Upgrading Your Laptop

Most people think laptops are better because they are smaller and take up less space. This is certainly a selling feature of a laptop but there are limitations to laptops of which you should be aware.

Firstly, laptops are meant to be portable, not durable. Meaning, of course, they cannot take much in the way of punishment. If you drop it, there's a good chance it's toast.

Secondly, laptops are not very upgradeable. About the only things you can upgrade in a laptop is the hard drive and the RAM. You will not be upgrading the CPU or the video card.

In my line of work where I repair a lot of computers, a laptop really does me no good. I can't hook up someone else's drive to my laptop, I can not test their RAM or back up their data. But for someone who is on the go all the time and they need their computer, a laptop is awesome!

If you are going to attempt to upgrade either the RAM or the hard drive in your laptop, always remember to remove all sources of power so you don't accidently short anything out. Remove the battery and unplug the laptop before upgrading anything. It doesn't take much to render a stick of RAM inoperable with a static charge. Try to be standing on cement floor or wear a wrist strap and have it attached to ground.