[HN Gopher] Framework Laptop (2022) review: the repairability dream
___________________________________________________________________
Framework Laptop (2022) review: the repairability dream
Author : Tomte
Score : 141 points
Date : 2022-07-21 14:30 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theverge.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theverge.com)
| rkangel wrote:
| > Laptops with ethernet are basically unheard of outside of large
| gaming rigs these days
|
| This is just not true. The vast majority of Lenovo Thinkpads come
| with a built in RJ45 ethernet port.
| Legogris wrote:
| They're becoming optional in most models and dropping
| completely in some (like T14s). Meanwhile, older lines with the
| port are being replaced with new models sans. While some models
| do come with it, they are by now in a minority.
|
| https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-ThinkPad-T14s-G2-Intel-...
| eddiezane wrote:
| I've had my 11th gen Framework for ~ 5 months now and I really
| want to love it but I've stopped recommending it to others
| because of the battery issues.
|
| The biggest problem is that it drains 1-2% per hour in deep sleep
| on Linux. That means if you leave it asleep in your bag after
| work it will be between 15-30% lower when you go to use it the
| next morning. People on the forums[0] are even seeing up to a 4%
| per hour drain. I don't know what is common with other laptops
| but I can't say I've ever had to think about sleep drain before.
|
| I've just ordered the 12th gen board upgrade with fingers crossed
| it helps but really consider going back to a ThinkPad X1 Carbon.
|
| 0: https://community.frame.work/t/linux-battery-life-
| tuning/666...
| pxc wrote:
| Have you tried configuring suspend-then-hibernate with a very
| short timer (e.g., 10 or 30 minutes)? The configuration for it
| is shipped with systemd these days, so all you have to do is
| turn it on and set the timer length. With fast SSDs, resume
| from hibernate is not very painful.
|
| That should let you close your laptop and open it in a few days
| without any big issue, even if S0ix continues to suck.
| eddiezane wrote:
| Thanks for the suggestion! I haven't used swap for years but
| I am about to figure out how to set it up behind LUKS/LVM to
| test this out.
| nrp wrote:
| We've been able to reach <0.5%/hour on Linux with 12th Gen and
| recent kernels. There are also some additional firmware
| optimizations we're working on to resolve higher s0ix drain
| with different combinations of Expansion Cards inserted that
| keep the retimers from going into a suspend state.
|
| On 11th Gen and 12th Gen, one of the other major drivers of
| s0ix drain we have seen is SSDs with firmware issues that keep
| them in higher power states in suspend. Updating SSD firmware
| is challenging on Linux, so if you are unable to do that, there
| is also a workaround to change a kernel parameter which we have
| seen result in <1%/hour drain on 11th Gen:
| https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Ubuntu+22.04+LTS+Installatio...
| burntsushi wrote:
| FWIW, my sleep drain issue (on 11th gen) got noticeably
| better once I replaced my USB-A and HDMI modules with USB-C.
| Now I just have 4 USB-C modules. I did try updating SSD
| firmware before that, but I don't believe that had an impact.
| I'm not sure whether it was HDMI or USB-A or both that was
| the issue.
|
| I run the latest kernel (5.16.16 currently) on Arch.
| eddiezane wrote:
| Thanks for the reply! This is great to hear.
|
| I've turned just about every knob and kernel parameter I can,
| only use the USB C expansion cards, kernel is 5.18.12, and my
| Samsung 980 Pro is on the latest firmware (5B2QGXA7) so I
| look forward to what the 12th Gen board can do.
| getcrunk wrote:
| Thank you so much for posting this! I'm very much happy and
| relieved to know that you guys acknowledge the issue and are
| actively working on it.
| pera wrote:
| I have this issue with a Dell XPS 13 (2021) with Ubuntu, I read
| in several places this is common problem among modern Intel
| based laptops, even in Windows.
| prophesi wrote:
| The deep sleep power drain is really annoying, but on the
| bright side those power tuning tips let me go through an entire
| 8 hour workday from a full charge. At least until I need to
| test things on an Android emulator.
| ttgurney wrote:
| I got the DIY edition of this a few months ago and have been
| using it continuously since then. Nice piece of hardware and I'm
| glad I bought it. Only big thing missing for me is user-
| modifiable firmware. Combine this thing with the Coreboot and
| neutralized Intel ME of Purism's products, and I would have no
| reason to use anything else. Currently this has a typical
| proprietary EFI firmware and no legacy BIOS support, which I
| wouldn't expect most people to care about but I find it a bit
| annoying.
|
| I've also had some issues with the CPU temperature consistently
| pushing into the 90s when running big multicore workloads. Not
| sure why. Rather than look into applying new thermal paste or
| whatever, I just turned off Intel turbo boost, this is of course
| a performance hit but it keeps the whole thing very cool and
| improves battery life.
| nrp wrote:
| Glad to hear that you're enjoying it! On the CPU temperatures,
| Boost will deliberately and safely let the CPU run up to a
| maximum of 60W and 100C for a short period of time at the start
| of heavy load before dropping back to 28W (11th Gen) or 30W
| (12th Gen).
|
| On an open UEFI solution, that is on our long term roadmap, and
| we're currently hiring for firmware positions to speed up
| kicking off this work. Edit: Also, our Embedded Controller
| firmware is open, though that is somewhat orthogonal to UEFI:
| https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/EmbeddedController
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I would think that legacy BIOS support will be increasingly
| rare in the coming years. CSM support in UEFI is also likely
| not long for this world.
| emacsen wrote:
| I've had my framework for about six months, and it's been an
| incredibly mixed bag. This isn't a bad laptop by any means, but
| it's not been a panacea either.
|
| The battery life, as other have mentioned, is poor.
|
| The Linux support is "OK", and improved greatly when I upgraded
| to the latest Ubuntu and what I assume is a host of updated
| proprietary drivers.
|
| But the system also got regularly stuck in a mode where it
| wouldn't wake up from sleep, for weeks, until one day it simply
| couldn't be woken up, even after having no power. Tech support
| was competent, but slow, with replies every next business day.
|
| Resetting the sleep situation also required taking the unit
| apart, which seems silly.
|
| And one of the dongles that it comes with, the USB-A one, totally
| flaked out on me.
