Laptop Upgrading

[Tosh McCaber]

I have a Sony Vaio 60 Gb, with 520mb Memory, which is not bad, but a bit slow. Should I wish in future to boost performance and speed,are laptops economically upgradeable?

How easy is to upgrade a laptop, or to have it upgraded?

[CBA_caption]

It's simple. You just go to the shop an buy a new one!

Sorry. You may be able to put in a larger HD, but then you'll have to sort out all your software, not to mention rip your machine apart. Memory will be easier to upgrade, but Sony are usually non-standard and cost a bomb. Mine did, fortunately the A series died just before the memory arrived and thats why I'd recomend eeking your current one out. My VAIO A series blew it's main board for no reason. Not fixable and 2 months out of warranty (try getting anyone to help at sony - I digress).

Better just to live with it and buy a new one down the line in my opinion.

CBA

[Saab Dastard]

CBA is spot-on, the only feasible upgrades for a laptop are HD and RAM.

I did once manage to upgrade the CPU on a Toshiba laptop (486 SX 25 to a DX 50), but it really isn't feasible any more.

Having said that, if you are running Win2K you might find Win XP a bit quicker - certainly in loading and shutting down. It's also much better at supporting wireless. And if you are running Win 9X...

[Tinstaafl]

Depends somewhat on the brand of laptop. Many model series use interchangeable parts so the manufacturer can offer a range of specs using the same basic chassis.
*IF* you can get the desired parts then some amount of upgrading might be possible. Ebay can be a good source for parts.
My laptop is a Toshiba with this model offered in a range of options & specs:
RAM & HD of course, plus
Processor speeds from 1.6 - 2.0 GHz
Wifi
Bluetooth
Ethernet
XGA, SXGA & UXGA screens
a couple graphics processor options
standard touchpad or the enhanced 'Cpad' (combines an LCD screen with a touchpad to give additional functionality)
DVD, CD-ROM, DVD/CD-RW combo
Any or all of these can be upgraded in this model *IF* you can get the parts.
NB: My wife's laptop is the same as mine so when a few bits started failing or were broken when I trod on mine one dark morning pre-flight (my beautiful 1600x1200 screen! sob..) I bought one for parts off Ebay & repaired both machines. I already had a CD I bought a couple of years ago containing Toshiba's field disassembly & part replacement manuals.