Most people just want a laptop for word processing and surfing the web, but I'm still waiting for the one that will give me the mobile gaming power that I lust for.
I know that some may think the combination of power and mobility doesn't always work, but it's just a matter of striking the right balance.
I've been keeping my eye on laptops waiting (probably foolishly) for that perfect laptop to come my way. I know – I'll probably be waiting forever, but in my searching I've always pondered whether we will ever reach the stage where we will have a truly upgradeable laptop from the motherboard up.
As much as we would all like that to happen, the major problem is the laptop shell. The lack of standardisation in the design of laptops means that, unlike desktop PCs where you can easily buy a new case to suit your components, it makes it a lot harder for laptops to reach the same upgradeability.
It's not all totally bad news. It's refreshing to see that there has been some progress made with mobile processors becoming more commonplace, and even Intel acknowledging the influence of the mobile gamer/enthusiast with its release of Extreme Edition mobile processors. Whether they will find their place in the market is another thing – you need to have a compatible laptop with the BIOS support for it, and then you'd need some impressive cooling so that the laptop doesn't overheat.
Mobile graphics also seems to be another area where upgradeable advancements are being made with NVIDIA's MXM (Mobile PCI-Express Module) upgradeable graphics. ATI (before the AMD takeover) had also released its own version known as Axiom, although it seems to have been buried since the takeover. The only problem with the MXM is that it's almost impossible to find modules to upgrade to in the market. This kinda defeats the purpose of it being featured in the laptop in the first place.
The closest we've come so far to an upgradeable laptop was the modular ASUS C90, which was the world's first upgradeable laptop. Although it is starting to look a bit dated in terms of chipset, which is one aspect of the C90 that you can’t upgrade. We’ll probably not see a C90 successor anytime soon, but ASUS should get points for at least giving it a go. As for me, I guess I'll continue waiting and watching.