wouldn't be able to build a machine cheaper then Dell. As a general rule, I normally can (I haven't tried lately so maybe I can't). The difference is in who does the labor. The really big savings is that you get no labor, and you get no replacement parts, you get no support. So build your own can be cheaper if the bulk parts discount, doesn't overcome the labor/support issues.

I wouldn't build my own laptop, just because laptops are touchy little beasties. Heat and airflow are really important. Docking stations, and port replicators are nice. Not to mention the wear and tear due to abuse, and move moving parts (the hinges on the screen), and the various clips that I wouldn't get the right kind for, especailly not if I'm buying on the cheap. Batteries and removable parts are a problem. Power consumption, and LCD quality. Just lots of little issues that I wouldn't get right, that Dell would.

Kirby

Interesting...

[Junta]

I wonder what the deal is. I've hated having to buy laptops as a whole system bought from a single source. I've came to just accept that I have to live with it...

Why, you ask, do I care so much? Is it just to be 'elite'? Hell no, it is because I *hate* dealing with any problems that crop up in the warranty period. In dealing with my desktops, a part breaks under warranty, I contact that particular company, send in that *one* part, and have a replacement back in short order. Some people say they are afraid of hardware manufacturers trying to blame other pieces of equipment to avoid servicing, but that has never happened to me. I send it in, they test and verify that it is broken, and they fix it or send a working part. Has always been smooth for me, thankfully.

With the whole systems approach, something under warranty breaks. I call and say 'this portion of the laptop is broken, I want to send in this part, or at least remove the hard drive so some idiot tech doesn't see Linux, freak out, and reformat with Windows'. They say 'Linux isn't supported, you must include the hard drive, it *will* be wiped and replaced with Windows so we can run our test software to verify the problem is fixed, and if we cannot do this we will not repair it'. I've been fighting for weeks to get warranty repair without losing data. The problem is easy to test, if you press the power button and the power light comes on, the problem is fixed, end of story. If the power light stays off even though AC is connected, it is still broken. The problem with it has *nothing* to do with the drive, and they don't need to run any software to figure out if they fixed it or not. Why should it be any of their business what I run, when it clearly didn't cause the problem? Guess I got spoiled when I would call this same company regarding a business laptop and had them bend over backwards to kiss my ass regarding the very same request about not shipping a hard drive.

Also, come a year and a half after purchase, say my memory has a problem. Well, the system is out of warranty. With my desktop, the memory happens to have a lifetime warranty. Having a system where everything is at least a year warranty, with some parts longer is much better than having the whole thing end after a year.

A memory manufacturer has never threatened to deny me service because of the software I run, as long as I don't overclock. A video card manufacturer has never said they can erase my drive contents if they want to run tests. Why should I have to deal with this treatment for laptops? Why is it that I can even build PDAs from parts, and to this day I cannot build a real laptop from parts?

No attached LCD is kinda neat

[theCat]

I've got on my desk here an old Toshiba that someone sat on, broke the LCD all to hell. It was sitting around and I needed a linux server...yadda yadda...so I plug in an external LCD. Now it has a display, a nice big one, but the busted one is in the way all the time while I type and use the track pad (lid is open you see) and that busted LCD is just butt ugly besides.

Scene 2: I remove the busted LCD, sew the laptop back up, fire it up on the external monitor and then I notice something; this is groovy. Sure it needs an external monitor, but I just created a fairly cool portable desktop computer out of a piece of junk. Keyboard and track pad built in. And still easy to take else where I need it, like home (where I have another monitor I can use) or a presentation, and even has a nifty built in 2 hour UPS. And it's real quite.

So would I actually buy something like that? Maybe not right away...but if the price was right I might. I'm telling you, sitting here looking at it, it looks cooler than you might imagine.

Wear & tear is the beauty in this concept

[Mephiska]

For most people it's not so much the electronic bits on a laptop that go out, but it's screens that get cracked, keys that start sticking, touchpads that get, well, touchy and on and on. If there was some sort of laptop spec that manufacturers built parts to fit inside some specific dimensions then when a key breaks or hinge gets loose you don't have to ship it back for an expensive repair. You can just go down to Fry's and pick up a newly updated shell.

This would also be great for just keeping a laptop system up-to-date. With the way motherboards and hard disks and cd drives have been shrinking now's the time when I hope we'll see home built laptops of the same breed as home built PC's.

Re:Wear & tear is the beauty in this concept

[ComputerSlicer23]

Yes, and no. Wear and tear is a lot of why it doesn't achieve critical mass, they break down way to easily. In fact, I'd conjecture that cheap desktops, and fast internet everywhere, are why a lot of people I know don't have laptops. Most of them just spend $300 put a machine together, and put it everywhere they would want a computer. One in the living room. One in the bedroom. One at a friend's house (I have several computers at other peoples houses to make LAN parties easy).

