[HN Gopher] The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used
___________________________________________________________________
The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used
Author : samizdis
Score : 1283 points
Date : 2021-09-21 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (pluralistic.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (pluralistic.net)
| ben_ wrote:
| This site uses GNU Terry Pratchett and I appreciate that.
|
| http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/
| spaceisballer wrote:
| I'm not in the market for a laptop in that price range, but if I
| was I would seriously consider it. I've had a Thinkpad X220 for
| some time now and done plenty of upgrades but changing out the
| lcd worries me too much to give it a shot and the second gen
| intel is starting to be a bit long in the tooth. However for
| basic computing I prefer my Pinebook Pro, it's light and the
| screen is great.
| adminscoffee wrote:
| on a fixed income because covid took out my business, how would
| buying this over what it looks like be any better? granted mac
| has already a ton of PR issues involving privacy, i guess this
| laptop would address that?
| comeonseriously wrote:
| These look really good. I'll be in the market for a new linux
| laptop in a couple months and I really want to give System 76 my
| money because I like what they're doing, but this looks really
| good.
| redconfetti wrote:
| I was looking at System 76, but after reading some reviews it
| left me worried.
| comeonseriously wrote:
| Oh? How so? I've not seen anything that worried me. I'm
| curious what you found, if you don't mind.
| a-dub wrote:
| this was always the promise of the beige towers of the 90s:
| upgradability! repairability! in practice, it seemed that all
| components were moving fast enough that upgrades maybe extended
| the life of something by a year or two at best, but ultimately
| all standards were constantly moving (buses, ram, cpu
| sockets/chipsets, storage, cases and even psus). compatibility
| between parts was often a crapshoot, reliability suffered because
| they weren't burn in tested together and at the end of the day,
| any major upgrade involved having to replace 90% of the
| components anyhow. the fully integrated systems seemed to have
| longer operational lifetimes, to be honest.
|
| that said, maybe things are moving slower now, but it seems like
| a bit of a fetishization of a past that wasn't that great to
| begin with.
|
| the focus on reducing waste is good, but honestly what is more
| modular here than your average laptop with memory and storage
| doors?
| brightball wrote:
| > I really miss my Thinkpad Trackpoint
|
| This is one of those comments I will never understand. Every
| single time I have tried to use one of those things the only
| thought that goes through my mind is, "This is the dumbest mouse
| interface I have ever seen. Why would anyone ever use this
| thing?"
|
| And then I see comments like this. I don't get it. The ergonomics
| of those little nubs are _awful_.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| I use both, but for different reasons.
|
| For touch typing (like I am doing for this comment), using it
| is much easier than moving the hands off the keyboard to get to
| the trackpad. I had to get used to it, but when I did, it's
| hard to not think of it there.
|
| When I am doing casual reading or I am doing more hurried work,
| I tend to use the trackpad more. It's feels more suitable for
| me as a mouse interface when the focus is not typing primarily
| but more about finding things.
|
| I learned to use a TrackPoint with some motivation that I would
| be using it a lot. I have instead found a comfortable middle
| point with using both of them.
| ip26 wrote:
| Imagine being able to mouse literally while you type.
|
| That's the Trackpoint, and it makes up for everything else
| about it.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| It has a learning curve - for sure.
|
| But once you've got used to it in a couple of days, it's way
| more efficient than a trackpad for type and pointing
| activities. I don't have to move my arm compared to when using
| a trackpad.
|
| This is an interesting video:
|
| IBM introduces "Pointing Stick" (TrackPoint) (1990)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4Ss6F1qIHU
| jklinger410 wrote:
| >This is the dumbest mouse interface I have ever seen
|
| And some people think, wow this is a great interface.
|
| Awesome comment!
| rockostrich wrote:
| Maybe it's an acquired taste? I have fond memories of using
| nubs on ThinkPads. I think Apple's done a great job at
| improving the trackpad experience on Macbooks but it still
| doesn't compare to not needing to leave the keyboard and also
| never needing to lift your finger to continue moving the mouse.
| dnr wrote:
| This is one of those religious arguments where no one will
| every change their mind, but I feel like a trackpad is the
| dumbest mouse interface and can't use anything but a trackpoint
| (or a mouse of course).
|
| Consider dragging and dropping: with a trackpoint you click
| with your thumb, then use your pointer finger to move the mouse
| cursor any distance you like, without moving your hand, then
| release. With a trackpad you press the pad and then move your
| finger some distance and then... oops, you hit the edge of the
| pad. Better abort and try again, starting the motion from the
| opposite pad. Except if I'm on a non-apple trackpad, and I have
| to click near the top of the pad, it's nearly impossible
| because the click hinge is near the top. Or maybe I do a finger
| swap to reset the drag position, and hope that the OS doesn't
| interpret my moment of two fingers touching as some kind of
| gesture.
|
| Anyway, it does take some time to get used to, so you won't get
| it in a few minutes or even a few hours. Try a week. Also make
| sure you're using a lenovo one (the dell/toshiba ones aren't as
| good), and very importantly, that you have a fresh cap. Worn
| out caps make it really frustrating.
| philjohn wrote:
| I was a big proponent of the trackpoint for the longest time
| - the first laptop I used in the mid 90's (a Toshiba
| Satellite) had one and then I used Thinkpads for years.
|
| Then I got a MBP at work in 2016 and haven't looked back -
| but they were far better than most other trackpads for the
| longest time.
| turtlebits wrote:
| While I'm not going to argue your preference for a
| trackpoint, dragging with a trackpad is not as you describe.
| You just leave your thumb "clicked" and reposition your index
| finger.
|
| IME, using a trackpoint is okay for smaller laptop screens,
| but going from monitor to monitor kinda sucks.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| macOS has an option (in the accessibility prefs) to enable
| three-finger trackpad dragging.
|
| It's incredible to use, especially in concert with Magnet
| (a window management app). Three-finger-drag a window to
| the top of the screen and it's instantly maximized.
| Selecting text is also a breeze.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Does that not get in the way of the 3 finger swipe-up to
| open the activities screen?
| mdavidn wrote:
| Mission Control and App Expose change to 4-finger
| gestures after 3-finger dragging is enabled.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Do you mean Mission Control? That can be configured in
| Trackpad prefs to respond to 4 finger swipe-up instead.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| Wow, thanks for that tip. It's awesome and feels so
| natural.
|
| I really hope Ubuntu and friends get "inspired" by all
| the touchpad gestures in macOS.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Agreed. If I were to switch to a Framework laptop, the
| Mac trackpad would be the loss I'd feel the most (closely
| followed by the DisplayPostscript-powered macOS window
| manager).
| orthecreedence wrote:
| It's phenomenal on airplanes and buses where your elbows are
| extremely constrained and you want to keep your hands on the
| keyboard.
| fnord77 wrote:
| it was ok if you set the sensitivity to maximum. but then you
| had to train yourself to move the mouse accurately with the
| tiniest amount of pressure.
| OJFord wrote:
| I've never had a laptop with one long enough to get used to it,
| but I assume it's because it's right there in the keyboard
| where your hands already are, rather than because it's any
| better at moving the pointer around than a trackpad/mouse.
| poetaster wrote:
| For all my love of chording and old macs, for that matter,
| trackpoint touch typist I will ever remain. I rever Doctorow,
| but I reward myself otherwise. Smoking Cuban on occassion. A
| new used thinkpad every 2 years or ssd. The builds run in obs
| and writing can nicely obtain on a light x220.
| bm3719 wrote:
| I use these exclusively and have the trackpad disabled on my
| Thinkpad (an old x230).
|
| The #1 reason I use it is to not move my hands when I need to
| do a pointing operation. You can get very precise with it too,
| but it takes some getting used to. I'm a klutz with a trackpad
| now, since I've been using the pointer for so many years. I use
| a tiling window manager and very few GUI apps (often even using
| the web in w3m), so mousing isn't as important for me, which is
| another factor.
|
| I wouldn't play a video game with it, of course, but I'd
| imagine trackpads suck at those too.
| itomato wrote:
| You don't mouse like I do.
|
| Trackpoints come with The Proper Number of Buttons; 3.
|
| You copy and paste text with a trackpoint.
|
| You scroll with a trackpoint.
|
| You switch workspaces with a trackpoint.
|
| You can also mouse around, but it's why there's also a pad,
| bluetooth and USB.
|
| It's not lesser, it is more, a lot more.
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| Counterpoint. I won't use a keyboard without one. I use a
| mechanical keyboard with a trackpoint. Not having a trackpoint
| means that I don't even have to think about whether I will buy
| a laptop, I already know that I won't. Touchpads have gotten
| better, but nothing beats the nub.
|
| That being said, every laptop I have ever owned has had a
| trackpoint, so I'm a definitely biased.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| When I am on any laptop, the first impulse for me has always
| been to reach for the TrackPoint. I always get disoriented
| for a moment when it isn't on a laptop keyboard. I take the
| device for granted :)
|
| I really really do hope framework will add a trackpoint
| option in the future. I would hate to unlearn this
| comfortable feature now.
| fouric wrote:
| Did you build that keyboard yourself, or buy it pre-made? If
| the former, where did you get the trackpoint? I have a
| Dactyl-Manuform that is nearly perfect, modulo the trackpoint
| (and wireless, better firmware than QMK, and a few other
| things), and I'm looking for one that I can use without
| cannibalizing an innocent thinkpad keyboard.
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| I started out building my own (story for another account)
| but now that TEX makes the Shinobi [0] it is my daily
| driver. There are some split mechs that have been modded
| [1,2] which are closer the Dactyl, but that would
| definitely be a custom job.
|
| 0. https://tex.com.tw/products/shinobi 1. https://www.reddi
| t.com/r/thinkpad/comments/hz8flk/ergonomic_... 2.
| https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=82599.0
| chx wrote:
| > I use a mechanical keyboard with a trackpoint. Not having a
| trackpoint means that I don't even have to think about
| whether I will buy a laptop, I already know that I won't.
|
| Same here. TEX Shinobi?
| hyperion2010 wrote:
| Yep.
| fouric wrote:
| There are many other replies about how the trackpoint is
| ergonomically superior to a trackpad.
|
| I'll add some nuance: it's entirely possible that a trackpoint
| is most valuable when your workload is majority typing with
| some mousing, as opposed to the other way around - so maybe you
| just have a different workload than most trackpoint users.
|
| Separately - how long did you actually spend trying to use one?
| Most things have learning curves. You can't unlock most of the
| potential of a keyboard until you've spent dozens of hours
| learning how to type, so why shouldn't the same apply to a
| pointing device?
| halotrope wrote:
| Its all about leaving the hands on the home row. If you don't
| touch type you will not ,,get" it.
| chias wrote:
| I bought one the same day I heard about it via one of Andrew
| Gallant's Twitter threads [1]. With the exception of the screen
| (I promised myself my next laptop would be 15" instead of 13"),
| this is pretty much exactly what I've always wanted in a laptop,
| and I'm very excited for my October ship date.
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/burntsushi5/status/1433823144649842694
| bambax wrote:
| > _I 've bought a new Thinkpad almost every year since 2006_
|
| But why?? If the current one isn't broken, why would you need to
| buy a new laptop and go through the hassle of setting it up?
|
| My laptop is from 2013 and is still fine. Parts of my desktop
| computer are from 2007 -- the case is from 1993, and nothing is
| more recent than 2015, and everything is running super smooth.
|
| Getting an entire new machine every single year sounds
| hysterical. But maybe I don't know what I don't know.
| porb121 wrote:
| Sometimes people describe their problems with some technology
| and it makes me realize that we live completely different
| lives. I can't imagine buying the same device year after year,
| whether that's a phone, laptop, or whatever.
| bink wrote:
| Not only that but when they were using Macbooks they were
| apparently _buying two_ and keeping them in sync? I get some
| people can't be without a laptop for long periods of time but
| that seems absurd to me. Keep a backup disk. They even say
| they have a pile of old laptops that are presumably still
| usable.
| xipho wrote:
| The author states they travelled 27 days a month, every month.
| I doubt many people put that much stress on their laptops.
| fouc wrote:
| Traveling 27 days a month might sound impressive but it
| shouldn't really put extra wear on laptops in general. I
| frequently work from cafes and such and put my laptop into my
| backpack on an almost daily basis, and it's fine after years.
| I don't even use a padded sleeve or other special protection.
| xipho wrote:
| YRMV. I've damaged 3 laptops in ~ 15 years. All have been
| during international trips when fatigue and unfamiliarity
| grew and Loki struck.
| yobert wrote:
| If you read a little lower in the article he mentions it being
| a reward mechanism for stopping smoking. So each year he
| doesn't smoke, he rewards himself with a new laptop. Good
| strategy!
| bambax wrote:
| Yeah, this is rationalizing. You don't need to reward
| yourself every year for something you do once. You quit
| smoking, you get a reward, end of story.
|
| Also, and that's where we differ (and kind of my point):
| setting up a new computer isn't a reward for me, it's a
| punishment.
| RSchaeffer wrote:
| Quitting smoking isn't a one-time event. Anyone with an
| addiction will tell you that it's a lifelong struggle.
| danso wrote:
| I think for some folks, quitting smoking isn't a simple
| one-time event, but a lifelong ongoing challenge
| superdisk wrote:
| If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.
| [deleted]
| eikenberry wrote:
| You don't quit smoking once. You quit smoking every day. I
| haven't smoked in >10 years and I'm still quitting.
| Physical dependence on nicotine takes a long time to
| recover from.
| bambax wrote:
| That's not my experience. I was a heavy smoker for over
| 15 years (around 2 packs a day); then I quit. It was
| hard. Extremely hard. In fact I stayed in bed for 2 weeks
| because I didn't dare stand up and go into the world, and
| I couldn't think of anything else.
|
| But after the withdrawal symptoms receded, that was that.
| It was over. I can't even remember what it was that I
| liked about it.
|
| Of course that's just me, and experiences differ. But
| quitting smoking is its own reward, and I don't mean
| physically or health-wise. You're free! You don't need to
| spend time thinking about where the nearest tobacco shop
| is and if you have enough change to buy more cigarettes
| to get through the night.
|
| I would argue that if you need to reward yourself every
| year for quitting, you didn't actually _quit_. You
| stopped putting cigarettes in your mouth, but you 're
| still a "smoker".
| eikenberry wrote:
| I thought it was pretty much a fixed medical aspect of
| quitting smoking that it would take your body
| years/decades to regain the ability to regulate
| adrenaline production properly. That you would suffer
| occasional adrenaline surges during that period.
|
| I was beginning to wonder if they'd ever subside. So it's
| good to know someone doesn't experience it. Though I have
| become used to them over the years and, in some
| situations, are not all bad.
| carpo wrote:
| For some people giving up an addiction is an ongoing
| battle, not a one time and done thing.
| pavlov wrote:
| Well, computers used to be more interesting. A 2006 laptop
| was at least 2x times faster than a 2003 laptop, with lower
| power consumption and better thermal design, better screen,
| etc.
| maxerickson wrote:
| Guy should have thought more about what you wanted to read
| when he wrote the article.
| bambax wrote:
| Yeah, it happens often.
| jonnycomputer wrote:
| Once an addict, always an addict. I haven't smoked since
| 2007, but I'm humble enough to know how easy it would be to
| pick it up again. In fact, if I lived in Poland again, I
| very well might have. But in the US being a non-smoker has
| never been easier.
| freedomben wrote:
| Have you ever been a smoker?
| bambax wrote:
| Yep.
| CitrusFruits wrote:
| If you read later on the author gives their rationale:
|
| "I started buying a new laptop every year as a reward to myself
| for quitting smoking. ... The environmental consequences of
| that system weren't lost on me, even given my very good track-
| record of re-homing my old computers with people who needed
| them."
| ansible wrote:
| > _Parts of my desktop computer are from 2007 -- the case is
| from 1993,_
|
| How does that work? That predates the ATX form factor spec
| released by Intel in 1995.
|
| I had a ginormous PC/AT compatible tower case at that time,
| very large, very heavy, all steel. IIRC, it had 8 5.25in
| external drive bays.
|
| In retrospect, the ATX form factor has been rather long-lived,
| though there are plenty of competing form factors these days.
| bambax wrote:
| It works fine. It has 6 5.25 bays, and 2 3.5 ones. It is
| steel and heavy, but it never moves.
| moepstar wrote:
| Looks gorgeous - i wonder how the trackpad is though, otherwise
| seems to be a solid contender to a Macbook...
| joombaga wrote:
| It's pretty good. The click is definitely better than my
| 16-inch MBP (it's physical instead of motor-driven). Moving the
| cursor feels precise.
| sonofhans wrote:
| I wonder about the trackpad, too. Apple has always smoked
| everyone else at trackpads. After using theirs for so many
| years, every time I touch another it feels crusty and
| unresponsive.
| nsriv wrote:
| With Windows installs, they use Windows Precision drivers and
| feel at least as good as a Surface Book trackpad. YMMV with
| Linux however.
| OJFord wrote:
| With Linux, worth following (or funding!) this work (HN
| passim): https://bill.harding.blog/2021/06/06/linux-touchpad-
| like-mac...
| canadian_tired wrote:
| This is a great leap ahead, and makes me happy. But I would also
| like to do a shoutout to a local-to-me company that has been
| around for _decades_ and have always had a decent amount of
| modularity. https://eurocom.com/ec/main()ec. They have always
| went the way of more power over smaller size.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Ooh. They've definately got a sale if an ortholinear keyboard
| variant with thumbkeys is an option.
|
| I wonder if they'll do ARM variants?
| mrfusion wrote:
| Do they make a desktop too? Can it handle gaming like minecraft?
| henearkr wrote:
| I'd really love a version of the Framework with buffed up graphic
| cards, such as a RTX or equiv.
|
| That would place them above System76 in my ranking, and it is the
| only criterion stopping my hand to purchase one right now...
| mrfusion wrote:
| This is a small competitor right now but this is the definition
| of disruptive innovation and it should scare the cuss out of
| Apple. This is what people want.
| oblio wrote:
| The general population absolutely does not care.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| Include an option to include a software defined radio and I'm in.
| bityard wrote:
| Those little square modules are just USB-C ports, I believe, so
| jamming an RTL-SDR dongle inside a 3D-printed case shouldn't be
| a monumental task.
| superkuh wrote:
| But why? Putting a SDR in a laptop seems counterproductive from
| an electrical and radio interference POV. The USB2/3 ports are
| the option to plug in a software defined radio. Unless you mean
| some pcie interface top end SDR, in which case you probably
| have the money to throw around to get this custom.
| javajosh wrote:
| Yeah I saw Louis Rossman unbox one and immediately got on the
| waiting list. My 2013 MBPr is finally going to retire!
| jjice wrote:
| I'm just waiting for an excuse to purchase a Framework laptop. My
| thinkpad is hanging in there (2014 model, purchased used) and I
| have a desktop that is more than powerful enough for the type of
| development I do on my own time. As soon as I get the chance,
| I'll be ordering one of these. Hopefully there's an AMD version
| out by then!
| mvexel wrote:
| Has the Lenovo warranty really gotten worse? The author doesn't
| specify but speaks of the "incredible" warranty on the Thinkpads
| in the past tense. I purchased an X220 in 2011 with the 3 year
| next business day warranty plan and it was awesome the couple of
| times I had to use it. I recently purchased an X13 to replace it
| with the same warranty plan, assuming it would still be as good.
| Not true?
|
| (By the way, Kubuntu installed and ran almost without issues on
| this 2021 X13 out of the box. Only minor issue was with sleep /
| suspend but that ended up being a BIOS setting. Apparently there
| is a "Windows" and a "Linux" sleep state.)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Apparently there is a "Windows" and a "Linux" sleep state
|
| IIRC, Linux uses an actual S3 suspend, where NT has moved to a
| low-power mode that never actually halts the processor -
| "always on sleep" or something?
| saltmeister wrote:
| yea Linus already said it
| jiggliemon wrote:
| This guy must be James Bond. I've had my 2013 MacBook Pro since
| it came out and I never needed service on it. My 2016 MacBook
| Pro, no service. 2020 MacBook Pro, no service.
|
| I like that this company is making completely replaceable parts
| though. The idea of being able to upgrade ram again sounds like a
| real benefit... it's embarrassing that sentence even has to be
| muttered.
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| I really really want this laptop but my work has become
| increasingly GPU dependent. Hopefully they release a model with a
| lightweight GPU.
| TremendousJudge wrote:
| Yes, this is exactly my view too. I need this in my life but it
| just doesn't fit my workload
| recov wrote:
| Same here, also waiting for AMD
| n8ta wrote:
| First exciting laptop I've seen in a very long time!
|
| Would love to see ethernet (if it's even possible with this
| thinness) and a regular SD port.
| simon_weber wrote:
| An ethernet card is in the works: https://twitter.com/framework
| puter/status/139594629558862233.... It looks like full-sized SD
| was popular in that poll too.
| IE6 wrote:
| As a long time thinkpad user I love mine. Only problem I have now
| is my go-to OS Ubuntu does a really bad job of fractional scaling
| out of the box and none of the workarounds seem to really solve
| the problem. Sadly the crappy screens on my thinkpads more or
| less "hid" this problem from me for years.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| as a thinkpad user - there is no keyboard comparable to it. and
| that is one of the most important component (in a laptop) to me
| joombaga wrote:
| I'm using 150% on Pop!_OS (an Ubuntu derivative) with Wayland
| and it looks great.
| aeyes wrote:
| The laptop being modular, can another company sell a keyboard for
| it or would that infringe a trademark / void the warranty?
| the_other wrote:
| But why the dongles? The go against all the principles of the
| rest of the design. They're proprietary, consumable, and they
| waste space in the chasis. They limit what you can do with the
| USB-C they pass through too.
| azdle wrote:
| They're not totally proprietary, they've even released designs
| CC-BY that you can use to make your own:
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
| up6w6 wrote:
| They are actually open-source[1] so you can print your own case
| in a 3d printer and put the circuit you want inside. About the
| USB-C limitation, I initially thought it was a limitation too
| but Im not sure after learning that you can use them as
| thunderbolt ports. Anyway, I think the notebook seems to be
| thin enough and the possibilities of dongle are exciting[2] -
| like magsafe chargers[3] (which seems to have some patent
| problems).
|
| [1] https://community.frame.work/c/expansion-cards/developer-
| pro...
|
| [2] https://community.frame.work/t/what-new-expansion-card-
| types...
|
| [3] https://community.frame.work/t/youtuber-elevated-systems-
| mak...
| frederikvs wrote:
| I think I read somewhere that they were planning to open up the
| specs of those modular ports. That may alleviate some of the
| points you bring up. (Can't find the source right now though.)
|
| In what way do they limit the USB-C they pass through?
| OJFord wrote:
| > In what way do they limit the USB-C they pass through?
|
| GP means that if you use one other than the USB-C pass-
| through module, it's (trivially) a proper subset of the USB-C
| functionality that you started out with.
|
| I don't really see the issue: the alternative is that you do
| that in a dongle more external to the laptop anyway?
| zerocrates wrote:
| What do they limit? You mean when you're using one of the non-
| usb-c ones that that's limiting you?
| technofiend wrote:
| Only a guess but they also act as a sacrificial device in place
| of the motherboard's USB-C connector. I've read here on HN that
| Macbook USB-C adapters regularly fail.
| LeonenTheDK wrote:
| Louis Rossmann recently reviewed the Framework laptop and
| basically said the exact same thing, about them taking a lot
| of the stress off the soldered USB-C portion and transferring
| it to the chassis instead.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| If a product manager is listening: you have my interest. I'll be
| excited when mouse buttons become available. It'll make my
| shortlist when it has Coreboot, and if Libreboot is on, I'll be
| obliged to give you my money.
| tofuahdude wrote:
| After hearing all the positive reviews, I finally went and spec'd
| one out. The bang for the buck is pretty amazing!
|
| Hmm. Framework vs M1 16" (if they ever get released).
| mikenew wrote:
| Been extremely happy with mine the past couple months. The little
| modular port attachments seemed like a novelty at first, but now
| it feels absurd that you'd buy a laptop with a bunch of
| "hardcoded" ports that you can't ever change.
|
| The only real Linux related quirk I've run into so far is that
| you have to disable panel self refresh (it's on by default and
| causes stuttering). Other than that tiny thing I pretty much just
| installed my stuff and started using it.
|
| One little anecdote: I got a card in the mail from Framework
| saying that there was a problem with the cable for the touchpad,
| and it had instructions on how to fix it. Contrast that to my
| experience with Apple where they would delete forum threads for
| laptop problems and spend years denying issues until legal action
| forced them to acknowledge it.
|
| Anyway, I'm a fan. I'm really looking forward to when the
| marketplace opens up with some new parts. I really want my blank
| keyboard. I'm hoping 2021 will be the year I can own a laptop
| without a god damn windows logo emblazoned on the keys.
| ericpauley wrote:
| Maybe I need some convincing here. How is the "modular port"
| concept any different than a universal port with dongles (i.e.,
| how Macs have been since 2016). To me the fact that the port
| attachments are recessed is little more than a gimmick.
| Especially as all of my devices have transitioned to USB-C
| anyway, dongles/"modular ports" feel more like a stopgap
| measure than one requiring a permanent form factor change.
| fossuser wrote:
| Yeah - I think Apple's approach is the right tradeoff, though
| I admit I think it's cool from a nerd that likes gadgets
| perspective.
|
| If there's enough of a market for that that they can survive
| that's cool, but I think there's a reason it's not the
| default design (that isn't some cynical one about planned
| obsolescence).
| paxys wrote:
| The modular port _is_ a universal port with dongles. Except
| that (1) it doesn 't take extra space outside of your
| computer, (2) it is cheaper than mainstream dongles (Apple
| sells USB-C to HDMI for $70 while the Framework HDMI
| expansion is $20), and (3) it is fully open source and you
| can actually print/sell your own.
| nomel wrote:
| > Apple sells USB-C to HDMI for $70
|
| Luckily, USB-C means you don't have to buy any accessory
| from Apple, and have the world of low cost peripherals at
| your disposal, like the $13 version on Amazon [1].
|
| 1. https://www.amazon.com/gp/slredirect/picassoRedirect.htm
| l/re...