|
| And at the end of the day, while repairability is lovely, so is a
| tech support line you can call and talk to a human being, so is a
| depot you can send the laptop to, and so is being able to pay for
| a repair person to come and fix my work machine.
|
| These are premium asks, the repair person in particular, and I
| know that big companies like Dell and Lenovo can only offer them
| based on bulk sales, but I'd be willing to pay for this, but it's
| not offered.
|
| Right now, the laptop is good, but I wouldn't buy one. They say
| their next model will have better Linux support, and be better in
| other ways. I'd wait for that and hope that Framework also works
| out a better tech support system.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| _They say their next model will have better Linux support_
|
| Interested, got a reference?
| nly wrote:
| "The next version will fix all your problems" -- Every
| software salesmen, everywhere ever
| uoaei wrote:
| > being able to pay for a repair person to come and fix my work
| machine
|
| In the context of the Framework, I think it seems to be the
| intention of the designers that you buy replacement parts and
| replace them yourself.
| Kukumber wrote:
| It should be much cheaper then
|
| It cost more than a macbook ARM, and you get less perf, worse
| battery, worse cooling, and less support, yes you get to
| repair it yourself and more easily, but i never had to repair
| my macbooks (other than changing the battery, and that was
| easy to do myself, and looks like it is still easy on the ARM
| ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l_Dw_5_JJk)
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| The battery life of my Linux Framework is ~6 hours after
| tuning, but it has required real time to tune it and a little
| bit of attention to crack down on runaway processes (mostly web
| threads)
| unicornporn wrote:
| > They say their next model will have better Linux support
|
| How come a machine like this doesn't have flawless Linux
| support? Such a lost opportunity...
| InfoSecErik wrote:
| I ran into a similar issue. It took a Google search plus
| following a nicely documented guide to reset, and I was back at
| it. Way easier fix process than dealing with <PC Laptop
| Manufacturing Company> support.
| getcrunk wrote:
| What is this sleep issue that needs a reset that might
| require opening the laptop case?
| Shared404 wrote:
| Not a framework owner, buty money would be on the reset
| being a cmos reset, which means it's most likely some
| toggle in firmware being set incorrectly.
|
| This is a guess based on a couple years in a repair shop, I
| could be completely wrong.
| oxplot wrote:
| What doesn't get mentioned is the amazing support provided by the
| Framework team. From their community board [1] to their customer
| support, these folks love their customers. From the CEO (Nirav),
| to their system engineer (Kieran) and all in-between, drop in to
| answer questions and help solve issues. The community forum is
| akin to Arch Wiki. You find some gems of replies to technical
| issues that are unparalleled across the net.
|
| Best laptop support experience ever. Best laptop ever. Verge,
| "Generic looking" as a con? AYFKM?
|
| [1]: https://community.frame.work/
| public_defender wrote:
| Am I the only one bothered by the "agree to continue" box at the
| bottom of the article? It implies that it is telling us something
| about this laptop, but as far as I can tell, it's just a generic
| complaint about windows.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| This is a feature the Verge has been doing for a while now
| where every product they review includes a section specifically
| for how many screens of EULAs you have to click through. If you
| don't follow them regularly you won't be familiar with it, but
| if you do, you recognize this as a standard feature of their
| reviews.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| What kind of expertise is needed for you guys to have a
| trackpoint in the keyboard?
|
| There's a vocal minority of people (I count myself in) that
| really, really like trackpoints and would love to have a
| Framework laptop with this kind of pointing device. I think it
| would be more productive (or perhaps its wishful thinking on my
| part) for you people to say something like "we need to shave x mm
| from the Thinkpad one to match or requirement" or "we need x
| dollar to hire someone / to let our product engineer spend y
| amount of time on this project.
|
| (and I'm of course ignoring the dozen or so patents that probably
| prevent you to implement this... but I really really like
| trackpoints)
| pella wrote:
| - https://community.frame.work/search?q=trackpoint
|
| - not yet .. but this is ~ Open Design .. so I hope some 3rd
| party company will create.
| 63 wrote:
| Just to add support to this sentiment, I am also pretty on the
| fence but I think a trackpoint would push me over. I've used
| Thinkpads for the last 7 years and I'm looking to buy a new
| laptop soon (in the next 1-2 years). If framework adds a
| trackpoint, I will buy it.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I don't use my thinkpad's trackpoint all the time, but it's
| excellent for cramped situations where you don't have the space
| for the arm movements required to use a trackpad effectively.
| If nothing else it's an extremely good feature for a mobility-
| focused machine.
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| I agree with the sibling comment. There's no real alternative
| to the trackpoint. Nothing comes close, but the initial hour or
| so of using it is weird ; frankly, I don't remember it because
| I did it about 20 years or so ago, but everywhere I've worked,
| I've made sure to buy a keyboard with a trackpoint.
|
| Currently I'm using the Tex shinobi keyboard, and before that I
| used the IBM USB keyboard with the X220 layout.
|
| When navigating with the mouse on the web, I currently have my
| thumb for the mouse buttons, my index finger on the trackpoint,
| and middle, ring, and index for movement on the HJKL keys.
| Nothing beats that for speed and hand movement a mouse is a
| little more accurate, but I'm willing to trade that for not
| moving my hand all the time. (I also just realized I switch
| hands a lot for moving the mouse - not something you can do
| with a mouse.)
| rvdginste wrote:
| Do you think the Tex Shinobi is worth its price? I'm familiar
| with the Thinkpad X200 keyboard and interested in the Tex
| Shinobi, but find it a bit hard to justify spending that much
| on a keyboard. (I am a software engineer and do spend a lot
| of time on keyboards and I do value a good keyboard.)
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| 1000% I have three of them currently.
| rvdginste wrote:
| That's convincing :) Good to know, thanks!
| kwanbix wrote:
| I had my first TrackPoint contact when I joined IBM. They gave
| me a ThinkPad 755CD. They still owned the PC Division. There
| was no touchpad, so it took me about 30~60 minutes to get used
| to the trackpoint (maybe less). Since them I have had countless
| ThinkPads, personal and at work, an I always disable the
| touchpad entirely. I am sure that if most people had to use the
| trackpoint, they won't want to go back.
| so_dewy wrote:
| I was really into using my trackpoint until suddenly my index
| finger literally started trembling uncontrollably whenever I
| tried using it. I think its because it requires too much
| force to move the cursor or I guess my ligaments are that
| weak although Im still young. Sadly had to give up using it
| since it was quite convenient
| dnr wrote:
| Get a fresh cap! The caps only last about a year of heavy
| use. You can find replacements on amazon and elsewhere. It
| doesn't even matter if it's really oem, a fresh third party
| one will still be much better than a worn oem one.