Laptops are nice, but they will never be as cheap as regular desktops due to space, heat and power consumption constraints. The wear and tear, and high replacement parts is what drives people to desktops. They aren't as fast. They can't store as much, you can't put as much RAM in them. They can't do a lot of things a good PC can. Now if they become terminals to bigger faster stationary equipment, now your talking. Then, I'm still not building my own, all I need is one with a good screen, a good video card, and a decent keyboard, nothing else matters on a terminal.

If laptops became extemely common, I could see a vicious cycle of increased sales, which increased production volume, which lowered prices, which increases sales. I don't see a way to transition to there as long as desktop PC's are a cheap as they are. A good laptop is also a lot harder to put together, especially out of commodity parts. Running cabling the right way, and using thin bundled cables instead of ribbon cables is a good idea. Having fans that turn on at the right tempatures, and blow on the right parts is critical. Getting the LCD cable snaked thru is important. Getting the tension right on the hinges. Ensuring that the screen didn't weight too much to put too much stress on the plastic while sitting open. A dozen little things. It'd be simpiler then having DIY car's, but I'm not sure there is that much public interest in it. Most people simply don't need laptops. I've never needed one. I don't travel, and when I want a computer there is one handy. I can't use one in my car while I'm driving, and most other locations I go that don't have a computer, I'm going there to get away from my computers!

Kirby

Re:Interesting, but

[harlows_monkeys]

If buying in bulk was really all there was to the price, I wouldn't be able to build a machine cheaper then Dell. As a general rule, I normally can (I haven't tried lately so maybe I can't)

It depends. I'll assume you buy parts from reputable dealers. I've seen great deals from dealers with the lowest prices at Pricewatch, but then have looked them up at Reseller Ratings, and found that they sucked. So, let's use prices from dealers that rate well, so we actually get our parts, and if we have any problems, can exchange them in less than six months and two lawsuits. :-)

Under that assumption, you can beat, or come close, to the prices you get when you simply go to Dell and configure a good medium to high end system.

On the other hand, Dell usually has various coupons and specials that you don't find just going to the site. If you spend a while watching places like Techbargains, and pounce on the specials, you can't come anywhere near Dell's prices by building your own--even if you throw sanity to the wind, and buy from the cheapest lowball places you can find for parts.

For example, they had their best 19" LCD for something like $600 with the right coupons and rebates for a couple days. A comparable LCD from most places was $1200, and could be found for $900 on sale at the time.

Of course, this assumes starting from nothing. When you take into account that most of us building our own salvage many parts from the system we are replacing, the long term cost of building your own might be less.

Re:Interesting, but

[Zach Fine]

I've built many a system for waaaaay less than a Dell, Gateway, or the like (comparisons to the cost of a prebuilt LCD screen [purchased with stacked coupons and discounts] to a fictitious homebuilt large LCD screen is amusing but, um, I don't get it). It's laughable to think that I'd have been able to buy a AMD 1.4Ghz Dell with 40Gb hard drive, Radeon dual-monitor support, CDRW drive, DVD-Rom drive, and a half gig of ram 2 years ago for around $500 from Dell, Gateway, or any of the majors. But with parts bought from Fry's, Compgeeks, Newegg, and other vendors I was able to cobble together a nice little system for that price. I added a KVM switch and used the 19" LG 995 monitor, mouse, and keyboard from my Mac to complete the project. For someone lacking those parts they could have been purchased (sans KVM) for under $300 altogether. I'd guess that an equivalent system from Dell would've cost more than $800 before the addition of a 19" monitor.

In general, you can buy all the parts and spend an hour putting it all together for at least a few hundred dollars less than a prebuilt system. You can also save extra by using equivalent but less costly parts, and by skimping on parts that aren't important to you. Find a local or online computer parts store that's reputable and has good prices, and there's no way the parts will cost as much as the total of the parts included in a prebuilt system from Dell or whoever.

The value of buying a prebuilt is not that you're getting any of the benefit of Dell's bulk orders of computer hardware (they keep that benefit in the form of profits), but that you get support and a single warranty provider rather than having to deal with all the different manufacturers when encountering a problem. You're not just paying for the brand name, although that's part of it.

Since I can build and support my own, none of my computer's parts were defective, and I don't think it's that big a deal to work with manufacturer's warranties, I will probably never pay extra for Dell brand equity and support. For my Grandma I'd probably recommend she buy from one of the majors, I'd advise her to go with Apple but she already bought herself a Gateway.

As for building my own 19" LCD monitor, I suppose that might be a worthwhile endeavor if the cost of LCD monitors were high enough to justify the millions of dollars of R&D I'd need to spend before manufacturing one.