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Quite the opposite, it means you can start with plenty of
| usbA port, and when you don't need them anymore, switch them
| to usbc, without changing your laptop.
|
| It means when one port wears of, fixing it is easy, cheap,
| and doesn't immobilize your machine.
|
| It means you can change your port to fit an hdmi or ethernet
| as needed, without having the stuff coming out your laptop,
| all ugly and taking space on the desk.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| The modular ports are my least favorite part as well. The
| fact that you have to buy one USB type c module just to be
| able to easily plug in your charger is crazy. Another just to
| have reachable USB port. Maybe 1 or 2 modular spots would be
| nice, but put in some standard type c ports and monitor
| connectors without having to pay an upcharge or include at
| least 2 type c modules free.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Is the "upcharge" actually significant for the USB C ports?
| It is like an extra $20 on a $1k computer.
| etbusch wrote:
| Two things:
|
| They are replaceable when the external ports (USB-C or
| otherwise) wear out without the need for soldering or
| internal board replacement.
|
| The design of the modules is open source, meaning that anyone
| can design a module that fits their needs.
| olah_1 wrote:
| how does a port "wear out"? i've never heard of that
| scohesc wrote:
| This was something that was more prominent during the
| Micro-USB era. The little metal "tabs" on the male end of
| microUSB connectors would start to wear out after a
| thousand+ plug/unplugs resulting in a loose connection
| that wasn't reliable.
|
| With USB-C, the connector was designed consideration of a
| bunch of factors, one of which I would assume is lifespan
| of the end connectors - USB-c has thicker, more resilient
| plastic hooks built into the inside of the male plug and
| stronger mating latches in the female end of the
| connector.
|
| https://www.quora.com/How-do-USB-cables-particularly-USB-
| C-s...
| magicalhippo wrote:
| Connectors are rated for a given number of
| connect/disconnect cycles. For USB-A it's a minimum of
| 1500[1].
|
| If your laptop has a cheap connector which isn't rated
| for more, and you do two cycles a day (start/end of day,
| start/end lunch), then you'll go through the rated number
| of cycles in less than two years.
|
| Doesn't mean the connector will fail right away but it
| might start to act up. Connectors are not forever.
|
| [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_hardware#Durability
| AlfeG wrote:
| It when You need to adjust cable multiple times until
| connection happen, and then work very careful to not move
| anything. Ports sometimes are very fragile. My old laptop
| has only 2 of 4 USB ports working.
| lr1970 wrote:
| > How is the "modular port" concept any different than a
| universal port with dongles ...
|
| At least the "modular port" adapters are not dangling from
| the side of a laptop as the dongles do. Dongles totally ruin
| the esthetics of otherwise slick MacBook for me.
| xur17 wrote:
| The main advantage is that the dongles are all built into
| your laptop. With dongles I have a pile of them in my bag
| (that takes up more room), I have to remember to carry them
| around with me if I'm in a conference room, etc.
| Osiris wrote:
| My understanding is that all the module ports ARE USB-C. So
| the dongles are just made to fit inside the laptop instead of
| outside.
| strix_varius wrote:
| I find it hilarious that we spend multiple thousands of
| dollars on sleek, elegant hardware and then hook up chunky
| plastic dongles to overcome their bad hardware interfaces.
|
| So I love the idea of these ports (agreed, they're basically
| "recessed dongles").
|
| I couldn't lose them / forget them. They wouldn't take up
| space in my bag while I'm traveling. I could "set and forget"
| them to perfectly match whatever desktop / docking setup I'm
| using. In five years when my wireless VR system uses some as-
| yet-unknown hardware interface, I can swap a single component
| out to support it. Seems like brilliant design to me.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| I don't understand how this meme about "dongles" still
| exists. You know how I avoided using dongles? I just used
| USB-C cables.
|
| And for the very few things that don't have a detachable
| cable, I use a micro USB-C adapter.
|
| It's been several years since the release of the USB-C only
| MacBook Pros, this shouldn't be an issue if you put in a
| minimal amount of effort.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| HN bubble at work, right here.
|
| Some of my clients still have projectors with... vga
| ports.
|
| Then you need ethernet and hdmi of course, regularly in
| the corporate world or at your friends house.
|
| So yeah, dongle it is. USB-C dongle for sure, but still
| dongle.
| dnautics wrote:
| ethernet and serial dongles are a requirement for
| emergency maintenance inside of datacenters. But of
| course not many people on hn spend time in datacenters
| anymare...
| bumbada wrote:
| I carry a battery powered projector for this reason for
| talking with customers, providers or partners. I use
| standard airport suitcases for that.
|
| It just makes no sense spending lots of time trying to
| adapt to obsolete infrastructure for every person you
| visit. If necessary I even have a blackboard and color
| chalks in my car and get away with them.
|
| When I go to the meeting room, if I don't need to use my
| projector, great, but I will never use VGA, too much
| hassle.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Except:
|
| - some conf room don't have a projector, but flat
| screens, a smart white boards or some remote conf setup
| that needs you to plug in, and/or no walls that fits the
| bill for projection
|
| - some conf rooms don't have a place to put for your
| projector and get a good picture. Their is own the
| ceiling.
|
| - unless you buy a very good one, some conf rooms won't
| have the light for your projector to be readable
|
| - it addresses only the projector problem, not ethernet,
| sd card, usb A, etc
|
| - a good projector is way more expensive that a few
| dongles, are easier to break, harder to replace if
| lost/broken or if you forget it at home
|
| Not to say it's a bad idea to _also_ have a projector.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| For this exact reason I carry a projector(with a
| mira/chromecast dongle in my car whenever I have to train
| engineers at our partners offices).
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| And if you're speaking at a conference and have to use
| whatever is available?
| lrae wrote:
| Then you'll take a dongle with you to that conference?
| Are you telling me you would always waste one of the 4?
| framework ports for Display Ouput X that you only use
| once a year?
| White_Wolf wrote:
| I always carry it with me but usually they have some sort
| of screen casting tech around already. I do make it clear
| from the planning stages that they need to provide either
| one of 3 video inputs to their selected system
| (HDMI/DP/Screen casting) or they need to provide the
| computer that I can use to remote into my 13"(this is
| what they usually choose if they have older screens or
| projectors).
| spockz wrote:
| All the conferences I've been to had dongles readily
| available. Most used hdmi. Once I had hastily arranged
| breakout room that had VGA for the Beamer. I think this
| is a non-issue?
| lrae wrote:
| HN bubble at work, right here.
|
| Framework does not even offer a VGA module, do they?
| buildbot wrote:
| But it would be easy to make one yourself! Though fitting
| the port itself may be a challenge...
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Yet. They are just getting started. Plus their modules
| have an open design.
| pavon wrote:
| I'm curious as to how those work out. The modules are too
| short to fit a VGA, serial, or ethernet port and be flush
| with the laptop, but I think you could make one that
| extends further out and above, and would still have some
| benefits over a dongle.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| HN bubble at work, right here.
|
| Some of my clients still have vt220 terminals with...
| serial ports.
|
| Then you need a 9600 baud modem and rj11 wire of course,
| regularly in the corporate world or at your friends
| house.
|
| So yeah, dongle it is. USB 1.1 dongle for sure, but still
| dongle.
| genewitch wrote:
| I too also throw away perfectly good gear because of a
| decision apple made!
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| There are cables for USB-C to VGA and HDMI, no dongle
| required.
|
| Ethernet, OK, I will give you that.
| Ekaros wrote:
| USB-C to VGA? How is that not a dongle? Those protocols
| are in no way compatible...
| z3t4 wrote:
| Theoretically you could emulate the signal with
| software/drivers given that USB-C has 24 pins. But
| there's actually display standards/signals built into
| USB-C so you "just have to" convert the digital signal to
| analog for VGA, but then it's no longer a stupid cable
| and more like a dongle.
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-MacBook-Supports-
| Resolutions...
|
| I don't understand how one USB-C to VGA cable is more
| inconvenient?
| morganvachon wrote:
| I would argue that a USB-C to VGA or HDMI cable is just a
| longer dongle. What if you take your USB-C-only laptop to
| a remote office to do a presentation, but your six foot
| USB-C to HDMI cable isn't long enough to reach the port
| because the projector is mounted in the ceiling and has a
| standard HDMI cable routed to the lectern? I'd much
| rather have the Framework with a HDMI port on the device
| than struggle with a common situation like that.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > What if you take your USB-C-only laptop to a remote
| office to do a presentation, but your six foot USB-C to
| HDMI cable isn't long enough to reach the port because
| the projector is mounted in the ceiling and has a
| standard HDMI cable routed to the lectern?
|
| I personally really like the idea of what Framework is
| doing and wish more laptops followed suit, but that is a
| trivially solved problem you identified:
|
| https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-Connector-Extender-
| Chromecast-...
| morganvachon wrote:
| Of course it's trivially solved...with a dongle for your
| dongle! Or you could avoid dongle-ception by using a
| modular laptop like the Framework, or even a standard
| laptop with an HDMI port; even current-gen models from
| Dell, Lenovo, and HP still have it as an option
| especially on business-oriented machines. It all comes
| down to what your everyday requirements and tolerances
| allow for.
|
| But again, the "dongle" argument is moot and not really a
| reason to either consider or avoid the Framework, for me
| at least. It's more about the device being open and
| repairable, and arguments about dongles are just attempts
| to justify one's current USB-C only device.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| > It all comes down to what your everyday requirements
| and tolerances allow for
|
| Agree completely. For me, Apple's USB-C only ports isn't
| an issue as everything I use plugs in via one or two TB3
| cables (depending on personal vs work laptop) and daisy
| chains from the monitor or a TB3 dock so no dongles
| needed at all, but I still appreciate the design choice
| Framework made and think it's a good strategy.
| [deleted]
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| I don't see how putting a cable in my backpack is going
| to be better than a dongle, and I'm certainly not going
| to a client for the first time then complain they don't
| have the right cable.
|
| Not to mention the dongle supports several ports.
|
| But you know what is better than either ?
|
| The framework laptop solution of letting me configure the
| port I want before going to my client.
| sequoia wrote:
| In 2019 my new employer sent me a new MacBook pro. I
| couldn't connect it to my home office monitors which had
| vga and dvi ports, so I asked for dongles.
|
| Rather than try to sort out the cable confusion, they
| simply shipped me _brand new_ monitors (which I wasn't
| asking for). I also needed dongles to attach my keyboard
| and mouse, dongles for same were provided by IT.
|
| My point: Dongles are still an issue, not everyone throws
| out their displays/keyboard/mouse every time apple comes
| out with some new version. My 2010 dell displays still
| work just fine, and it would be great if I could plug
| them straight into my laptop.
| turtlebits wrote:
| While I'm not a big fan of dongles, they make them slim
| enough to just leave them attached to the device. I've
| had one attached to my mouse for 2 years now and it
| doesn't add much bulk. My Samsung phone came with one so
| small that you can't even tell is there (other than the
| extra width for the USB-A part).
| andrepd wrote:
| Why on earth would you remove ports for "thinness" just
| to have a cable flopping around?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I have yet to see a USB-C thumb drive in the wild.
| somehnguy wrote:
| I have one, it's USBC on one end & regular USB on the
| other, just flips around in the protective sheath to
| whatever one you need. It's also super fast, though I've
| never spent much for high end thumb drives to compare to.
|
| I got it at Target. Love how easy it makes going between
| my USBC only MBP and other random computers.
| nottorp wrote:
| I got a Kingston MicroDuo. Both USB-C and USB-A _and_ it
| 's small enough that i keep it in my wallet with the
| coins.
| cylinder714 wrote:
| Best Buy has Sandisk units.
| foxpurple wrote:
| I don't see a problem with them. The majority of users
| never need one and even when I use them I usually use them
| infrequently. I often leave them on the ends of cables. My
| display port cable has a usb c dongle left on it so it's
| like it's natively usb C anyway.
|
| Sure, if you do some weird stuff or have an extreme use
| case, I can see why you would want more built in ports, but
| for the majority of users, they only plug in the charging
| cable and maybe video out.
| arecurrence wrote:
| I don't understand the logic. When the original usb-c MBP
| came out I spent $30 on Monoprice for usb-c to whatever
| cables and never looked back. I even still have many of
| those cables 3 laptops later.
|
| People would actually comment about dongle gate in Meetups
| and I'd show them my usb-c to micro-usb cable... ...oh the
| look of shock in their eyes... "You mean... you never
| bought a dongle?". The concept of a cable with usb-c at one
| end and anything else at the other was completely foreign.
| obedm wrote:
| Well... This is an idea I never had lol.
| mjsweet wrote:
| I concur! I have about 3-4 different usb-c to what ever
| cables and one usb-c to female A port for thumb drives.
| My thinking has always been that having all usb-c
| "future-proofs" for future configurations... maybe I will
| have two HDMI external monitors in the future, rather
| than display port and DVI? Easy, just get two usb-c to
| HDMI cables when that scenario arises. With cables it
| allows for so many different configurations rather than
| proprietary modular adaptors that any given company might
| give up on, decide to sunset older versions for new ones
| with more features. After living what you just described
| for the last few years I can't for the life of me fathom
| how this modular approach will gain mass appeal. USB-C
| with cables seems far more flexible to me.
| mod wrote:
| Similarly, I bought some adapters that I carry around. I
| travel between a couple of locations, and I bring just
| one charging wall plug, and one 10-foot USB-C cable.
|
| I have adapters that convert the usb-c to micro and
| lightning, to also charge my airpods, flashlight, etc.
| Each adapter is about 3/4" (2cm), female USB-C end, and
| male end of lightning/micro. I've glued them together so
| that it's just one little thing to take.
|
| I hated carrying around 3+ cables, so this has been a
| welcome change.
|
| It's true that I can only charge one thing at a time, but
| that's not an issue for me except in rare circumstances.
| cptskippy wrote:
| Your unwillingness to understand or empathize is a form
| of dishonesty. Just because you personally never needed a
| dongle doesn't mean such situations don't exist or that
| they are somehow boundary conditions.
| enobrev wrote:
| I did the same. I don't love using them, but it's better
| than keeping different cables around.
| thereddaikon wrote:
| what if I......want more than one usb port?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have never used these, but these came up in my
| searches:
|
| https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/owc-thunderbolt-hub
|
| https://www.caldigit.com/thunderbolt-4-element-hub/
| secabeen wrote:
| I have this one, it's inexpensive, and works well:
| https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Upgraded-Delivery-
| Pixelbook-A83...
| teawrecks wrote:
| But toting around a dongle is exactly the problem we're
| trying to solve.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Oh, I was just answering how to add ports to a laptop
| with only one port.
| pmontra wrote:
| Example: my external USB mic (much better than the
| internal one) and my USB disk for daily local backups,
| connected to two different ports this morning (and many
| other days.)
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| I bought one of these: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/
| B07QXMNF1X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
|
| One USB-C connection powers my laptop, connects to my
| monitor, as well as my wireless mouse and keyboard.
| andrepd wrote:
| That's a lot of extra steps to just having the damn
| ports.
| foxpurple wrote:
| I'd argue it's less steps than preordering the framework
| laptop, pulling it apart and swapping modules around.
|
| The average person can walk in to the apple store and
| walk out with a MacBook and usb c hub just fine.
| ewzimm wrote:
| I love the modular laptop concept, but not for ports. For
| those who don't want them hanging, these are perfectly
| color matched, made of the same kind of aluminum as the
| Air, and sit flush. I prefer it to having extra bulk to
| the base laptop.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Purgo-Adapter-MacBook-Thunderbolt-
| Rea...
| [deleted]
| biztos wrote:
| The crazy thing here is that it's not so hard to hit the
| standard set of "pro" ports --
|
| USB-C x 4 (new standard blabla)
|
| USB-A x 2
|
| SD x 1
|
| HDMI x 1
|
| Phone/Mic
|
| I applaud the modular approach but Apple's donglevision was
| the pure distillation of user-hostility between the Bean-
| Counter in Chief and the SVP, Thin Stuff.
|
| And all the industrial sheep who followed them. May we all
| recover...
| wonnage wrote:
| Apple did one good thing, which is make every USB-C port
| have the same capabilities (charging, thunderbolt).
| Windows laptops, especially once you get down into the
| budget section, are absolutely atrocious at this, you
| have to read little lightning symbols and can only charge
| from a special port...
| chaostheory wrote:
| I thought they didn't do that? Has this changed for
| MacBooks recently?
| tristor wrote:
| It's always been that way on Macbooks. It's also
| simplified with USB 4, which means the newest Macbooks
| just support everything under Thunderbolt / USB 4 on
| every port. Older Macbooks may have had some Display Port
| shenanigans because of differences between DP 1.2 and DP
| 1.4 and whether it was over Thunderbolt 3 or USB 3.1, but
| all modes were basically supported.
|
| Any port on any Macbook with USB-C can be used as the
| charging port, which is a big deal all on its own
| compared to most non-Macbook laptops that use USB-C
| charging.
| chaostheory wrote:
| You're right. I guess I was confused by the differences
| before re-reading it again
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Answers/View/587669/Are+all+USB+C+
| por...
| moonchrome wrote:
| No ethernet ? WiFi is nice and all but when I get a
| docker-compose project that decides to pull down the
| internet I really love the fact that I'm on a gigabit
| network.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| This is where it goes wrong. Everyone thinks their
| particular favourite port is a 'pro' essential, and we
| end up with Homer-cars with a thousand ports. Just use
| USB-C. Almost everything can go through USB-C.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| But not everything can go through the USB-C cable you
| have on hand.
|
| That's the annoying bit with USB-C. We may have (almost)
| standardized on a single plug/socket shape, but we didn't
| escape the essential complexity - the fact that one type
| of connection cannot handle all the use cases we'd like
| it to. We just pushed that complexity into cables.
| Instead of having to deal with separate data, network and
| graphics ports, users now have to deal with potentially
| separate data, network, graphics and charging cables. I'm
| not convinced this is an improvement, because USB-C
| cables are a bottom-feeder market that will not hesitate
| to outright scam the buyer.
|
| At this point I'm not sure it's an improvement. I feel
| like the optimum point would be a small amount of
| standards targeting mutually incompatible applications.
| That, or forcing some specification requirements on
| USB-C, and standardize some capability labels.
| hfjrkekdkfj wrote:
| I do not want all my USB-C cables to be able to handle
| 90W. That would make them very thick and expensive.
|
| I do not want all my USB-C cables to support the maximum
| 40 GBps speed (or whatever it is). That would require
| them to have all the 19 wires and shielding and all and
| again, would make them expensive and short.
|
| And just imagine how much a 90W maximum speed 3 meter
| cable would cost...
|
| I prefer having one power cable, one fast cable and then
| a bunch of disposable cables for general use cases.
| infogulch wrote:
| I hope that this is what USB4 will bring, since iiuc,
| USB4 is basically the IF's name for Thunderbolt-4-capable
| USB-C. This was enabled by Intel contributing the TB4
| spec to the committee, in a shockingly benevolent move
| that I guess may have been the greatest internal
| political feat Intel staff pulled of in the last decade.
| romwell wrote:
| >and we end up with Homer-cars with a thousand ports.
|
| And what exactly is wrong with that?
|
| Ever seen musician's gear?
|
| Even the cheapest, smallest mixer boards support XLR,
| RCA, 1/4", and often USB for audio I/O -- and have many
| of them.
|
| Because yes, everyone has something essential to their
| flow, and number of configurations grows exponentially.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _And what exactly is wrong with that?_
|
| Honestly? Presentation. That's why I consider it a dumb
| argument in general. People mention "Homer's car" or
| equivalent memes from works of fiction as some kind of
| ridiculous contraptions, but don't bat an eye when a show
| like Star Trek does the same. The big difference, IMO, is
| that Homer's car is delivered to you up front, a solution
| looking for problem(s). Star Trek's tricorder or
| roundabout or a starship only happen to show a different
| one-off feature every episode - so the realization that
| the equipment is deeply multipurpose, and has all those
| features already present, kind of flies past people
| who're not into this sort of thing.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| The issue for me is how silly it is to hard-code these
| arbitrary and often single-purpose connectors in the
| laptop.
|
| A laptop should be a general computing device. So why
| hard-code something as weirdly specific as an SD card
| reader into it? Give it the functionality to have any IO
| device attached (USB-C) instead.
| romwell wrote:
| > Give it the functionality to have any IO device
| attached (USB-C) instead.
|
| Because a laptop is a _portable_ device, and carrying
| something with dongles dangling from it is something that
| nobody wants to do.
| ioseph wrote:
| I'm not sure a mixer is the best comparison here since
| its sole purpose is to combine inputs.
| romwell wrote:
| Yeah, and what's the point of having I/O ports on a
| computer?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Ever seen musician's gear?
|
| I guess some of those are analogue? I guess you can't
| squeeze those all through the same physical form factor
| connector. You can with digital, so let's reduce the
| clutter and do it!
| laurent92 wrote:
| Yes, exactly, let's suggest musicians to use USB-C, and
| every third cable won't work, and they will be able to
| make a concert but with no guitar, exactly like the
| devices in front of us when we try to work.
|
| The only insurance against "the USB-C downtime" is a
| subscription to Amazon Prime 24hrs delivery and another
| $68 (no kidding) Apple cable.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Yes, exactly, let's suggest musicians to use USB-C
|
| Not sure what you mean - I said didn't really apply to
| analogue.
| romwell wrote:
| Except for USB, they are all analogue, and some are
| mutually interchangeable.
|
| 3.5mm TRS, dual 3.5mm TS, dual RCA, 1/4" TRS, dual 1/4"
| TS, XLR cables transfer the same kind of signal, and you
| can easily convert between the connector with dongles.
|
| Mixers have _all_ of these _so that you wouldn 't have
| to_.
|
| The utility is _not thinking about where the f***ing
| dongle is_ when you just want to plug something in.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Apart from displays which are objectively garbage though
| USB-C
| moonchrome wrote:
| There's thunderbolt, USB 3, USB 4. External adapters of
| varying quality and capabilities are often inferior to
| even budget integrated stuff.
|
| For example getting a 4k 60FPS HDMI dongle was going to
| cost me >100$, and the cheap ones I had overheated.
| Meanwhile a budget laptop with HDMI and integrate
| graphics works fine. Getting a dock with gigabit
| ethernet, high res HDMI, decent SD reader and a fast hub
| was >200$ last time I checked - and not that portable
| either.
| eertami wrote:
| My newest laptop gets a fairly consistent 700-800Mbps on
| WiFi.
|
| Don't get me wrong I still prefer ethernet to avoid
| packet loss and reduce latency but download throughput
| isn't a problem I notice on WiFi anymore (since I'm also
| only on a 1Gbit/s line)
| pantalaimon wrote:
| Your laptop is not magic, it will only get those speeds
| with the right access point and if you are close enough
| to it.
|
| If you carry your laptop someplace else it might not find
| itself in such ideal conditions.
| s0rce wrote:
| I think the proliferation of usb-c has finally solved the
| universal port issue, you can just buy a 3rd party dongle
| with HDMI/displayport, usb-c (with pass through charging),
| sd-card, usb, etc. and it works great. Meets my needs pretty
| well.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| Have you tried dongles? They barely work.
|
| I beg for an age where monitors and drives plugged into
| Macbooks worked again without flickering and random
| disconnects you get with dongles.
| rhacker wrote:
| Absolutely agree. If I ever had to go back to a "docking
| station" which I'm sure many on here have used in the past
| I'd be ripping out my hair.
|
| A single multi-port dongle with Hdmi, extension USB-C and
| USB-A makes it so that I connect 1 thing to my laptop at my
| desk. And you don't have to press the whole laptop on some
| weird device that can scrape that back of your laptop.
|
| If more people had experienced docking stations of 10 years
| ago they would also be excited for these dongles.
| earthscienceman wrote:
| I'll give a reply not seen here yet. I haven't bought the
| framework laptop (yet) but I can see the module appeal.
| There's all sorts of hacker-ish ideas that I could imagine
| stuffing in there and the fact that I don't need a dongle
| means they're always attached and ready to be thrown in a
| bag. My first idea:
|
| Framework offers a 1Tb storage module for their ports! I
| backup my root OS via ZFS snapshot to USB every so often now.
| How great would it be to have a storage port that's all the
| recent snapshots of your important datasets. And, the
| possibilities are endless. The fact that they don't change
| the form factor of the laptop and that they're always
| attached is actually a big deal.
| charwalker wrote:
| The modularity means you can change your workflow or
| peripherals without needing to find a dock or dongles long
| term. You can travel with the HDMI dongle in for putting a
| movie on a hotel TV or use with an external monitor
| somewhere. Maybe you need that SD card reader for most of
| your photo work but only on weekends or trips when you go
| process images immediately or need to offload them from the
| SD card.
|
| Regardless, the port can be what you need it to be or just a
| useful USB-C, you aren't tied to whatever ports the OEM
| thinks you'll need forever even though it may only be valued
| by a small number of consumers.
|
| That small number is still enough to drive sales for
| FrameWork. I'm interested if I need a better laptop and I sit
| at a desk with desktop in use almost all the time. This
| appeals to those that interested in more control over their
| device in configuration, expansion or modifications, and the
| various ports and IO options. I can't say I'd buy many of the
| USB modules (rarely would use most anyway) but the mentality
| is there and I so far have trust in the product. It's not
| meant to appeal to GAMERS or Enterprise execs, just those
| that want more control over their devices.
| mikenew wrote:
| I wouldn't think of them as recessed dongles. After
| installing them I haven't changed them out at all so far.
| It's more that you can configure things how you want. If you
| wanted 4 usb-c ports and that's all; just do that.
|
| I would love it if all my devices had transition to usb-c,
| but they haven't. I still occasionally need usb-a and
| sometimes I need an hdmi out. So... that's what I have. And
| if I stop needing usb-a I'll get rid of it and put in another
| usb-c. You could even do a single usb-c port and then 3
| storage attachments if you wanted. Nobody is ever going to
| sell a laptop like that, but for someone who really needs
| storage and doesn't care about connectivity that might be
| perfect.
|
| If you're okay with dongles then you're probably fine. I'm
| not. They clutter up the workspace, occupy permanent space in
| my bag which is annoying, and often enough aren't around when
| I actually need them.
| bo1024 wrote:
| My devices aren't USB-C (e.g. headset, tablet) and I use HDMI
| cables a lot. So it's great for me. Turns out thanks to the
| modular port design it's also great for you!
| kzrdude wrote:
| Their modular ports use a lot of space, they could have much
| more ports built in, unfortunately.
| pavon wrote:
| Yeah, being limited to only 4 ports is a complete non-starter
| for me especially when you are required to use one of them to
| charge the laptop. So practically everybody is going to end
| up filling one of those modular ports with a USB-C module,
| when they could have easily fit two dedicated USB-C ports in
| the same space, with no practical loss in expandability.
| teawrecks wrote:
| No one wants _all_ the different ports though, they usually
| just want the _correct_ ports. If you 're plugging more than
| 4 things into your laptop at once you should be using a dock.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Maybe a great laptop _would_ have 4 usb-c, hdmi and sd card
| reader? We can be ambitious :)
| yepguy wrote:
| If Framework opens this up for other companies to make
| modules, you might also see something like a USB port
| module with an integrated Logitech wireless mouse receiver.
| So then your mouse isn't even taking up a port.
| dhosek wrote:
| My first laptop bought way back in 1993, had a scheme where
| either or both of the two(!) removable batteries could be
| replaced with a plug-in module. I had one that gave me a SCSI
| port and another that gave me a 2400 baud(!) modem.
|
| It was better in theory than practice. You couldn't hot-swap
| modules (because this was 1993, after all) and driver support
| was iffy. I sold that laptop a few years later and didn't own
| another laptop until I bought my first PowerBook in 2002. I've
| kept dongles in my bag from time to time for connecting to
| external monitors, but most of the time I never really bothered
| with it.
