Introduction

Okay, you have made your decision. You have decided to buy a top-of-the-line, high performance yet light notebook.

We have come a long way with notebooks. A few years back, no real gamer would even "think" about buying a notebook. But now with mobile versions of NVIDIA's GeForce FX and ATI's Radeon GPUs, you can finally own a notebook that allows you to get a good frag or two as well as get your college homework done!

But eventually, you will realize that you need more memory, more storage space, better sound... However, as everyone knows, notebook upgrades are incredibly expensive, especially since the upgrades are proprietary. Or are they?

To disprove that, I decided to write this little notebook upgrade guide to show that you are no longer at the mercy of your notebook's manufacturer. You can upgrade your notebook without involving your notebook manufacturer. This guide is also proof that USB 2.0 is your BEST FRIEND!

So, please make sure you get a notebook that comes with USB 2.0 ports! DO NOT COMPROMISE! Because you'll WANT that speed!

First of all, please let me introduce my Tablet PC - the Acer C110. It comes with a 900MHz Pentium 3 processor, 512MB of memory and a 30GB hard disk. Unfortunately, it only came with integrated graphics circuitry in the form of Intel's Extreme Graphics. Definitely no gaming on this notebook!

First Of All

Before you do anything else, you might want to think of investing in a USB 2.0 hub because notebooks usually come with only one or two USB ports and you WILL need more! I recommend buying a powered USB hub, which basically means the hub comes with an AC/DC adapter that supplies additional power to the hub if the devices attached to it requires the power (i.e. cameras, hard disks, massagers, cup warmers, etc. etc.).