Laptop Design For Disassembly 188
retroworks writes "Stanford and Finland are cooperating on a project to make a 'modular' laptop which can be more easily disassembled and upgraded, and eventually recycled. Video presentation by smarterplanet.com is a sober answer to the Jaime Guittierez 'Clean the Fan' video."
Manufacturers don't want it (Score:5, Insightful)
Good luck with that.
Laptop manufacturers (yes, all of them) want to make disposable machines. Not only is it cheaper to make them that way, it encourages users to buy new rather than upgrade.
In the past, computer makers had to cater to the geek market, and the geeks wanted to be able to tinker. Although the Slashdot crowd refuses to accept it, the geek market is tiny relative to the mass market.
Re:Manufacturers don't want it (Score:5, Insightful)
A more-important factor than disposable is "small".
It's hard to squeeze all those functions in a notebook-sized chassis unless you use every millimeter of space. Modular designs like Desktop PCs or PC/104 waste precious space.
Why naming it Finland? (Score:4, Insightful)
Reading TFA it quite clearly says "Students from Stanford and Finland's Aalto University", so a much more proper way to say it would've been "Stanford and Aalto University of Finland". (since most of the readers have probably never even heard of Aalto University) How would the summary of "Aalto and United States cooperate on project to..." sound?
Re:Manufacturers don't want it (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck with that.
Laptop manufacturers (yes, all of them) want to make disposable machines. Not only is it cheaper to make them that way, it encourages users to buy new rather than upgrade.
In the past, computer makers had to cater to the geek market, and the geeks wanted to be able to tinker. Although the Slashdot crowd refuses to accept it, the geek market is tiny relative to the mass market.
You must mistake the laptop market with the Apple market, and users by Apple-customers.
Almost all laptop users understand that they at some point would want a bigger harddrive, but don't necessarily need a new screen. And that would actually convince people to upgrade some hardware while they would never buy a new laptop (not yet), which means some people will see a business-model in this idea.
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Insightful)
The totally separable keyboard concept alone was really cool. If there was a laptop out there using that, Id buy.
No its not. Just buy a wireless keyboard. The fact of the matter is, the only things that a consumer can't replace in a laptop is the screen, CPU and mainboard. I mean easily. The harddrive and ram are easily replaceable by anyone who cares to. This is basically just a feel good video of a trio of college students who don't understand the market well enough to make something useful.
Apple, really? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know Mac is a magic word and answer to world peace and all. And the song is cute.
But really, do they have a clue? Did the guy try to open up a Macbook? It's worse than his HP. The official Apple answer to cleaning the fan is to buy a new computer :)
Re:Hmm... (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact of the matter is, the only things that a consumer can't replace in a laptop is the screen, CPU and mainboard.
And the battery. And the keyboard. And the optical drive...
Sure, for these you can still get a spare part. At least as long as it's new and not too obscure. That's different from being able to replace it with something new and different, though. I think this sounds like a fantastic idea. Cheaper, more flexible hardware. If somebody would force it down the manufacturers' throats I would be happy. :)