| r00fus wrote:
| I did like my late-90s Dell Latitude where I could replace a
| CDROM module bay with a 2nd hard drive or battery. It was
| even hot-swap if I recall correctly.
|
| That said, these days I know exactly what I want in a laptop
| and most mid-spec+ laptops have an abundance of what 90% of
| users need.
| jbellis wrote:
| How is the state of linux power saving (i.e., mobile battery
| life) in 2021? Last time I checked you could expect to get
| almost 2x the battery life on equivalent hardware with Windows
| or Mac OS.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| Can't comment on mobile, but I've set my laptop to sleep
| after 10min of inactivity and 3min after lid close and it
| lasts the whole day (4.1Ah). I'm not using it for 8h
| straight, but rather a combined 3h or sth probably but with
| this aggressive sleep settings it easily stretches some 8h
| and I don't feel afraid of it just going out at the end of
| the day.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| When I bought my T440s in 2013 (8 years ago now), I could
| push it to 18 hours with wifi off. And could get 10 hours
| plus with wifi. I seriously doubt Windows or Mac OS would
| have gotten much more juice out of it.
| mtreis86 wrote:
| How does the keyboard compare to older Lenovos, specifically the
| x220?
| filleokus wrote:
| This isn't a laptop for me, I want different trade offs. But I'm
| really excited to see it enter the space, and hopefully they will
| become a viable market contender.
|
| That might both satisfy the demand often expressed, by people
| like us, for more upgradability/repair ability and make other
| manufacturers steal some of their best ideas.
| bogwog wrote:
| What kind of trade offs? The only thing I can think of is that
| you want extreme performance, like those "VR-ready" gaming
| laptops.
| philote wrote:
| The author spent some time explaining the need to have a reliable
| laptop and spending $150 for 24-hour service and having two
| Powerbooks at once. But there was no mention of anything about
| reliability and repairs (well, replacement parts) for the
| Framework. I'm curious if he plans to keep a second Framework
| laptop in case parts are sold out, take too long to ship, etc.
| pshirshov wrote:
| AMD please? What about Coreboot? Nothing? Ehm...
| mastazi wrote:
| I would like to purchase an i5 with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage, am
| I missing something?
|
| https://frame.work/products/laptop/configuration/edit
| leipert wrote:
| Not preconfigured, but the DIY page allows that configuration.
| You can even choose the WiFi card:
|
| https://frame.work/laptop-diy-edition
| MMS21 wrote:
| >That tool - a small screwdriver - is also sufficient to upgrade
| the CPU
|
| CPU isn't up-gradable without switching out the entire mainboard,
| which I'm fine with, once I get an AMD version that is :)
| [deleted]
| flatiron wrote:
| ive seen a lot of requests for an AMD version but i always see
| people complain about AMD's linux support. Do you plan on
| running windows? If you are planning on Linux is the support
| really as bad as people complain. I say that because intel's
| linux support seems to me as top notch. ive never really had
| driver issues that i can think of
| samtheDamned wrote:
| > i always see people complain about AMD's linux support
|
| I've always heard the opposite, that AMD's linux support is
| amazing and that it's windows drivers are lacking. Especially
| in the GPU department where it struggles with minecraft.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| AMD CPUs and Linux have always been fine for me. The GPUs on
| the other hand...
| flatiron wrote:
| Since it's a laptop then I could see that being an issue
| though. Intels embedded GPU I guess are slow and clunky but
| work super well in Linux in my experience.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| >but i always see people complain about AMD's linux support
|
| No, you don't. You see people complaining about NVIDIA's
| linux support.
| flatiron wrote:
| Oh I'm glad I don't. You know what I dreamt it all up.
| Thanks for clearing that up. But honestly just subscribing
| to the Linux subreddit I see tons of amd gpu issues and
| never hear a peep out of Intel. But yes nvidia does win the
| prize for worst.
| MMS21 wrote:
| That's weird. I always see people claiming AMD is superior
| for Linux due to their opensource drivers (intel and nvidia
| are not).
|
| btw certain distro devs were provided with Framework laptops
| a while back
|
| https://frame.work/blog/linux-on-the-framework-laptop
| foxfluff wrote:
| Intel does write open source drivers for Linux. In my
| experience they are more reliable than AMD's.
| MMS21 wrote:
| I could only find open source drivers for intel graphics
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-
| source_graphics_...
|
| https://01.org/linuxgraphics
| Unklejoe wrote:
| All of Intel's Ethernet/WiFi adapters have open source
| drivers on Linux too.
| adamdusty wrote:
| I dont know about laptops but I've been running Ubuntu on a
| ryzen 1600 since the couch came out and haven't had any
| issues.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Hey, AMD (Zen2 3800X) and Linux (NixOS - 5.14.6) user here;
| other than a weird bug once on temperature reading I haven't
| had a single issue between Linux and AMD.
| burundi_coffee wrote:
| The CPU is not socketed/replacable because _intel_ simply does
| not sell socketed laptop CPUs. If there was a socketed
| alternative, I 'm sure it would be in the framework.
| judge2020 wrote:
| Alienware had a socketed CPU and it didn't pan out: https://w
| ww.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2020/5/13/21256845/a...
| ip26 wrote:
| Sockets add measurable height, weight, & power. That part, at
| least, isn't just a conspiracy.
| OJFord wrote:
| What is the distinction between 'laptop CPU' and 'desktop
| CPU' if not BGA (or whatever it is) vs. socketed packaging
| though, really? Power consumption?
|
| Wouldn't it be nice if there just 'CPUs', and you could pick
| whatever was appropriate for your desktop or laptop. Sure
| some would maybe only make sense in one package, but there
| must be some considerable overlap. I use my desktop for work
| because it has upgradeable RAM and I needed to do that, not
| because it has a beefier CPU than is available in a laptop.
| lom wrote:
| > replace the CPU
|
| I believe you cannot replace/upgrade the CPU. At least that's
| what I remember reading.
|
| You'll have to buy a new one, _but_ you can always use the old
| ram, wifi chip (if it's still supported) and SSD.
| heleninboodler wrote:
| Random feedback to framework on the configurator: it would be
| much nicer if all the options were just visible on one screen.
| Getting to the expansion slots page and not being able to
| remember how much base storage is in the configuration I chose
| means I have to go back two pages (and the page-loads are quite
| slow; hopefully that means you're doing great business?). Also,
| I'm sure limiting SKUs is a business decision, but it would be
| really nice to decouple CPU and RAM so I could choose an i5 with
| 32gb, for example.
| causi wrote:
| I'm really hoping they come out with an option for a touchpad
| with separate mouse buttons. I've always found clickpads
| unusable.
| pmlnr wrote:
| There's also the MNT Reform in cooking:
| https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform
|
| Regarding ports on the Framework: is there really no ethernet
| option? And no full side SD card, just micro?
| ThinkBeat wrote:
| I would love to get one. The main thing that stops me is that
| this is only a clever idea as long as Framework is viable as a
| business.
|
| All the components here are proprietary to Framework (?)
|
| If they should go out of business, which often happens with these
| efforts, then you have no way to source parts and you are stuck.
|
| There really is not much customization they offer, at least not
| now. the expansion bays seem to be the major components now.
|
| Selectable when you buy the machine: CPU (non replaceable?) ,
| WIFI, Storage, memory,
|
| power adapter yes/no, operating system yes / no
|
| Not configurable: (yet?) Screen, Camera, Fingerprint reader,
| battery. Hardware switch for camera, NA.
|
| A slight look back at laptops:
|
| Old style laptops / enterprise laptops:
| ---------------------------------------- Battery can be swapped
| by sliding a open a plastic lock. Swap batteries in seconds.
|
| Different sized batteries were available, some taking up more
| space giving your laptop a "bump".
|
| RAM was beneath a small hatch easily accessible from the bottom
| of the unit by removing two screws and direct access.
|
| Often the hard drive was accessible easily as well
|
| Two bays with no tool swappable, cd, extra storage/2nd hard
| drive, and some more exotic things.
|
| Then we had PCMCIA Card a long time ago. Most of my laptops had
| two bays. No tool swappable. Wide selection.
|
| Farmework -------------
|
| Switching out the battery is far too complicated:
| https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/85...
|
| >Be extremely careful when sliding the Battery connector out, >as
| it is very easy to accidently bend the pins. >Make sure to slide
| straight down, and avoid letting the >connector twist or bend.
|
| You should not have to perform surgery on the box switch the
| battery.
|
| It should not involve screws at all.
|
| With the placement of the battery in Framework,, it is hard to
| see how they can upgrade it based on size limits. Hopefully, they
| will offer an extension battery of some sort .
|
| Where is the space for the dvd/cdrom? (Some still use it. I love
| it for livecd, where the entire OS and file system is Read only.
| Every time you boot its clean.
|
| 4 user selectable expansions cards are unique and cool as long as
| they are available, and someone makes a wider assortment of them
|
| It is really cool that you can got at the guts and replace things
| and it is great that this is available. I would just want to do a
| lot of it a lot easier.
|
| Presumably, it become a h
| NotPractical wrote:
| The baseline, preassembled model starts at $1000. Windows 10
| Home, quad-core i5, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB storage, a nice 2256x1504
| display, thin and light (1.3kg, 11.7" x 9" x 0.6"). Compare that
| to your other thin and light options at this pricepoint.
|
| XPS 13, $1020
|
| * i5
|
| * 8 GB RAM
|
| * 256 GB storage
|
| * 1920 x 1200 display
|
| * 1.2 kg, 11.6" x 7.8" x 0.6"
|
| MacBook Pro: $1300
|
| * M1
|
| * 8 GB RAM
|
| * 256 GB storage
|
| * 2560 x 1600 display
|
| * 1.4kg, 12" x 8.7" x 0.6"
|
| It's almost a no-brainer, _even without considering the
| repairability_ , unless you like macOS. Unfortunately, not many
| people see repairability as a feature yet due to the toxic status
| quo, but this _could_ change. I think that after brand
| recognition is established, this laptop could legitimately be
| competitive in the laptop market, and not just appeal to hardcore
| techies.
| alerighi wrote:
| I disagree. If you configure it, it will cost you a ton of
| money. The base configuration doesn't have even basic ports.
|
| At contrary, today at work we bought for 900 euros (700 without
| taxes), plus less than 100 euros for an extra 16Gb RAM module,
| a thinkpad T14, that has all the features of the base model,
| but with 512Gb SSD, Ethernet directly on the laptop, a better
| keyboard, a trackpoint, more USB ports, a fingerprint reader,
| and a Windows 10 Pro license.
|
| To me it doesn't make a lot of sense this laptop. Regarding
| repairability, it's just like any other Thinkpad, the modular
| IO, what is its purpose? Also you are adding components that
| can break, consume power, and waste space. And still you don't
| provide an ethernet integrated on the laptopt itself, so you
| have to always carry around a USB adapter that doesn't work as
| reliably as an integrated one.
| herpderperator wrote:
| The single-thread performance of the M1 doesn't get close to
| the competition at its power level, even a year after its
| release. [0] The top item in the list is the M1, a 10W CPU. The
| second is an Intel requiring 125W. The highest-scoring i5 also
| requires 125W, and is 15th in the list.
|
| Just a reminder that the M1 MacBook Air has no fan, and is
| still at the top.
|
| When choosing a laptop you of course look are more factors than
| just performance, but for many, that alone will be an extremely
| important consideration. Not to mention that - incredibly -
| there isn't even a conventional battery life tradeoff for that
| top performance. In that sense, the M1 is a no-brainer.
|
| [0] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html
| p1necone wrote:
| M1 does beat every other laptop processor atm in single core
| speed, but the latest Ryzen 5X00U (and 4800U) are better in
| multithreaded perf (both absolute and per watt) -
| https://www.cpubenchmark.net/power_performance.html.
| Hopefully the Framework Laptop offers mainboard upgrades with
| these at some point.
|
| I very nearly bought an M1 Macbook, but realized I didn't
| want to live with currently early stage linux compatibility.
| I'm still thinking of buying an M1 mac mini as a little home
| server though - that tiny power consumption combined with
| such good CPU performance is perfect for that use case
| (although it would be nice if I could somehow attach a bunch
| of hot swap HDD bays to a mac mini too).
| smoldesu wrote:
| > the M1 is a no-brainer
|
| I don't use MacOS, is it still a no-brainer?
| mjhagen wrote:
| To me the M1 one is the differentiator not even because of
| its performance, but because of what it allows the laptop to
| be: Absolute silence with 20 hour battery life. To have it
| also be screamingly fast is very nice to have though.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Performance of the M1 is indeed impressive, and I don't mean
| to imply that these CPUs all perform relatively the same. But
| I have a 2019 Intel MacBook Pro with an i5, and it does
| everything I need a laptop to do: take notes, browse the web,
| and do some light programming and gaming (e.g. Minecraft at
| 60 FPS). It also runs x86 programs directly rather than
| through an emulation layer (though this will become less and
| less of a problem as time goes on).
| black_puppydog wrote:
| just want to note that windows 10 home is 139 of that package
| and I don't see how that can reasonably be included in the
| _baseline_ here.
| [deleted]
| MMS21 wrote:
| The same configuration is $873 without Windows 10. Even with
| HDMI, MicroSD, USB-A, Type C and a power cable its under $1000!
| tailspin2019 wrote:
| It would be a no-brainier if Macs were still on Intel. But post
| M1, I'm not so sure...
|
| The Air gives this thing a run for its money at a (albeit $21)
| lower price.
|
| That said, I'm 100% behind the Framework concept though - I
| like the direction they're heading in. If I needed a
| Linux/Windows laptop it would be a serious contender for me.
| MonaroVXR wrote:
| XPS isn't that great at all, but I need to check the newer
| model.
|
| I'm talking about build quality and performance.
| system2 wrote:
| Do you have an XPS?
| colordrops wrote:
| I have an XPS 9560 and yeah the build quality ain't great.
| Had to replace the motherboard and battery after two years,
| and while the lid is aluminum, the bottom is not, so if you
| have it hanging over the edge of a desktop or a non flat
| surface, it flexes enough that the touchpad button no
| longer registers. These issues might be resolved in newer
| models but I probably wouldn't go with a Dell again, unless
| it turns out that they are the best of the worst after a
| comparison.
| felistoria wrote:
| It sucks that I absolutely love what Framework is doing but
| also absolutely love macOS :(
| FearlessNebula wrote:
| MacBook Air would be a fair comparison. The pro is pretty
| pointless at this point next to the Air.
| aguacate wrote:
| You should be comparing it to the MacBook M1 Air which is $899.
| Battery life & smoothness/performance they achieved with M1 is
| phenomenal. Golden handcuffs.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Early adopters, hardcore techies may love repairability but
| they will buy whatever comes out next.
|
| What counts is the majority of buyers after these techies.
|
| It's similar the early buyers of a Tesla who could say "ahh it
| will be so eco I don't have to buy another car for 10 years"
| and, 3 years later they buy themselves the new model as they
| would have normally do with a combustion engine car. Consumers
| first.
|
| The key point is that repairability is important and is a
| marketing ploy but isn't a real fundamental issue for wealthy
| techies. They will just get another laptop in a year or so.
|
| It's the non techies that are important, not us! It's the
| majority and long tail, not the early adopters that this laptop
| should be for!
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _It 's the majority and long tail, not the early adopters
| that this laptop should be for!_
|
| Why?
|
| This is the way we end up having only mass-market, lowest-
| common-denominator products. Not fighting to get quality
| tooling for our niche is one of the important reasons we
| don't get any.
| mjhagen wrote:
| It's techies that advice their non-techie friends and family
| though.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| It doesn't look like a no-brainer to me (already a Mac user).
| The MBP has a better screen, better battery life, performance,
| has a metal body, is completely silent and has nicer software.
|
| That said, you should get the Air instead which is $999 with
| almost exactly the same specs, minus the annoying touch bar,
| and a tad lighter at 1.29kg.
| NotPractical wrote:
| For the record, I also own a Mac: the MacBook Pro, 2019
| baseline model. I used to enjoy the battery life (though it
| has been slowly getting worse to the point where I have
| considered reaching out to Apple about it since the battery
| is glued in and I can't replace it myself). I like the metal
| body. I also like macOS. My MacBook is not completely silent
| because it's an Intel mac, but the M1 would be, that's true.
| As far as "better screen", I'm not so sure... on paper, the
| resolution is nearly the same. I also like the trackpad. But
| anyway, you need to decide whether these things are worth the
| complete lack of repairability. As a reminder, your Mac's
| battery will die at some point, and your Mac will become
| useless. I'm seriously considering selling my MBP and buying
| this instead.
| pvarangot wrote:
| > I'm seriously considering selling my MBP and buying this
| instead
|
| Apple's trade-in program is pretty good. My 2012 MacBook
| Pro was still tradeable in 2019 for something like 400
| bucks. I would consider that also if you don't want to
| abandon the Apple ecosystem.
|
| Before having to use a Mac for work I preferred a P53 and
| an X1 as work laptops, but honestly now that I'm forced to
| use macOS again I don't miss Linux at all. Would be great
| to be able to choose though, but I'm kinda locked on Xcode
| because it's our build system.
| OJFord wrote:
| Do they go arbitrarily far back, or cut off at some
| point? (I have a 2013 Air I've barely used for years...
| Should've thought of it sooner.) The site just lists
| model names for the Macs, which is oddly non-granular
| compared to the iPhones by number:
| https://www.apple.com/uk/shop/trade-in
| pvarangot wrote:
| There's an estimator below where it says "Select your
| device for an estimate", and it walks you through a
| serial number thing and then gives you an accurate
| estimate. I think it does cut off at a point but I'm not
| sure when, and it's not the same for all devices.
| Matthias1 wrote:
| This is a good point. "Repairability" is a lot less
| important to me than lifetime. Right now, I have a MacBook
| with AppleCare. The author's criticism with AppleCare is
| that it can take a week for Apple to repair the computer.
| That's reasonable for me.
|
| So the real test of the Framework computer is not in the
| first week. (Although the initial impression is very
| impressive!) The real test is whether I can, 3 years after
| buying the computer, replace the battery more easily than
| Apple could replace the battery in a Mac. Modular hardware
| is limited by the availability of the parts, and Framework
| doesn't have the brand to convince me that they'll be
| around for longer than I can get my computer serviced by
| Apple.
| smoldesu wrote:
| > The real test is whether I can, 3 years after buying
| the computer, replace the battery more easily than Apple
| could replace the battery in a Mac
|
| No, the real test is whether you, 3 years after buying
| the computer, can replace the battery more easily than
| _you_ could replace it on the Mac. Applecare just covers
| the cost of a new laptop when your Mac breaks during
| warranty. "Repair" is a generous way of putting that.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Another thing to consider is that, if everyone is
| reluctant to try the Framework laptop because they're not
| sure about long-term support, it will never receive said
| support. I'm willing to take the risk here, for the
| greater good! I don't even perceive the risk to be that
| high, to be honest.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Does anyone know if Apple is even capable of replacing
| the battery, or if they replace the entire top case
| assembly, on 2016+ MacBook Pro models? Apparently the
| Air's battery is indeed replaceable (...by Apple) but I'm
| not sure the Pro's is, which is incredibly wasteful, if
| true.
| BoorishBears wrote:
| In years past you had to bring up the MBP but now the
| Macbook Air tips the scales.
|
| I got my _16_ GB Macbook Air for $1000 at Microcenter. For
| development purposes it 's the same as a Pro, except it
| doesn't have a fan (and has never throttled) and doesn't
| have a touch bar (which is great)
|
| The MBA is an insane value with the advent of the M1, a
| complete turnaround from the old days.
|
| Also it has a trick up it's sleeve when it comes to this:
|
| > the complete lack of repairability. As a reminder, your
| Mac's battery will die at some point, and your Mac will
| become useless.
|
| First off, Apple will replace the battery in a MBA for $129
| (vs $200 for the MBP), so a little alarmist...
|
| But more importantly the new Air uses stretch-release
| adhesive (think command strips) and doesn't require
| removing the logic board for battery replacements. The MBP
| didn't inherent this improvement.
|
| It's no Framework but it makes it the value proposition
| that much sweeter...
| gorjusborg wrote:
| Word, I'm pretty fed up with throw-away culture, especially
| with big ticket items.
|
| I've used pretty much all the developer laptop contenders
| as daily drivers at some point. You get used to what you
| get used to, so marginally better isn't so important, I've
| found.
|
| I'm going to pick one of the framework laptops because they
| look decent, but my secondary objective is to support a
| company that at least is walking some of the walk I want to
| see.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > performance
|
| https://wccftech.com/intel-and-amd-x86-mobility-cpus-
| destroy...
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Actually, that's the issue with my MBPR from 2012: it has a
| 2560x1600 screen, as in, highly non-standard. It is neither
| 1920 wide, nor is it 16:9.
|
| If I had the option to have purchased it with 1920x1080, I
| would have.
| NovemberWhiskey wrote:
| 16:10 isn't what I'd call "highly non-standard". What kind
| of work do you use your laptop for that makes this such a
| big issue?
| trainsplanes wrote:
| > If I had the option to have purchased it with 1920x1080,
| I would have.
|
| For what purpose? I can't imagine a single advantage to
| lower resolution.
| disiplus wrote:
| power consumption, other then that i also dont see it. i
| have laptops with 16:9 16:10 and 3:2. I find the 16:9
| worse.
| dixie_land wrote:
| The almost square aspect ratio really bugs me. Would have tried
| it out if not for that
| superjan wrote:
| For me, that is a selling point! Widescreen is nice for
| movies, but when coding or browsing more lines is way more
| useful.
| gsich wrote:
| It's still not as "square" as 4:3. Besides, why not. Other
| devices have huge black bars around the display.
| ekianjo wrote:
| You forgot the used market. The used market for framework
| laptops is nil.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Kudos to them. I envisionned that years ago but never got
| anywhere close.
| frereubu wrote:
| It seems like there are a lot of people here who change their
| laptop almost every year or two. Is that common? I ask because
| I'm still using my mid-2014 MBP, and it's only really this year
| that it's started feeling underpowered with the fans running
| quite a bit. Apple laptops are expensive for sure, but compared
| to upgrading every year it seems like a good deal, not to mention
| the problem of electronic waste. (I'm not looking for an Apple /
| PC fight by the way, just haven't heard of people upgrading so
| regularly before).
| DoingIsLearning wrote:
| Checking in with a 2012 Toshiba Satellite R830 still ticking.
| Only had to replace the battery pack about 4 years ago.
|
| Takes me 30 seconds to boot up and 4 seconds to shutdown
| running Debian since forever.
|
| Does what I want and gets out of the way. Never really felt
| anything missing performance wise.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I still remained baffled by the popularity of the laptop.
| Literally everyone I know works with them fixed in one location;
| their desk. Yes, some people do need mobility, but this appears
| to be a minority of consumers. We could've had all this
| repairability and modularity years ago if most consumers just
| admitted that really they wanted a desktop all along.
|
| It also fixed complaints about keyboards.
| yccs27 wrote:
| Even if you mostly work at your desk, a desktop computer has
| just no option for mobility if you ever want to work somewhere
| else temporarily. It seems like many people value the option of
| mobility, even if they don't use it often.
| fayten wrote:
| I'm not sure how common it is, but at my old job devs and
| business analysts would regularly go on site to work with
| clients. Larger teams would have build boxes for CI and VMs
| that we could remote into if need be, but other than that
| laptops were absolutely required.
|
| I'm currently writing this at a coffee shop surrounded by
| others all working on various things. I really like the option
| to work from anywhere.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| My experience is that everyone claims they want the ability
| to go to a coffee shop, but very few actually exercise it.
| Obviously some will, like you, but not most. And
| unfortunately the perception of need drives behavior more
| strongly than actual need. Same with "off road" vehicles and
| trucks, people buy things based on capability they'll never
| exercise.
|
| Personally I loved the idea of working from a coffee shop
| until I actually tried it. Then I found that the glamour of
| the idea was much more than the experience of trying to do
| focused work in a noisy environment on a cramped keyboard. So
| instead I do work in my office, and leave my laptop
| permanently closed and connected like the worlds most
| expensive Mac Mini.
| joemi wrote:
| I keep my personal computer at my desk in my apartment almost
| all of the time, and for the past decade have used a desktop
| since I pretty much never needed to move it. But over that
| decade with a desktop, I found myself wanting - craving - the
| ability to easily take my computer on trips, or into the living
| room from time to time, etc. Not a lot of movement, but the
| possibility for it. But the concept of having files/projects
| split over a desktop AND a laptop seemed to be a hassle. And
| syncing seemed to be a not-so-ideal situation (possibly hard to
| set up, or requiring a paid service, or not reliable, etc). The
| best solution I found was a dockable laptop setup. I've now
| been using a dockable laptop setup for almost a year and I
| honestly can't imagine ever going back.
|
| The only other solution I could envision I'd be happy with is
| one that doesn't exist: where I have a processor and storage
| "core" that I can use in a variety of dumb terminals. That's my
| real dream, but a dockable laptop is kind of similar.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I have a laptop plugged into a dock, from which it basically
| never moves. If it was a desktop nothing would change.
|
| The one thing I want to do in a mobile fashion is take notes
| and do zoom meetings, a need that my iPad meets handily.
| peeters wrote:
| Well OK but now you're already not comparing laptops to
| desktops, you're comparing laptops to desktop+iPad.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I could do without the iPad and use my phone, I just
| coincidentally have an iPad I inherited. I will not be
| buying another iPad once it dies, nor will my next
| personal computer be a laptop.
|
| The funny thing is that the laptop is actually incapable
| of doing the one thing I would reasonably want it to do:
| work outside. It overheats within 5 minutes and slows to
| a halt if I dare let the sun hit it. Both the iPad and
| iPhone handle this task easily, weirdly enough.
|
| And this is really the issue I have with laptops; they
| try to be everything to everyone and they end up sucking
| at any given one task as a result. Compared to my Mac
| mini my MBP is expensive and underpowered with
| compromised ergonomics and thermals. Compared to my iPad
| my laptop has poor battery life, weighs a ton, and
| overheats in the sun. All that buying a MBP has done is
| waste $2k extra of $CORPs money, and produce a bit more
| e-waste given the short upgrade cycle they have me on.
| icelancer wrote:
| What? I finally switched from a desktop battlestation PC at
| work and at home to a high-powered gaming/compute laptop that I
| dock at work/home in my 3x monitor setup with mechanical
| keyboards and such at each location - and I'm a 1990's LAN
| party, lug your giant tower to the basement of your buddy's
| place nerd.
|
| I was really late to switch and I don't regret it at all.
| Almost everyone I know made this switch 5+ years ago before me.
|
| I also needed a laptop _anyway_ with the battlestations,
| because I travel for work. Now it 's all in one package and I
| spent a lot less money on it.
| 3nf wrote:
| Carrying to meetings to be productive or stare at Zombo (back
| when meetings were in person). Some of my co-workers have a
| hybrid schedule and work won't give us two machines. Getting
| things done while attending conferences (if those happen
| again).
| rcthompson wrote:
| Even when I'm home 90% of the time during COVID, I use my
| laptop in lots of places: my desk, my bed, my dining table, my
| kitchen counter, my couch. I can't drag my desktop setup all
| around my apartment like that.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| I don't use my laptop in any of those places _because my
| desktop setup isn't there_. Laptop keyboards are awful to
| type on, why put yourself through that?
|
| I'd rather get my work done at the desk and then enjoy my
| hammock or couch without the computer, preferably with a good
| book.
| webmobdev wrote:
| It makes sense if you use the laptop as a desktop - plugging
| it to a bigger monitor with an external keyboard and mouse.
| Otherwise it's hard to have good ergonomic with a laptop and
| you can't work long hours on it without developing some body
| pain.
| bogwog wrote:
| What kind of pains does a laptop cause that you wouldn't
| also experience on a desktop?
| 0des wrote:
| Forward head, rounded shoulders.
| devmor wrote:
| Really? This has maintained true for you even during the
| pandemic?
|
| I don't know a single person who uses their laptop in one
| place. Hell, every one of my co-workers has been at home or in
| the office with their machine at least a couple times over the
| past month.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Yes. It has maintained true for me throughout the entire
| pandemic.
|
| Laptop ergonomics are catastrophically bad. Doing any
| meaningful work on them for any length of time without my
| keyboard, monitor, and mouse just plain sucks, so I don't do
| it.
|
| My personal machines (gaming and non) are both desktops. I've
| never wanted to move them, and they cost me a fraction of
| what an equivalent laptop would have.
| turtlebits wrote:
| You must be out of touch. In the last 20 or so years of work
| (~8 employers), I have never had a desktop as a primary work
| machine (I've had desktops as a secondary machine). My primary
| personal machine has also been a laptop in that time frame.
| nkellenicki wrote:
| Literally everybody in my company (a large enterprise) uses a
| laptop as their main workstation. They work with them docked at
| their desks, but then unplug them to take them to a meeting
| room, a shared working space, etc.
|
| Outside of work, 90% of people I know have a laptop as their
| main computing device at home. Very few have a desktop PC -
| those are the PC gamers.
|
| Your anecdotal experience doesn't match with my anecdotal
| experience.
| gamacodre wrote:
| My anecdotal experience matches yours. I work for a smallish
| business in an active growth phase, and the onboarding
| process for every employee starts with "Welcome to the
| company, here's your laptop."
| ashtonkem wrote:
| Right, which doesn't actually contradict what I said in any
| way. I did not say that companies are giving out desktops,
| genuinely not sure why everyone is pretending to the
| contrary.
| stewbrew wrote:
| So you can configure your notebook as you would like to have it
| but you cannot select a non-US keyboard layout?
