How difficult is it to manufacture a laptop and sell it online? Maybe through kickstarter then an independent website?
What I'm thinking of making: >Intel atom processor, z8300 or newer >4GB ram >13.3 inch 1600x900, or 1920x1080 resolution >64GB eMMC memory, one sata port for expanding that, and a micro sd slot >65 watt-hour battery
What does Sup Forums think?
If you want to suggest any changes, please bear in mind that I'm hoping to keep the price down and sell it as a budget machine.
If it was easy chinks would be all over it. Instead what we have is just one prototype from xiomi and nothing else
Jayden Cruz
Goal is pretty much a general use laptop with insane battery life. Something that'll put the macbook and it's battery life to shame.
But the xiaomi one is more performance orientated, isn't it?
Wyatt Wood
How many laptops have you disassembled / reassembled?
Adrian Martinez
China is already doing that at much cheaper prices then you could I imagine.
Im posting from one I imported right now with similar specs
>z8300 >4GB ram >10.1" 1920x1200IPS >64GB emmc >microSD expansion >USBC, Micro USB, MiniHDMI out >6600 mAH
Dual boots win10 and lollipop was 170$ at the time, if you can do the same for less I am definitely interested.
Elijah Collins
>Something that'll put the macbook and it's battery life to shame every other battery already does that
Tyler Martin
for reference this is a tablet w/ keyboard, but china is cranking these things out like mad
Ayden Parker
If you had any chance of doing it you'd already know how hard it is. Start off by making your own arduino clone with extras in eagle or something.
Christian Thompson
>Something that'll put the macbook and it's battery life to shame. So, an X series ThinkPad?
Jaxon Wood
You might end up having to make your own parts to compact the laptop unless you want to have something big and bulky.
Christopher Roberts
Lots actually, my family owns a pc repair shop and I've been involved with helping them out since ~2002
Well the one I'm hoping for build will have a bigger battery. Your battery would only be ~20w assuming it's your standard 3.7v lipo. Imagine more than 3x the capacity.
Also lots of people still don't know about, or are uncomfortable buying directly from China.
That's nice.
X series is still a little clunky and thick for what I was hoping for. No offense to the thinkpad, it's still a great value machine.
That's what has me worried. Where do I begin? I'm no engineer...
Could I maybe design my idea, model the laptop on my pc, and then sell it to HP or Dell or someone? I would love to see these on the market
Jaxon Young
>Lots actually, my family owns a pc repair shop and I've been involved with helping them out since ~2002
So you should be familiar with the fact that some of the parts in these laptops aren't exactly modular. Most motherboards are custom built for each machine. Have you thought about how you're going to deal with that? What about the case the parts go in?
Jonathan Bell
That's part of what I'm trying to figure out. I have the idea what specs I want, I know how it's going to look, I just don't know how to make it and sell it.
It's also why I'm expecting startup costs to be quite high since it'll need its own supply line instead of using pre-made parts
Julian Phillips
>I'm just the ideas guy guys! Don't jump on my case because you don't know how to just make it and sell it
Aiden Walker
Hate to piss on your bonfire, but even if you could find some manufacturing company to build you a custom motherboard, purchasing them in low quantities for something like this is going to cost you. I'm talking potentially $100-$150 per board. Factor in the other parts (that you also probably aren't buying in bulk), and you're looking at maybe $400-$500 for the cost of the parts alone, then you've got to 3D print a case or get another company to do that for you, and there's the labor for assembling this together. I don't see you making a profit on this.
Matthew Lewis
I know. That's why I was hoping to maybe increase popularity through kickstarter and increase demand.
This is a doomed project, isn't it?
(:
Aiden Green
Not doomed, just different than how you imagined it. It's still possible, although you may want to be a bit more realistic about actually selling these and making a profit.
Perhaps you can take a different approach, and sell a DIY laptop kit. It might come with a raspberry pi, small keyboard, small LCD, power supply, and 3D printed case. Everything but the case you can buy on Amazon, and there are websites that will 3D print stuff for you if you don't want to invest in one.
William Torres
Well I did have an idea of a laptop with a large powerbank inside that you could slide your phone in and use your phone as the laptop.
Some chinese company most likely already beat you to it and sold millions of them already.
Jaxson Walker
>How difficult is it to manufacture a laptop and sell it online? Maybe through kickstarter then an independent website? Incredibly. This is why not everybody and their mother does it. You've got an idea. Great. This is step 1 of the next billion to bring a product to market.
You still need to: sketch out a rough physical design and rough electrical design hire a team to layout the prototype PCB's electrical and logic hire a team to layout the prototype's physical envelope find a company that can produce the multi-layer PCB design your team laid-out as a small lot find a company to 3D Print the physical form repeat the above about 100x times as problems are discovered, solved, design is improved, and another prototype needs to be produced at hundreds->thousands of dollars per one-off board after a certain revision, you need to hire a team to begin simplifying the designs for scaled production and a team to source components you won't be producing such as screens, keyboards, microswitches, flat-flex cables of specific lengths and varieties that your industrial design team finalizes, hard drives, capacitors, ICs, shielding, plastics, screws, rubber grommets and more for the best price-points, negotiating pricings when buying in lots, and more oh, and team to coordinate the actual production in China/Korea/Brazil/Mexico/US/Europe Where ever you choose to actually produce and assemble the machine at This is all before regulatory bullshit, testing, QC, production losses, shipping, package design, thermal design, and much more.
Tl;DR: You're basically looking at starting an electronics company from scratch, and you're not going into custom production without several million dollars invested first. Source: Industrial Production Manager for a local company that designs and produces assembly line conveyor belt systems for factories. We roll our own industrial PCs/Controllers and have a building just for the team that handles and coordinates the PCs/Controllers
Ian Wood
Literally your best bet is to go to a Chinese OEM, tell them what you want, let them name a price to produce how ever many thousands of these machines, and start a company to sell what some chink factory designed and cranked out for you. Likely with it being rebranded and resold by 20 other companies at half the price you're asking.
