Barebone laptops

Sorry if this is in the wrong section btw.

Title kind of says it all

I'm just curious about this particular category of notebooks since they aren't very widespread. I can see the advantage of building the machine with what you want and all that, but I'm just a bit curious .

Perhaps someone who has experience with barebone laptops can tell me...

- How "bare" is it? I've read different things from different places so perhaps it depends on the company? From the bit of info I've collected it seems that most barebones don't come with a CPU, RAM, HDD, wireless card and OS. Is that correct?

- How "easy" is it to assemble. I know normally laptop upgrades aren't that difficult depending on how the manufacturer built it, but I'll still ask.

- How easy is it to actually find the parts to build the laptop? From my experience it seems actual laptop parts other than HDD and RAM don't seem to be that common anywhere so is it actually simple/cost effective to find & buy them?

Thanks in advance for answering

 

1) how "bare"? you answered the question yourself. normally, you can choose CPU, HDD, RAM, OS, Wifi card, and extraneous stuff (bluetooth, WWAN, GPS, etc) for yourself.

2) how "easy"? well, all of the above stuff is fairly easily accessible (except maybe the CPU, because you have to apply thermal grease and screw on the heatsink, but that's not really hard). i think that anybody with a bit of computer experience should be able to assemble a whitebook.

3) where are the parts? nowadays, a lot of the stuff can be found online. for US or canadian folks, i think newegg.com (or .ca) can't be beat. they have everything you'll need. beyond that, ebay can be a good place to pick up rarer stuff, such as ES processors etc.

hope that helped.

 

The OCZ Whitebook is fairly customizable. You can choose your CPU, RAM, GPU, wifi. You can get a pretty decent gaming notebook out of it.

 

Is it really cost effective to get a barebone though?

From the prices I saw on newegg, getting yourself the 15.4" DIY from OCZ and the required parts ends up being more expensive than a pre-configured machine of the same specs >.>

 

No it probably costs more overall, just some people want to have a choice they may not have with mainstream manufacturers. Also, some people just rather do it themselves even if it costs more.

 

They are not as economical as desktops beacuse of the size and the special cooling required. But the only time that I see this is nessary is when you want something very very particular. Asus has some barebones as well as Clevo.

 

I, for one would like to take the challenge to build one myself. It would be quite exciting and I would be able to choose exactly what I want when it comes to processors and RAM companies, etc. It depends on some components, because some would be cheaper. For example, a QX9300 is only an extra $500 on www.killernotebooks.com, whereas it would be much more expensive elsewhere. If you are really interested in a DIY notebook, configure the Whitebook with exactly what you want on a website such as xoticpc or killer notebooks and find out the price, then calculate the price if you were to buy the components yourself. If its more than a $100 or so, then it may not be worth it.

 

Well I was under the impression that making your own laptop was similar to making your own desktop, where you'd probably end up getting more power for a cheaper price.

But I guess the option of having exactly what you want with exactly the brand, part and model of the piece makes for a good level of customization. I was just hoping it'd come up to cheaper or a similar price as buying a similarly spec'ed pre-configured machine since you wouldn't be paying for the company building it for you and installing everything.

 

Building desktops is comparable and cheaper, but definitely not notebooks.

 

Yeah I guess the laptop market just hasn't gotten to that stage yet.

I mean, they're on their way with customizable notebooks(from manufacturers) so I'm guessing the next big step would be full customization for the buyer, but I'm guessing that won't be for a long time if it'll come at all...

So just to re-iterate, the only things you'd need to make a barebone complete is a CPU, RAM, HDD, OS and wireless card?

 

What are you planning on putting in it anyway?

Can you please fill out the faq

 

Just build your own laptop like me
I will have some posts and guides soon enough. Probably within 3-4 weeks. Mine cost me a fraction of a laptop and has more power than most servers. I had to make the case, power supply and such, so their is a high tech level required to do this.
The only problem is that its not that thin. Its 70mm thick, cause the thinnest heatsinks I could get to effectively cool both quad cores are 60mm thick.
Than the 24" screen has its own thickness, so its about 100mm thick total

K-TRON

 

I think part of the appeal to a barebones laptop, is being able to use parts you already have.

I'm thinking of getting the OCZ Whitebook, then stick in my T9300, HDDs, OS from the X205, and pick up some DDR3 ram from newegg.

 

If I had the time, I'd have some fun going the salvage route.

 

I'm not planning on buying one, I'm just curious really lol

The idea of customizing everything from top to bottom is appealing to most semi-knowledgeable users and the fact that you could save a few dollars in the case of desktops was also equally appealing, but it seems not to be the case for laptops.

I hadn't thought of the idea of using old laptop parts though! That could definitely cut the price of a barebone considerably since stuff like HDD and RAM aren't that much different from one generation to another(or at least the gap isn't as huge as with other components).