Laptop Parts?

[cfuk]

Hi all, i'm thinking of getting a laptop soon as i'm on my way to uni in sepmeber so i need something to do my work on. I have been looking at the price of laptop and they are like £700+ ($1300+). I don't really have that sort of money as my job doesn't pay much and i'm just starting out in designing sites (if you need a design let me know :) ). I was thinking about getting one that is a little older and getting some new parts for it. How easy would it be to get parts for a laptop? i mean like cpu's etc. I will be using the laptop for Word, web design tools and photoshop.

Thanks :)

[repo man11]

From what I've seen, laptops are not designed with upgrading in mind. I recently bought a used Toshiba with a K6-2 475. I've been able to upgrade it by swapping in a K6-2+ 450. But the BIOS doesn't recognize the CPU correctly, so I have to use software to enable Write Allocate, and to be able to use the Powernow feature of the K6-2+.

Harddrives on laptops seem to be one of the few standardized parts, so buying one with a dead drive, or planning upgrade for more space shouldn't pose any problems.

Since newer ones are so expensive, I'd suggest looking for a used one in the 500 to 600 MHz range. If you find a deal that seems good, do some research to find out things like how expensive the replacement battery is, and to see if upgrading is a possibility. Most likely though, beyond adding memory and possibly upgrading the harddrive, you won't be able to do much.
You won't need a gaming laptop for school anyway.

[cfuk]

i'm not bothered about gaming or anything, just for coding and some graphics work etc.