Week 9

This week, we discussed the internet and portable/mobile computers. One of the assignments for this week was to come up with a scenario in which we had to find replacement parts for a laptop, and how to go about doing so.

What I want to talk about is the classic “Engineers vs Mechanics” debate. For those who are unfamiliar, mechanics (those who work on cars) are constantly cursing engineers for designing something in such a way that seems to only be created to give extra work to mechanics who must work on the stuff. Things such as putting a cross-member in the way of an oil drain plug so it creates an absolute mess if you don’t remove the cross member (unnecessary on a good majority of vehicles). Or using a bolt 4 inches longer than it needs to be, so you need to remove the entire engine to replace a pulley. Stuff like that.

That same principle transfers over to the laptop engineer/technician world. One of the laptops I’ve had in the past was an MSI GS65 Stealth Thin. The only thing on that laptop that was replaceable/upgradable by just removing the bottom cover was the wi-fi card, display, and battery. The RAM, and Storage are both upgradable, but they sit on the bottom of the motherboard, requiring you to remove the entire motherboard to get to them. This of course entails unscrewing a bunch of tiny screws, removing 7 ribbon connectors, and un-routing a bunch of taped down cables. That thing was a nightmare to work on.

Another laptop I’ve had in the past was an HP Pavillion G6. Where the GS65 Stealth was a nightmare, the Pavillion is a dream. The Pavillion had a removable battery that came out with just a slide lock mechanism, meaning you could easily just swap one out if it ran low. It had a small plastic plate held in place with 2 screws and plastic clips that gave you access to the RAM, HDD, and Wi-Fi card. That plastic panel also contains additional screws you could remove to replace the DVD drive, and keyboard. All of this could be done without removing the entire bottom panel of the laptop.

The keyboard on that laptop, by the way, was able to be replaced without taking out the motherboard, since it comes straight up, and doesn’t have a metal/plastic grid built into the chassis retaining it in place.

I think engineers these days are too focused on looks rather than usability/repairability and honestly, I would give looks up in a heartbeat to go back to better repairability.

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