Common Building Block is a set of technical standards for laptop

Laptop

A laptop, also called a notebook, is a personal computer for mobile use. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit...

 components introduced by Intel in 2005, and adopted by some manufacturers.

Creation

In 2004, the Common Building Block program promoted the use of industry

Industry

Industry refers to the production of an economic good or service within an economy.-Industrial sectors:There are four key industrial economic sectors: the primary sector, largely raw material extraction industries such as mining and farming; the secondary sector, involving refining, construction,...

-accepted mechanical and electrical specifications

Specification (technical standard)

A specification is an explicit set of requirements to be satisfied by a material, product, or service. Should a material, product or service fail to meet one or more of the applicable specifications, it may be referred to as being out of specification;the abbreviation OOS may also be used...

 for three notebook components, or 'ingredients': 14.1-inch, 15-inch, and 15.4-inch liquid crystal display

Liquid crystal display

A liquid crystal display is a flat panel display, electronic visual display, or video display that uses the light modulating properties of liquid crystals . LCs do not emit light directly....

s (LCDs); 9.5mm and 12.7mm optical disk drives (ODDs); and 2.5-inch hard disk drives (HDDs). The program consists of:

• A Web site to provide a centralized repository of information about the program, participants, and platform and ingredient specifications
• A continually updated list of CBB-compliant ingredients (submitted by suppliers)
• A testing and verification service for candidate products
  Product (business)
  In general, the product is defined as a "thing produced by labor or effort" or the "result of an act or a process", and stems from the verb produce, from the Latin prōdūce ' lead or bring forth'. Since 1575, the word "product" has referred to anything produced...
  
  

The repository site mobileformfactors.org was established to standardize components, currently including:

• Hard disk drives
• Optical disk drives
• Liquid crystal display panels
• Battery pack
  Battery pack
  A battery pack is a set of any number of identical batteries or individual battery cells. They may be configured in a series, parallel or a mixture of both to deliver the desired voltage, capacity, or power density...
  
  s
• AC
  Alternating current
  In alternating current the movement of electric charge periodically reverses direction. In direct current , the flow of electric charge is only in one direction....
  
  /DC
  Direct current
  Direct current is the unidirectional flow of electric charge. Direct current is produced by such sources as batteries, thermocouples, solar cells, and commutator-type electric machines of the dynamo type. Direct current may flow in a conductor such as a wire, but can also flow through...
  
   power adapters
• Keyboards
  Computer keyboard
  In computing, a keyboard is a typewriter-style keyboard, which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys, to act as mechanical levers or electronic switches...
  
  
• Customizable notebook panels

Disadvantages

• Although it promised interchangeable components, it does not include standards for graphics
  Graphics
  Graphics are visual presentations on some surface, such as a wall, canvas, computer screen, paper, or stone to brand, inform, illustrate, or entertain. Examples are photographs, drawings, Line Art, graphs, diagrams, typography, numbers, symbols, geometric designs, maps, engineering drawings,or...
  
   components.
• Keyboard standard does not include layouts incorporating separate keypads or pointing stick
  Pointing stick
  The pointing stick is an isometric joystick used as a pointing device . It was invented by research scientist Ted Selker...
  
  .
• The layout for navigation keys is widely different from the desktop 101/104-key keyboards, making it difficult for desktop user to switch to laptop keyboard layout
  Keyboard layout
  A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key–meaning associations of a computer, typewriter, or other typographic keyboard....
  
  . As a comparison, the keyboard layouts in Dell Inspiron
  Dell Inspiron
  Dell's Inspiron computer product line started as a range of laptop computers targeted at the entry-level, budget, a Mobile Celeron or Mobile Pentium II processor with SDRAM, and had a high starting price of $2,799...
  
   and IBM Thinkpad arrange Ins, Del, Home, End, PgUp, PgDn keys in a 3x2 block; and Prtsc/SysRq, Scroll Lock/Num Lock, Pause/Break keys in a 3x1 block adjacent to the 3x2 block.
• The standard for keyboards specifies that 'all CBB compliant keyboards must comply to the Windows Vista Hardware Start Button specification beginning in 2007-06-01', marginalizing users of non-Windows operating systems such as Mac OS X, Linux, BSD, and others.

Advantages

• Upgrade
  Upgrade
  The term upgrade refers to the replacement of a product with a newer version of the same product. It is most often used in computing and consumer electronics, generally meaning a replacement of hardware, software or firmware with a newer or better version, in order to bring the system up to date...
  
  ability and replaceability of components, including motherboard and memory.