How much would you pay for better graphics on your laptop?

If your laptop’s graphics card isn’t up to snuff, why not just upgrade it? That’s right, you can’t, because it’s built into the board. Correction: you couldn’t. Magma has released an external solution to make sure you’ve got the very best when it comes to graphics on the go.

The ExpressBox allows you to hook up a PCI-E video card via your ExpressCard slot to greatly improve your system’s graphics. Bear in mind that you can only currently use single-width cards that use less than 55 watts of power. But still, there are plenty of cards out there that meet that criteria and will significantly boost your performance.

Now for the fun part. The device itself is going to run you $729, that’s without a video card. So then you’re going to drop another $200 or so for a good card to put in it. So now you’ve spent nearly a grand just to improve your graphics. If that’s not bad enough for you, you’ve still got to find an external monitor to plug into. Sounds wonderful doesn’t it? I think I’d rather just drop a grand on a decent desktop and carry it around.

Magma ExpressBox External PCI-E System For Laptops [via ohgizmo]