Only if laptops were able to be built from scratch like desktops could things be easier to decide on when it comes to portability and specs..
Specs, yes; portability, no. The reason laptops can fit so much in such a small space is that they use proprietary parts, which they can have made in any particular shape, such that it fits within their design. Should they be using standardised parts (which would be
crucial for scratch-built/home-built systems), then there is no way thing would be as portable or as energy-efficient. Sure, it's frustrating, but it's a tradeoff that people often aren't aware of.
Same goes with phones - sure, we could have modular, upgradable phones, but they'd be much bigger, likely with worse battery life.
The internet in Australia is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it's pretty reliable (some more than others, mine has had 1 hours of downtime in the last 3 years) and you have a lot of choice with ADSL2+ networks (you don't get the kind of monopoly that seems to exist in the States), however it's fairly expensive, not always terribly fast and almost always has data limits.
eg. I am with Internode and we pay AU$79/month (including a landline phone bundled, mind you) at get 200GB download/upload quota for the month. They don't artificially limit the speed, although we have a (very) consistent 5.5 Mb/s Down/1.0 Mb/s up. You can get cable, which is much faster, but it's also well over $100 for the same kind of data limit and is only available in certain areas (Australia has very low population density, lower than Canada and Russia).