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Give them time, they are just getting started.
| ixwt wrote:
| Yet, they haven't released them yet.
| destitude wrote:
| Annoys the crap out of me that Apple tries to claim how
| "environmentally friendly" they are and yet the biggest problem
| is they make all their computers be disposable and extremely
| difficult to repair. They've gone out of their way to do this by
| soldering in memory and SSD, gluing batteries in, etc. Shame on
| them.
| krrrh wrote:
| Putting upgradeability aside, Macs typically have longer usable
| lifespans as evinced by their relatively high resale value.
| Anecdotally, it's common to find 5-7 year old MacBooks being
| used by their original owners (I'm typing on one right now),
| and Apple will offer around 1/3 of the original value on a 5
| year old machine as a no hassle trade-in because their refurb
| partners are able to sell them (you can usually get more
| selling privately).
|
| It would be nice to see some objective stats on this though.
| NotPractical wrote:
| The design of the MacBook Pro changed in 2016, and it became
| less repairable and easier to break (see: issues with
| butterfly keyboards). It would be difficult to convince me to
| buy a used old 2016+ MacBook Pro.
| destitude wrote:
| I remember the days when you could actually EASILY replace your
| portables battery (after 3+ years), EASILY upgrade your ram and
| HD.. now if any of that fails or the system needs more memory
| then you have you have to replace the entire computer. I'm sure
| this is by design so you spend more money and buy new stuff
| instead of upgrading what you already have.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Yeah, Apple was really good at replaceable batteries,
| keyboards, hard drives, RAM, and wireless cards... right up
| until they decided they didn't want to be. IIRC it was
| sometime around when they started calling PowerBooks
| MacBooks... 2006 or thereabouts.
| cush wrote:
| It seems like there's so much potential here for a third-party
| module market. I wonder how much flexibility these modules
| provide. Like, could I create a hifi sound card/DAC?
|
| I'll definitely be a buyer when they support AMD!
| Pr0ject217 wrote:
| Cool, but why isn't the CPU bring-your-own?
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| Even in desktops it feels like socket+chipset is becoming more
| and more tied to specific CPU so that you need to swap the
| motherboard and the cpu together.
| wheybags wrote:
| Because they are BGA chips designed to be soldered on, and most
| people do not have the capacity to do that at home.
| bserge wrote:
| And why are they BGA chips these days? That's the real
| problem. Did mobile CPUs somehow advance past desktop ones
| while I wasn't looking?
| cultofmetatron wrote:
| power efficiency? saving weight?
| bserge wrote:
| Very low and zero value to me.
| dageshi wrote:
| Then you can certainly carry your desktop around with
| you? Since these things are negligible.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah that's my plan for the future.
| quocanh wrote:
| Of course they have! Take a look at ARM. Or Apple's M1
| chip. It's crazy what mobile CPUs can do nowadays.
| bserge wrote:
| And look at a Ryzen with an integrated GPU. Wow, it has
| pins and fits in a socket, it's a miracle!
| Matthias247 wrote:
| Any kind of socket would require additional height.
| Probably at least 5mm. And you would certainly want to
| avoid that on mobile devices. For memory thats less of a
| problem, because you can plug it from the side, but CPUs
| have way more pins, so that won't work.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, the usual. Same reason used for everything soldered
| and non replaceable keyboards.
| foxfluff wrote:
| Probably to shave off the cost (and volume) of a socket.
| paleogizmo wrote:
| I don't think that mobile CPUs are available socketed
| bserge wrote:
| Well, not anymore.
|
| What a fucking travesty.
|
| And note how this laptop has removable DDR4 SODIMM sticks!
|
| I couldn't believe it when people were arguing that's
| impossible because signal pathways or some shit (too many
| laptops have it soldered these days).
| wlesieutre wrote:
| I think that argument has been applied to LPDDR4, which is
| what most laptops use now in pursuit of battery life
| bserge wrote:
| Oh yeah, I always forget they're different. Anyway,
| soldered = dead to me.
| not1ofU wrote:
| There is an answer to that question in this video:
|
| "Responding to your comments on the Framework investment" - One
| of LTT channels
|
| Surprisingly NSFW, because they show a clip from Louis
| Rossman's Video talking about Linus' investment (its pretty
| funny, because it was Live)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7f3DTDsocA
| AnEro wrote:
| They also offer instructions to update that for when you need
| to upgrade that.
|
| It's not bring your own but still upgradable, which is what I
| care about, especially with a smaller company obviously trying
| to keep everything ethics of repairability.
| sandbx wrote:
| We bought a fairphone 1 and it was total trash and now I feel
| burned by this type of product. Maybe once it matures...
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| I was annoyed by how their website hides key laptop specs, like
| the screen and battery. Felt shady and made me wary.
| lrvick wrote:
| I am excited to see a company pursue user repairable hardware.
|
| As a security and privacy researcher I care more about being able
| to trust the computer when it is powered on and in use. That
| means user controllable firmware, and the Librem 14 has no equal
| in this regard.
|
| It is a real shame I have to choose. I hope these companies will
| shamelessly trade ideas or merge.
|
| A Framework laptop style hardware with a neutered ME and Heads
| firmware would not only take my money, but become my top
| recommendation for all of the companies I provide security advice
| for.
| davidw wrote:
| I have to use a Mac for work rather than Ubuntu, which I have
| dialed with everything just the way I want it, and it is _so_
| frustrating. It drives me batty on a daily basis.
| timmit wrote:
| Looks like a really good laptop hardware.
|
| It would be great if the windows is not pre-installed, and let
| Linux lovers have the opportunity to opt-out and get dollars back
| (the windows os license fee)
| twelfthnight wrote:
| That is a possible configuration [1]. You can choose None for
| operating system and save 139$.
|
| [1] https://frame.work/products/laptop-diy-
| edition/configuration...
| MMS21 wrote:
| Check out the DIY Edition; it allows you to do exactly this but
| you have to install the storage, WiFi adapter and RAM yourself.
| renke1 wrote:
| I am growing increasingly unhappy with Thinkpads in general, but
| as far as I know there is no real alternative for TrackPoint
| users. There are some that have a TrackPoint but they lack three
| physical mouse button that are in reach of ones thumbs.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Why are you growing unhappy? (I have a X1 Extreme Gen 1, and
| Legion 7, and Legion 5 Pro, so I'm curious)
| renke1 wrote:
| A few things. The newer TrackPoint caps are not good. I
| actually had to order some 3D printed one from some Japanese
| guy. Also my Thinkpad T14 is throttling to the extent that I
| had to install tools [1] (?) that fix this problem. Battery
| seems to be bad as well. Intel by the way, I wanted to have
| Thunderbolt for an eGPU.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/erpalma/throttled
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Work gave me a dell XPS last year. I had it for a Week and
| gave it back because when I turned it on. The fans spin
| full throttle. And the laptop still throttled itself. So I
| use my X1E for work. The nipple is as good but it's flat
| for the thin profile.
|
| I upgraded all 3 laptops with more or better ram, wifi, and
| ssds. And currently ordering a Traditional Chinese keyboard
| for the L5P for the wifey. But I took AMD for the legions.
| renke1 wrote:
| I regret not opting for the Ryzen variant, but I really
| wanted to replace my old desktop computer for the
| occasional gaming session (although they are rare these
| days) and hence the need for Thunderbolt.
| matthewn wrote:
| > I actually had to order some 3D printed one from some
| Japanese guy
|
| Thank you for mentioning this alternative! Just found him
| on Etsy. I have always preferred the old-style concave nibs
| for TrackPoints over the new convex ones. This will be a
| serious improvement for my Thinkpad.
| renke1 wrote:
| It's an improvement but they are not as good as the old
| ones which were slightly larger.
|
| I still use one of those on my external Thinkpad
| keyboard.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| Bundled spyware. That's why I swore off Lenovo.
| renke1 wrote:
| I've bought it without any OS installed. But of course the
| general practice may be good reason to avoid Lenovo (if you
| can live without a TrackPoint, that is).
| orthecreedence wrote:
| Joke's on you, the spyware was in the bootloader =]
| soperj wrote:
| Soldered Ram.
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Oh so dependent on the actual model not ThinkPads
| themselves.
| soperj wrote:
| As far as I've seen nearly all of them have Soldered ram
| now. Can you point to some that don't?
| rhblake wrote:
| Some of the latest models in the "classic" lines with one
| or more RAM slots: P14s Gen 2 AMD/Intel (a.k.a. T14 Gen 2
| AMD/Intel); T15 Gen 2 / P15s Gen 2; P15 Gen 2; T15p Gen
| 2; P1 Gen 4; X1 Extreme Gen 4. Plus some of the slightly
| more "budget" ones like L14 Gen 2 AMD/Intel and E14 Gen 3
| AMD.
|
| Tip: search "<model name> psref" to quickly get to a PDF
| with specifications.
| lufte wrote:
| What would be the requirement for someone to build a trackpoint
| for the Framework laptop? Would they need to design a whole new
| keyboard plus a touchpad with the three buttons?
| renke1 wrote:
| I don't really know, but since there are no manufacturers
| that built good TrackPoints I think its either hard or there
| really is no demand (sadly more likely).
|
| I don't need a touchpad though. Actually, one of the best
| laptops I've owned was one without a touchpad [1].
|
| [1]: https://thinkwiki.de/Datei:TP_X60_2.jpg
| lufte wrote:
| > I don't really know, but since there are no manufacturers
| that built good TrackPoints I think its either hard or
| there really is no demand (sadly more likely).
|
| Those are good points. I'm thinking there could be patents
| involved too.
|
| > I don't need a touchpad though. Actually, one of the best
| laptops I've owned was one without a touchpad [1].
|
| That's true! I don't really use the touchpad on my X230,
| even though it's there.
| webmobdev wrote:
| I am so happy to see the Framework laptop get the good publicity
| it deserves, and I hope it helps them grow much more.
|
| My fear is that when it becomes popular enough, one of the
| BigTech's may just make an offer too good to refuse, and just buy
| and bury the company.
| [deleted]
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I'm always surprised how quickly "hacker" news is to promote
| apple hardware and tear down anything linux related.
|
| Any thread about linux or a linux machine turns into this. People
| promoting macs.
|
| The hacker culture really has changed a lot in the past 10 years.
| ad133 wrote:
| This looks really cool, but the author... is... replacing their
| laptop _every year_? Like, I 'm writing this on an 8 year old MBP
| that has survived as my round-the-house driver because it still
| does everything well. My daily driver is getting on a bit now
| (3yr) and my desktop only just got replaced after 5 years.
|
| Forget the cost, but the waste!
| [deleted]
| zumu wrote:
| >Forget the cost, but the waste!
|
| They can just sell the laptop and someone else will use it. For
| example, I almost never buy new laptops, as perfect Linux
| support generally lags behind.
| riffic wrote:
| "the author" here is well known writer Cory Doctorow. No one
| here seems to be making this connection, but pluralistic.net is
| his blog.
| [deleted]
| teekert wrote:
| Ah, hehe, I got confused opening the tweet. I wonder why I
| had in my head that this was a woman writing the story, must
| be the monica-byrne in the url :)
| sneak wrote:
| It's very, very normal for wealthy people to replace their
| daily-use tools every year, or even more often.
|
| I replace my phone and laptop and iPad every year. I know
| people who replace their car and wardrobe and luggage every
| year, too.
|
| In laptops and mobile devices in general, annual updates make a
| lot of sense as power efficiency is still regularly increasing.
| The M1 Air, is, for example, a fucking marvel. It's been out
| for way less than a year. I have an M1 Air, and will upgrade it
| again in less than a year when the Mx (where x > 1) Macbook Pro
| comes out.
| mkka wrote:
| The author, Cory, links to a previous explanation of when he
| quit smoking he converted the cost into getting a new laptop
| annually. As he mentioned in the article he typically finds a
| new home for the used device. Laptop appears to be his primary
| device and critical to his work so updates annually makes
| sense, though a new device is partially due to the construction
| framework elimates(i.e. riveted or glued components).
| tombert wrote:
| Back when I was making crap wages, I would get the cheapest
| laptops I could afford that would more or less give me decent
| performance (on the order of ~$500-600). It's not too hard to
| find a new laptop that performs well at a reasonable price, but
| you always run the risk of them reclaiming those costs by
| cheaping out on all the mechanics of it, and it's not like I
| was able to afford paying ~$2000 for a high-quality machine.
| Usually within 2 years, the laptop would just start falling
| apart, I would get sad, and then I would repeat the pattern.
|
| After the fourth or so time of doing this, and after getting
| higher-paying jobs, I ended up biting the bullet for a more
| expensive computer, and it lasted me five years, and I only
| replaced it because I wanted more RAM.
|
| Point is, if you're lower-income, it's fairly easy to get stuck
| in the "one laptop a year" trend, because, while probably a
| better deal in the long term, it's really hard for lower-income
| to justify a multi-thousand dollar expense. I'm a proper tech
| bro now so buying a good computer isn't the worst thing in the
| world for me, but that wasn't always the case.
| danielmg wrote:
| That's the Vimes' boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness.
| da_chicken wrote:
| I bought a low end laptop back in 2005, and I used it for
| about 2-3 years until it started to fall apart. It just
| didn't hold up (hinges started to disintegrate). It's
| performance was terrible, too, and it couldn't be upgraded.
|
| I got a business class laptop in 2007 for probably 3 times as
| much. That laptop lasted me until _last month_. I maxed out
| the RAM and replaced the HD with an SSD about 7 years ago,
| but it was ultimately the now-anemic CPU and graphics that
| got me to buy a replacement. I 'd have replaced it last fall
| but laptop stocks were too low.
| toast0 wrote:
| Looking at your trend, you've got $500 laptop / 2 year, or
| $2000 laptop / 5 year, which reduces to $250 laptop / year vs
| $400 laptop / year. Getting low cost laptops isn't
| necessarily a worse financial outcome, although it depends on
| how fast the processor updates are moving; when a 2020 intel
| cpu is about the same as a 2015 intel cpu, it would probably
| have been better to pay a little more in 2015 for a faster
| one; when a 2015 intel cpu smokes a 2010 intel cpu,
| incremental updates every year or two mean a low cost 2015
| cpu is probably better than a high cost 2010 cpu. Plus, you
| get a battery refresh (even if it's small).
|
| I think there's more junk at the low end to avoid, but it's
| not as if the high end doesn't have a lot of junk to avoid.
| Either way, you have to do careful shopping.
|
| It's like just my opinion, but a lot of higher end laptop
| spending seems to be on increasing the screen's DPI, which is
| then run with scaling, at the cost of more CPU, more RAM,
| more GPU, and more software BS. Buying a cheaper laptop with
| fewer pixels that just runs 1:1 saves all that extra
| computation and BS, and maybe looks a bit less nice.
| Sometimes glossy screens are reserved for the high cost
| laptops, which is like wait, I want a matte screen, so I have
| to save money to get one, great!
| volta83 wrote:
| I have an apple macbook air from mid 2012, that i paid
| 1200$ for. If it survies 6 more months, then I've spent
| 120$/year on laptops over the last 10 years.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I have a 2015 air that was $1k. I expect to get down to
| $120 per year in a couple years, but I would have to add
| $10/year for replacing the battery every few years.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, I've actually done this math too, though I don't
| think it's quite this simple. When a laptop started falling
| apart, I usually tried to just put up with it until I
| couldn't.
|
| For example, I used to have an Asus computer whose plastic
| surrounding the screen decided to start coming detached
| from the monitor flap. This made the laptop substantially
| more fragile and annoying to use, and after a certain point
| I tried to remedy this with gorilla glue and it led to this
| ugly mess on the bottom left corner. The laptop still
| "worked" in the sense that still did computation, but it
| was crappier. Then the 7 key broke off the keyboard, I was
| unable to put it back on, so I just decided I didn't need
| the 7 key, since I didn't type 7 that often, and when I did
| I could still hit the little switch. Again, the laptop
| still "worked" in the sense that it still did computation,
| but it was crappier. A bunch of other stuff ended up
| happening (e.g. the LED for the backlight started to go out
| and become this flickery mess, the connector to the battery
| didn't always seem to make contact, etc).
|
| Stuff like that starts to add up, and "experience" is
| substantially more difficult to quantify. I bought an
| expensive Macbook, and I never had any issues outside of
| the inevitable "moores law" depreciation.
| toast0 wrote:
| > I bought an expensive Macbook, and I never had any
| issues outside of the inevitable "moores law"
| depreciation.
|
| I hope that keeps going. I used a macbook for work for
| almost 8 years, and they did OK, but I had one that
| decided not to take external power and the hard drive
| wasn't removable, thankfully I noticed it wasn't charging
| while it was near full so I could pull a backup to a
| spare work hand. And then there was the year where iTunes
| would have a 25% chance of spewing high volume digital
| noise at me instead of playing music. I guess that was a
| software problem because it went away with the next major
| OS X release, but no useful forum contents. I think there
| was something else bothersome too, but not sure anymore.
| roland35 wrote:
| Maybe next time your 7 key breaks you can set up a macro
| so everytime you type "6+1" it will replace it with "7"!
| szundi wrote:
| I usually buy top quality laptops second hand from shops that
| give at least 6 months warranty. Best strategy. You get a
| $2000 laptop for $500. And honestly, Intel did not do too
| much in the last decade, so these are of great value.
| itronitron wrote:
| In my experience, it's the laptop case that always fails
| first. So it's disappointing to see the trend toward ultra-
| thin cases.
| hyperman1 wrote:
| I found it's better to buy a second hand top model, or even
| last year's best on sale, than brand new low quality stuff.
|
| It's a little less visible for laptops than for, say, kitchen
| appliances, but even there my thinkpad x220 was bought and
| upgraded for EUR400 in 2015, and it did its job well untill
| half way this year.
| dickfickling wrote:
| As the other comments have noted, Cory addresses this further
| down in the linked post. He further expanded on this in the
| post he wrote when he quit smoking[0]:
|
| > That was my homework: go away and think of an immediate
| reason not to smoke. When I came back, I had my answer ready:
| "I spend two laptops per year on smokes. That money goes
| directly to the dirtiest companies on Earth, the literal
| inventors of the science-denial playbook that is responsible
| for our inaction on climate change. Those companies' sole
| mission is to murder me and all my friends. I'm going to quit
| smoking and I'm going to buy a laptop this year and every year
| hereafter, and I'll still be up one laptop per year."
|
| [0]: https://doctorow.medium.com/i-quit-9ae7b6010c99
| exolymph wrote:
| I don't care enough but I want someone to fact-check him on
| the environmental impact of a MacBook worth of cigarettes
| versus the MacBook itself. It'd be funny if the MacBook is
| ultimately worse for Nature.
| sudosysgen wrote:
| If he's giving his old one to someone else that presumably
| needs it, I don't see why it would be a negative.
|
| The cigarettes are probably better for Nature since you'll
| live a shorter life.
| afterburner wrote:
| Or he could just save the money. But I guess he has to
| constantly reward himself for quitting? Man addiction sure is
| a pain.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I know people who still crave cigarettes 20 years after
| quitting, so an annual award doesn't seem too odd to me.
| Don't smoke, kids.
| avgDev wrote:
| Sounds like giving up one addiction for another. But I
| guess buying laptops yearly is better for your health than
| smoking.
| aseipp wrote:
| The labor and physical footprint needed to produce modern
| electronics is _completely insane_. You 're comparing
| little league basketball to major league baseball, and
| it's not like a player like Framework is going to change
| this at all.
|
| There is a severe ecological impact to the wider
| environment that comes from electronics, let's not kid
| ourselves. That doesn't mean buying electronics makes you
| like, a terrible person, but if you're sitting around
| prostheyzing on blogs like Doctorow about how these
| companies are killing you, it's a bit funny to
| essentially go from a thing that kills people you know in
| the first world to one that only kills people in the
| third world you never cared for. Modern comforts like
| cutting edge electronics have extreme externalities.
| Like, okay, let me just throw the "murders people I care
| about" problem over the fence, where it will surely not
| be an issue for all those people halfway across the
| planet from me (that I coincidentally do not care or
| think about.)
|
| In general I'm not trying to be too hard. It's not like
| anyone else deals with this level of cognitive dissonance
| much better, and I say that as someone who mostly quit
| cold turkey over a year ago...
| DharmaPolice wrote:
| >it's a bit funny to essentially go from a thing that
| kills people you know in the first world to one that only
| kills people in the third world you never cared for
|
| I feel like you're not really representing his argument
| on why he quit fairly. He does talk about the effects of
| tobacco on the developing world for one and also his
| overall reason seems to be more relating to the wider
| idea of tobacco companies being pioneers in the
| misinformation industry.
| 0des wrote:
| While acutely better for the individual, surely the
| e-waste and resource sequestration outweigh that over
| time
| ip26 wrote:
| From the smokers in my life, it's apparent to me people
| generally need a fairly concrete reason or goal to
| successfully quit.
|
| Otherwise it's always _Sure, I 'll quit - tomorrow_
|
| Willpower is a muscle. It fatigues. So simply willing your
| way out of an addiction is not effective for many people.
| felistoria wrote:
| My mom smoked for about 45 years and stopped the day she
| found out she was having a grand daughter. She didn't
| want to smell like smoke around her. Hasn't touched a cig
| in years. The whole family is better for it.
| rozab wrote:
| Well, maybe he's happier this way? There's a classic joke
| about a lifelong smoker talking to a stop-smoking
| councillor:
|
| "With all the money you've spent on cigarettes in your
| lifetime, you could have bought a Ferrari."
|
| "Do you smoke?"
|
| "No."
|
| "Then where's your Ferrari?"
|
| It's a good question. Most of us have the financial
| capability to be extremely extravagant with a few select
| areas of our life, but instead we average everything down
| to boring mediocrity.
| mdoms wrote:
| Can't take your money to the grave man. Cory is well set up
| and isn't hurting for cash.
| aspaceman wrote:
| > Or he could just save the money.
|
| What a stupid comment. He saved the money and spent it on
| what he wanted. The hell?
|
| He should save the money and you should call your
| grandmother.
| 0des wrote:
| People justify buying things they don't technically need in
| many different ways.
| comeonseriously wrote:
| Kudos to him for quitting. I quit, oh, about a dozen years
| ago. When I decided to quit, every time I smoked, I told my
| self they taste like shit; every drag off the cigarette, I
| told myself that. Eventually (about 2 or 3 months as I
| recall) it worked and I could no longer stand the taste and
| haven't touched one since.
| JZL003 wrote:
| Also just bc the link is buried, see
| https://doctorow.medium.com/i-quit-9ae7b6010c99
|
| He traded smoking for buying a new laptop every year. Now that
| it's been years, I guess he could quit _and_ not buy a new
| laptop. But also people do more wasteful things. I do
| understand though, I drive laptops into the ground over many
| years but still 4-5 years per laptop
| lapetitejort wrote:
| Further down the article:
|
| > The environmental consequences of that system weren't lost on
| me, even given my very good track-record of re-homing my old
| computers with people who needed them.
| qolop wrote:
| The author does address that
|
| > The environmental consequences of that system weren't lost on
| me, even given my very good track-record of re-homing my old
| computers with people who needed them.
| czechdeveloper wrote:
| That's not really addressing it. It's just acknowledging it.
| dathinab wrote:
| If it causes other people not to by new laptops, it kinda
| is addressing it. (As long as we assume the people getting
| the old laptop would have bought a new laptop, which might
| or might not be the case.)
| bitwize wrote:
| What you're supposed to do, apparently, is buy a brand-new
| laptop, use it for a few months, then flip it on eBay before it
| gets too old so you can recover most of what you spent on it
| and buy the next new laptop.
|
| I worked with a guy who practiced this with all his personal
| hardware.
| [deleted]
| gattilorenz wrote:
| And apparently it made sense for him to pay 150$/year to get
| his laptop fixed in 24h if needed, and buy two powerbooks at
| once... I guess what he really should have bought is a
| Toughbook instead of a ThinkPad?
| ndiddy wrote:
| Buying a new thinkpad every year is especially confusing to
| me given that Lenovo's switch from mobile to ultrabook
| processors in the x40 series meant that for around 5 years,
| buying a newer thinkpad than the x30 series meant getting a
| speed downgrade.
| bluedino wrote:
| >> replacing their laptop every year?
|
| Not really that uncommon especially with a MacBook Pro where a
| new one is released...every year.
|
| How much sense it makes, that's another story.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Ignoring the (potentially substantial) environmental costs,
| if you do it "correctly" the total cost of ownership is about
| the same.
|
| If you buy a $2000 Mac and use it for as long as reasonably,
| it's going to depreciate by several hundred dollars (let's
| say, roughly $300) a year. At a certain point it's worth
| nearly zero, and you must buy a new laptop. After 6-7 years
| your total outlay is $2000.
|
| Alternatively, every year or two you can sell the old one for
| a few hundred dollars less than the new model, and buy the
| new model. You always have a new laptop. And your total
| outlay is still only about $2000. Plus you are covered by
| free AppleCare every time you buy the new one.
|
| Plenty of people do this with mobile phones and automobiles
| and other things as well.
|
| Please note that I am _not_ advocating it. I was still using
| my 2015 laptop until very recently. But economically it is
| not necessarily insane.
|
| (Assuming you are selling the old laptops, that is. It's not
| clear to me that the author is doing that. He says he's
| donating/rehoming them. Not sure if that includes selling)
| bluedino wrote:
| The downtime of setting up a new laptop, migrating data,
| etc is going to be worth several hundred dollars to many
| people
| TwiztidK wrote:
| Many products are released on a yearly basis, but very few
| people are upgrading every year.
| flatiron wrote:
| 2013 MacBook Air daily driver here. MagSafe? Usb A? Sd card
| reader? User replaceable battery? Runs Linux? All checks. It's
| light on RAM (which for just chrome and light app use honestly
| it's fine).
| tucosan wrote:
| It just haa a horrible screen resolution.
| flatiron wrote:
| yeah 1440x900 does kinda stink, but the screen is so small
| it doesn't really bother me too much. plasma does a good
| job shrinking itself down enough and virtual desktops help.
| 99% its a full screen chromium window so who cares.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I would guess that MacBook Airs, especially the current
| ones, are sufficient for the needs of 80%, maybe even
| 90%, of the entire laptop market, who I presume just need
| to be able to use a browser and spreadsheets.
|
| And they last for years and years, and I doubt the
| cost:performance:longevity ratios can be beat.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| Given that the expansion ports are just USB C ports, the real
| innovation (one of them) is making an integrated dongles. The
| only issue I see is that the adapters are a big too large but
| also a bit too small; the adapters are large enough that there
| are only 4 but also small enough that making a 2x USB A adapter
| would be quite challenging.
|
| I think the idea could be expanded upon. Dongles that extend
| beyond the chassis such that they protrude a bit but make a flush
| contact with the laptop chassis. This would let you basically
| turn a typical USB dock into a permanent extension. Perhaps
| instead of having an two expansion ports on each side, each side
| of the computer including the front & back would have one larger
| port. I don't think having two USB C ports does anything to
| increase overall bandwidth available since it's probably all
| shared anyway.
|
| Also once Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 are available it should make
| creating standardized expansion adapters a lot easier since you
| won't have to worry about an adapter needing Thunderbolt on an
| AMD system.
| minsc__and__boo wrote:
| >the adapters are large enough that there are only 4 but also
| small enough that making a 2x USB A adapter would be quite
| challenging.
|
| This was my thought as well, but they're planning on doing more
| interfaces than what they're listing now, so it may be they
| went for universibility with the size.
|
| Also USB-A is going to slowly die off anyways, so I doubt it's
| good to build the dongle standard to two USB-As.
| m1117 wrote:
| From the mission: "products that give you back the power to
| customize" and shipped w/Windows pre-installed.
| tikhonj wrote:
| You can order the "DIY Edition" without an OS pre-installed, as
| well as _a lot_ of other customization.
|
| https://frame.work/products/laptop-diy-edition/configuration...
