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Laptop Design For Disassembly

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the no-disassemble-stephanie dept.

retroworks writes "Stanford and Finland are cooperating on a project to make a 'modular' laptop which can be more easily disassembled and upgraded, and eventually recycled. Video presentation by smarterplanet.com is a sober answer to the Jaime Guittierez 'Clean the Fan' video."

4 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Manufacturers don't want it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Good luck with that.

    Laptop manufacturers (yes, all of them) want to make disposable machines. Not only is it cheaper to make them that way, it encourages users to buy new rather than upgrade.

    In the past, computer makers had to cater to the geek market, and the geeks wanted to be able to tinker. Although the Slashdot crowd refuses to accept it, the geek market is tiny relative to the mass market.

    1. Re:Manufacturers don't want it by commodore6502 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      A more-important factor than disposable is "small".

      It's hard to squeeze all those functions in a notebook-sized chassis unless you use every millimeter of space. Modular designs like Desktop PCs or PC/104 waste precious space.

      --
      Information wants to be expensive AND wants to be free. So you have Value vs. Cheap distribution fighting each other.
  2. Why naming it Finland? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Reading TFA it quite clearly says "Students from Stanford and Finland's Aalto University", so a much more proper way to say it would've been "Stanford and Aalto University of Finland". (since most of the readers have probably never even heard of Aalto University) How would the summary of "Aalto and United States cooperate on project to..." sound?

  3. Thinkpads by mehrotra.akash · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They could use Thinkpads as the base for thier idea
    Almost all components, except the Processor,Motherboard and screen are CRU's
    Making the Screen and Processor a CRU shouldnt be too difficult(Its not very difficult as of now either), cant say about the Motherboard.
    By Thinkpads, I mean the real thinkpads(T,X,W Series)