Tuesday 9th October 2007

Scan launches build your own laptop barebone kits

Posted at: 2:13am 9th October 2007 by Ben Hardwidge

Your choice of CPU, memory, hard drive and optical drive, all in a pretty laptop chassis

You might be able to tweak and customise your desktop PC like a big Lego kit, but the spec of your laptop is still generally dictated by the Dells and Apples of this world. Thankfully, the guys at Scan
have taken note of the growing demand for customisable laptops and released a series of build-your-own laptop barebone kits.

Scan’s retail sales manager, Chris Padidar, told Custom PC that the ‘brand new barebone Isotope laptops are aimed at the mid range home user,’ and also said that they were ‘suitable for the home gamer with the on board 256Mb GeForce Go 7400 graphics.’

Unfortunately, you can’t customise the graphics card yourself, which is a shame, as this is one area where laptop customisation is extremely lacking for gamers. However, you do have complete control over which Socket 478 CPU you install in the machine, as well as the memory, hard drive and optical drive. The kits also have a unique paintjob, which Scan is particularly pleased with. ‘They are sexy, slick and down right freaky,’ said Padidar, ‘you just have to love the unique designs and there’s one to suit everyone.’

The laptop kits cost £587.44, which buys you the 15in screen, chassis, battery, motherboard and all its integrated features, including a card reader. Laptop chassis barebone kits are readily available for system builders, but rarely released to the public. Back in Issue 35 (August 2006), we persuaded Savastore to supply barebone MSI laptop kits for Custom PC readers for a limited period, but they’ve since been removed from sale.

Would you be interested in building your own laptop from one of these chassis, or would you like more flexibility? Can a build-your-own laptop compete with a ready-made machine? Let us know your thoughts.

Thanks to Tom Harling for bringing this to our attention on the Custom PC forums.

More images for this article:

Scan Isotope laptop barebone

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Comments

what the hell ever happend to mxm boards??

Comment by MDK_UK at 11:11am 12th October 2007

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Might as well

go to Zepto or someone like that...at least they have the option of 8600GT graphics and you can still customise everything else...

Comment by smartwasp at 7:48am 10th October 2007

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I expect I'll replace my laptop in a year or two and I'd be really interested in this.

Comment by l3v1ck at 7:14pm 9th October 2007

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A what socket CPU?

I think that should be 479pins no? 478 was old school P4 :) Graphics are shocking though. Where's our MXM module so we can choose our own GFX?

Comment by Assassin8or at 6:51pm 9th October 2007

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Everything is perfect apart from tha GPU: a 8600m would be far better.

Comment by TomHarling at 6:08pm 9th October 2007

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Don't all Retailers who sell PCs have to by law offer an alternative OS? I know thats the case with Vista, companies have to offer an alternative (i.e. XP) by law.

Comment by Cerberus_xiii at 4:53pm 9th October 2007

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Graphics

‘suitable for the home gamer with the on board 256Mb GeForce Go 7400 graphics.’ Why can't we get an option of which graphics go in? 15" lappys can normally take up to a Mobile Geforce 8600...

Comment by PlasmaBomb at 3:04pm 9th October 2007

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a few flaws but it's progress...

until i can choose CPU, mobo, and GPU, i won't be getting one...but i certainly am looking forward to when we can custom build an entire laptop to spec... well i might get one just for kicks n giggles

Comment by sotu1 at 2:40pm 9th October 2007

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These have been there a while....

I was looking to get & build one for my siter a month ago :S

Comment by finlay666uk at 2:28pm 9th October 2007

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Lap it up!

I always preffer knowing exactly what is going into a computer, most 'custom builds' from suppliers don't actually specify everything. The icing on the cake would be if you could specify an OS as I would rather put Linux on it. About time laptops took this root.

Comment by Thorian at 2:26pm 9th October 2007

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