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| You can choose no Windows, or pay a bunch of extra money and
| get Windows.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I wish that I needed a laptop so that I could buy one. I
| sincerely hope this company succeeds so that they are around when
| I do need a laptop.
|
| > Yesterday, I put my 2019 Thinkpad on my pile of "laptops to
| refurbish and donate." I've bought a new Thinkpad almost every
| year since 2006. I think that's over.
|
| wat
| smoldesu wrote:
| If it's any consolation, I've bought a used Thinkpad every year
| since 2015.
| fouc wrote:
| how do you get rid of the doubly used Thinkpads?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Only one of them has broken so far, and it was only an
| issue with the display. I repurposed it into a
| homelab/Podman host and it's been able to work just fine!
|
| As a quick aside, if you're ever one of the 15 people who
| will likely do this, buy a Thinkpad dock. They're cheap,
| and it basically triples your I/O!
| thinkingemote wrote:
| Just to continue the question, what do you do with the
| other laptops? You should have at least 4 or 5 more which
| are unaccounted for. I imagine only one is used
| currently.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| Not them, but I keep a long trail of old laptops and
| generally do in fact keep them all in active use on a
| regular basis. For me part of the appeal was that I like
| distro-hopping, so multiple machines made it easy to keep
| rotating OSs without much trouble. The core bits (browser
| profile, password manager) are synced, and my projects
| live in version control that's easy to pull to any
| machine that happens to not have it yet, so I just...
| grab the closest machine when I want to do something and
| go. (And I tend to have them laying around multiple rooms
| so there's always one at hand)
| smoldesu wrote:
| I gave an old workstation to my mom and a spare T440p to
| my brother, now the x201 and T460s occupy my tinker
| station and bedroom respectively. Oh, and there's also a
| T420 that my other brother uses as a media server, but
| that's not really mine anymore :p
| speed_spread wrote:
| Hint: "used" is a boolean, not a counter.
| fouc wrote:
| It was a joke. I was gonna write "used used laptop" since
| the poster used a used laptop. I thought doubly used
| would be slightly less confusing.
| pc86 wrote:
| It's addressed in the article _and_ elsewhere in these
| comments, several times. They donate them after a year in order
| to upgrade. Seems a perfectly reasonable and responsible use
| case if you want a new laptop every year.
| thinkingemote wrote:
| >wat
|
| "Self described early adopter consumer sees early adopter
| friendly project and supports it"
|
| One might see some cognitive dissonance between the state of
| mind of being pro recycling and supporting reduce and reuse and
| being an eager consumer. However early adopters dance this line
| and lead the way for the masses to come after.
|
| All a matter of perspective or framing.
| einpoklum wrote:
| > it's no thick-as-a-brick throwback the size of a 2005 Thinkpad
| - it's approximately the same dimensions as a MacBook.
|
| So, it's a bad laptop in my book (pun not intended).
|
| You see, a laptop needs a good keyboard; and a good keyboard
| needs height for the keys to travel. So, a laptop needs to be
| kind of "think as a brick". Maybe not at 2005 levels, but
| definitely at 2010 levels and no thinner.
|
| However - a laptop which is reasonably easy to disassemble, and
| hence customize, is definitely something I support in principle.
| I'm not sure this can catch on if it's essentially a single-
| vendor thing.
| devmor wrote:
| Have you tried one? I have one and it has the nicest laptop
| keyboard I've ever used.
| guru4consulting wrote:
| Imagine doing this at a large scale for the whole industry.. TVs,
| mobile phones, dishwashers, microwaves.. helps consumers and our
| planet environment too
| dewiz wrote:
| Is it Windows 11 compatible (serious question) ?
|
| Edit: yes - https://community.frame.work/t/windows-11/2451
| asddubs wrote:
| >I've bought a new Thinkpad almost every year since 2006.
|
| Why? I bought a thinkpad and used it for 7 years. Who needs a new
| laptop every year? Especially these days
|
| Sorry I know it's besides the point of the article but it stood
| out to me
| Groxx wrote:
| This is covered in the article.
| tcskeptic wrote:
| He discusses his reasons in the article, it was a reward to
| himself for quitting smoking.
| amiantos wrote:
| This is kind of a weird piece that really doesn't mean anything
| at all. I understand being in the "honeymoon phase" with a new
| piece of technology, but I don't feel like Cory is aware that
| he's doing that here. But there's some signs: He loved Thinkpads
| originally, but over the course of several years the company and
| the quality of the product went down the tubes. Now he's got a
| brand new laptop that he's only had for one month and is
| declaring it the best thing ever since sliced bread. But it's not
| really a fair comparison, a brand new niche product that hasn't
| been battled tested in any way versus a long-term established
| brand that he used for years. What will the Framework be like in
| many years? He offers extremely optimistic ideas, but obviously
| nothing concrete, because he just got the laptop.
|
| I dunno, it just felt weird to me to be like "I loved this
| product I used for years, but it sucks now" and then say "I love
| this new product I've barely used!" without a hint of self-
| awareness that all the optimism and initial love for a product in
| the world won't keep it from turning into a pile of junk. How
| long until a "I went back to Thinkpads" article? A year, two,
| three?
| lugu wrote:
| Why being so negative? He seems to like how easy it is to tear
| down the machine and how easy it is to install ubuntu. That's
| it. I don't think this will change in 10 years, and I don't
| want to wait 10 years to hear about his experience.
| MMS21 wrote:
| I agree with your honeymoon phase comment but if Framework
| followed what Lenovo did to ThinkPads, there would be no reason
| to buy them.
| leephillips wrote:
| I did think it odd that he was talking about the durability of
| a product that he'd barely unwrapped. But his other points seem
| cogent, and are orthogonal to how long he's used any of the
| products.
| 300bps wrote:
| I have a Lenovo Carbon X1. Can't get more than 16 GB of RAM.
| Can't get larger than 1 TB hard drive. Really crappy wifi
| chipset that blows up when I use a VPN.
|
| I kinda feel like he explained what happened to ThinkPad. They
| went from IBM which for $150 per year would send out a tech
| anywhere in the world to fix your problem to Lenovo who...
| let's just say isn't as good.
| fouc wrote:
| Or better yet, after 5-10 years of frame.work laptops being
| wildly successful, they will slowly start killing off the
| upgradeability/fixability of the laptop.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| This is just how Cory writes in general. You're not going to
| get a lot of measured maybes. He is an opinionated guy.
|
| And in this case, what's the harm? If a laptop doesn't work
| out, it can be replaced. This one just got released, so a long-
| term reliability test isn't even possible yet.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| What are the long term prospects for this company? I'd like to
| have a repairable/upgradable laptop, but if they go out of
| business in a year, it's not much of an improvement over a
| Macbook... granted, it'd be some improvement since I could
| replace/upgrade commodity components like RAM or the hard drive
| but if the motherboard or display fails, I have to buy a new
| laptop.
| OJFord wrote:
| Not great if we all think like that and 'wait to see'!
|
| It's still better though, a lot of it is standardised stuff -
| you don't need Framework to exist to be able still to replace
| your M2 SSD, WiFi, DDR4 RAM.
| [deleted]
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| That is without a doubt the best laptop customizing process I
| have ever gone through.
|
| Finally a manufacturer that is offering a more "desktop" build
| experience in a laptop form factor. Framework will be my first
| choice when I need a new laptop.
| AnEro wrote:
| I am saving currently for it and I can't describe the vague worry
| I feel that this will become the next big thing. Where I'll be
| refreshing their page every morning for new drops to attempt to
| get them before they sell out
| joering2 wrote:
| Very exciting. Their site allowed me to configure mine with 54
| HDMI ports. Will this come in some sort of octopus cable one
| USB-C split to 54 HDMIs? Can't wait to find out!
| major--neither wrote:
| how's the keyboard?
| noasaservice wrote:
| > Can I use a different Operating System?
|
| > Base and Performance configurations ship with Windows 10 Home
| pre-installed and Professional ships with Windows 10 Pro pre-
| installed. You can also load your own operating system later,
| like a Linux distribution.
|
| So... Forced windows tax, even when Dell can manage for Linux.
| Yuck. Like, really yuck.
|
| And for the specs:
|
| > Base $999.00
|
| > i5-1135G7 | 8GB Memory | 256GB Storage | WiFi 6 | Windows 10
| Home
|
| 8 gigs of ram? Well, I guess that's 1 chrome or firefox window
| open, and an electron app. And .25TB ssd? That's great for a
| machine 8 years ago.
|
| I'll stick with Dell's Business line. They're rugged, parts are
| serialized and easy to order/obtain. Pass on the "Framework".
| rgrmrts wrote:
| If you get a DIY version you don't pay the windows tax. You can
| also install your own cheaper ram and toss in 64gigs.
|
| Assembly took me about 5 minutes.
| Fordec wrote:
| I'm not in the market for a laptop right now, but the next time
| around two years from now, if there's an AMD variant with
| dedicated GPU that I can have two HDMI ports for my external
| screens they will have a sale from me.
| daemonk wrote:
| I think this is cool. But at some point in my career/life in the
| tech space, I stopped caring as much about my tools as long as it
| works to a reasonable degree. I am fine with whatever
| Dell/Apple/Asus/etc laptop that's out there. Will my productivity
| increase if I switch to Framework? Maybe? I am not sure how to
| convince people like me. Obviously, I am not the target audience
| for this. I wonder what is their addressable market?
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| A good video about it is here:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rkTgPt3M4k
| idoubtit wrote:
| The article contains a link to the page where one can customize a
| Framework order https://frame.work/laptop-diy-edition The problem
| with this page is that I can't see which component is selected,
| even after I click on them. Zooming in, I see that selection
| means coloring the thin border in red. About 8% of male adults
| have at least a minor trouble with colors, usually green and red,
| so that UI is annoying/unusable for many people. I hope their
| computers are better thought out.
|
| tl;dr Framework's shopping site is broken in case of light color
| blindness.
| readflaggedcomm wrote:
| It's a 2px border, so I guess that only really works with
| lower-resolution screens, anyway. It probably should have been
| specified with a unit like `rem` instead, (the background
| should also stay different instead of only on transition).
| pedalpete wrote:
| I'm pretty excited about this, but I do wish they had made a
| design that wasn't an Apple clone. I don't want people to look at
| my computer and mistake it as a clone/copy. I feel it's a missed
| opportunity for them to say "look, there's a better way".
| monkeydust wrote:
| Pretty happen with my X1 Carbon but once I am not this is
| definitely the next laptop I will get.
| gigatexal wrote:
| If this is truly popular to change the industry then even big
| players like Apple will adapt. My bet is that it's super popular
| in the niche that is the HN audience but not much more.
| reidjs wrote:
| I don't personally want an exciting laptop. I want a laptop that
| works with all my other stuff (phone, tv, printer, various
| software) the moment I open it.
| MikusR wrote:
| Can you provide an example, or that is just a dream you have?
| nsriv wrote:
| Highlighted on the Linus Tech Tips video on the Framework
| laptop, there are thoughtful touches like drivers installing in
| unattended mode upon OS install, so the team clearly puts
| importance on that seamless functional experience too.
| kiba wrote:
| Good news. If you have things that work with ubuntu. It should
| work with this laptop too.
|
| With the exception of being able to repair and replace parts,
| the Frame.work laptop is very boring.
| vaidhy wrote:
| This is all great, but I hope the oct batch ships now. Just
| waiting for it to show up is driving me crazy :)
| tbrock wrote:
| He lost a little bit of credibility saying the Macbooks have
| terrible build quality... compared to a thinkpad they are on par
| or better, compared to everything else they are head and
| shoulders above.
| riffic wrote:
| Part of "build quality" in my mind is the ability to repair
| your device. Apple has shown this to be something they do not
| care highly about:
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/laptop-repairability?sort=score
|
| While, yes, they may be built well in your mind, in many other
| people's minds they aren't.
| [deleted]
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Powerbooks he mentioned, didn't he? Different era.
| nautilius wrote:
| He didn't say that. He talks about _Powerbooks_
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook
| hobs wrote:
| He did not say that, he said PowerBooks had terrible build
| quality, which they definitely did.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| Thank you for the writeup, it seems like they have done a great
| job with The Framework. Does it come in that beige-looking color
| shown on the yellow background?
|
| I think I might want a beige laptop, something with the fine
| lines of The Framework and the raw aesthetic appeal of Lappy 486.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| And don't forget that classy startup noise.
| leeoniya wrote:
| > From now on, I can easily see myself upgrading the CPU or the
| screen on an annual basis
|
| how feasible is this, given that sockets and chipsets change
| every 2 years? also, the ultra low voltage / TDP parts are rarely
| available for purchase by end users.
| devmor wrote:
| I got one of the first waves, it's awesome. My only complaint so
| far is getting the fingerprint sensor to function properly in
| Linux - but that may be more of an issue with fprintd/libfprint
| than anything.
|
| I'm dual booting Win10 and Debian, and absolutely no issues under
| Windows so far either.
|
| The battery life is great, the screen is extremely crisp and
| bright, and the keyboard actually feels decent to type on.
| joombaga wrote:
| The fingerprint reader does work in Linux after compiling newer
| versions of fprintd and libfprint. I'm using it in GDM and for
| sudo.
| mdoms wrote:
| > We haven't opened ordering in your region yet, but we're
| looking forward to getting there! We can notify you when ordering
| opens:
|
| Ok. You know who has "opened ordering" in my region? Every other
| laptop vendor.
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| I like what they are doing, but I am sticking with my 2 primary
| thinkpads for now, which is fine as well and certainly eco :)
| They are still a perfect level of repairability (t430s and a
| t470p) even if I can't upgrade the CPUs on them.
|
| I am excited over seeing this project, but these things have
| stuck out for me:
|
| 1. I am concerned over long-term screen hinge strength. I can't
| see the build on it, but I will not cheap out on that after
| dealing with bad hinges (screwed into plastic, not a metal frame
| on a Dell)
|
| 2. I am concerned over the durability of the screen. I am not an
| expert at this, but I have no worry over the screen if I chuck it
| in a bag or my cats who sometimes stand on the top of the laptop
| when I put it on the floor.
|
| 3. I watched Louis Rossmann's takes on it - I was hoping he would
| go into the tactile feel of the keyboard. I can wait though for
| any commentary on that from a ThinkPad user. I can try to stop
| using the TrackPoint (would hate unlearning that) but a good
| laptop keyboard is essential. (I declare the best laptop keyboard
| I ever experienced is the one I have on my t430s. Lenovo has made
| the key travel lower and lower over the years. The t470p and
| others around that year I used is OK, but doesn't compare
| really.)
|
| If anything were to go wrong though, hey, I can at least repair
| it :D But, I continue to stare in wonder over this. I'd love to
| be proven otherwise on these points.
| cassepipe wrote:
| The case/hinges has always been the first thing to fall apart
| in all my passed laptops. This is the third and the plastic
| case is showing age. The other two are still running well but
| they can't be moved around at all no more. Basically I want
| something as tough as an Apple Macbook but without Apple crap
| on it (I need Linux). My next laptop will have the best case
| and hinges or there won't be another one. I can't stand seeing
| perfectly runnning old machines made unusable because cheap
| assembly.
| binkHN wrote:
| > I can try to stop using the TrackPoint (would hate unlearning
| that)...
|
| Same here. I'm addicted to it and can't get over the tactile
| feel. I guess this will go the way of the mobile phone
| keyboard, assuming it hasn't already.
| khqc wrote:
| I guess a workaround for now (until someone designs a
| trackpoint keyboard that fits in the framework) could be
| Lenovo's bluetooth trackpoint keyboard, I use it with every
| laptop and it's been great
| someguydave wrote:
| I just want a laptop that has ECC ram
| thebruce87m wrote:
| Am I missing the keyboard options? The $ instead of PS is an
| annoyance but I can't handle the tiny enter key.
| calebm wrote:
| This sounds like the ultimate hacker laptop.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| Wait, wait, wait. The Framework is supposed to be entirely
| customizable. Except I _have_ to buy Windows 10 Home, which has
| an OEM cost of, what, about $100? And I have to have the little
| Windows icon on my keyboard. This alone gets me thinking about
| other options.
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| You want the DIY edition.
| SeanLuke wrote:
| My bad! I thought I had selected it.
| vmarsy wrote:
| > The little modular port attachments seemed like a novelty at
| first, but now it feels absurd that you'd buy a laptop with a
| bunch of "hardcoded" ports that you can't ever change
|
| That's funny I remember laptops from the 2000s with those
| swappable cards with different ports.
|
| One I distinctly remember because it was clever way to keep the
| card ~3mm thin were the Ethernet cards, where the Ethernet port
| was hidden inside and you'd press it to make it pop, similar to
| handleless kitchen cabinets.
|
| I found a picture of those on Wikipedia:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card The framework expansion
| port seems to be a 2021 version of this, although I don't know
| how standardized these new ones are.
|
| EDIT: From the framework's configuration page:
|
| > > Will you be adding additional Expansion Card types?
|
| > Yes! We'll be adding new Expansion Cards over time, and we're
| also opening up the design to enable third parties and community
| members to create their own versions. We'll be making these
| available in the Framework Marketplace
|
| That's awesome, then in theory Ethernet expansion card could
| exist (and use similar design to the PC cards above, where the
| Ethernet port can be retractable)
| fnord77 wrote:
| those PCMCIA cards were very expensive.
| godot wrote:
| This got me curious, I feel like if any laptop could allowed for
| a customized keyboard layout, it would be this one.
|
| I'm really yearning for a modern laptop with a keyboard layout
| that doesn't seem to exist anymore in modern keyboards, something
| like this [1], where there is a set of 6 nav keys at the upper
| right corner and a set of full size arrow keys at the lower right
| corner. If the Framework laptop has an option for a customized
| keyboard with that layout, I'll literally instantly buy it
| without even considering other specs.
|
| 1: https://koboguide.com/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/01/1pDN_eHnop3...
| xarope wrote:
| I always felt the last good keyboard on a laptop was the one on
| the thinkpad x220. I wish someone manufacturer would pick that
| up.
| kryptn wrote:
| This was my first thought as well, I'd love to see an
| ortholinear keyboard, and ideally one I could config with QMK.
| Not sure how likely or easy either would be though.
| dreyfan wrote:
| > The third, a giant, heavy Carbon X1
|
| A 2019 Carbon X1 (14") weighs 2.4lbs and the laptop they're
| drooling over starts at 2.8lbs.
| kvark wrote:
| They must be thinking about X1 Extreme, I assume. I've been
| using one, and it's giant.
| dreyfan wrote:
| okay, that'd make a lot more sense. The X1 Carbon was heavily
| advertised as being thin and lightweight.
| londgine wrote:
| > Another caveat. I really miss my Thinkpad Trackpoint (the
| little nub in the middle of the keyboard) and the three hardware
| mouse buttons on the trackpad. I'm finding it really hard to
| reliably hit the right region on my trackpad to get the left-,
| center- and middle-buttons.
|
| Yes! This is one of the main reasons that I will stick with
| Thinkpads. there are times that I have a mouse plugged in, but
| still use the track point since I then don't have to move my
| hand. I hope that they will add a track point to their laptop.
| fnord77 wrote:
| 400 nit screen is pretty dim these days
| qudat wrote:
| I'm trying to hold out for an AMD cpu on the framework but I
| might not be able to wait much longer.
| specialist wrote:
| Ditto.
|
| My other deal breaker is the fit & finish of Mac's touchpad.
| The qwan of it.
|
| If frame.work + Ubuntu come within striking distance, I'd buy.
| yupper32 wrote:
| I used to like being able to control everything about my machine.
| I'd spend hours hacking away at making my Linux distro just the
| way I'd like it, and fixing things when they broke, figuring out
| drivers and oddities. This laptop seems to have the same culture.
|
| Now I just buy a MacBook and the concept of "things breaking" and
| "having to fix my computer" just isn't a thing anymore.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| I don't really want an exciting laptop. And I don't want dongles
| that plug INTO the laptop. I just want a more powerful 1st gen
| unibody aluminum MacBook. That was the sweet spot for me. Good
| ports. Removable battery. Removable memory. Removable disk.
| vandahm wrote:
| That was the best computer I ever owned. I used it every day
| for seven years, long after it was obsolete.
| davidy123 wrote:
| I think Framework is great, I'll consider one when they offer a
| good trackpoint, but Doctorow's description of Thinkpads is....
| weird. Like, a heavy X1 Carbon? Replaceable drives that don't go
| to 2TB? Other generalizations that just don't make sense.
|
| I've been using Thinkpads for a couple decades now, in some ways
| the quality has wavered (partially due to contemporary
| concessions like compromises to be thinner) but they are still in
| general the best mainstream systems to run Linux with end user
| and field support. I've installed Ubuntu on every system,
| especially in the last years it has "just worked," and Lenovo
| even increasing offers Ubuntu pre-installed on some models.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I would love to see Framework become successful and then also
| enter the phone space. We need a highly polished but open phone
| platform that isn't a walled garden under control of a tech
| giant.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| I find it kind of strange that they don't have a dual-usb c card.
| There seems to be more than enough space and putting two usb c
| ports on a single card would allow to carry a wider variety of
| cards without loosing out on standard ports.
|
| Is this possibly because of charging? It seems like such an easy
| and obvious thing to do.
| tombert wrote:
| It feels like for years we were constantly told by these
| corporations "it's impossible to have slim, tiny laptops _and_
| make them customizable ", and I guess at some level I believed
| that, and just accepted that laptops with upgradable components
| were a thing of the past.
|
| After seeing the framework, I'm more than a little annoyed that I
| fell for this. They proved you can have a slim, clean laptop
| that's somewhat modular, and more impressively, with something
| like 1% of Apple's budget to do it. Had I known about it, I
| probably wouldn't have paid an arm and a leg for a maxed-out
| Macbook Pro a year ago. MacOS is nice, probably my favorite
| consumer operating system currently available, but Apple's walled
| garden approach is beyond annoying.
| hyperpallium2 wrote:
| According to Clayton Christensen, there's a cycle between
| integrated and modular, as consumer perferences change. At
| first performance is inadequate, but once it is good enough,
| people base their buying decisions on other things like
| customization.
|
| e.g. By this theory, android would become more popular than
| iphone.
|
| EDIT yes, which happened, favouring the theory; despite iphone
| still leading performance, due to integration even to cpu and
| gpu.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> e.g. By this theory, android would become more popular
| than iphone._
|
| Well Android already is more popular than iphone worldwide.
| gilbetron wrote:
| Android is more popular, worldwide, than the iphone. It's
| only in the US and Japan that the iphone is more popular, and
| in the US, only by a bit.
| azinman2 wrote:
| > MacOS is nice, probably my favorite consumer operating system
| currently available, but Apple's walled garden approach is
| beyond annoying
|
| What's the walled garden on macOS? You can run anything you
| want on the Mac.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| M1 macs no longer run unsigned code. Apps now check stapled
| OCSP. There's now a permissions dance to do much of anything.
| user-the-name wrote:
| M1 Macs run self-signed code, though. You don't need a
| developer account or Apple keys.
| nomel wrote:
| > There's now a permissions dance to do much of anything.
|
| This is why we don't have secure computing in 2021. Users
| don't like the usability problems that come with security.
| azinman2 wrote:
| You can turn off both gatekeeper and SIP.
| cogman10 wrote:
| We've been told for years that "slim and tiny is what you
| really want!"
|
| No, I don't want slim and tiny, I want to be able to replace
| and upgrade parts. I want a battery I can swap out or RAM I can
| replace.
|
| The problem is that being able to swap parts extends service
| life of machines. Can't have that when they want you to just
| buy a new one ever 3 years.
