Drusus

My waiting has become nervousness as I've learned more about the issues with Win 7 installs.... Maybe it was a mistake to have missed the ZM after all?

Yes. Flexibility is good, for consumer and the downstream Clevo partners who assemble/sell/resell the product. YES. While it wouldn't be high on my list (I want both C/GPU upgradeable) I think it would once again open up better options for customers. And actually might act as an entryway to the equivalent of the xxxDMs If done right. There is a market for it but for a 'super monster' it might be limited so weighing the R&D against sales... Though if you included a TB3 on it you might get a whole other market if eGPUs become more prevalent. Yes. Though I would also weight that against LCD availability. Like the 13" there is a market - but how big? the question might be whether or not the 870 graduates to this level if you do it. Maaaybe? Storage is important for me. My current laptop has dual 960gb SSDs I expect that M.2 will grow big enough, but until then the need for at least one 2.5" bay will be needed. Though once m.2's get to ~1tb I definitely could see it in a slim small model... like the 13"Quite frankly the modularity of the Clevo models in both GPU and CPU is what brought me to buy them. When my elder children leave the house in the next few years and I get an office back if Clevo is still making models like they are today I will buy the equivalent of an 870 instead of building a desktop. The upgradability along with (at least some) portability is good. The quality and capability of the models is outstanding and if all of this is maintained should enable Clevo to eat a significant chunk of the market, particularly if steps are made downstream for models to be more accessible. For instance the MUX that is coming out is great and opens up options. Doing BGA CPUs with MXM GPUs would allow flexibility and perhaps not seem as daunting as also replacing CPUs to some people - thus being a gateway to the higher level systems. Getting to 4k panels in the 17" models will be nice as will that capability if it can be found in the 18.4" Most of my other thoughts revolve more around the availability of things. NA always seems to only have 4k or FHD.. Not Clevo's fault. But I do wish that NA distributors would wake up (Eurocom probably excepted in this case) and offer things like 2k or 3k screens. While we may be moving away from that there will still be other options and they don't seem to like it. I guess the one thing for Clevo on that would be to make the Service Manuals more accessible - at least then you can look up compatible screens. I find it irritating when no one in NA will even tell you what a screen IS - fortunately I could find a SM to answer it myself, but a few of them lost any chance of my business ever in this lifetime.

I'm guessing that means there is not such a port on a 75xxM? It makes sense as its presence makes the production of the 775 much easier.

You are referring to the P775DM ?? It can be seen here about 1 minute in. Not sure if I've seen full specs on it yet. I'd have to browse back a bit at NBR to be sure. I think it is a rearranged P770DM. But there are much smarter people here that can probably give you a better answer to that one.