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| You can / should change the sensitivity so it doesn't
| require so much force. I like it to move all the way across
| the screen with very little effort ; if you're getting
| finger strain, you should look into its settings.
| assbuttbuttass wrote:
| I agree, look into the sensitivity. On my x250 the
| trackpoint was almost unusable until I increased the
| sensitivity/acceleration
| jm4 wrote:
| How do you scroll with the trackpoint? I have a ThinkPad and
| the trackpoint is nice, but I always end up back on the
| touchpad for two finger scrolling. I used to use scroll bars,
| but they are so small these days that they're really only
| useful as an indication of where you are in a document.
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| Middle click with thumb, mouse with index finger for moving
| through the document.
| flyingfences wrote:
| A proper trackpoint is supposed to have three buttons. The
| middle button works the same as on a desktop mouse: while
| holding the button, moving the cursor scrolls the page.
|
| Among the few laptops that still include a trackpoint at
| all, I'm seeing more and more omit the third button,
| rendering the nub a vestigial ornament, requiring a
| fallback, as you've said, to the touchpad. I'm very
| disappointed; should I ever need to buy a new laptop, I
| expect to find myself up the proverbial creek.
| dschooh wrote:
| Middle click and moving the trackpoint up and down works
| for me.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Hold down the middle button and drag. Some older models
| don't support this and with some Linux distros/DEs you have
| to configure it manually.
| nrp wrote:
| The barrier is primarily tooling costs. We'd have to have high
| enough confidence in the incremental sales of it to cover what
| would likely be in the mid six digits of custom tooling (Input
| Cover plastic and aluminum tooling, tooling for a three button
| trackpad, tooling for a new version of the keyboard with a
| cutout for a pointing stick, and a small amount of tooling for
| a semicustom pointing stick to fit that cutout).
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| What do the numbers look like for just a three-button-above
| touchpad, without the stick?
| Scramblejams wrote:
| FWIW, I'd happily pay $99 for the addition.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I felt this way back then when trackpads sucked.
|
| But today trackpads are really good, especially the ones that
| ship on MacBooks. I can't imagine going back to the trackpoint
| any more than I can imagine going back to the trackpads of the
| '00s. Good multitouch gestures in particular make a trackpad
| way more versatile and improve my productivity a lot.
| znpy wrote:
| > a trackpoint in the keyboard?
|
| non-ironically, this is the last thing that is giving me doubts
| between going for the frame.work for my next laptop or sticking
| to old-trustworthy thinkpads.
| drakonka wrote:
| This is the only thing that keeps me coming back to ThinkPad
| nowadays.
| asojfdowgh wrote:
| Of course, this is a silly solution, but...
|
| Since you can buy seperate keyboard parts... and if you don't
| mind a bit of drilling / replacing some keys with custom keys /
| manual fixing of damaged traces on the pcbs...
|
| Just drill a hole in the keyboard, file it off, and buy a
| trackpoint module from ebay, It'd probably work well enough!
|
| - - -
|
| that aside, making an expansion card which has a trackpoint on
| it, or notching it into just above the keyboard area, would
| probably be the most doable options, without needing the
| company to catch up
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| Coming from a ThinkPad X1 Yoga. I really love where the Framework
| Laptop is headed and I really want to get one... But, I have a
| few blockers right now. The blockers are features that I do use
| on my Yoga and I will need to make the switch:
|
| * Convertible mode. Tent and tablet modes, I do use to watch
| things or read longer articles in portrait mode and scroll with
| my thumb, from the side.
|
| * Touchscreen, I use this quite a bit actually, if I see a button
| I can just press it vs, move my hand to the TouchStick and move
| the mouse to it. I also use the touchscreen for bulk operations
| where there is none. Sometimes, repetitive tasks like maybe
| adding a new list item or editing things or copy pasting multiple
| data entries can be done, sometimes in combination w/keyboard,
| very fast with this feature. It is not something I want to
| regress on now that I have moved into flowing with it really
| nicely.
|
| * TouchStick - I don't use the trackpad, I disable it and solely
| use the TouchStick. It is faster when I need to use a mouse
| input. I guess I lose out on some gestures, but the TouchStick
| has been my flow for over 10 years, I'm used to it, I'm efficient
| with it. I hope to see a keyboard mod in the marketplace with a
| touchstick. There are a couple threads in the forums with a large
| amount of activity from others looking for the same.
| shaftway wrote:
| I've been using a Framework (11 gen, DIY edition) for the last
| year. I love the company, the idea, the repairability, almost all
| of it. But I've had 4 major issues:
|
| - Installing the WiFi card was crazy difficult. The antenna
| connectors are tiny, fragile, and require significant pressure to
| snap on. I had to use a pair of pliers to get it on and I was
| very concerned about breaking or bending something
|
| - The screen hinge is weak and not adjustable. It'll stay in
| position when it's on a table, but picking the laptop up and
| walking anywhere with it inevitably ends up with the screen open
| to 180 degrees.
|
| - The space bar is inconsistent. Especially with my right hand.
| I've had to develop a typing habit where I type spaces with my
| left hand or hard with my right hand to get it to register.
| Otherwisemywritingendsuplookinglikethis.
|
| - The touchpad isn't great. My work machines have been MacBooks,
| so maybe I'm spoiled. But I disable touch to click. And clicking
| to click is also inconsistent. I ended up having to click extra
| hard.
|
| These are annoyances really, and I don't use it often enough for
| these to matter. But if it was my daily driver I'd have done
| something about it by now.
| chrisallenlane wrote:
| I've been running a DIY model for about a year as well. My only
| complaint was likewise that installing the wifi antenna was
| _very_ tricky. I briefly thought I had broken it before it
| finally came together for me. (It sounds like they've mitigated
| this issue by now, so that's great.)
