MacBook Pro: are they really worth it?

nick_scheu
Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:34:57 +0000

A huge reason why laptops are sold with bodies that make the inside parts inaccessible and the parts themselves unable to be overclocked is so they can sell these “upgraded” parts at a premium price to make more profit.



I’ll have to respectfully disagree with you there. How does one design a truly upgradable one inch thick laptop? A ZIF socket takes more space. Expansion slots take space. Even if you did, the upgrade options would be specific to a single model of laptop.

The only way to make a truly upgradable machine is to leave plenty of open space–This is the “beige box desktop” model that Dell, HP, and Apple’s Mac Pro use. Some people genuinely need this, but most don’t. For most, it makes more sense to get rid of as much of the computer as possible, and that’s where the iMac comes in for desktops, and laptops come in in general.

The real crime is when companies sell you a standard, beige box-style desktop that uses a proprietary power supply, or a motherboard with no expansion slots. They could have, but chose not to. There’s no excuse for that. There is an excuse for laptop manufacturers to not have their machines be upgradable.