This email came from Frank Hauptle and I thought it was worthy of our members attention:
Laptops have always been about compromise, right back from when they were essentially a small tower case with a monitor bolted on, we have had to settle for less CPU speed, less hard drive space and lesser performing video options. And that was accepted by all as necessary because back then the technology could not do any better.
Now days this is no longer the case. Improvements in shrinking and adapting technology have for the first time allowed the release of laptops with performance comparable to desktop machines. (Sager being an example that springs to mind.)
The question is, why are the big names not offering us the option to upgrade the video cards of our recent laptops? We can already upgrade the hard drive, the ram and in some cases the CPU, so why not the video card as well?
The Desktop upgrade revolution started because people decided that buying a new computer just to get the latest video card (or whatever) was silly and just getting the card itself should be enough. Is this any different then how those of us with laptops that around a year old feel?
To that end, we have started a petition to Dell Inc, that they consider offering upgraded video card options (like the m10 9600) for current and recent Dell laptops. (like the 8xxx and 5xxx series Inspirons). Dell already have a modular construction and the instructions for removing / replacing the video cards are already available on Dells site. so why not give us something to increase the value of our considerable investment?
The petition can be found at
http://www.petitiononline.com/inspiron/petition.html and while this one is targeted specifically at Dell, you can be sure that if Dell start offering us upgrades, the other big names would surely follow or lose market share as a result.
So if you had/have/will have a laptop computer, and you'd like the option of extending its life beyond the brief period when its video card is the latest, then help us let the manufacturers know that we deserve the same consideration given to our desktop brothers.
ATI has paved the way by producing the Flexfit architecture whereby their current and recent mobility chipsets are pin compatable with each other, have basically the same voltage requirements and share the same driver. All that is remains, is to convince the big OEM/OEDs to actually make use of the technology.
Frank Hauptle