|
| I also had a few of the Linux issues that others have
| mentioned, but upgrading to the newest Ubuntu solved them.
|
| Overall a fantastic machine, and probably my favorite laptop
| I've ever owned.
| wnolens wrote:
| > The touchpad isn't great. My work machines have been
| MacBooks, so maybe I'm spoiled. But I disable touch to click.
| And clicking to click is also inconsistent. I ended up having
| to click extra hard.
|
| pressing on a touch pad has always annoyed me. on my laptops i
| always remap capslock -> (ctrl|cmd), and (ctrl|cmd) -> mouse
| click.
| pxc wrote:
| > Installing the WiFi card was crazy difficult. The antenna
| connectors are tiny, fragile, and require significant pressure
| to snap on. I had to use a pair of pliers to get it on and I
| was very concerned about breaking or bending something
|
| I don't have a Framework, but that's how installing mobile WiFi
| cards has always felt to me. IME those connectors are sturdier
| than you'd think, but I never use tweezers or apply pressure on
| the wire other than at the joint, from directly above, with a
| finger.
| Shared404 wrote:
| Seconding this.
|
| I've never worked with a mobile wifi adapter that wasn't
| miserable to try to put connect the antenna to.
| nrp wrote:
| On the WiFi, we switched to pre-installing the card with
| antennas attached when we launched in Europe last year, and are
| continuing that for all configurations of 12th Gen. We agree it
| is too finicky.
|
| On the hinges, could you reach out to our support team? We had
| a set of out of spec hinges come from our supplier, and it is
| possible that is what you are seeing. The team can also help
| you out on any issues you're seeing on your keyboard or
| trackpad.
| shaftway wrote:
| Yeah, I'll try to get to it. Like I said it hasn't been a
| huge issue. I did read up on the forums about the hinges,
| since someone had the same complaint as me. IIRC the response
| was along the lines of "Adjustable tension on the hinges?
| Huh. That's a good idea. Maybe one day we'll do it."
|
| > we switched to pre-installing the card with antennas
| attached
|
| That's really good to hear. I assumed I had to do it because
| I got the DIY edition and that I essentially got what I asked
| for.
| baybal2 wrote:
| psygn89 wrote:
| I don't understand why "Generic looking" is a con - I'd say it's
| a strength for a modular laptop.
| 8jy89hui wrote:
| Is an upgraded speaker kit on the roadmap? I don't know what
| would be involved, but I am just unimpressed with the speakers as
| they currently stand.
|
| Loving everything else about the laptop and I use it as my daily
| driver.
| nrp wrote:
| The speakers are easy to replace, but we can't share anything
| about future hardware plans.
| komadori wrote:
| In that case, I will continue to believe that you have an
| ultra-secret pointing stick keyboard in development that
| could be announced at any moment ;-).
| chem83 wrote:
| Can you please clarify why not? In a perfect world, it would
| be great to have a better sense of roadmap to make a purchase
| decision.
| nrp wrote:
| Two major factors:
|
| 1. There is a funnel in hardware (or really any product)
| development, where we research and investigate a pretty
| broad range of new features, modules, and even products, of
| which only a few make it out the other end as a mass
| produced item. Even relatively late in the development
| process, compliance, reliability, functionality, supplier,
| and cost issues can mean scope or schedule changes to
| something or even shutting it down entirely. Because of
| that, we don't announce hardware until we have 100%
| confidence both that we can ship it and 95% confidence in
| the price and launch date for it.
|
| 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect - We don't
| deliberately hold announcements for this reason, but it
| compounds with reason #1. We don't want to have someone
| wait for something that may or may not ever appear. Because
| our products are upgradeable, we want people to evaluate
| them based on what currently exists, but still be able to
| benefit from improvements we make in the future.
| turndown wrote:
| The second sentence belies the exact reason they wouldn't
| release a roadmap - they want you to buy now since it's the
| present, not possibly later if you know more information.
| chem83 wrote:
| That'd be true if there wasn't robust market with
| competing alternatives. I may be okay with waiting
| another 6-12 months for Framework to supply a high res
| OLED screen or AMD, but without that clarity, might as
| well jump into Dell or Lenovo now.
| vaylian wrote:
| I really like my framework. I don't mind that it is not the
| fastest in the benchmarks, because faster computers will be
| released in the future anyway. I don't want to chase the newest
| and fastest when what I currently have is perfectly adequate for
| what I want to use my laptop for.
|
| My biggest complaint at this point is that the battery connector
| is not designed to be disconnected on a regular basis[1]. I
| personally would prefer to remove the battery much more
| frequently, because I'm only occasionally disconnected from the
| grid and keeping the battery unused would be better for its
| lifetime.
|
| I know that the UEFI has a cool option to disconnect the battery.
| But this option only stays until the next reboot. I guess that
| this option is also the reason why the battery connector is so
| fragile.
|
| [1] https://community.frame.work/t/redesign-battery-
| connector/10...
| nrp wrote:
| On newer firmware versions, we've added the ability to set a
| charge limit on the battery. By setting the limit to 60-80%,
| you can also keep the battery healthier for longer. We don't
| recommend keeping the battery unplugged both to avoid cycling
| the connector too often and because it'll limit peak
| performance. Unless you plug in a 100W power adapter, hitting
| peak Boost power requires briefly drawing off of the battery in
| addition to the power adapter.
| vaylian wrote:
| Thanks! I will follow this advice! But I honestly don't care
| much about peak performance (but others certainly do).
|
| - written on my framework
| bogwog wrote:
| I was so hyped up to buy this as my next laptop, but then I saw
| the HP Dev one and it's a really tough choice. The HP wins
| basically every metric except for repairability (and display
| aspect ratio, but the trackpoint makes up for it)...although the
| HP does have upgradeable RAM and SSD, so it's not as bad as a
| Macbook. Also, apparently, Linux support is way better on the HP
| then the framework.
|
| There are also some other interesting laptops, like the Slimbook
| Executive (amazing screen), Starlabs Starbook, the System 76
| lineup, and probably more I'm missing.
|
| I could also wait a (long?) while and Asahi Linux might reach a
| point where I would actually consider buying a M1/M2 macbook.
