Build your own laptop

Posted at: Tuesday 1st August 2006 by James Morris

James Morris shows you how to custom-build your own performance laptop without spending a fortune

Building your own desktop PC has become so easy that even your dad could do it, but laptops are still shrouded in mystery. The proprietary designs and itsy-bitsy components have very little standardisation. So, unlike desktops, which allow you to mix and match a wide variety of components, laptops usually only come with the options supplied by the manufacturer, which has made it pretty pointless to attempt a self-build.

Still, building a laptop using your own combination of components has just as much appeal as constructing a custom desktop. We all want our own-brand portable companion, and now manufacturers are starting to take note. Yes, at last, you can build your own laptop, and although laptop components are still more expensive than their desktop equivalents, the difference is now considerably less than it was previously.

In fact, we've managed to build one for less than £500, so virtually anyone can give it a try. We've also put together two pricier alternatives, one of which is squarely aimed at portable gaming. So, whatever your mobile needs may be, you can still build your own laptop.

Picking the carcass

Perform a search on Google for 'bare bones laptop', and you'd be forgiven for thinking that building your own laptop is an activity that everybody's partaking in these days. Dig a little deeper, however, and you'll find that a lot of these links are to distributors that don't sell to the general public, or resellers that are reluctant to cough up the goods when you express an interest. We contacted quite a few of them, only to be given the cold shoulder, or ignored completely.

Still, quite a few manufacturers make laptop carcasses. One of the most widely available and extensive ranges is from AOpen, under the BareBook and OpenBook model names. All of the versions on sale in Europe are Intel-oriented, and the majority of these sport the older Intel 855 chipset, which only supports a 400MHz FSB, DDR memory and AGP graphics. But many of AOpen's models are keenly priced, with some under £300. For example, the 1556GL is available from www.it247.com for £273.08, which would enable you to put together a decent laptop for as little as £450.

The 1559AS is the AOpen chassis of choice, though, as it uses the more recent Intel 915PM chipset with a 533MHz FSB, and has support for DDR2 memory and PCI-E graphics. This is also the only laptop bare bones case we know of that uses the removable MXM module for its graphics. However, the 1559AS will set you back a relatively pricey £460.41 (www.mediaatlantic.com), and we couldn't find it in stock anywhere. When we contacted AOpen, and asked if the company would like to participate in this feature, we were told that the company was pulling out of the bare bones laptop business to focus on mobile processors for the desktop. So there's a possibility that AOpen's bare bones laptops won't be available soon, although a few were still 'in the channel' when we wrote this feature.