Should I strip an s96j and put it into a compal? which one?

Hello, I'm unhappy with my s96j for a variety of reasons (cheap keyboard that is falling apart, headphone jack dead, very hot during operation, no battery time) and I want to replace the shell. Would a Compal barebones be of higher quality? In particular, how are the keyboards? I primarily use the laptop for writing and coding.
I also read a lot of ebooks on there so I'm looking for a great display (higher res would be nice). I also usually only boot linux and I never really use the X1600 in my s96j, I just need to run compiz and occasionally maybe simple games like civ4 and puzzle quest. Any suggestions?

 

Compal HEL 80 (you'll find someone selling a complete lappy for around $650 in the buy/sell thread) or Asus z96jm (although its the same mushy keyboard, but at least it has the higher resolution screen). Good luck trying to find either of those barebones new.

You can't really reuse your processor with the IFT90 since it uses a different socket. Besides that, you can reuse the RAM, HD, optical drive, and wireless card if you decide to pursue this route. But generally, I believe that the HEL 80 is a little better quality in terms of materials than the IFT90.

 

they use a different socket? I hadn't researched since I thought all these VBI laptops could be swapped. Oh well.

So the hel 80 keyboard is quite a bit better than the usual asus ones? I tried someone's prebuilt asus and the keyboard was only marginally better than this one. Since I spend most of my time typing on this laptop it seems absurd to keep putting up with keyboards I hate. Most of the dells I've tried have crap keyboards but I like my girlfriend's HP's keys too. An IBM I tried was amazing, like an oldschool regular keyboard. I just would prefer to not have to ditch all the hardware I have.

 

The IFT 90 is based on the Santa Rosa chipset, which uses the socket P processors, as designated by T7X00 where X is an odd number.

Your s96j uses the older chipset with the socket M processors, as noted by the T2X00 series or T7X00 series where X is an even number.