|
| ...not sure what I'm buying next, but I do know that this is a
| really good time to be in the market for a Linux laptop :D
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Integrated graphics is just not really an option anymore for
| anything but a cheap web browsing device. Practically every other
| laptop at this price point has a 3060 or 3070.
| wmf wrote:
| Almost no 13" laptops have discrete GPUs.
| Shared404 wrote:
| What?
|
| Unless you're doing gaming, graphics, or ML, I can't think of a
| need for any dedicated GPU - let alone a 3060 or 3070.
| nrp wrote:
| As always, I'm happy to answer any questions anyone has on this!
| schmorptron wrote:
| Hey nrp, I recently saw this video [1] which showed some major
| battery life differences between the i5 and i7 for Alder Lake
| which really took me by surprise. (22% battery on the i5 vs 38%
| on the i7 after a couple of hours of playing video)
|
| Is the difference similar on the framework laptop, and if so,
| is this a driver problem for the i5 / better under Linux and
| expected to improve as big.little utilization gets more robust
| or just a case where race-to-idle really hits? Would love to
| hear professional input on this since you've probably worked
| pretty closely with these cpus in the last few months!
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-y8ElW473s
| nrp wrote:
| We've seen battery life be roughly the same for the same
| workload (MobileMark) on i5-1240P, i7-1260P, and i7-1280P.
| It's unclear where the major difference comes from in that
| video, but I would guess the laptop maker has other hardware
| or software differences between the two laptop SKUs.
| schmorptron wrote:
| Awesome, thanks for the info!
| tbyehl wrote:
| Touchscreen option, pretty please. I live with the fixed RAM
| and general lack of repairability of my Surface Laptop 3 for
| that sweet, sweet 3:2 display w/ a touchscreen.
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| Touchscreen, stylus digitizer, and 360deg hinge :)
| rvz wrote:
| Thank you for creating a very nice looking laptop that I am
| very confident at recommending to the average person.
|
| No need for screw-drivers for the basic of replaceable
| components, ports, etc. It is a genius swappable plug and play
| modules system and is as simple as plugging in a USB.
|
| I'm looking forward to the next iteration of the Framework
| Laptop.
| nullwarp wrote:
| Any plans for a larger say 15"ish version?
|
| I seem to be in the minority of people who think 16" is too big
| and 13" is too small.
| Tryk wrote:
| Just wanted to say, thanks for making these computers. It's a
| great initiative.
| pthread_t wrote:
| I currently have the 11th gen DIY edition. I'm running linux on
| it and I'm loving it.
|
| When do you plan on making the 12th gen intel main boards + top
| cover available for purchase?
|
| Will the main board upgrade bring the 11th gen machine to the
| same exact spec? Or does the new 12th gen have other
| improvements?
| nrp wrote:
| The Upgrade Kit is available as of this morning on the
| Framework Marketplace, and is the complete set of hardware to
| bring an 11th Gen system up to what the new 12th Gen systems
| have.
| mrgalaxy wrote:
| Is there any plan to add AMD CPUs to the Framework laptop?
|
| The 12th gen Intel chips are a huge improvement over previous
| generations, but my understanding is that AMD chips are of
| similar performance with better power usage and thermals.
|
| Edit: This may not be true anymore, anyone is free to correct
| me on this.
| znpy wrote:
| I'm seeing that some people are upgrading the motherboard and
| re-purposing the old one as a stand-alone desktop computer...
| Have you considered selling cases to be used with old revisions
| of the motherboard?
|
| I mean, I could buy the new motherboard and the case of the old
| one at the same time, it would make sense.
| nrp wrote:
| We've released 3D-printable files for a case for the
| Mainboard: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/Mainboard
|
| We've also seen some great community developed cases. We
| can't share any plans around commercial cases of our own, but
| we'd love to see third party ones come around.
| jvol83 wrote:
| I love my framework. I've also got a DIY edition 11th gen, i5,
| really hoping for the news that AMD is on the near ish horizon
| but understand the difficulties.
|
| I have run successfully arch, and now fedora 36 for most of my
| work and the machine is just great. Hell I am typing this post on
| it.
|
| I find the ability to swap cards and for the ports is quite
| handy, I regularly carry hdmi, displayport, extra usb a and c, sd
| card and I just purchased and am awaiting the arrival of a 1 TB
| extension, primarily to hold all the many vms I use on a regular
| basis.
|
| Might be a bit much but I bought a d-brand skin for it too, I
| didn't want the wrist rests to get all scuffed like on most of my
| other laptops so that should help.
|
| Really looking forward to having this thing for many years.
| Fingers crossed for that AMD upgrade. And the ethernet
| card/dongle soon.
| julianlam wrote:
| Well, the great thing about the Framework is if you scuff up
| the wrist rests, you can probably order a new chassis.
| einpoklum wrote:
| What's the use in repairability if the keyboard is basically
| broken from the get-go? We need long-travel non-chicklet keys,
| like the Thinkpads used to have.
| schaefer wrote:
| This is as good a place as any to say: For the right price, I'm
| looking to by a used (intel 11th gen) framework mainboard.
|
| Presumably, some people are upgrading. So it would be a good time
| to pick up an old board and an empty chassis. Apart from e-bay
| (no obvious hits) I can't think how to connect with any sellers.
| nrp wrote:
| Building a consumer to consumer resale market is on our
| Marketplace roadmap. In the meantime though, we expect there
| will be people in the Framework Community posting about extra
| Mainboards: https://community.frame.work/
| oldandboring wrote:
| As a Linux laptop user, I used Thinkpads for years. The pinnacle
| was the T460s/T490s models from around 2016, because they:
|
| - Ran Linux without much tinkering or major compromises
|
| - small (14")
|
| - affordable (around $1300 for my config)
|
| - lightweight and thin
|
| - powerful (I had a Core i5)
|
| - upgrade-able (I had 48gb of RAM)
|
| They started going downhill after that, primarily in that I could
| no longer find a Thinkpad model that was at the intersection of
| upgrade-able and Linux compatibility.
|
| Around 2021 I started looking for an alternative. Looked at made-
| for-Linux laptops like System76 and the various Linux-certified
| Dells. Couldn't find anything that checked all my boxes and the
| Dells were particularly crippled: 8GB of soldered on RAM? Only
| certified to work if you use their custom hacked Ubuntu image? No
| thanks.
