[II2II]

The lack of an upgrade path wouldn't be as much of a concern if laptops actually shipped with decent specifications to begin with.

One thing that caught me off guard was the number of low end models with 4 GB of RAM and pricier models limited to 8 GB RAM. With Windows using nearly 2 GB on boot and a chunk being used for the GPU, that doesn't leave much for applications. Having a non-upgradable CPU is not a huge issue in my opinion, except the performance of low end models is astoundingly abysmal. I doubt that many of them could keep up with my 8 year old desktop, which was not a high end build at the time. Not only is the hardware disposable, in many cases it is intended to have a very short life.

[xiphias2]

I feel the same with SSD, although it's replacable. Often it's cheaper to buy the smallest SSD option, throw it out and buy a new 2TB SSD instead of asking for it integrated.

[II2II]

Agreed. While I was responding from the perspective of disposable would be more acceptable if they were actually usable for a significant period of time, I do look for a replaceable SDD. Granted, that is mostly because I expect a data recovery path should the machine break.

Overall though, I would be happier if manufacturers were clear on what you are getting. While I do some real work on my laptop, I tend to offload most of my work onto a desktop. This means that I look for a handful of key features and don't care about the rest. Unfortunately, my last laptop purchasing experience was a nightmare. Researching a couple of laptops took more time than deciding upon parts for a desktop build and, of course, you have to look at more than a couple of laptops to find something that is acceptable in terms of features, performance, and price.