Q: My laptop needs an upgrade, but I don't have a lot to spend.
A: On a typical latop, there are only going to be 2 options for "upgrade" 1. Memory 2. Hard drive What is it that you want upgraded? Upgrading the memory is simply a matter of removing 2 or 4 screws, snapping out the old memory and snapping in the newer higher capacity memory. It's safe, simple, and takes less than 10 minutes. You can find out what kind of memory it takes by running the "memory calculator" at http://www.crucial.com Depending on how much RAM you already have, and what operating system you are running, increasing your RAM can help performance. If you are out of hard drive space, replacing the hard drive isn't particularly hard, usually a few screws, slide out the old one, a few more screws, take the old one out of the "tray" put the new one in in the same position, put the screws back in, slide it back into the laptop, and it's installed, HOWEVER you will then need to re-install your operating system, transfer old files etc... OR you can duplicate the old hard drive to the new one which takes an external USB drive adapter and some software. Upgrading anything else in most laptops is not practical or cost-effective... In fact, if you are going to pay someone to transfer the data from the old hard drive, install windows etc... it's most likely not worth the price... You'll end up spending $100 on the drive, and $200 on the labor, and for $400 you can get a new laptop that is 10X faster than your old one.