|
| The Framework (gen11, DIY edition) was exactly what I was looking
| for. My configuration at the time was $1032 and I've been running
| Manjaro Linux on it continuously for the past year on it with
| zero problems. It's just good solid generic hardware at a fair
| price. It's cheap enough that I don't worry about it getting lost
| or stolen. It's repairable so I don't worry about something
| physically breaking.
|
| I have since bought another one for an employee and over the next
| few years I plan on deploying them to my whole team.
|
| Basically I should be a testimonial on their website.
| Melatonic wrote:
| You are making me think I might have to finally upgrade my T420
| sammorrowdrums wrote:
| The Dell XPS Developer Edition ones have always worked well for
| me with Linux, I never used the stock Ubuntu, and the hardware
| works really well and they actually do deliver firmware updates
| through fwupd for many years - I won't defend the landfill
| future of the hardware and lack of user upgrade/ replacement,
| but I've had great success with Elementary OS and Arch on them.
|
| Also I have had to use a Mac more recently for work, and I miss
| my XPS running well with Docker, and I find it hilarious that
| with MacBooks you need the new M processor models to be able to
| run Docker workloads without the fans blasting!
|
| I'd love to try a Framework too though.
| oldandboring wrote:
| These are fair points. It's probably more accurate to say
| that I didn't give the Dells a completely fair shake on their
| "works with Linux" cred because I couldn't get past the lack
| of user upgrade and/or the cost to actually buy one. At one
| point I did buy a Precision 7000 series that wasn't certified
| for Linux, hoping I'd be able to get it running anyway, and
| it was a nightmare that ended in a return/refund: the whole
| machine would literally lock up hard upon waking from s2
| sleep. It was upon researching the problem that I discovered
| the nature of Dell's "we won't actually support Linux on any
| laptop unless it's a specific model and you're running our
| specific build of Ubuntu, beyond that you're on your own,
| YMMV" and gave up. Framework still says "you're on your own"
| but they're also working furiously behind the scenes to make
| Linux as close to first-class-citizen as possible. Framework
| knows their customer.
| k__ wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| I had a T42 in 2008 and read Thinkpads already went downhill
| back then.
| babypuncher wrote:
| I never really liked Thinkpads to begin with. The texture on
| their plastics makes my skin crawl. When I was working IT at
| the end of the '00s, I found Latitudes were a lot easier to
| repair and more durable.
| antisthenes wrote:
| My personal story is that I'll never use Lenovo, because of
| their crap website and customer service.
|
| I tried ordering one of their laptops back around 2015 on
| their website. The cart just straight up broke during
| checkout. Tried contacting support - no response.
|
| 2 weeks later they emailed me asking how my purchasing
| experience was (hilarious that they couldn't tell the
| purchase actually didn't go through, because the card wasn't
| charged)
|
| Was literally throwing money at them trying to buy their
| product, but I guess they didn't want it. So I'm never giving
| them a cent of it again.
| opan wrote:
| They certainly have continued to take away nice features,
| stability, and build quality over the years. The "last good
| ThinkPad" is different for many. As you said the T42 or
| around there for pre-Lenovo, T400 for libreboot support, T420
| for old keyboard, T430 for old charger/body design, T440p for
| last gen with socketed CPU and for coreboot support, T480 for
| last gen with a removable battery I think... But at the same
| time they've removed indicator lights, certain ports, I'm not
| even sure if there's a magnesium rollcage anymore.
|
| I have a P15s for work and my initial model would hard freeze
| when putting pressure in certain spots. I used an external
| keyboard/mouse mostly, but it'd still happen occasionally.
| Eventually got a tech sent out and he swapped the
| motherboard. I _think_ it 's fixed, but I still touch it as
| little as possible and use external peripherals.
|
| Some people defend modern ThinkPads saying they still beat
| the competition. I'd like to think the bar is higher than
| that considering some of what's out there.
|
| My take on all this is that x86 is on its way out anyway, so
| I'm trying to make my T440p last and will try to go with ARM
| or RISC-V for my next machine. Likely just an M2 Max MacBook
| Pro when available. Hopefully Asahi support is pretty good by
| then.
|
| The Framework is sort of cool, but it's just another modern
| Intel machine at the same time. Guts aside, they're doing a
| good job, but the guts are pretty important, and in this
| case, boring. The MNT Reform is a lot more interesting,
| although I don't know if any particularly performant SoMs are
| available for it yet. I'd like something with better
| performance than my Pinebook Pro if possible. The RK3399 is
| not quite Main Machine material.
| nrp wrote:
| Great to hear that! Manjaro support continues to be solid, and
| we just sent both 11th Gen and 12th Gen-based Framework Laptops
| to the team there.
| okennedy wrote:
| I completely agree in nearly every respect. Especially notable
| is the fact that they sell replacement hinges. Considering that
| every one of my preceding non-Apple laptops has failed at the
| hinge, this is huge.
|
| Support for suspend in linux is definitely shaky, but a
| (eventually fixable) firmware issue. On the other hand, I am
| concerned with the company's commitment to upgradability. Since
| they announced the 2nd generation motherboard some months back,
| the only way to get one has been with a brand new laptop around
| it.
| oldandboring wrote:
| Yeah I mean, even on the Framework I basically gave up on
| suspend. It wasn't freezing on the Framework like it was on
| the Dell, but there were definitely instances of things not
| working correctly upon wake, or with the machine never going
| to sleep, or with the machine waking itself, or with the
| battery draining too fast even in s2/deep. Switched to
| hibernate and I've been very happy.
| seb1204 wrote:
| I'm really curious about this failing at the hinges. Do you
| have thought about why this happens to you with all laptops.
| Is your use case to carry it around at the screen a lot? I
| never has such a damage or failure.
| HankB99 wrote:
| One frustration with Lenovo laptops is failing hinges.
| Well, not really the hinges, its the plastic around them
| that cracks. Neither of these was abused like you
| described, just occasionally opened and closed, probably
| not even on a daily basis.
| intothemild wrote:
| That's interesting. The X1 Carbon range are almost perfectly
| compatible with Linux.