| hinkley wrote:
| Slim and tiny is what I wanted when thinkpads were smaller
| and lighter than average.
|
| Once we hit five pounds and I had a bag that stopped caring
| about smaller laptops? Well that was about the time that
| desktops died and I could have used a workstation class
| laptop with some more flexibility.
|
| But I opted for simple and put my energy somewhere else
| instead. Seems a lot of people did.
| notriddle wrote:
| Also, laptops have built-in keyboards, by definition, which
| means that it can never be thinner than the key travel
| distance anyway.
| hinkley wrote:
| It's probably an important distinction between laptops
| and tablets that a laptop is free to expand into three
| dimensions when in use.
|
| Strictly speaking, the throw of the keyboard when in use
| is not limited by the dimensions of the laptop when it's
| not in use. There is air above and sometimes below that
| the keys can occupy. Having the keys raise up when
| opening the lid might be mechanically impractical, but
| having the lid depress all of the keys is a matter of
| ignoring key presses until the lid is opened past an
| angle where it stops touching the top row of keys.
|
| Based on the shape of the smudges on my screen I'm pretty
| sure that already happens to an extent.
| NotPractical wrote:
| As a student, I do _want_ my laptop to be slim and tiny, but
| I was misled by Apple into thinking slim and tiny is only
| possible if the laptop isn 't at all repairable. Might sell
| my MacBook Pro for this thing. Though macOS is a guilty
| pleasure I will miss :(
|
| Edit: Also the 16:10 aspect ratio :(
| solarfair wrote:
| For those who were curious like me, it seems that
| Hackintosh support is spotty at best.
| NotPractical wrote:
| I did a little research on this, and it seems the main
| (perhaps only) problem is that all mobo configurations
| come with an 11th gen Intel CPU (with Iris Xe graphics).
| Since the last Intel Macs used 10th gen chips with Iris
| Plus graphics, and Apple isn't making any more Intel
| macs, it's likely that macOS will never see Iris Xe
| support. What a shame. While I do intend to switch to
| Linux eventually, the ability to use macOS would have
| made it more comfortable to switch from a MacBook.
| Perhaps if they release AMD mobos in the future, it will
| become possible.
| fartcannon wrote:
| You won't miss it after a few months in Linux's diverse
| desktop experience ecosystem.
| selectodude wrote:
| "Diverse" is certainly one way to put it.
| NotPractical wrote:
| I reserved a Steam Deck because I wanted to support
| Valve's efforts to expand support for Windows games (and
| by extension, apps) to Linux through their open source
| Proton project. I think the future of Linux is looking
| very bright.
| akudha wrote:
| _I guess at some level I believed that_
|
| Why should we believe anything any for-profit company says,
| without verifying (whenever possible)? Drug companies lie all
| the time, about having to price their drugs absurdly high.
| Facebook lies all the time about not being able to fact check,
| without even attempting to try seriously. And on and on.
|
| The insane thing is not that companies lie. It is that the
| general public has either given up or duped into thinking these
| companies cannot possible lie. We have created an economic
| system where profit trumps everything else.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I'm impressed that they have managed to take this product to
| market, and I'm glad that people who value modularity will
| finally have a viable option.
|
| at the same time, I personally don't see what all the fuss is
| about. you can upgrade both DIMMs, which is cool, but not
| exactly unheard of these days (I guess it's getting there in an
| ultraportable?). you're still stuck with DDR4, which is almost
| EOL, and the max capacity it entails. it's neat that you can
| customize your IO options, but how many people are going to do
| that more than once? being constrained by the chipset, it's not
| like you're going to be able to "upgrade" your IO in the
| future.
|
| the most likely parts of a laptop to fail are the SSD and the
| battery, both of which are fairly easy to replace on almost all
| laptops. past that, you aren't really gaining that much when
| you're locked into whatever CPU/chipset was current when you
| bought the laptop.
| FredFS456 wrote:
| Newer laptops are starting to come with soldered SSDs.
| Macbooks have had non-standard or soldered SSDs for the past
| 5+ years.
|
| Framework is also proactively making documentation,
| schematics, etc etc available for repair shops.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> Newer laptops are starting to come with soldered SSDs_
|
| Which newer laptops? Other than Macs and crappy $199
| Walmart grade tablet-chromebook thingamajigs, I don't know
| any mainstream PC laptop that does that (thankfully).
|
| Even super light and super slim laptops still have
| replaceable storage. Even niche Pocket Computers like the
| GPD and Valve Steam Deck still have replaceable SSDs.
|
| So I don't buy your statement.
| ixwt wrote:
| If Macs are doing it, others are soon to follow. Apple
| has been a trend setter for years. They were belittled
| for getting rid of the 3.5mm jack, only for flag ship
| phones to begin doing so.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Soon when? Apple has been doing it for 5 years now and
| the rest of the industry hasn't even started.
|
| The truth is, unlike with RAM, it's still cheaper for the
| other laptop manufacturers to have a single motherboard
| SKU which they can later plug whatever cheap COTS SSDs
| they can get from various sources rather than waste
| effort tayloring a motherboard for a specific SSD
| controller, specific DRAM cache chips and specific Flash
| chips, as that gives them way less flexibility in
| component sourcing during production lifecycle and more
| expense in board design resulting in more expensive
| products with no extra margins for them.
|
| Apple can do this economically as they have a very
| tightly controlled supply chain with high volumes and due
| to the little variation in SKUs so they can just use the
| same SSD controller on all their products and just change
| the amount of Flash chips soldered on the board and call
| it a day.
| NotPractical wrote:
| MacBooks also have glued in batteries.
| jbm wrote:
| > SSD and the battery
|
| I have a MacBook Pro w/ Retina Display from Mid-2012. It
| cannot be fixed for a reasonable price, despite it being
| still mostly perfect for my daughter's school computing.
|
| This computer definitely interests me (as someone who moved
| back to Ubuntu / Regolith this year)
| mickotron wrote:
| No, you can upgrade the entire main board (with CPU) in
| future. And the "old" main board can function as a standalone
| PC outside the chassis.
| OJFord wrote:
| > you're locked [sic] into whatever CPU/chipset was current
| when you bought the laptop.
|
| Which you can replace/upgrade too.
| leetcrew wrote:
| we'll have to wait and see whether this actually happens,
| but if so, that would certainly invalidate my biggest
| criticism. if they could pull it off on a 14"-15.6" chassis
| with a discrete gpu, they would probably get my money.
|
| also, pretty sure that is correct english, why the [sic]?
| OJFord wrote:
| I can't find where to buy one, but they already have a
| guide for replacing the 'mainboard' (CPU soldered on) - h
| ttps://guides.frame.work/Guide/Mainboard+Replacement+Guid
| e/....
|
| > also, pretty sure that is correct english, why the
| [sic]?
|
| Perfectly correct English yes - I just meant that I was
| disagreeing with that, you're _not_ locked to it. (I don
| 't think it's an _incorrect_ use of it, but thinking
| about it it 's not a common one - can just quote and say
| 'that's not right' after all - so I don't know I
| bothered, sorry.)
| leetcrew wrote:
| > Perfectly correct English yes - I just meant that I was
| disagreeing with that, you're not locked to it.
|
| fair enough :)
|
| and I saw that guide too. my skepticism is regarding what
| happens when the next generation (or an AMD variant)
| arrives. will the new mainboards be drop-in replacements
| for the old? if nothing else, this would make it
| difficult to radically change the cooling solution, which
| could be a big problem for the dGPU machine I'd like to
| see.
|
| maybe my initial comment was too harsh. they have
| delivered a fully user-repairable machine, which is a
| great thing. but what I want is a fully _upgradable_
| machine, in the sense of a DIY desktop build. they have
| made some vague promises around the latter, but I 'll
| reserve my judgement until I see it actually happen.
| sfteus wrote:
| IMO, the selling point isn't that you can carry around the
| ports you might potentially use and swap them out whenever
| you need them, it's that you can buy a machine that's
| tailored to your setup and peripherals.
|
| I bought a laptop at the beginning of 2020 after the GPU on
| my old one fried. What I wanted was something with a Cat6 and
| DisplayPort built in for when I'm in my office, and multiple
| USB-A ports for the peripherals I use
| (mouse/keyboard/mic/speakers). I had to settle for one with a
| single extra USB-C port, an additional USB-C hub to get
| enough USB-A ports and a Cat6, and an adaptor for the built-
| in HDMI port to hook up to the DisplayPort on my monitor,
| which set me back a total of like $100 on top of the cost of
| the laptop itself. The laptop also has a headset jack and
| large card reader that I have yet to use, so that's just
| wasted space that could have potentially been something I
| would have actually used.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > After seeing the framework, I'm more than a little annoyed
| that I fell for this.
|
| Me too. An I'm annoyed I fell for the lie that board level
| repair is impossible. What the manufacturers really should be
| saying is "it's impossible _for us_ " because it's obviously
| possible for 3rd parties to do it and make a business out of
| it.
|
| I'm willing to pay +$100 for something that's assembled with
| screws instead of glues.
| xondono wrote:
| > we were constantly told by these corporations "it's
| impossible to have slim, tiny laptops and make them
| customizable"
|
| Because it's true. The thing is "power users" and "regular
| users" look at that tradeoff differently. The bad part of
| economies of scale is that they reward conformity (you can pick
| your model T in any color, as long as that color is black).
|
| The framework would a hard time competing in the general laptop
| market, but luckily for them, they don't have to. There's a
| niche for specialized products and they are taking advantage.
|
| I've looking at their laptops since they announced, I'm just
| hoping they can release a Ryzen one, and then I'll be on the
| fence between theirs and whatever Apple has to show for a ARM
| pro laptop (14"-15").
| jhickok wrote:
| >I've looking at their laptops since they announced, I'm just
| hoping they can release a Ryzen one, and then I'll be on the
| fence between theirs and whatever Apple has to show for a ARM
| pro laptop (14"-15").
|
| I'm in the same boat. While I in principle would love to
| invest in a powerful AMD laptop with tons of upgradeability
| with decent Linux support, Apple's next offerings which may
| give upgraded displays, my favorite trackpads, impressive
| power and ~20 hours of battery life is very hard to ignore.
| NotPractical wrote:
| The only reason these two groups look at it differently is
| because people in the "regular users" group don't know how
| bad things are, and how good things could be. What makes you
| think the Framework would have a hard time competing in the
| general laptop market? The baseline, preassembled model
| starts at $1000 and comes with Windows 10 Home. It has a
| quad-core i5, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB storage, a nice 2256x1504
| display, and it's thin and light (1.3kg, 11.7" x 9" x 0.6").
| Compare that to your other thin and light options at this
| pricepoint:
|
| XPS 13: $1020
|
| * i5
|
| * 8 GB RAM
|
| * 256 GB storage
|
| * 1920 x 1200 display
|
| * 1.2 kg, 11.6" x 7.8" x 0.6"
|
| MacBook Pro: $1300
|
| * M1
|
| * 8 GB RAM
|
| * 256 GB storage
|
| * 2560 x 1600 display
|
| * 1.4kg, 12" x 8.7" x 0.6"
|
| This isn't even accounting for _repairability_ as a feature.
| Consumers don 't care about that as it stands, because they
| don't know they should. But once they realize, it will become
| a selling point, too.
| adolph wrote:
| To be fair to "these corporations," the modules available for
| the Framework are basically built-in USB-C dongles. If you
| really hate the look of dongles, then thats great. If you only
| use one thing, like HDMI, then you don't have to cart around a
| bunch of modules as if they are dongles.
|
| The three internal upgrad-ables are nice if you think that
| things will drastically change in RAM, SSD, or Wifi before the
| CPU, mainboard or faster connections to faster RAM and SSD make
| the effect of said upgrad-ables to be gilding a turd. Otherwise
| periodically buy the midrange storage and allow the secondary
| market to absorb your environmental guilt.
| Decabytes wrote:
| I hope this changes the way that people think about hardware
| now that Framework has proved that we can have this. Let's just
| hope they scale
| xvector wrote:
| The Framework has half the battery life of similarly sized
| alternatives. No one was lying to you.
| [deleted]
| leetcrew wrote:
| 55 Wh is a pretty good size for the form factor. looks like
| it's suffering from a comparison against competitors with
| lower resolution screens.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| As far as I can tell, this laptop has a 55 Wh battery. A
| macbook pro of the same size (13in) has a 58 Wh battery and
| the dell XPS 13 has a 52 Wh battery. What am I missing?
| hinkley wrote:
| Capacity isn't the only metric for batteries. The faster
| you draw down the more power converts to heat. Different
| battery chemistry changes that a bit, but also aggressive
| power management to flatten (and lower) the curve matters a
| great deal.
|
| Apple nailed that during the same generation they
| introduced the unreplaceable battery. Better density, less
| packaging, and improved power management virtually doubled
| the run time on that laptop versus the previous. That was a
| huge deal at the time.
|
| Has everyone else caught up?
| FredFS456 wrote:
| Could you provide some sources to back up that claim? My
| first choice for laptop reviews
| (https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-
| Laptop-13-5-Review-I...) did not show that to be the case
| xvector wrote:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-
| light... Battery test section
| rozap wrote:
| As battery tech gets better, you can replace it. And the
| glued-in battery in the macbook pro won't be 100% capacity
| after a bunch of charge/discharges.
|
| It's a compromise in the short term maybe, but long term it's
| so much nicer.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >battery in the macbook pro won't be 100% capacity after a
| bunch of charge/discharges
|
| You're supposed to replace the macbook by then.
| paxys wrote:
| That's the entire point of framework. Why should I have
| to replace my macbook when most of it runs perfect except
| for one part?
| xvector wrote:
| But you don't have to replace the MacBook, you can just
| replace the battery.
| paxys wrote:
| On newer Macbooks the battery is literally glued in. An
| Apple authorized repair center is going to charge you
| $200+ for a replacement.
| xvector wrote:
| Wow, didn't know this!
| NullPrefix wrote:
| My initial cynical point still stands. The thing is a
| status symbol, a display of wealth for lower to mid
| class, just buy a new one.
| adolph wrote:
| I've replaced a glued in MacBook Pro battery. It isn't a
| big deal and very similar to the Framework, except the
| Framework has mechanical connections (screws and tabs). The
| battery replacement kit came with everything needed. It
| didn't come with newly additional capacity because the
| underlying changes in battery chemistry aren't there. The
| improvements in battery life mostly come from CPUs with
| lower TDP.
|
| https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Battery+Replacement+Guide/8
| 5...
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Retina+Dis
| p...
| CivBase wrote:
| Can I get a citation for that?
|
| The only laptop for which that seems to be true is the
| MacBook, but no x86 laptop will come close to that. From what
| I've seen the Framework has a mostly uninteresting battery
| life, outperforming some likely competitors (like Dell's XPS
| 13 and MS's Surface Laptop) and outperformed by others (like
| HP's ProBook x360 and ASUS's Zenbook 13).
| jhickok wrote:
| Here it states that it has a worse performing battery than
| the XPS:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-
| light...
|
| Under the final section:
|
| >>The ugly Only 61 percent the battery
| life of a similarly configured XPS 13
| CivBase wrote:
| Interesting. Tom's Guide says pretty much the exact
| opposite, with the XPS coming in at roughly 78% the
| battery life of the Framework.
|
| > In our battery test, which sets the laptop's screen
| brightness to 150 nits and tasks it with endlessly
| browsing the web via Wi-Fi, the Framework lasted 10 hours
| and 17 minutes. That's better than the Dell XPS 13 (7:59)
|
| https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/framework-laptop-
| review-th...
|
| Maybe the XPS 13 configuration was different? Or maybe
| the tests were different in nature? Ars used PCMark 10,
| which is a standard benchmark that Dell could have
| specifically optimized for.
|
| The Ars review does have this to say later on:
|
| > The Framework also manages surprisingly high battery
| life under Ubuntu--in our semi-scientific video playback
| test, Framework runs neck and neck with the outstanding
| Acer Swift 3 at just over five hours, with everything
| else (including the XPS 13, which in this case is
| hampered by a 4k touchscreen display) trailing well
| behind.
| lucb1e wrote:
| From comparative tests or from vendor specs? (Genuine
| question, I do not know which you are referring to)
| xvector wrote:
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/07/frameworks-new-
| light...
|
| Scroll down to the battery section
| jalada wrote:
| For anyone who tl;dr:
|
| > Only 61 percent the battery life of a similarly
| configured XPS 13
| donmcronald wrote:
| > We suspect the Framework's high-brightness, high-
| resolution display is the culprit for its relatively poor
| battery life--the XPS 13 at the top of the chart is a
| 1080p non-touch model, as is the Acer Swift below it.
|
| And the XPS has an i7-1065G7 [1] vs the Framework with an
| i7-1185G7 [2]. So the Framework has a better screen and a
| better CPU. I'm not sure I agree with running that
| benchmark without other data alongside it like a score or
| the average clock rate.
|
| For example, I put a 2nd battery in a ThinkPad once and
| it had the effect of locking the CPU clock to <1GHz. The
| battery was predicted to last _much_ longer than normal,
| but it was useless as a computer.
|
| 1. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/1
| 96597/...
|
| 2. https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/2
| 08664/...
| tshaddox wrote:
| Do you actually have any example of a corporation that makes
| laptops saying that it's impossible to have slim laptops that
| are customizable? I would be very surprised if this ever
| happened, but I'm willing to be proven wrong.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I can't find a quote from Apple, but here's a 2012 article by
| Kyle Weins (iFixit CEO) basically claiming that's the reason
|
| https://www.wired.com/2012/06/opinion-apple-retina-displa/
| zepto wrote:
| > Kyle Weins (iFixit CEO) basically claiming that's the
| reason
|
| I.e. The last person who can be trusted to report on
| Apple's motivations.
|
| It's an absurd explanation. Some obvious other factors are:
|
| 1. The idea that a modular chassis is _less robust_ over
| time. Not that it can't be made, but that if you make
| millions of them, vastly more of them will have problems
| because of all the connectors etc.
|
| We don't have any data on the framework. Perhaps they'll
| prove this to be a misplaced fear, but it's also possible
| that framework laptops _in aggregate_ will _need_ more
| repairs because of the extra complexity.
|
| 2. Limited hardware profiles are easier to support with
| software. If users can create limitless combinations, it
| becomes much harder to test. This isn't an issue for the
| typical Linux user who can do their own homework and fix
| their own issues, but it's a deal breaker for someone who
| just wants to buy a computer and get work done.
| webmobdev wrote:
| Many companies do heavily promote the thinness of their
| device on launch. How many of them also say that it is thin
| _and_ customizable? (And customisable doesn 't mean choosing
| between 8 gb of soldered ram vs 16 gb of soldered ram).
| There's your answer.
| kreeben wrote:
| Do you have an example of a corporation that makes laptops
| that says it's possible?
| tombert wrote:
| You know, I can't think of a concrete example of that, when
| pressed, so it is possible this was just something repeated
| to me by coworkers and friends doing Apple apologia, and I
| just treated it as a truth. A quick Google doesn't appear to
| show Apple or any other corporation saying it, so I'll take
| the L on it.
|
| I think my overall point still stands. I still find it
| irritating that, until very recently, the only way to get a
| nice, slim laptop was to accept that everything is hard-wired
| in. Framework proved that that's not correct.
| sneak wrote:
| FWIW, I also remember this claim being made, but yes, it
| may have just been Apple apologists in comments, or perhaps
| Apple wrt the iPhone battery, ages ago.
| powerwaif wrote:
| You don't need a direct quote proving it. They just do it.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Your experience matches my own. I haven't heard it from a
| company but there are definitely Apple zealots/shills who
| would say that in threads about right to repair.
| tombert wrote:
| Yeah, sort of this strange Mandela effect thing I guess;
| I have a distinct memory of reading an official statement
| with Apple or Samsung claiming that that was the reason,
| but that statement does not appear to exist, and it seems
| like the most likely reason is because my brain just
| incorrectly extrapolated that memory from stuff non-
| Apple-non-Samsung folks were saying.
| imglorp wrote:
| iFixit has repairability scores for products. Eg this Surface
| gets a 1 out of 10 because MS used adhesives among other
| problems. They traded off repairability for thermal,
| rigidity, and mechanical concerns.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Microsoft+Surface+Go+Teardow.
| ..
| jeffbee wrote:
| The Framework is larger and weighs more than contemporary
| machines that have larger displays (e.g. ThinkPad X1 Carbon 9th
| generation), and it has worse performance and shorter battery
| life because soldered-in RAM isn't some kind of scam, it's
| _actually much better_.
|
| In short, it was not a lie that you get smaller, lighter, and
| better laptops with integration. You do, in fact, get all of
| those things.
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| The Framework laptop is 1mm thicker and 200 grams heavier
| than the 9th gen Carbon. We've gone long past the point of
| diminishing returns when it comes to size/weight vs
| repairability trade offs.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 200g is 15%.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| It is, however, I'm lucky enough to be in good health
| that carrying 200g extra in my backpack has no negative
| implications vs the added benefits.
| [deleted]
| HideousKojima wrote:
| But only about the weight of a box of teabags extra:
| https://weightofstuff.com/10-household-items-that-weigh-
| abou...
| tombert wrote:
| Is that a property of the components being soldered in, or
| just a property of the fact that Framework cannot get access
| to the highest quality components on the market?
|
| Genuine question, I know very little about electrical
| components.
| leetcrew wrote:
| the mounting hardware needed for replaceable dimms
| inherently takes more space on and above the board. the
| solder approach also gives more flexibility for board
| layout, since you don't have to reserve space for the exact
| size and shape of a standard module. see a teardown of the
| new blade 14 to see how this can be beneficial.
|
| there is an inherent tradeoff between size, battery life,
| and modularity. if you can make a modular laptop with good
| specs and battery life, a competitor will always be able to
| offer the same thing in a smaller chassis or with a bigger
| battery.
| babypuncher wrote:
| With RAM, the problem is more that high capacity LPDDR4
| modules simply aren't available on SODIMMs.
|
| However this is only because manufacturers don't make them.
| If Apple asked Micron or Samsung for them, I'm sure it
| would happen.
|
| A better argument for non-replaceable RAM can be found in
| the Apple Silicon chips. Building the memory into the SoC
| provides very tangible performance and efficiency benefits.
| ixwt wrote:
| >With RAM, the problem is more that high capacity LPDDR4
| modules simply aren't available on SODIMMs.
|
| And I don't think they ever will be. From the little bit
| that I've read, the higher voltage that SODIMMs have to
| use has to do with noise in transmission. LPDDR4s have
| been connection through the direct solder, so are able to
| use lower voltages.
| jeffbee wrote:
| They have to use DDR4-3200 to be able to put the RAM on a
| stick. Integrated systems can use LPDDR4x-4267. You can't
| put that on a stick. It's a trade-off. It turns out it
| takes extra power to drive high-speed signals across long
| traces with connectors.
| jagger27 wrote:
| I thought the power advantage mostly came from the total
| bus being half as wide (32-bit LPDDR4X versus 64-bit
| DDR4).
|
| Do you have a reference for why it can't be put on a
| removable module?
| jeffbee wrote:
| I'm fairly sure the power advantage comes from VDDQ being
| much lower: .6V for LPDDR4x and 1.2V for DDR4. LPDDR4x is
| or at least can be 64 bits wide, just like DDR4.
| tombert wrote:
| That's fair enough. I guess I just hope that we figure
| out a way to overcome this I suppose.
| throwawaycuriou wrote:
| What performance/cost impact are we talking about?
| jeffbee wrote:
| Judging by reviews, the Framework loses 10% of CPU+GPU
| performance versus reference designs. That could be due
| to their memory subsystem or thermal design, or both. Ars
| Technica said the battery life was "mediocre" but I would
| have gone with "terrible". Compared to the Dell XPS 13
| the Framework has only 60% the life.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| It seems more likely that tech has advanced enough for this,
| rather than there being some greedy phenomenon where it just so
| happened that nobody thought to do better before framework.
| 5faulker wrote:
| This looks refreshing. Definitely one of the most interesting
| find of the year.
| soperj wrote:
| I don't even care about slim. Light yes. Slim doesn't really do
| a whole lot for me past a certain point (which for me was a
| decade ago). Being able to replace parts is way more important.
| squarefoot wrote:
| Besides planned obsolescence and other malicious intentions,
| there are also economies of scale to consider: if making a non
| modular/repairable laptop cost to a producer just one less
| buck, that's a lot of money when multiplied by the huge number
| they sell.
|
| That said, I love the concept and plan to buy one next year,
| when they hopefully will have means to sell in the EU without
| outrageous shipping+import duties.
| stakkur wrote:
| I love the Framework idea, and believe in repairability. But
| I'll be interested to see what Framework does when they have
| the (enviable) challenge of manufacturing, distributing, and
| supporting half a billion of them.
| riedel wrote:
| Unfortunately currently framework says it is impossible to have
| a slim, tiny , customizable laptop with a trackpoint option
| (due to the keyboard height). Hopefully we will overcome this
| one too and I would be all in...
| wpietri wrote:
| This is the barrier for me too. I'm writing this on a 4-year-
| old Thinkpad. (The "25th anniversary edition", which has my
| favorite keyboard.) If somebody figures that out, I'm happy
| to switch, as my feelings on the Thinkpad line are the same
| as Doctorow's: formerly great, now sadly declining.
| xondono wrote:
| I've never understood the trackpoint use case, the
| (admittedly few) computers I've had with it, I just felt it a
| nuisance in the middle of the keyboard.
| riedel wrote:
| To the same goes for the trackpad for me. I am always
| disabling them to avoid accidental contact. I guess this is
| why we need more customizable devices.
| topspin wrote:
| Linus (the "tech tips" one) said something that sticks in my
| mind: "The only reason other companies can't do this - and
| Framework proved it - is because they don't care."
| hamilyon2 wrote:
| Now we are being told the same about phones
| epistasis wrote:
| Well, the other reason is that customers don't care either. I
| certainly don't. The last desktop build I made 5 years ago
| hasn't had a single component changed in that entire time.
| jonshariat wrote:
| I wouldn't be interested in fixing myself but if I know
| that I can have my laptop repaired or upgraded for cheap,
| that would be amazing.
| christophilus wrote:
| My laptop has a single thunderbolt port. I use it for my 5k
| monitor. If that port goes, I need to get a new laptop.
| (That new laptop will be the Framework laptop, if they
| offer a 15" hi-DPI option.)
|
| If my laptop was a Framework laptop, I'd just need to buy a
| pretty inexpensive new port and swap it out. It's a pretty
| big deal, in my opinion.
| simion314 wrote:
| >The last desktop build I made 5 years ago hasn't had a
| single component changed in that entire tim
|
| I upgraded my monitor and changed 2 keyboards(I am hard on
| them) with a laptop if you fuck your keyboard you probably
| have to use an external one or hope that replacing your
| laptop keyboard is cheap enough and you can find a spare.
