Barebones Notebook 311
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."
We are not a clone.
No Display? (Score:5, Interesting)
Woo...a cyberdeck (Score:2, Interesting)
Create a market for Laptops parts? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe this will cause laptops to be more similar to desktops, as parts are standard?
Re:Interesting, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Buttons? (Score:3, Interesting)
How many mouse buttons do you get with that, or do you add it/them, too?
(from my iBook, with USB 3button mouse plugged in!)
Interesting... (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Almost a good idea (Score:3, Interesting)
Free start-up business idea.....
No attached LCD is kinda neat (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Interesting)
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:Buttons? (Score:2, Interesting)
Most brilliant layout--EVER.
Could type, AND "mouse" without moving your hands.
Two mouse buttons, above and below trackball, the top one basically flush to the keyboard. You could have you fingers on the home row, move the 'ball with a thumb and click with the other thumb. Was great for word processing. It's no wonder that there are still (admitadly somewhat nuts) people out there who still do a lot of writing on their PowerBook 170's and whatnot. Plus, Word 4 and 5.1 were quite nice as were MacWrite Pro and some other classics...
Re:Interesting, but (Score:4, Interesting)
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 [reserllerratings.com], 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:A way out of the MS tax (Score:3, Interesting)
this looks like an excellent way to avoid paying for Windows and all the other bundled software that people don't want or need.
As a middle ground, it would be interesting if vendors would sell you a notebook computer with everything but the hard drive. I just upgraded my notebook hard drive, and it was very easy to do. Without the hard drive, there can't be any software pre-installed, so no MS Tax.
Re:Interesting, but (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Wear & tear is the beauty in this concept (Score:5, Interesting)
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
INDUSTRY STANDARD for notebooks... (Score:3, Interesting)
Desktop users are blessed with a standard form factor (ATX and variants) describing physical specs for motherboards, cases, power supplies, peripheral connectors and so on. Wouldn't it be tremendous if there was a widely recognised standard for laptop/notebooks? Being that the featured article is slashdotted, I cant say if that was the idea, but links posted in the comments included the "barebones" concept as offered by ECS, and I got the impression the components were ECS-specific...
Imagine if there was an "MPX" standard (Mobile...PC...X...whatever--just to pick a 3-letter designation as an example). You could buy a generic laptop caseand power supply and load it with an MPX mobo and your choice of keyboards, touchpads, trackballs, displays, etc. These could be obtained from most any source, form a multitude of manufacturers.
The MPX spec. would specify how these components interconnected--one could go so far as to include notebook variants of PCI or AGP (whereever PC Card devices couldn't fit the bill, such as video card upgrades--not sure but does Intel's new Mobile CPU/chipset architecture not touch on that?). Perhaps devices like keyboards and touchpads would use internal USB-based connections, and there would be a standard display connector and sizes (to correspond with a selection of standard laptop/notebook case sizes).
Mmmmmm... MPX would be nirvana, and as prices came down it couls supplant ATX and it's variants. Well, I suppose not TOTAL nirvana if having Apple iBook looks is really important to you. It wouldn't be UGLY, but an MPX form-factor laptop made from a mix of Taiwanese parts might very well be as sexy as the beige box in Dilbert's cubicle. HOWEVER, there is a big market out there for boring-but-practical, and I'm sure the uber-geek case-modders and companies like VooDoo would find ways to make cool cases within the constraints of a standard like "MPX"...
If I'm ignorant of something like this already in existence, please share info!
At last! (Score:2, Interesting)
I have long wanted a laptop, but don't neccisarily care for the screens out there, I don't like the weight, and I don't like people beeing able to see over my shoulder.
I've seen more and more LCD glasses being produced by companies for the whole "wearables" trend and while I like the glasses, the rest of the wearables concept still needs alot of work. If I could find a compatible set of glasses that could plug into the VGA out port on one of these "barebones" laptops that would be great for it. I couldn't get to the site so I assume it doesnt come with a mobo either? The post was kindy vague on that (most barebones PC's come with a mobo but none of the other stuffs). Hmmm, and I know you can get mobile CPU's on pricewatch rather easily.
This is quite interesting. Now if only the site would come back
Re:Wear & tear is the beauty in this concept (Score:2, Interesting)
I've thought about building a very small form factor desktop and using it, but there are times when the laptop really is the best. There just isn't a desktop form factor that's small enough. I would like to see a case that's just big enough for the motherboard and nothing else (use a nForce board and that's all you need) along with some sort of portable power supply that runs off batteries. Desktop LCD's are freaking huge too. I haven't figured that one out yet. I mean right now I'm looking at a beautiful Dell 1600x1200 laptop LCD but you can't find anything as thin, small, and resolution in a desktop model. They just don't exist and I don't know why.
processor inconsistencies (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess the thing that bugs me most (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Interesting, but (Score:3, Interesting)
Whan I say assemble I mean what a poster says I mean by build. You can go into Best Buy and purchase a HD, a motherboard, a case, memory, etc. and then you put it all togeher, kit wise. No biggy. If'in I'm under the gun I can do that in under 15 minutes these days from the starting gun to popping in the OS install CD. I know people who can do it in under 10, but I'm not as driven to impress as they are. That is not building a computer. That is assembling one, and Best Buy will not sell you a raw laptop display screen because that isn't something assemblers buy.
No, by build I don't mean buying gold and raw silicon, but I do mean buying *individual* memory chips, a blank board, acid etching your own traces, soldering the chips to the board. . . and then putting it aside, because you haven't built your motherboard in similar fashion yet.
Yes, there are people who do things this way. Who *build* their own board, of their own design. Purchasing the individual chips and discrete componants and then soldering them together. Usually to make a special purpose computer or sound device, or a PC expansion card that performs some nonstandard function.
This is how the first Apple computers were *built.* This is how Sinclair worked in the design phase. This is how many expansion card manufacturers first got a handle on the business while making neat things in the garage.
And there are stores that cater to these people. Radio Shack used to be one of these stores. Now they sell little plactic helmets with swirling lights on top and model Trans Ams that tumble across the floor.
But in many a fair sized town, tucked down some back alley, there is a little shop that most people don't know about, and if you go in their front door you wont see a little plastic helmet anywhere.
You WILL see a display of oscillicopes to the ceiling. Soldering stations. Raw, unetched general purpose circuit boards and PC expansion cards. Thousands of individual chips. Wire of all possible description. Resistors. Capacitors. Trasistors.Breadboards. Etc.
All that stuff that can be used to *make* something, rather than just assemble it by plugging pre made things together.
This sort of shop will also sell you a display for a laptop. They're used for things other than laptops.
Like the display on a custom programable audio synthesizer.
Yes, people still hand craft those too.
Some people are funny and don't just go to K-Mart for everything.
Go figure.
I build most of my own furniture, rather than purchasing premade or *assembling* the stuff that comes out of the box from Home Depot or BJ's. Usually that means a trip to the lumber yard, but yes, *sometimes* that even means going out to my wood lot and cutting down a tree and making my own boards.
Try it. It's fun as all hell. You can buy an attachment for your chainsaw that lets you rough cut your own boards without an expensive mill. After seasoning you run them through your power planer, or even maybe scrape them by hand, depending on what you're building.
But I'm not so pedantic as to imply that to "build" a computer you need a chem lab to make your own raw expoxy from chemicals you extracted from sea water and scraped off your forehead.
That would be silly.
KFG