|
| (I have had multiple over the years and have had zero issues)
|
| The other models I can't say much about. But the yogas are not
| Linux compatible
| suetoniusp91 wrote:
| The carbons are not upgradable and almost unrepairable. Just
| another landfill laptop
| oldandboring wrote:
| This was also my experience. Could never pull the trigger
| on the Carbon for this reason.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| > $1032
|
| > It's cheap enough that I don't worry about it getting lost or
| stolen.
|
| Not sure if this is impressive or reckless, but either way it
| doesn't apply to most people.
| dannyw wrote:
| I mean if you're making 150k a year as a SWE, losing your
| laptop isn't a big deal.
| oldandboring wrote:
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| And the worldwide percentage of laptop users and devs that
| make 150k is how much?
| nly wrote:
| Spending 1% of your net annual salary on a laptop still
| strikes me as a large purchase.
| jkepler wrote:
| What if one only buys a laptop once every three or four
| years? Then it would be 1/3 or 1/4 of a percent of annual
| salary.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| It would probably be tax deductible, depending of course
| on variables not discussed yet.
| secludedrelish wrote:
| As long as you have backups
| asadlionpk wrote:
| Having anything local is reckless at this point imo.
| There are so many mainstream backup options at different
| price ranges/free!
| dkarl wrote:
| Maybe it sounds better if you look at it this way: if every
| Framework laptop you buy gets stolen halfway through its
| useful lifetime, it's still cheaper than owning Macbook Pros.
| samtheprogram wrote:
| A MacBook Pro starts at $1299 with a significantly faster
| processor. You can't upgrade a MacBook Pro, but if your
| laptop is getting stolen half way through it's lifetime,
| you're probably not upgrading it. So not really.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| In the US maybe. In other countries Macs are quite a bit
| more expensive. And your customer support and service
| experience could be worse than in the US.
| hug wrote:
| You can't buy a Framework device in most countries, so
| that's a little moot.
|
| Can you tell I'm a tiny bit bitter, as an Australian? :)
| oldandboring wrote:
| jackmott42 wrote:
| Got my wife one of these after a dell became dropped and cracked
| the screen. No way to repair affordably. Had it about a year, and
| it has been flawless. Super easy to upgrade ram/ssd/etc, if we
| crack this screen its like $150 part and easy to install
| yourself.
| Markoff wrote:
| any plans for Thinkpad style 7 rows keyboard?
| dsimmons wrote:
| Been using a Framework laptop for close to a year and loving
| every minute of it!
|
| Installed 64GB of RAM and a high-performance 2TB NVMe for less
| than half of a comparable Macbook Pro. Plus, I get to run Linux!
| It worked right out of the box with almost zero configuration.
|
| To be completely fair, the battery that it comes with is a bit on
| the small side, so that's the main criticism I have (battery
| life).
|
| All told, I can't see myself ever going back to using an Apple
| laptop (voluntarily). I do get jealous of the M1/M2 processor
| specifically at times, but MacOS is a dumpster fire and I refuse
| to use it. Plus, having used a proper tiling window manager on a
| laptop now (i3), I can't imagine going back.
| nullwarp wrote:
| I'm with you, I have two Macbooks I deeply regret buying
| because at this point they just sit in a pile unused because
| they are just so annoying to use.
|
| I'm in the market now for a replacement for my old 15" thinkpad
| that I've been using but just haven't really found anything. I
| seem to be in some weird middle ground that nobody caters too
| because everything is either 13" or 16".
| LeonenTheDK wrote:
| i3 really is the killer feature for me. I'm on an M1 Mac for
| work, and I wouldn't say MacOS is a dumpster fire, but I'm
| really missing i3. There are things I've tried that get close
| but it's not the same.
| rozab wrote:
| Have you tried yabai?
|
| https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
| LeonenTheDK wrote:
| I have, as well as Amethyst. Yabai is what I've settled
| with, and it's absolutely usable for my work flow. I
| probably need to fiddle with it some more, but the thing
| with i3 is that most of the the default set up works great
| for me. Trying to emulate that in something else has been a
| pain.
|
| Maybe I should just learn to be more flexible!
| dsimmons wrote:
| For what it's worth, my "dumpster fire" comment encompassed
| far more than just window management (and admittedly extended
| to Apple hardware and Apple the company). See my comments
| elsewhere in the thread if you're curious!
|
| Re window management specifically: your "it's not the same"
| comment are my exact sentiments!
|
| Even if you can hack together some other MacOS-specific
| window management solution, what I'm finding game-changing is
| my laptop and my desktop behaving in the exact same way (same
| OS, same dotfiles, same programs/bins/utils).
|
| Not only "behaving" in the same way, but also _configured_ in
| the same way (meaning I don 't have to maintain two separate
| configurations for two entirely different managers).
|
| I don't know, I realize my perspective isn't shared by
| everyone (and even the HN audience specifically), but I'll
| probably never go back to using a laptop without Linux on it.
| For a long time, I avoided going down that path because I
| knew how big of a PITA getting laptop device/drivers to work
| was (whereas it's generally far simpler on desktop), but
| that's become less and less the case over the years, to the
| point that I spend less time configuring Linux than I do
| overriding all of MacOS's default settings/configuration.
| jackling wrote:
| What do you dislike about MacOS?
| yc202207214587 wrote:
| Not OP but my biggest issue is: windowing system is extremely
| basic (no window snapping/tiling) and smooth scrolling
| doesn't work with 3rd party mice. I need smooth scrolling due
| to visual impairment and have to use the stupid Magic Mouse
| instead of my MX Master 3 when I'm on MacOS.
