Upgrading Your Laptop: a handy guide

Desktop computers are pretty customisable. You can change pretty much everything on a desktop, but you cannot say the same thing about a laptop. Or can you?

So let's see if you can upgrade a laptop's parts.

Can I upgrade my laptop's Processor?

TLDR; No

The quick answer is no. This is because in laptops the processor is soldered to the motherboard, unlike in a desktop where you can buy a processor and pop it into the socket.

On the left is a desktop processor, which can be easily swapped if you lift the hinge and on the right is a laptop processor soldered onto the motherboard

But times are changing and now we do have high-end laptops that provide swappable processors. Certain manufacturers Acer and Alienware have come up with laptops where you can swap the processor. This is a great innovation from laptops who are striving to be as powerful and customisable as their desktop counterparts.

Can I upgrade my laptop's RAM?

TLDR; Yes

Most of the laptops do allow you to upgrade the RAM, but some manufacturers like Apple and other systems have their RAM soldered to the motherboard. If that is the case, then you cannot upgrade.

RAM is one of the most upgraded parts of a laptop. You can easily upgrade and find them for cheap on the market. We have a really handy guide on the types of RAMs and how to find the best one and suggestions for a few.

Can I upgrade my laptop's storage?

TLDR; Yes

I love this question because there are two ways by which you can upgrade the storage. One is to convert your old rotating disk storage with static storage (HDD to SSD) and the second one is to increase the size.

For this question also, if the storage unit is soldered to the motherboard, then there is very little you can do.

A traditional hard disk with a platter cut view

So a question which you might have at this point is why on earth would someone solder all these things to the motherboard? The answer to this is, laptops are tiny and you have to cramp a lot into these tiny spaces. This causes the need to solder them to the motherboard so they don't need complicated mechanical parts such as hinges as well as helps in heat dissipation.

Can I upgrade my laptop's display?

TLDR; No

A small monitor and then multiple large monitors to make the display as slick as you want

But then you can always attach an external display to the laptop which suits your need and then you have a bigger, better display. The problem with this display is that you cannot carry it wherever you want. You'll have to put it in one place.