| akiselev wrote:
| _> The last desktop build I made 5 years ago hasn 't had a
| single component changed in that entire time._
|
| My last desktop build is still going strong _nine years_
| later. Swapped out a broken motherboard, upgraded to OCed
| DDR3, and stuck in a PCIe card for NVMe: good as new.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Graphics card I bought 5 years ago - 1060 6GB - is
| currently worth pretty much the same as it was then,
| despite the fact that it's used.
| sixothree wrote:
| I am very happy for you to have such good luck.
| Grimm1 wrote:
| Well no, you and people like you don't, but as evidenced by
| all the people buying this there is a segment of the market
| that clearly does.
| caeril wrote:
| > I certainly don't.
|
| Reminder that Apple isn't the problem. Their customers are.
| I know movie quotes are seriously lowbrow for this
| audience, but somewhat relevant here, and correct:
|
| "That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look
| around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers,
| carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to
| save. But until we do, these people are still a part of
| that system and that makes them our enemy."
|
| Not to Godwin the thread, but this absurd apologia for
| anti-freedom products from the standpoint of convenience
| and apathy reminds me of the old quip about Hitler making
| the trains run on time.
|
| I hope a decade from now you love the soul-crushing Snow
| Crash-esque dystopia your choices will have created,
| because you will have absolutely no moral authority to
| complain about it.
| leppr wrote:
| The problem is that for most people there are no clear
| incentives to making the "good" choices in those matters,
| while there are many incentives to make the "bad" choice,
| like gaining an edge in the local competitive market by
| virtue of a more efficient tool. Prototypical tragedy of
| the commons.
| [deleted]
| bserge wrote:
| I've only had laptops for over a decade. And I had system
| board failures.
|
| Honestly, I'd rage if I had to throw it out together with
| the perfectly good CPU, GPU/VRAM and maybe half the RAM and
| pay for a used replacement board with all of those
| integrated.
|
| Or what, buy a rework station and risk damaging them or
| having them work improperly due to shit soldering skills?
|
| I guess I could learn to fix the board itself. But that's
| pretty hard, there are no schematics, no components for
| most laptops, failures are not evident and one component
| can lead to a cascade of failures across the board. A used
| board was $100. Now they're ~$500 because there's a CPU and
| GPU there.
|
| My next computer will be a desktop in a handcrafted case
| (I'm also trying to fit a Li-Ion battery/UPS _between_ the
| PSU and components).
| bertjk wrote:
| > (I'm also trying to fit a Li-Ion battery/UPS between
| the PSU and components)
|
| This should totally be a thing. I wish it was a thing. It
| doesn't even have to provide hours of runtime, just needs
| to be enough to handle the occasional stupid California
| brownout.
| jhickok wrote:
| Out of curiosity, wouldn't a conventional consumer UPS
| take care of that?
| callmejoe wrote:
| yeah. but it's more efficient to have the battery be on
| the output side of a PSU, since that's gonna be DC.
| bserge wrote:
| Yeah, it is the most efficient way to power everything
| (no conversion losses). 30 minutes is enough tbh.
|
| The battery will fit in an empty PSU case, I just need
| some custom cables and connectors for the passthrough, my
| biggest problem is charging and switchover. Looks like I
| will need a custom board for that. I thought it'd be
| easier heh
| y4mi wrote:
| Why handcrafted instead of the framework laptop? Are you
| just itching to do that project, or is there some other
| issue you had with getting the laptop from them?
| bserge wrote:
| It's more future proof. And performance is unmatched.
| Handcrafted because I want the smallest, lightest
| microATX case. Should I share the design? I have it ready
| in SolidWorks.
|
| I will still need a laptop away from home and/or as a
| portable display, that'll be one of my old 17 inchers or
| the cheapest one I can get (Haswell gen lol).
| topspin wrote:
| "customers don't care either"
|
| People care about Right To Repair; that's why the FTC has
| been pressured into action recently on the matter (not that
| I entertain any hope that that bunch of bought-and-paid-for
| bureaucrats will actually achieve anything.) Framework has
| blown a vast hole through the false arguments offered in
| opposition. One must simply care. That's all it takes.
| Every manufacturer that has opposed RTR has the means and
| talent to do at least as well has Framework has done, and
| probably better. They just don't care.
|
| Thankfully the vestigial remains of our free market are
| sufficient to run the experiment.
| epistasis wrote:
| Do customers care though? Perhaps customer advocates do.
| And that's probably the best place for it, since it's
| such a niche and wonky idea.
|
| And that's why "free markets" will never solve this. (And
| that's whether the "free" in free markets means freedom
| from regulations, or freedom for people to participate in
| the market).
|
| IMHO this is why the European system of strong regulatory
| bodies tends to work better than the US system of "wait
| for a customer to experience damages, then recoup through
| the courts, and then the companies learn their lesson."
| topspin wrote:
| And yet here we are; despite the 446e6 strong market
| place the EU supposedly represents their regulatory power
| has not delivered what we see here. No, instead we have
| an American company motivated by only the belief that
| their product will succeed in the market kicking open the
| door.
| epistasis wrote:
| Well the question is do you want every laptop to have the
| customizability of Framework's laptops, or should there
| instead be a minimum bar set for warranty/repairability?
| I think the second is probably what's needed, and the EU
| has been better both at imposing standards and ensuring
| warranties and repairability.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| The minimum bar is a theoretical idea. The reality is yet
| more audits and auditors and internal regulatory staff to
| produce more documentation that "proves" compliance. It's
| a huge weight, not lightly welcomed.
| lliamander wrote:
| Except that regulatory burdens are the kinds of barriers
| to entry that prevent a company like Framework from
| existing in the first place.
|
| That just leaves you with entrenched companies doing the
| bare minimum for compliance, and lobbying for loopholes
| to protect their own market positions.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Here in the U.S. any kind of basic regulation ==
| communism, but I when I imagine "right to repair", I
| imagine a free market where Apple is allowed to sell
| glued-in batteries and Framework is allowed to sell
| repairable products, but all companies must publish the
| private internal repair documentation they already have
| and sell the replacement parts they already have, _if
| available_. Apple may legitimately not be able to sell
| replacement batteries, if even Apple themselves can 't
| replace them, but at least there's transparency for the
| consumer. Eventually I imagine Apple could no longer get
| away with this practice, not because they are legally
| forbidden, but because people would become aware of it.
| dwaite wrote:
| If we increase the warranty requirements for companies,
| the repairability will necessarily increase as well.
|
| However, people do keep in mind this still may not result
| in better third-party repairability - it may be things
| like easier reclaiming of components off of boards by the
| manufacturer to put into refurbished swap-out units.
| topspin wrote:
| The answer is I want a competitive market filled with
| options that range from a completely sealed, disposable
| monoliths to machines like this Framework product where
| components are easily replaced and/or upgraded by me or
| any qualified or unqualified person I choose. And I want
| that _without_ the easily circumvented bureaucratic
| hellscape of lobbyists and captured regulators
| incestuously welding down the status quo in perpetuity.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Have you considered that the current landscape is a
| product of a competitive market? Historically laptops
| were never as repairable as desktops. Most parts of those
| bulky 1990s Powerbooks, Latitudes, and Compaqs were hard
| to access due to proprietary screws. Every laptop
| manufacturer had non-standard components and non-standard
| ports and those components and ports would evolve every 6
| months. If you wanted replacement parts and you weren't a
| corporate repair shop, you were shit out luck before Ebay
| existed. The adhesive-sealed laptop that you resent is a
| product of the standardization that corporations and
| suppliers eventually sought after going through the Wild
| West phase of the mass market PC.
|
| A competitive market isn't a marry-go-round where every
| idea gets its turn under the sun for all eternity. It's
| an arena where some rise and many perish. In the '90s and
| '00s, many ideas fell through, many companies collapsed,
| and many technologies become outmoded. What has come out
| of that is the sealed computer of today.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Exactly. And in particular, I want companies showing the
| absolute limit of what's possible if you don't worry
| about modularity, and other companies like Framework
| showing how much of that they can provide while _also_
| using modular components. That 's two different
| directions of innovation that both need pushing, as
| useful competitive forces that people care about.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Ideally I would agree with you, but reality demonstrates
| that markets tend to converge on one standard rather than
| let two coexist. CISC vs RISC, Firewire vs USB, Floppy vs
| Zip, IrDA vs Bluetooth, etc. Now it's modular vs
| integrated.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| That happens with technologies where there's a strong
| benefit to standardization. Standardizing on USB and
| Bluetooth means your devices can interoperate.
|
| There's already no "standard" laptop design, just a set
| of desirable properties people want. And there's already
| no push to converge; there are many laptop vendors.
| There's plenty of room for a new vendor with different
| priorities (like modularity); there's _more_ room for
| such a vendor than there is for one more undifferentiated
| vendor.
| jklinger410 wrote:
| "If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have
| said faster horses." - Henry Ford
| scns wrote:
| Build it and they will come.
| kaibee wrote:
| > and then the companies learn their lesson.
|
| * analysts consider whether the cost > profit, if not
| then continue doing the same thing as before.
| vlunkr wrote:
| > Do customers care though?
|
| Maybe they think they don't until one piece of their MBP
| fails and they have to pay Apple to replace 90% of their
| laptop.
| someguydave wrote:
| All those companies want to hold out for the idea that
| they can monopolize some corner of the industry - none of
| them want to be turned into purveyors of commodity
| products in the face of heavy competition. But the future
| likely lies down that path.
| CivBase wrote:
| The only a tiny minority of people probably care about the
| upgradability of their laptop. Many many more probably care
| about the _repairability_ of their laptop, though.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I think you're right. Many people "care" about
| repairability in the market sense of getting pissed off
| that a keyboard replacement costs >$500 for some reason.
| The right kind of marketing could bring them onboard.
| hkt wrote:
| A friend of mine has a fairphone and broke its screen while
| he was staying with me. The fairphone is quite similar
| insofar as it is designed to be long lived and user
| serviceable. He ordered a screen, next day delivery, and
| changed it himself for about PS60.
|
| Users care!
| [deleted]
| devwastaken wrote:
| You will care next time you have to build one.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| In an alternate universe where the Framework concept was
| commonplace, you might say the same thing about a laptop
| built 5 years ago.
|
| Framework means you can custom-build it, just like your
| desktop. Reparability aside, that alone is a milestone.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| But imagine if your next desktop build required you to also
| throw away your SSD, monitor, keyboard, mouse, and
| speakers. You can also re-use a case in future builds, and
| re-use a high quality PSU in future builds.
|
| I also don't really care to replace individual components
| in my systems, but being able to upgrade laptop hardware
| without throwing away the chasis and storage seems pretty
| nice to me.
| epistasis wrote:
| My next desktop build will require entirely new parts,
| and the prior build will be demoted to other uses, or
| given to someone else who has a better use for it. As a
| whole unit, it still has utility. If I scavenge an
| essential piece, all the rest go to waste.
|
| If it were a big energy hog (it's not), then it may make
| sense to put it out to pasture and scavenge the parts for
| others.
|
| The exception is my keyboard, is like my toothbrush, if
| toothbrushes could last for two decades. That I will keep
| and move to the new computer, as keyboard technology is
| not advancing.
|
| For laptops, I see even less utility for upgrades than
| for a desktop, but perhaps that's just me.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Easy upgrades mean easy repair. The opposite is also
| true.
|
| You can move your keyboard to a new computer because you
| are able to detach it without melting half the device
| with a heat gun. With laptops it's not that easy. When
| the MacBook keyboards broke all the time a few years ago,
| a keyboard replacement meant also replacing the speakers,
| battery and touchpad. Not for any technical reason, but
| because Apple doesn't like screws. The MS Surface Pro and
| Surface Laptop couldn't be repaired by anyone, not even
| MS themselves - if a single $20-30 part fails you have to
| spend $1000 again. Doesn't sound like a great deal if you
| ask me.
|
| You might not need or want upgrades and maybe you're
| lucky and nothing ever breaks. But having the choice only
| comes with upsides.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Whereas any dating of when my last desktop build was would
| be deceptive because they're replaced piece by piece. The
| closest occasion I can give is when I went from one to two
| desktops, but even then half the guts of the one I had
| before went into the new case, and were replaced in the old
| case with new purchases.
|
| I mean, I've met people that only wear underwear once or
| twice before throwing it away, too, but I wouldn't say
| that's normal. People would generally rather replace a
| drive, processor, ram, or screen than spend 10x as much on
| an entirely new system. They don't because the
| manufacturers make that option difficult or impossible.
|
| People didn't love VCR/TV combos, and people don't love
| this. Manufacturers love this.
| GordonS wrote:
| It's not just about upgrading components, but also about
| having more choice during initial specification. It's a
| real _PITA_ trying to find laptops that have almost
| everything you want, and inevitably you need to make
| multiple compromises.
|
| And it's also about replacing broken components without
| having to ditch the whole laptop.
|
| I'm really excited about how Framework could potentially
| shake up the whole industry!
| CoolGuySteve wrote:
| Yes, this exactly. For the past year I've been trying to
| buy a Ryzen 5800u with at least 32GB of RAM and it has
| been fucking impossible.
|
| As soon as Framework releases an AMD model I'm on board.
| kaladin-jasnah wrote:
| Second this. If they do release an AMD model, that (or
| maybe a ThinkPad) will be my next laptop.
| zepto wrote:
| > I'm really excited about how Framework could
| potentially shake up the whole industry!
|
| It won't. The industry used to be like that back in the
| day before Apple proved that most people don't want too
| many choices.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| > Apple proved that most people don't want too many
| choices
|
| They proved that taking away choices is still better than
| the shitshow their competitors are running.
|
| Apple proved that a few simple product names are less
| confusing than literally 6 different "brands" of laptops
| from a single company. That doesn't mean people don't
| want choices though, they just don't want to feel like
| they're getting trolled by badly designed websites
| throwing _all_ the possible laptop configurations in
| their face. Even if you know what the specs mean it still
| feels like a major waste of time to try and compare the
| 20 devices on the screen. I want to configure every
| detail of my laptop, not 2 details on one of 200 laptops.
|
| Apple also proved that making devices difficult to
| upgrade, maintain and repair is harmful for everything
| and everyone other than Apple.
| zepto wrote:
| > I want to configure every detail of my laptop
|
| Almost nobody wants that, but the good news is that
| enough people do that framework exists.
| Kiro wrote:
| I have choice paralysis just from Air vs Pro (if there
| was only one model I would have bought the M1 a long time
| ago) so I think you're right.
| markkanof wrote:
| I'm not pushing back too hard on this idea, because in
| general you are likely right about almost anything, that
| most people don't care that much. However, I'm not sure
| that Apple really proved that most people don't want too
| many choices. The choice to buy an Apple computer could
| be for any number of reasons. Like for example, I really
| like macOS and the integration between my iPhone and my
| MacBook for things like iMessage. Anytime I've bought an
| Apple computer it's felt like I have to compromise on the
| hardware options, but I still do it because I like other
| aspects of the overall ecosystem.
| dwaite wrote:
| I don't have market analytics, only single cases, but
| nobody who has ever asked me for help about a computer
| has wanted to know what the difference is between this
| 'Intel' part vs 'Celeron' part vs 'AMD', carried on to
| graphics, disk technology, etc. They typically not only
| don't indicate a desired minimum amount of memory, but
| cannot reliably talk about system ram vs storage.
|
| What they want is to know they are getting a good deal
| and that they aren't buying a lemon, something that
| cannot meet their needs.
|
| What Apple did is decide they should really distinguish
| on classes of identifiable hardware differences, eg. a
| better larger screen for a "pro" class, have
| good/better/best distinctions within that, and
| customization for those who are picky.
|
| I assume the intersection between people who have
| particular hardware requirements and those who do not
| understand their hardware requirements is extremely small
| these days. Apple doesn't sell computers which really
| fall short these days, so I'm able to focus the
| conversation on usage, user-impacting hardware features,
| and long-term budgeting (e.g. planning even as far as the
| replacement for the machine they are buying)
| zepto wrote:
| Look back to Steve Jobs's return. Long before they had
| ecosystem lock in, before even the iPod was released, he
| simplified the range drastically to make it easier for
| people to make the buying decision.
|
| Also, anyone who says "it's felt like I have to
| compromise on the hardware options" is an outlier by
| definition.
| ixwt wrote:
| I feel like this is a bit disingenuous. The general
| populous/average consumer prefers simplified options.
| They aren't tech savvy as many here are. When you throw a
| bunch of specs at them their eyes glaze over. And then
| ask you if they can get on their Facebook.
|
| It makes sense from a business sense to have fewer models
| with small changes between them. You could have tech
| workers that assemble every custom order. That costs a
| lot more than a simplified inventory of a few different
| models that are already pre-assembled, with no hardware
| customization.
| zepto wrote:
| > I feel like this is a bit disingenuous.
|
| Please refrain from insults, or at least make an effort
| to justify this if you think it's valid.
|
| > The general populous/average consumer prefers
| simplified options. They aren't tech savvy as many here
| are.
|
| Isn't that exactly my point? The industry serves the
| general consumer. The framework laptop serves a niche.
| gorbachev wrote:
| I like the Framework laptops as well, but I think there's
| a problem I'm not sure is gonna work out in the end.
|
| If I understood it correctly, you can buy replacement
| parts only from Framework. They will have supply issues,
| and customers will be unhappy.
|
| I guess if the laptops don't ever break, or if the
| customers' need for replacement parts is more theoretical
| than real, it could work out. Or they somehow manage to
| get over the small, niche manufacturer hump and become a
| Lenovo with massive scale. I doubt that's gonna happen.
| reificator wrote:
| > _If I understood it correctly, you can buy replacement
| parts only from Framework. They will have supply issues,
| and customers will be unhappy._
|
| RAM, wireless, and storage aren't chained to Framework,
| and are effectively the only parts you can reasonably buy
| for any existing laptop in the current day.
|
| I would not be surprised if battery and screen
| replacements start popping up, but that's just a guess
| not something I'd bet on.
|
| That Framework will be the only suppliers of parts that
| other laptops don't even attempt to make replaceable is
| not a worrying situation, it's a hopeful one.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| AFAIK they generally use the same industry standard
| interfaces for RAM/SSD/etc as all other non-shit laptops.
|
| The problem would come in if a Framework-specific part
| breaks, but at least those generally seem to be pretty
| simple (apart from the motherboard, at least).
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| Some parts have to come from framework (keyboard, mobo,
| etc), but many do not (memory, storage, WiFi card, etc).
|
| They've also open sourced the modular components so
| people can develop their own third party compatible
| parts.
| aembleton wrote:
| I haven't checked everything but the RAM looks like it is
| standard: "For memory, the Framework Laptop has two SO-
| DIMM sockets supporting DDR4 DRAM at up to DDR4-3200
| speeds"
|
| https://frame.work/blog/storage-memory-and-wifi
| wccrawford wrote:
| Some don't, sure, but many do.
|
| I care. I often swap out parts. My family and friends care,
| because I help them swap out parts when needed, especially
| during critical failures when they need it working ASAP and
| can't risk some corporation formatting the hard drive for
| no reason.
|
| And my coworkers care because they're fellow techies and do
| this stuff, too.
| NotPractical wrote:
| Your desktop doesn't have a battery in it, like laptops do.
| Batteries are the one component in a laptop that is
| guaranteed to degrade over the course of a few years and
| eventually make the product unusable. The battery is glued
| in on the MacBook Pro, so it will eventually become
| useless. It's as simple as that, and very unfortunate. It's
| nice to have the option to upgrade the other parts too,
| though, and why not expect this, if it's clearly possible,
| as the Framework laptop shows?
| topspin wrote:
| "The last desktop build I made 5 years ago"
|
| A desktop you built using standardized components you
| sourced from a competitive market with a plethora of
| alternatives specifically designed for easy assembly.
| Should any component fail you can obtain a replacement and
| perform the repair yourself. Doubtless these affordances
| are a part of why you chose to assemble you're machine
| yourself.
|
| You do indeed care. The inability to extrapolate this to
| laptop machines seems obtuse.
| epistasis wrote:
| No, I still don't care at all about the customizability.
| I did it mostly because I had to use Windows but didn't
| want to deal with an OEM's crap ware. The customizability
| was actually an impediment to get what I wanted: a box.
|
| I don't doubt that a huge market of interchangeable parts
| made this easier. But it's important to separate the ends
| from the means here, when it comes to customer concerns.
| The customers that want customizability and upgradability
| are a vanishingly small slice of customers. (Just as are
| the ones who want to run Linux, and that small slice does
| include me.)
| topspin wrote:
| "I did it mostly because I had to use Windows but didn't
| want to deal with an OEM's crap ware."
|
| Can you not imagine the vast market of people that might
| want a laptop not loaded with OEM crap ware? Because that
| is exactly what could emerge if Framework manages to
| establish a market of commodity mobile components.
| epistasis wrote:
| The simpler route would be to have an OEM that didn't
| install crap ware, rather than having to order a basket
| of parts and assemble them.
|
| I went the basket route because it required less research
| for me, because I just wanted to get to my end result as
| quickly as possible.
|
| Grander goals about establishing ecosystems that serve
| other eventual end goals is not the way that most money
| is spent. (Though I do spend my money that way in other
| areas, such as with climate action, the PC market does
| not matter that much to me.)
| topspin wrote:
| You have just cited two more excellent reasons for
| modular laptops and commodity components; component
| selection and the environment. That brings the total to
| three, including the "OEM crap ware"
|
| You're a potential customer of this product, your
| cognitive dissonance on the matter notwithstanding.
| webmobdev wrote:
| That's only the half of it - everyone cares when they have
| to repair their device. You start to feel the unfairness of
| it when companies charge you exorbitant prices for common
| components because they've designed it in a non-
| standardised way for that particular device. Or when you
| face the reality of (for e.g.) having to pay to replace the
| whole board because of a malfunctioning soldered RAM or
| soldered SSD, and realise how shortsighted it was to buy a
| device that is designed not to be repaired.
| ashtonkem wrote:
| That's almost always the reality when a company "can't" do
| something.
| agumonkey wrote:
| This effect exists all across society. Some culture seems to
| drive laziness / selfishness across the (irl) social network.
| Every would care but nobody can pull the whole network in the
| right direction. That's how your company doesn't have the
| right tool, the right app, the right something.
| slabity wrote:
| Another quote from Linus that's relevant:
|
| "Imagine being an engineer at a company at Apple, and it
| being your job to design the mechanism that makes it so that
| machine cannot start up unless the chassis is fully sealed.
| Apple spent _actual fucking money_ making sure that product
| would not work unless it is in the exact chassis they shipped
| it in. "
|
| That goes beyond not caring.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Apple's consistently demonstrates that their most important
| customers are their shareholders. They are experts at
| walking the line between maximizing profits and alienating
| their regular customers. If they felt that a modular
| computer would have a higher ROI, they would be all over
| it.
|
| Honestly, I would not be surprised if Apple 'invented' the
| idea of 'integrated dongles' before their next keynote so
| they could sell you a $95 usb 2.0 port.
| vehemenz wrote:
| To be fair, Apple did make a modular computer. Except
| only Industrial Light and Magic can afford it.
| stiltzkin wrote:
| That's the motto of any for-profit company, you vote with
| your money.
| imdsm wrote:
| To be fair, if a company wants to produce something that
| only works on one set of hardware, that should be fine. We
| simple choose not to use it, right? And many of us /do/
| choose to use it? But why do we choose to? Because we find
| that we're too busy to maintain a Linux-based workstation.
|
| While there are questionable practices by Apple and many
| other machine producers, what you can't argue against is
| that in limiting the hardware that MacOS has to work with,
| they're able to deliver a level of stability and user
| experience that you don't get with Linux.
|
| Sure, it would be great if we could replace the batteries,
| if we could upgrade the memory, and easily fix broken
| parts, but that isn't the company's ethos. The company
| produces devices that are plug and play, high grade
| consumer electronics. Nobody forces us to buy these
| products.
|
| Anyway, that being said, the framework machines look super
| interesting and if they were UK available, I'd probably get
| one for a non-critical Linux-based workstation.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _We simple choose not to use it, right?_
|
| As if choosing a $1k+ computer to use for years was
| equivalent to choosing the flavor of ice cream scoops.
|
| The "voting with your wallet" argument doesn't work when
| there's several variables in play, and the optimal
| configurations don't exist on the market. Like e.g. I'd
| like to buy a computer that's just like Macbook, except
| with repairable/swappable/upgradeable components. Or a
| phone that's just like iPhone, except with replaceable
| battery, a headphone jack, and repairable home button.
| But I can't have them - even if I'm ready to pay a bit
| extra, and if I'd welcome a thicker device. These options
| literally don't exist. Nothing similar to them exists.
| Particularly on the repairability front, every vendor is
| choosing to just _not offer it_.
| roughly wrote:
| > The "voting with your wallet" argument doesn't work
| when there's several variables in play, and the optimal
| configurations don't exist on the market
|
| I am against billboards in space but I would make an
| exception for this quote.
| WhisperingShiba wrote:
| You say all this, but you would agree; We really can't be
| telling private companies or individuals what to and what
| not to do with their technologies, right?
|
| 1) How do we enforce that at smaller scales?
|
| 2) How would we prevent our regulation from squashing
| innovative solutions to problems, or enhancing safety in
| critical applications?
| javierbyte wrote:
| > I'd like to buy a computer that's just like Macbook,
| except with repairable/swappable/upgradeable components
|
| That's the thing, making something plug and play and
| mostly "driver-free" would be very hard to almost
| impossible. Framework laptops look amazing but they will
| require at least a bit more maintenance and knowledge,
| and that is fine too.
| vladvasiliu wrote:
| I agree with your larger point, regarding limited
| hardware support, etc.
|
| I agree that Apple shouldn't have to support random mods
| / hardware components / etc and that their selling point
| is "it just works".
|
| But then again, they don't have to be dicks about it. If
| they're able to detect that the hardware has somehow been
| modified, maybe just show some message along the lines of
| "you've modified the hardware, we're not supporting this
| anymore, you're on your own" instead of _bricking_ it.
| Lamad123 wrote:
| That company only inherited the worst from its deceased co-
| founder!
| gogopuppygogo wrote:
| There are legit security reasons you'd want this. Giving
| the owner of the equipment the ability to manage this would
| have been the appropriate solution.
| topspin wrote:
| There are legit security reasons to employ platforms that
| accommodate in-house repair. 'Security' can also include
| requirements for traceability at the component level.
|
| Security isn't a product.
| llampx wrote:
| The point is to take control away from the owner though.
| fsflover wrote:
| This. Purism offers anti-interdiction services [0] for
| their laptops and you still can open them and upgrade
| RAM/SSD.
|
| [0] https://puri.sm/security/
| alksjdalkj wrote:
| Yeah isn't chassis intrusion detection fairly common? I
| feel like it's been an option to enable in most BIOSs
| I've seen.
| ArgyleSound wrote:
| For what it's worth I don't think Apple has actually ever
| done this, and whatever made him believe they do was
| probably some other oversight during their
| disassembly/reassembly of the laptop
| 0xTJ wrote:
| An oversight is not the case. This is an annoying problem
| for actual repair technicians, not just a mistake by a
| beginner.
