Standardized Casing

One thing that I wish was standardized on laptops is the casing. If the casing was a industry standard we would see it have open ended possibilities with interchangeable parts and customization. If your dvd drive goes bad I can easily replace it with left over parts stored in my closet or by a cheap drive at any computer store. Most laptops has specific models that you need to order through manufacturer, and I find that nauseating.

That's why I love desktops. I can change out parts on the fly from older computer or parts that I have laying around. With laptops, you don't have that. The new "S" model came out last week so everything else is now obsolete.

 

Well could you just imagine how much money we could have all saved over our lifetimes if we did not have to order all those specific things that frustrate us all? If only, and in a perfect world maybe, but we all that it is just not the case. They will try to squeeze you for every last dime they can get with all of that, but that is just the name of the game so I cannot fault anyone there. There are some brands out there that specialize in trying to make as universal things as possible, and I do appreciate those companies.

 

The whole laptop buying world is fascinated with trying to get these things smaller. That just leads to over heating issues. So far I have gone through 4 or 5 laptops in my time over the course of 7 years. Either through crashes or updated hardware. Theoretically, if my idea saw the light of day back then, I could still be using the same case and just updated or replaced the guts of the system. I'm sure I could fit a Linux raspberry pi in a small form factor and run it off a off the shelf battery. That would save everyone hundreds of dollars over the course of the next couple of years.

 

Proprietary adapters and non-universal hardware is one of the big issues of all portable devices. Governments have pretty much forced smartphone manufacturers to adopt universal chargers, but unfortunately that wasn't really adopted by the traditional computing businesses.

Speaking of smartphones again, I really love the idea of Project Ara.