Slabtop is the answer to the upgrade and price problem that plagues laptops. It's an enclosure and power system which accepts Mini ITX motherboards and desktop graphics cards. It can run off of a built in battery or external AC power brick.

The case has the full suite of laptop peripherals: screen, keyboard, touchpad and speakers so the machine can be used on the road without carrying anything other than the power brick. This makes it suitable for students, LAN party participants, people with a small living space or anyone else who would benefit from a high performance laptop but would prefer to upgrade and pay less for their hardware.

It's constructed out of flat panels and screws, which can be easily detached for complete access to the inside of the case from any angle and replaced with panels with a different cosmetic or functional design.

This prototype has a 15" screen with dimensions of 370x270x55mm and houses an Intel H series ITX motherboard, desktop Core i5 and R9 380 ITX GPU. Its current power delivery system can manage in the region of 300W, but is soon to be upgraded to a derated 500W unit.

This is very much still a work in progress and is at the stage where feedback from the community is needed to push forward with it further. Any thoughts about the concept and features or improvements you think could be made would be much appreciated.

More images of the internals of the machine and whatnot should be posted in the coming weeks and months as it is tidied up and improved; it's a rat's nest at the moment.