A brand tag collects everything written about one line of machines, and for a builder like this one that is more useful than a single review. These were desktop replacements: thick, heavy, and built around a socketed processor and a graphics card on a removable module, so that a buyer could change parts later instead of replacing the whole laptop.

The idea has never gone away, and the tag is the shortest route to it. Reading the entries in order shows what upgradeable actually bought you — a faster graphics module for a chassis already paid for — and what it cost: weight, fan noise, a power brick the size of a book, and a battery meant to survive a move between desks rather than a day away from them. Anyone weighing a workstation laptop against a thin one is still choosing between the same two things.