We Opened Up These Supercharged Gaming Laptops To See Their Upgradeable Guts

Laptops haven’t been really upgradable in a while. Sure you could switch out the storage or memory on some, but as laptops have gotten thinner and thinner, even those components have become permanently a part of devices.

So it was a big deal when Alienware showed of the new Area-51m at CES.

Yes, it’s a 17 inch beast that starts at $3,999 and can go up past $5,999, but you can also upgrade the storage, memory, and even the CPU and GPU as time goes by.

But the Area-51m isn’t the only upgradeable laptop.

Late last year Origin, a Miami-based PC company made up of ex-Alienware employees, announced the Eon17-X. Like the Area-51m, this device can get real pricey, but you can also upgrade everything.

So I got curious to see what the insides of these devices look like and how hard is it to actually replace the components in them. And I was surprised! These two companies have taken very, very different approaches to the upgradable laptop.

So take a moment, watch the video above, and see for yourself just how different two fully upgradable 17 inch laptops can be.


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.