Thanks, IgorFrankensteen. I hadn't considered that. I typically assume most people have a laptop similar to my Toshiba Satellite. I can upgrade both the RAM and hard drive in it. But you are correct to point out the smaller "netbook" and "ultrabook" machines which often don't allow for easy RAM, CPU or hard drive upgrades. I'd strongly recommend avoiding those at all costs unless you (A) can't afford anything more than that and/or (B) absolutely MUST have a computer that small.

if I was buying it the first thing I would look for is the one which works I would not want to buy one that is good looking and not work you know what I mean?? maybe I can teach you to be a sharp smart shopper if you need moore help no problem come and lay the questions on me!

I have a question. How can I be a sharp smart shopper, too?

Okay, this is the second time tonight I'm posting about Dell but I'm really excited about their latest XPS laptops. The XPS 15 has ultrabook proportions, while having a fully modular interior with easily replaced batteries, ram, harddrive, etc.

As far as I know, they are the only computer to produce such a powerful, modern machine in an ultrabook profile and STILL keep all of those components replaceable.

Buy the second one.

Check Ebay.

Get a refurbished 'Mac book' 2009 model If you want, use Bootcamp to partition the hard drive to accommodate Windows 10 or any windows of your choice. and save a couple hundred bucks.

Either your chosen system is an outlier or Dell does things a bit differently than HP, which is the brand that I know more about. Interesting that your XPS 15 is, in fact, designed such that you can upgrade/replace RAM, hard drive and battery with ease. The little HP laptops my mom and sister have lack any such panels that most other systems have to allow easy replacement or upgrade of the main innards. This fact obviously suggests that these machines would have to be completely torn apart to get at the RAM, hard drive and battery assembly. I confess that I don't know every system out there and my experience with Dell computers is almost nonexistent beyond using the old computers at the library. My first laptop was an HP Compaq system and it had an easily replaceable battery pack, hard drive and memory. And it was not an ultrabook, but a 15" class full laptop system. My present Toshiba Satellite is much the same, just larger at 17 inches. That's what my suggested "advice" was based on.

I do apologize if I caused any confusion or gave any misinformation.

I have been happy with HP. Their warrant work sold me. My $1200 laptop was overheating and I only had 2 weeks left on my warranty. I called them on Friday and they tried a few things and said I needed to send it to cali. This was on a Friday. On Monday a laptop shipping box was delivered to my door by Fed Ex. on Tues they picked picked it up at my door shipped it 2000 miles. sent me a web tracking address to see where it was and the progress on my repair work. on Friday it was delivered to my door with 90 more days of warranty. they replaced like 5 things even the keyboard which I did not know was having problems. they sold me on their customer service.

AMD is by no means crap.. In reality, those 2 processors are very similar. However, I personally like the Intel processor better because it seems to do better with single threaded performance.. If you do much gaming, this is important. Not that I game, but I am a computer programmer and so try to think through issues that may affect my end users.
Hope this helps.

Yes, exactly. The purpose of my post was to promote this amazing exception to the general rule, which you were correctly commenting on. Most ultrabooks (and too many regular size laptops for that matter) sacrifice the ability to do future upgrades. Macs are some of the worst.

These days, it seems like most consumers value either 'thin and light' or 'cheap' so much, they are willing to buy a laptop with a reduced lifespan.

The Dell XPS 15 is an outlier, in several excellent and exciting ways, including the fact that they have achieved an ultrabook profile while keeping a large screen and replaceable components.

You can check this one out....!!!

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Inspiron-5537-4-Gen-Intel-I5-4200U-1-6GHZ-8GB-1TB-15-6in-Windows-8-1-Merlot-/151972350405?hash=item23624209c5:g:VWkAAOSwYGFU0AY9

If one is looking for durability and a long life...then nothing like having the MacBook....since it has no vents anywhere in the laptop, still scratching my head ...how the heat is dissipated...!!!

UGH! Why would ANYBODY buy ANYTHING Apple?! Yes, you are absolutely spot-on about Macs being virtually non-upgradeable. The reason being that Apple holds a very tight grip on all parts and software for Macintosh-based systems. Even attempting to put Windows or any other OS other than MacOS X or iOS risks voiding the warranty, depending on how you do it. If you use BootCamp, no problemo. But, run "format C:/" and then install Windows by itself and the warranty goes bye-bye. Apple was (and to some extent still is) very much a closed-box brand. You can't just go to Best Buy and pick up some RAM or a replacement SSD for your MacBook Pro. Nope, you gotta get that straight from Apple, for a ludicrously high premium. And that's assuming you can even figure out how to get in the damn thing to see if the RAM or SSD is replaceable or not. At least with my Toshiba the RAM is all standard DDR2 SODIMMs and the hard drive is a standard 2.5" SATA laptop type that I can theoretically get anywhere.

Not only does this explain why Apple Mac parts are so much more expensive, but it also explains why there are no cheaper clones of Mac computers. The advice I used to get in school, and it's still valid today (maybe moreso than ever), is to not buy anything you can't upgrade or replace at least some part of.