Digital DIY

Fed up with your old, dull-looking laptop? We - and many others - know the feeling. However, before you decide to disregard it in favor of a new, shinier model, why not update it? For around 190 yuan ($30) you can convert it yourself into a fashionable touchscreen, a tip courtesy of 19-year-old student Ma Junyi.

Ma, a freshman from Henan Province majoring in computer science at the Beijing University of Post and Telecommunications, recently posted a blog with detailed graphics on Renren.com, one of China's largest social-networking websites, that is particularly popular amongst students in China. In this blog he shared his experience of equipping a laptop with a touchscreen in 26 steps. The blog has received more than 40,000 hits so far.

The steps include spending 190 yuan on screen input devices and then connecting them with the laptop. As seen from the demonstration video posted by Ma, the modified computer screen should work just like any other touchscreen and will allow surfing of the Internet and playing games such as Fruit Slices.

"I came up with the idea of modification in December and then started learning the techniques needed to dismount and assemble the various parts," Ma told the Global Times Tuesday.

After preparing and perfecting for three months, he was 100 percent confident in his ability to turn an old computer into a modern, touchscreen model."It was my first time modifying something, but I didn't bother to buy a secondhand laptop to have a trial run on first," the teenager said confidently.

In March, he spent four hours completing the project in his dorm on campus. "I shared my experience on the Internet, as I like getting responses from others."

Certainly the sharing has made him popular. His story has been written about in newspapers, which he never thought would happen. He has even been given the nickname Little Brother Ma, the name of a heroic gangster in the popular Hong Kong film A Better Tomorrow.

But he still insists that neither the idea nor the process of modification are difficult. "I am sure many people can do it," he said, "My parents, after reading the reports about me, believe that it is not something amazing to brag about," he said. "And my interest in computer science came from my father, who also works in the IT industry."

In the wake of the news coverage, many have since claimed that they mastered the art of modifying a laptop into a touchscreen before Ma. Cao Mingyu, a college student at the South China University of Technology, said that last August he spent seven hours and 183 yuan in order to convert his laptop into a touchscreen computer. Cao believes that touchscreen technology will most likely replace traditional computers in the future. Hopefully this latest trend might then provoke the emergence of a new industry specializing in modification over outright replacement, Cao was quoted as saying in the Beijing News on Sunday.

However, at this stage most laptops with touchscreen functions, such as those produced by Lenovo, are not hugely popular amongst consumers. This is partly because they are often priced above 10,000 yuan. It is also due to their functionality. "The screen looks cool, but using a keyboard and mouse is a lot more convenient," said Tao Yujia, a woman who is planning to buy a new laptop at the moment. "And if I want to enjoy a touchscreen, I can buy an iPad, which is about 3,000 yuan."

Meanwhile, Zhong Ying, an IT professional, also raised some concerns about the DIY technology, warning people that "a modified laptop may not be very stable."