| vagrantJin wrote:
| > For what it's worth I don't think Apple has actually
| ever done this
|
| I'm willing to bet real money that they did.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Where is that quote from? I wasn't able to find it via
| Google. Anyway, a computer that refuses to turn on after
| been tampered with _does_ have its uses, particularly if
| your threat model is government secret services.
| CubityFirst wrote:
| From his latest video where he disclosed / explained his
| philosphy in investing into Framework.
|
| > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSxbc1IN9Gg
| trutannus wrote:
| > threat model is government secret services
|
| Realistically, if your threat model is government secret
| services, and you're using unmodified consumer grade
| electronics, then you're in 'danger' no matter what. You
| can't effectively mitigate a threat at the state level
| using resources produced under the watchful eye of the
| same state. All they have to do is ask the producer to
| swap out the device they gave you with a device that
| comes compromised out of the box. And that's assuming the
| tech is perfect. Most likely they just hire someone to
| defeat the countermeasures. However many resources Apple
| has, I assure you even the most janky state has more.
| javajosh wrote:
| Special hardware seems 007 childish to me. What's better,
| having a high-tech tricked-out phone/laptop, or to just
| have a random stock Android with an inoffensive sim card
| in it? It seems obvious to me that if you're being
| targeted, tailed and tracked and probed, you've already
| lost.
| trutannus wrote:
| No, I mean if you're buying a laptop off the shelf and
| not ripping telemetry components and whatnot (WIFI
| card/airgap for example). Customizing hardware to foil
| any out of the box attacks, rather than some sharks-and-
| lasers config to 'protect it'. Governments do this all
| the time for even slightly sensitive information.
|
| Commenter above was saying though that the device's anti-
| tamper tech would save you from state level attacks. I'm
| just getting at the fact that that's not going to work,
| since if a proverbial 'they' want to take you out,
| there's other ways to do so you can't overcome. Just a
| few examples that came to me about how easy it is to foil
| anti-tampering measures.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Your "random stock Android" likely has a boatload of
| exploits open unless it's a Google Pixel.
|
| > It seems obvious to me that if you're being targeted,
| tailed and tracked and probed, you've already lost.
|
| Depends on which government agency watchlist you are. If
| you are some sort of Islamist terrorist, the tools that
| are open to the government are far more capable than if
| you are some sort of low level drug dealer.
| kowlo wrote:
| I wonder if government secret services are purchasing
| retail MacBooks
| [deleted]
| sidharthv wrote:
| It was from the WAN show.
| https://youtu.be/B7f3DTDsocA?t=339
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| If that's your threat model: - You are fucked - You are
| fucked, and there is nothing you can do about it - The
| government won't care about some chassis check - The
| government will use methods that nobody else has even
| considered possible yet - There is literally nothing you
| can do, unless you have the backing of another nation.
|
| I find it ridiculous that people build threat models
| around organisations with almost unlimited resources that
| will only care about you (enough to tamper with your
| hardware) if you have done something very, very wrong.
| fabianhjr wrote:
| They care about keeping new laptop sales up and repairable
| anything goes against that.
| bitwize wrote:
| Linus has now _invested_ in Framework, which constrains how
| he is allowed to review laptops on his channel because of the
| possibility of a conflict of interest. He says it 's worth it
| to support what he believes is a great company with an
| awesome product vision.
| jagger27 wrote:
| Linus has shown his flagrant disregard for impartiality or
| any form of integrity over and over again. Look through the
| LTT back catalogue and you'll see that Intel is big sponsor
| of theirs. The fact that he gives "honest" reviews of Intel
| products doesn't magically make it okay.
|
| You'd never see Dr. Ian Cutress of AnandTech or Steve from
| GamersNexus pulling this shit.
|
| Of course he makes much more money than both of them
| combined. Make no mistake that he is an entertainer and a
| businessman.
| easton wrote:
| There is a conflict of interest there, but as a
| counterpoint, pretty much every time he does a build
| video it seems like he picks AMD (at least, post Ryzen).
| onli wrote:
| Even now with the Framework laptop said he would like to
| help with making an AMD version possible.
| donmcronald wrote:
| > AnandTech
|
| AnandTech quit doing SSD endurance testing as soon as
| vendors started selling trash TLC and QLC. Is that a
| coincidence? Can you _really_ trust them?
|
| There's a point where you need to put some trust in
| reviewers because the industry is set up to make them
| dependent on the manufacturers. However, there's a _huge_
| difference between traditional reviewers where
| _employees_ are doing reviews and new age reviewers where
| _influencers_ are doing the reviews.
|
| People like Linus and Steve have _way more_ incentive to
| put their own integrity over short term interests like
| pleasing a manufacturer, so it 's very unlikely you'll
| ever see them shilling for anyone. Getting caught doing
| that once would ruin their brand (and credibility)
| because they _are_ their brand.
|
| In other words, there are no scape goats in the
| influencer space so they have way more incentive to be
| completely honest and transparent.
|
| I remember when Tom's Hardware was new and I think the
| current generation of influencers / reviewers are going
| to obliterate the traditional media companies that have
| turned into affiliate marketing shills.
| onli wrote:
| GamersNexus is all the time reviewing stuff positively
| and then taking on the same enterprise as sponsor. They
| can do that because their viewers know that they will
| still be very critical with the next product.
|
| LTT also really always had the proper balance. Sponsored
| reviews are marked, sponsored segments are marked, and
| they are not holding back on negative reviews for long
| term channel sponsors. They totally ripped into Intel
| again and again for the failure to compete with AMD, and
| at the same time have Intel sponsor new hardware upgrades
| for team members in a sponsored mini-series. Totally
| fair.
| jagger27 wrote:
| > at the same time have Intel sponsor new hardware
| upgrades for team members in a sponsored mini-series.
| Totally fair.
|
| Of course Intel did a big marketing push right as their
| products were the least competitive, and I'm sure LMG was
| paid large. Putting _that_ kind of stunt in the same
| league as GN reviewing a product from a company that
| previously sponsored them (which is, of course, all that
| LTT does) is simply ridiculous.
|
| "Balance" is such a weasel word in this context. They're
| playing both sides, plain and simple.
| callmejoe wrote:
| was that Intel series a review of Intel products?
| TA-blahhh wrote:
| "invested" is a bit of a misnomer here. He bought several
| of them for his employees. He was courted by Framework to
| buy into the company, but as far as I know, he noped out of
| that deal.
| m463 wrote:
| I would clarify that - it is not in their best interests to
| care.
|
| what they want is:
|
| To sell you a laptop with a current cpu and memory.
|
| If you are "price insensitive" they will allow you to get a
| better cpu or more memory for a significant upcharge.
|
| next year, they want:
|
| To sell you a laptop with a current cpu and memory.
|
| They do not want you upgrading the cpu or memory yourself
|
| They do not want you to add next-year's cpu yourself next
| year.
| conradfr wrote:
| I wanted to buy a new laptop last year and was shocked:
|
| 1/ A lot of them (most?) had 8Go of RAM. 16Go is rare and
| 32Go even more. What year is it?!
|
| 2/ Most have soldiered RAM without an additional slot.
| donmcronald wrote:
| And it's impossible to buy an upgrade for just one
| component. If you want 16GB of RAM you better be ready to
| buy an i7. If you want a nice 4k display you better be
| ready to buy a totally maxed out machine.
|
| Just being able to use my own NVMe disk in something like
| a Framework translates into savings for me because I
| don't need a huge disk in my laptop and can reuse one
| that's too small for my server or desktop.
| dwaite wrote:
| Soldered ram significantly decreases repair incidents
| (from unseated laptop ram) and increases runtime
| reliability (from direct electrical contact of said ram).
| It allows for the machine to ship with an optimized ram
| configuration (lane count, timing). It also reduces the
| part cost and device footprint.
| donmcronald wrote:
| Most RAM comes with a "lifetime" warranty. IMO if the
| soldered RAM is so great, they should give me a lifetime
| guarantee they'll replace the MB if the soldered RAM
| fails. Then I'd be ok with it.
| dwaite wrote:
| In the sense that products which do not support third-
| party repairability should generally have a higher first
| party warranty requirement, I agree.
| qorrect wrote:
| Yeah came here to say this, I think what they meant to say
| is "It cant be done at the profit margins we want" not "It
| cant be done".
| anonymousDan wrote:
| I wonder if the slowdown in Moore's law had something to do
| with it? I mean back in the day the performance gap between a
| new processor and a 5-10 year old one was so substantial it was
| hardly worth your while
| janandonly wrote:
| I just bought my very first MacBook Air ever. But seeing a laptop
| like this, with everything being customisable (in contrast to my
| Apple laptop: nothing can be customised or replaced by me) I feel
| a tinge of regret...
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| i still have my first macbook. i was able to upgrade the HD and
| RAM. its sad that you can't do that anymore.
| spijdar wrote:
| Well, if you regret it more than a tinge, and you just bought
| it from Apple, you can return it within a 2 week window, I
| believe.
| giantrobot wrote:
| They can also easily sell it for 80% of the retail price if
| it's outside the return window.
| yepthatsreality wrote:
| Just received mine this week and while I prefer a 15", this first
| generation is a fantastic purchase. Love the 3:2 screen and Linux
| support!
|
| This has convinced me I need to invest time into KDE as well to
| help bring forward the fingerprint sensor into the UI.
| ecpottinger wrote:
| Sorry, I was disappointed.
|
| No PIO port, no high speed serial port (and before you suggest
| USB<>Serial that means another external interface). Also maybe it
| is for the future but somehow I missed seeing any Ethernet ports
| either.
|
| Also, is there a base dongle that we can add our own
| hardware/software too? Just having a dongle with a onboard
| programmable Arduino which can be programmed by the user would
| help a lot.
| ericls wrote:
| I kinda want to buy their stock more than their laptop at this
| point. (Not in need of a new laptop)
| julianlam wrote:
| Surprised there's no AMD option. Would love to finally have a
| slim laptop that can actually play games at 1080p via Vega gfx
| TOMDM wrote:
| These laptops would be an instant buy from me if I could get a
| new AMD chip instead of the Intel CPU's.
| brodock wrote:
| While I would prefer AMD here, because it's Intel, you get
| Thunderbolt for free
| lawn wrote:
| Same here.
| soperj wrote:
| Yep. At this point in time it's the only choice.
| collinvandyck76 wrote:
| Same here but for fan noise. Since I've gotten the m1 macbook
| air, I don't think I can go back to a laptop that runs hot and
| needs a fan.
|
| In the event that I must get a non-m1 laptop, I can definitely
| see myself buying the framework laptop and putting ubuntu on
| it.
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's a shame ARM isn't quite a first-class desktop
| architecture quite yet. I'd probably use one if my software
| ran on it. Otherwise, I figure in 10-15 years, when it is
| "fully featured," the architecture will have already been
| usurped by RISC-V.
| webmobdev wrote:
| I've never met someone before that cares about cpu fan noise.
| Genuinely. It never bothers me so I have never thought about
| it. Perhaps also because my workflow involves playing music
| when I work to make me more productive.
| soperj wrote:
| They likely used apple for a long time before this, and
| they had a ton of fan noise. So likely wasn't an issue
| previously.
| speedgoose wrote:
| Getting a noise less and fast laptop is a good
| improvement. It's like going from a fossil car to an
| electric one. So much less noise and vibrations. The
| noise is acceptable but it's annoying to go back.
| soperj wrote:
| As someone who bikes, electric cars make a lot of noise
| still when they're not going under 10km/hr.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| As someone who records lots of videos it is quite
| frustrating. The less noise the better.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| My MacBooks have generally been quiet, but not silent.
| Having lived with the M1 MacBook Air since it came out, I
| _never_ want to go back to a fan. Silence is a luxury.
| Joeri wrote:
| Same here. I went from a thinkpad to an m1 air, and although
| the noise wasn't something that bothered me before, I do
| appreciate its absence now. The battery life also is a big
| draw. I can go to the office without a charger, and it's not
| a problem. I've never had a laptop that made it past half a
| workday.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Ehn.. I used to be like you. Once I used Pixelbook, a
| superthin fanless device, I was in awe. Pixelbook Go was
| similar fanless device as well. But, then I realized that
| they have their limitations. With a fan, one can achieve much
| better performance when needed. So, now, I prefer a laptop
| that can passively cool for normal day to day work, and then
| for heavy workloads take advantage of the fan.
|
| I got the framework laptop, which should be able to push the
| intel chip to the max 28 TDP. I heard the fan is big, and
| thus not annoying. I am curious to see how it will turn out
| (My batch 3 order gets delivered tomorrow).
| collinvandyck76 wrote:
| Yeah I guess I don't have a ton of experience here outside
| of mac laptops, but the idea of a PC laptop that only kicks
| in the fans when truly intensive tasks are being run sounds
| pretty nice.
|
| My experience has mostly been that when any work is being
| done, the fans spin up. It's jarring when you're trying to
| focus on the problem at hand.
| mhitza wrote:
| You need to find your fan rpm/noise threshold. On my
| laptop the fan becomes noticeable above 2500rpm. Someone
| commented about adjusting the fan curve (I have no idea
| how), I just manually capped the CPU performance with a
| powersave profile instead.
| deadmutex wrote:
| Some PCs let you configure the fan curves. I have never
| done that though.
| fsflover wrote:
| You cannot neutralize and disable the PSP spying module in AMD
| processors, while in Intel ones you can do that with ME: https:
| //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Management_Engine#Assert....
| TobTobXX wrote:
| There's this great talk from a CCC about reverse engeneering
| the PSP: Uncover, Understand, Own - Regaining Control Over
| Your AMD CPU
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKH5nGLgi08
|
| At 47:10, they mention that they haven't found anything evil.
| Ofc, this isn't hard proof, but if I trust anyone's answer,
| then it's theirs. I think the likelihood of it being
| malicious is nonzero, but small enough that I'd condemn
| active backdoors into the realm of conspiracy theories.
|
| There's always the possibility of it being exploited by
| others, but c'mon: Basically ANY other exploit would be way
| easier to distribute and activate than one in the PSP.
| smoldesu wrote:
| As much as I love speculating about backdoors and NSA
| wiretapping, I seriously doubt these MEs are malicious. At
| this point, managing a modern x86 is tough work, especially
| if you want to run virtualization, complex threading and
| maintain high efficiency. It makes total sense that there are
| mandatory supervisor chips at this point, and without any
| evidence that these chips are "phoning home," I simply have
| to assume that it's purpose is virtualized KVM for remote
| management. Worst case scenario, the CIA wakes up my laptop
| while I'm asleep, big whoop.
| 0des wrote:
| Bravo, I wish I could be this cavalier about a grave
| security issue.
| mhitza wrote:
| If you're not getting the same consumer hardware security
| that NSA gets by default, you're cheated on. That's my
| opinion.
|
| https://www.csoonline.com/article/3220476/researchers-say-
| no...
| fsflover wrote:
| It does not even matter if they are actively malicious.
| They are closed, non-removable, with proven vulnerabilities
| (which not only CIA can use). What else do you need?
| philjohn wrote:
| How do you know that the closed CPU microcode that all
| modern AMD and Intel CPU's use don't have backdoors and
| vulnerabilities?
| fsflover wrote:
| I don't know that, but judging from the amount of code I
| would say it's less likely than in Intel ME.
| t-writescode wrote:
| How is that different from the Intel ones? Can they not
| be turned back on or injected again with a new ME?
| jjice wrote:
| I may be mistaken, but I believe that's something that's
| currently in the works (fingers crossed). Or it's at least very
| requested by users.
| reginold wrote:
| Check out the System76 AMD Pangolin. System76 has many values
| in common with Framework.
|
| https://system76.com/laptops/pangolin
| spamizbad wrote:
| I have a DIY version preordered, due in October - planning on
| transferring over my NVME SSD and 32GB of RAM from my busted,
| falling apart XPS15 into the new Framework.
| clepto wrote:
| I just got one of these last weekend(I ordered it in early
| August) and so far it's really great. The modular I/O and general
| mission of the company was what initially sold me on it, but now
| actually being hands on with it, I definitely feel secure in my
| decision to get one. I can't overstate how good these modular
| ports are.
|
| I also really like that you can bring your own hardware in a lot
| of cases. For example I had an extra M.2 SSD laying around, so I
| ordered mine without one and installed it. You can also do this
| with the RAM, and even the wifi card.
|
| The only thing I've disliked about it so far is the arrow keys on
| the keyboard. Having full size keys for left and right but split
| keys for up and down feels weird, I would have preferred all full
| size arrow keys and a small right shift(because let's be honest,
| when was the last time you used the right shift key?).
|
| For anyone curious about Linux on it, I'm running Arch and had
| basically 0 problems specific to the device. It's my
| understanding there were some incompatibilities with certain
| kernel versions before so maybe some of these problems exist in
| distros like Debian with an older kernel, but I have had no
| issues.
|
| All in all, it's just an exciting project and nice to see
| innovation in the space that isn't just rounded corners or a
| sleeker edge or something where they take modularity or
| performance away for the sake of aesthetics.
| TapamN wrote:
| >when was the last time you used the right shift key?
|
| I generally use the shift key closest to the key I'm typing.
| For keys near the center, I favor the right shift key.
|
| The keyboard would absolutely be the show stopper for me, if I
| didn't just get a new laptop last year. The lack of dedicated
| Page Up and Page Down keys is unacceptable.
| bavell wrote:
| Thanks for the report on Arch compatibility!
| clepto wrote:
| Might be worth noting, I forgot about this when making my
| original comment, I wasn't able to get my USB drive for it to
| boot without disabling secure boot, but secure boot isn't
| something I care about so it wasn't a problem for me. I've
| heard it works but I can't comment on the specifics of it.
| OJFord wrote:
| They donated several laptops to different distro maintainers,
| Arch included, fwiw.
|
| Not to say that it guarantees anything, it's just nice I
| think that Framework cares about Linux compatibility and is
| acting on it.
| the_benno wrote:
| For what it's worth, here are also [1] the Framework
| community forum thread about Arch and [2] the Arch wiki page
| about Framework in case you're interested.
|
| I'm still waiting for mine to arrive (in the next batch) but
| I plan to install Manjaro when it does, and am cautiously
| optimistic that it'll be mostly painless.
|
| [1] https://community.frame.work/t/arch-linux-on-the-
| framework-l... [2]
| https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Framework_Laptop
| epolanski wrote:
| Right shift key is important if you want to write fast and
| ergonomically.
|
| I used to not use it till I found typingclub.com and finally
| learned how to use a keyboard proficiently.
| tkluck wrote:
| > because let's be honest, when was the last time you used the
| right shift key?
|
| Worth a try if you don't have the habit yet: use the pinky of
| your right hand when typing capitals with the left hand and the
| pinky of your left when typing capitals with the right.
| OJFord wrote:
| That's probably what I was taught, but in practice why?
| What's my left hand going to do with all its hundreds of
| milliseconds of free time while my right types a capital
| letter?
| epolanski wrote:
| It's not just about speed it's also simpler and doesn't
| stretch your palms across the keyboard awkwardly.
| thomasahle wrote:
| For me it's more a matter of putting as little stress on my
| hands as possible. Pressing two buttons (shift and key)
| with one hand is just a little less comfortable than
| pressing just one key.
| bradlys wrote:
| Yeah, this is a weird comment from the OP. I use the right
| shift for 99% of my shift typing. This is probably because my
| version of "homerow" for keyboards is left shift, a, w, f,
| spacebar and spacebar, ., p, [, right shift. Which likely
| stems from years of gaming.
| danhor wrote:
| I don't understand the paragraph about the dock. Both laptops use
| usb-c, there shouldn't be a reason the 60$ dock doesn't work.
| oldandboring wrote:
| I own one. It's awesome.
| MMS21 wrote:
| How are the speakers?
| oldandboring wrote:
| Not sure. I don't use them.
| RandyRanderson wrote:
| Very exciting. Hoping they will make something similar with:
|
| . 15 or 16 inch chassis
|
| . 4k display (OLED, if possible)
|
| . largest battery they allow on an airplane
|
| . no keypad
|
| . 2x speakers facing up
|
| . AMD, if possible
|
| . arrow keys as Apple does it
|
| . charge a premium for this - ppl will pay it!!!
|
| Basically just copy what Apple does but with a little
| customization. I know this would be difficult but hoping someone
| from framework will read this. No one wants to buy a dell XPS but
| its the most popular windows laptop in its class for a reason.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| It's funny to me that you'd want what I consider one of the
| worst thing about the Apple keyboard: the arrow keys. Having
| the half-size up-down buttons means I have far more mistakes on
| those. Thankfully CapsLock-p and CapsLock-n works as well (I
| remapped CapsLock to Control of course)
| freedomben wrote:
| My thoughts exactly. I cursed those arrow keys every day for
| the 12 months my employer forced me to use a mac. Never did
| get used to it.
| oblio wrote:
| > no keypad
|
| I don't see the keypad.
| slaw wrote:
| Which 15 or 16 inch laptop you don't see keypad?
| amarshall wrote:
| > 4k display ... Basically just copy what Apple does
|
| Apple doesn't do this. Apple instead does the correct thing:
| target PPI. Apple keeps their laptops around 226 PPI. The
| Framework laptop is 200 PPI.
|
| Stop caring about absolute resolution and start thinking in
| PPI.
| pkulak wrote:
| This is the one thing keeping me from buying a Framework.
| That resolution is so close to perfect... but not quite. Too
| high for 1x, too low for 2x. I'm hoping they will have a
| better screen option some day, or that there will be a way to
| replace the existing one.
| amarshall wrote:
| Really, OSes and applications need to be better at doing
| arbitrary DPI scaling. I should be able to say "scale
| everything 1.2x on this monitor". On Linux, using
| GDK_DPI_SCALE & QT_SCALE_FACTOR works reasonably well on a
| single monitor if apps are respecting them.
|
| Personally I think Apple's PPI target for laptops is too
| low for 2x scaling.
| Paianni wrote:
| Lots of legacy apps use bit-mapped graphics instead of
| vectors. Xaw and Motif are both not resolution-
| independent toolkits but getting them to support integer
| scaling (with line-doubling) would be far easier than
| trying to implement fractional scaling plus anti-
| aliasing.
|
| Apple literally doubled the resolutions of their pre-
| HiDPI screens for their current screens and then scaled
| their interface by 2x for the default OS builds, so if
| their interface is too big for you then it probably has
| been since Mac OS X came out.
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| > arrow keys as Apple does it
|
| No. NO!!
| fouc wrote:
| poster is probably referring to this:
| https://images.idgesg.net/images/article/2019/11/16in-
| macboo...
|
| The left, right, and down arrow keys all on one level, and
| the up arrow key alone above the down arrow key. Makes it
| easy to find the right key by touch alone.
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| _This_ is what I need. Not what Apple offers. MacBook arrow
| keys are unusable.
| dabeeeenster wrote:
| That is a modern macbook
| yupper32 wrote:
| It sounds like a MacBook with extra steps. Why not just get a
| MacBook?
|
| What customization do you really need?
| destitude wrote:
| Because MacBooks can't be easily fixed by end-users or
| upgradeable.
| yupper32 wrote:
| How often does that actually need to happen these days?
|
| It feels like a solution looking for a problem.
| ldh wrote:
| Most people have never had to replace the starter in
| their automobile, but the ones that have sure are glad
| it's not spitefully welded in place just to make things
| difficult for them.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| A vehicle starter's lifespan relative to the lifespan of
| the whole vehicle is probably very different than that of
| a component of a laptop relative to the laptop itself. As
| well as the cost of repair relative to the cost of buying
| new.
| fouc wrote:
| If everything works then it feels like a luxury, but if
| something breaks it feels like a necessity.
|
| Being able to upgrade components also lets you buy at a
| cheaper price initially and then grow it to suit your
| needs later. Also the laptop will be probably end up
| being usable for a decade or more.
|
| I recently upgraded my 2015 MBP's SSD from 256GB to 1TB
| (it's the last upgradeable macbook). It's great to get a
| significant speed boost on read/write times and more disk
| space. And it only cost me about $100-150 to make it
| happen.
|
| The 2015 MBP is still fast and snappy for my purposes,
| it's hard to justify getting a new laptop yet.
| christophilus wrote:
| I switched to a Dell XPS + Linux when my Macbook crapped
| out after only a few months. The Apple store shipped it
| out and it took over a week before I got it back.
|
| If that laptop had been a Framework laptop, I could have
| just ordered the part, swapped it out, and moved along.
| conradfr wrote:
| Not OP but I would want ... not MacOS ;)
| deadmutex wrote:
| Sounds like you Think different. ;)
| cantbudgeit wrote:
| 4k Oled? On a 15" screen seems overkill. Also OLED displays
| still have ghosting problems. 1440p is the sweet spot IMO.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| Ghosting? OLED is way beyond LCD:
|
| https://youtu.be/Qtve0u3GJ9Y?t=686
| wtf_is_up wrote:
| It's a cool design overall, but I'll never buy a laptop without a
| thinkpoint/nub/nipple/whatever pointing device on the keyboard.
| sneak wrote:
| > _The speakers are loud enough._
|
| I will miss the Apple speakers when I am finally forced to switch
| away.
| sroussey wrote:
| Is there any word on battery life? I can not find actual
| dimensions either...
| yumraj wrote:
| Has 13" become the default choice these days? I would love
| everything the same, but with a 15"-16" screen - if anyone from
| Framework is reading.
| ericls wrote:
| The screen size issue can be mitigated by using a better window
| manager
| kzrdude wrote:
| these are 4:3 screens so certainly odd in current laptops
| taylodl wrote:
| I hope this starts a trend! For the past 25 years that I've been
| building machines I've never upgraded the processor or
| motherboard - but I've added memory, added more storage or
| replaced a power supply. This fills that need just fine!
| Ultimately it supports up to 64 GB of RAM and 8 TB of storage!
| This is a machine that could last for _years_! Imagine now if we
| start standardizing on a laptop chassis, laptop motherboards,
| laptop keyboards, and laptop displays! We could have a builder 's
| market just like we do today for desktops!
|
| Honestly, this is one of the best new ideas I've seen in a _long_
| time!
|
| P.S. Imagine ten years from now - we may be doing the same thing
| with phones! Oh yeah, I really hope this idea takes off!
| sydney6 wrote:
| I think the question here isn't "is this a good laptop?", but
| rather "is this business model sustainable for the company?". I
| truly hope so..
| AdmiralAsshat wrote:
| The Framework is definitely on my radar for next laptop. I kinda
| want to wait and see how it pans out in the long-term, though.
| I'll be eagerly awaiting for the Gen 2 version of the laptop, or
| the "Framework Laptop - 1 year later" reviews.
|
| For the moment, my Dell XPS 13 laptop from 2015 is still going
| strong, and I'd hate to ditch a brand/model that's been working
| reliably for me for six years for new-shiny thing from a company
| that might go under in a year.
| reginold wrote:
| If you're in a position to grin and bear it, pushing your
| purchase earlier may ensure this fledgling company's success.
| mickotron wrote:
| Once it is available for pre order in Australia, I am buying one.
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