Details of Laptops

Parts of Laptops

Latitude

• Most modern laptops feature 12 inch (30.5 cm) or larger active matrix displays with resolutions of 1024×768-pixels and above, and have a PC Card (formerly PCMCIA) or ExpressCard expansion bay for expansion cards. Internal hard disks are physically smaller –2.5 inch (6.25 cm)– compared to the standard desktop 3.5 inch (9 cm) drive, and usually have lower performance and power consumption. Video and sound chips are usually integrated. This tends to limit the use of laptops for gaming and entertainment, two fields which have constantly escalating hardware demands.^{[citation needed]} However, higher end laptops can come with dedicated graphics processors, such as the Dell Inspiron E1505 and E1705, which can be bought with an ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 or similar. These mobile graphics processors tend to have less performance than their desktop counterparts, but this is because they have been optimized for lower power usage.
• There is a wide range of laptop specific processors available from Intel (Pentium M, Celeron, Intel Core and Intel Core 2) and from AMD (Athlon, Turion 64, and Sempron) and also from VIA (C3 and C7-M). Motorola and IBM developed and manufactured the chips for the former PowerPC-based Apple laptops (iBook and PowerBook). Generally, laptop processors are less powerful than their desktop counterparts, due to the need to save energy and reduce heat dissipation. However, the PowerPC G3 and G4 processor generations were able to offer almost the same performance as their desktop versions, limited mostly by other factors, such as the system bus bandwidth; recently, though, with the introduction of the G5s, they have been far outstripped. At one point, the Pismo G3, at up to 500 MHz, was faster than the fastest desktop G3 (then the B&W G3), which ran at 450 MHz.

Some parts for a modern laptop have no corresponding part in a desktop computer:

• Current models use lithium ion and more recently lithium polymer batteries, which have largely replaced the older nickel metal-hydride technology. Typical battery life for most laptops is two to five hours with light-duty use, but may drop to as little as one hour with intensive use. Batteries gradually deteriorate over time and eventually need to be replaced in one to five years, depending on the charging and discharging pattern.

A memory chip removed from a high-performance Alienware laptop

• Docking stations became common laptop accessories in the early 1990s. They typically were quite large and offered 3.5" and 5.25" storage bays, one to three expansion slots (typically AT style), and a host of connectors. The mating between the laptop and docking station was typically through a large, high-speed, proprietary connector. The most common use was in a corporate computing environment where the company had standardized on a common network card and this same card was placed into the docking station. These stations were very large and quite expensive. As the need to additional storage and expansion slots became less critical because of the high integration inside the laptop itself, the emergence of the Port Replicator as a major accessory commenced. The Port Replicator was often a passive device that simply mated to the connectors on the back of the notebook and allowed the user to quickly connect their laptop so VGA, PS/2, RS-232, etc. devices were instantly attached. As higher speed ports like USB and Firewire became commonplace, the Port Replication was accomplished by a small cable connected to one of the USB 2.0 or FireWire ports on the notebooks. Wireless Port Replicators followed.
• Virtually all laptops can be powered from an external AC converter. This device typically adds half a kilogram (1 lb) to the overall "transport weight" of the equipment.
• A pointing stick or touchpad is used to control the position of the cursor on the screen. The pointing stick is usually a rubber dot that is located between the G, H and B keys on the laptop keyboard. To navigate the cursor, pressure is applied in the direction intended to move. The touchpad is touch-sensitive and the cursor can be navigated by moving the finger on the pad.

Intel, Asus, Compal, Quanta and other laptop manufacturers have created Common Building Block standard for laptop parts.

Disadvantages

1..Standardization issues

While there are accepted world standards of form factors for all the peripherals and add-in PC cards used in the desktop computers, there are still no firm worldwide standards relating to today's laptops' form factors internally, such as supply of electric voltage, motherboard layouts, internal adapters used in connecting the hard disk, optical drive, LCD cable, keyboard and floppy drive to the main board. Most affected by this are uneducated users, especially if they attempt to connect their laptops with incompatible hardware or power adapters.

Laptops are more complex than simple-to-use consumer electronics. A large number of different parts with similar functions may cause some difficulties to repair technicians, as they have to familiarize themselves with different sets of hardware, but this is part of the job in a specialized trade.

2..Compatibility issues

Any current compatibility problems in the laptop trade are reflective of the early era of personal computers, when there were many different manufacturers, each and every one of them having their own systems and incompatibility was more a norm.

Some mostly internal or proprietary parts made by laptop producers aren't interchangeable with other manufacturers' products, so that the same manufacturer's components are used with the laptop they produced. Some of the reasons for this are to ensure product stability, prolong product lifetime, to avoid dubious warranty issues and to protect computer beginners from harming their machines.

A significant point to note is that the vast majority of laptops on the market are manufactured by a small handful of ODMs. The ODM matters more than the OEM. Major relationships include:

• Quanta sells to (among others) HP/Compaq, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, NEC, Gateway and IBM - note that Quanta is currently (as of August, 2007) the largest manufacturer of notebook computers in the world
• Compal sells to Toshiba, HP/Compaq, Acer, and Dell
• Wistron sells to HP/Compaq, Dell, IBM, NEC, and Acer
• Arima sells to HP/Compaq, NEC, and Dell
• Uniwill/ECS sells to IBM, Fujitsu, and Dell
• Asus sells to Apple (iBook), Sony, and Samsung
• Inventec sells to HP/Compaq, Toshiba, and BenQ

To compensate, some manufacturers have and have had product lines where they have refrained from including some internal hardware in their products by adding in the number of standard hardware outlets and ports, thereby letting users choose their own hardware that they can connect.

In terms of hardware components standardization, PCMCIA/CardBus has proved to be a rather enduring standard. Older laptops lacking a USB port can have a PCMCIA USB/FireWire adapter plugged in. Modern adapters have two to four USB ports or they can be USB/Firewire combo adapters. Thus, such compatibility problems with getting hardware and peripherals connected has nowadays become a non-issue.