The 20-year reign of sealed, proprietary notebooks is nearly over. Today's mobile PCs are well on their way to becoming almost as upgradable as desktop PCs. You can now swap out everything from the memory to the CPU and, in some cases, even the graphics card—pretty much everything under the keyboard, other than the motherboard. Not all notebook lines are equally upgrade-friendly, though, and most vendors still resist articles encouraging readers to grab their screwdrivers and muck around inside their notebooks. We're not sure whether they're worried about accidental hardware damage or lost service revenue. In general, you'll have an easier time working on a second-tier brand or a "whitebook" because the internal components in these models are usually easier to reach and replace.
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