One thing hardware enthusiasts love is customizability. We want our computers to be different, to stand out from the crowd of boring OEM boxes, and to be personal. We love customizing our computers so much that many of us spend days, weeks, months and even years customizing and polishing our own rigs. Hardware manufacturers have not been blind to this phenomenon and they have since turned our desires into big business.
All of this is possible thanks to industry standardization of just about every component found in a Desktop PC. Extensive standardization has made it possible to take the latest and greatest hardware right off the shelf and stick it into a chassis that's nearly a decade old, and everything will still fit. Got a PCI expansion card laying around? You can throw it in just about any computer with a free PCI slot and more often than not, it will work. Getting tired of poor performance from your vintage video card? Just swap it out with a newer, more powerful model. Even the screws that hold our hard drives in place and prevent the side panels from falling off are interchangeable between different cases.
Desktop PC owners have enjoyed this level of flexibility for years and a migration to a Notebook platform quickly reminds us how we have taken this all for granted. Consumers are starting to demand the same level of flexibility that they enjoy with Desktop PCs on their Laptops. The large value-added resellers like Dell, HP and Sony have heard our cries and have begun offering more options on their products, but it's still not enough for many people. Bare-bones laptops, coined "Whitebooks", appeared on the scene promising to offer the same level of upgradeability and customization enjoyed by desktop barebones PCs.
All of this is possible thanks to industry standardization of just about every component found in a Desktop PC. Extensive standardization has made it possible to take the latest and greatest hardware right off the shelf and stick it into a chassis that's nearly a decade old, and everything will still fit. Got a PCI expansion card laying around? You can throw it in just about any computer with a free PCI slot and more often than not, it will work. Getting tired of poor performance from your vintage video card? Just swap it out with a newer, more powerful model. Even the screws that hold our hard drives in place and prevent the side panels from falling off are interchangeable between different cases.
Desktop PC owners have enjoyed this level of flexibility for years and a migration to a Notebook platform quickly reminds us how we have taken this all for granted. Consumers are starting to demand the same level of flexibility that they enjoy with Desktop PCs on their Laptops. The large value-added resellers like Dell, HP and Sony have heard our cries and have begun offering more options on their products, but it's still not enough for many people. Bare-bones laptops, coined "Whitebooks", appeared on the scene promising to offer the same level of upgradeability and customization enjoyed by desktop barebones PCs.
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