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| I tried MacOS recently for about a month and was shocked at
| how bad scrolling was with my Logitech MX Vertical mouse.
| The third-party app Mos solved it pretty much perfectly.
| Every once in a while scrolling would stop working
| altogether until I rebooted. Never figured it out, but it
| was maddening. https://mos.caldis.me/
| dsimmons wrote:
| EDIT: I should point out that, although I don't like MacOS, I
| ditched Apple-related products first and foremost because of
| both the hardware itself and the company.
|
| Every Apple product I've owned has failed in some spectacular
| way, and Apple's response is typically something along the
| lines of "You're SoL dude, you can either recycle it and buy
| a new product, or you can pay us something close to the value
| of the device to repair it" (because they solder everything
| unnecessarily).
|
| Framework finally came along and showed that you can have a
| sleek, elegant (and modular!) design without soldering
| everything together in the name of reducing weight by 0.01kg
| or whatever (or making it a hair-width thinner).
|
| Most recently, I had a 2019 Macbook Pro ($3K) that would
| frequently give me a "red screen of death" under load and
| crap out completely.
|
| Before that, a brand new 2018 Macbook Pro I bought (for
| nearly $3K mind you) became unusable within an hour after
| taking it out of the box because of the faulty keyboard
| (several keys either didn't register key presses, or they
| would turn one key press into multiple occurrences of the
| same letter).
|
| Before that, I had a Thunderbolt Display ($1K) that would
| fail intermittently, and it took 5 trips to the Apple store
| before they finally gave me a new one.
|
| Before that, I had a 2014 Macbook Pro for which the screen
| started peeling off -- I had to buy a matte screen protector
| to even be able to see the screen.
|
| I have several more examples as I go back in time further,
| but you get the gist! In all cases, they're widely known
| problems that Apple refuses to acknowledge, and assuming
| they're even willing to do anything about it, they want you
| to hand over your laptop to them for ~2 weeks in the
| meantime.
|
| ---
|
| Original response:
|
| I'll eventually get around to writing a blog post about this
| (tm) and HN isn't really the place to fully brain dump, but
| off of the top of my head, here's a few examples:
|
| - My ".osx" dotfiles (then, now ".macos") would break with
| every OS upgrade. As an example, I preferred to set a very
| fast key repeat with a very short delay, and I remember one
| version of OSX/MacOS that just decided to start ignoring that
| completely (or resetting it every restart or something, I
| forget).
|
| - As a TL;DR point that summarizes many frustrations, I'd end
| up changing almost all of the default settings, to the point
| that I realized that I wasn't their target customer. For
| instance, I'd promptly disable all of their elaborate
| transitions and animations (which effectively added a latency
| to interacting with the system), hide the dock in perpetuity,
| etc etc... I haven't used MacOS in a few years, so I'm unable
| to refresh myself on what else I would change.
|
| - Their window management is SO stupid (IMHO), especially
| once you start incorporating monitors.
|
| - At least historically (unsure now), there was no way to
| differentiate the scroll behavior with the trackpad vs an
| external mouse. I did like the "natural" scrolling or
| whatever, as it felt very intuitive having used smartphones
| for many years. However, any time I connected a wireless
| mouse (primarily for gaming), it'd behave the same way
| (completely unintuitive), and there was no way to change it
| to be different. So I'd then have to either design for the
| least common denominator ("scrollwheel behavior"), or change
| that setting every single time I used an external mouse and
| remember to revert it when I'm done. A small nit, but one of
| tens of examples of annoyances.
|
| I could go on, but like I mentioned, this isn't really the
| place! Just a few examples as a taste :)
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| I've been bearish on Framework, not because they make a bad
| product, but because I find it hard to believe there's a market
| to support them.
|
| - Laptop use is shrinking, or has shrunk, as people diversify to
| smartphones, tablets, smart TVs, etc.
|
| - Of the remaining laptop users, some percent only wants Apple
|
| - Of the remaining non-Apple laptop users, some (most?) will just
| buy something cheap from Walmart/Costco/BestBuy
|
| - Some of the remaining few are looking for gaming laptops
| specifically
|
| - The rest will _consider_ a Framework laptop, among others, and
| this is likely to be the most picky group
|
| Will they really be able to find enough market to succeed, in any
| capacity?
| schmorptron wrote:
| One advantage this model has is that once someone has bought a
| framework (and is happy with it) they are even more likely to
| stay brand loyal for their next laptop purchase than they would
| be with other brands, since it'll be cheaper to upgrade their
| existing framework rather than buying an all new laptop.
| nrp wrote:
| 1. While category growth likely won't hold over the next couple
| of years, there were ~350M PCs sold in 2021, most of which were
| notebooks. Apple has <10% share, and ASP is >$700, even
| including ultra-cheap Chromebooks for Edu. [0]
|
| 2. The Framework Laptop is our first product, but not our last
| one. We see the same problems across consumer electronics, and
| we're excited about our product roadmap to address them!
|
| [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/pc-sales-
| hit-350-million-u...
| josefresco wrote:
| Small correction the headline reads: "PC Sales Hit Nearly 350
| Million Units in 2020"
|
| Not 2021 - will be interesting to see 2022!
| dsimmons wrote:
| God I genuinely hope they survive!
|
| I bought a gen1 laptop as an early adopter in part because I
| wanted to "vote with my dollars" and support their mission. A
| lot of people I know did the same.
|
| As someone who has used Apple products in various capacities
| since like 2007 (MacBooks, MacBook Airs, MacBook Pros, etc...),
| I'm just so completely done giving that company any of my hard-
| earned dollars.
|
| Setting aside the M1/M2 processor specifically, they haven't
| put out a good laptop in the better part of a decade.
|
| I realized a long time ago that I'm not Apple's target
| audience! They're more fashion/status these days than they are
| a technology company.
| jshzglr wrote:
| Seems like apple silicon is really throwing a wrench in
| people's incessant damnation of apple.
| duped wrote:
| IMHO the market is enterprise and professional, not consumer.
|
| If we could buy enough of them I'd advocate for moving my
| entire team over to Frameworks. That's not tenable for a few
| reasons right now, but I can see the day where bulk ordering
| them and support is better than what you get from Dell, HP, and
| Lenovo right now.
|
| If you had to buy new machines for new hires in 2020-2021 then
| you know the pain of finding good and reasonably priced
| machines. It was a nightmare, and the options are frankly not
| that great for developers. Especially if you have an aversion
| to Lenovo products, because they seemed to be the only company
| with stock available to ship last year.
| nrp wrote:
| We've recently started piloting a business program for SMB
| and teams within enterprises because of the amount of inbound
| interest we were getting. We're using the learnings from this
| to scale up business sales. We agree the incentives are
| aligned for a modular, upgradeable product to be a good
| solution. As you build up a fleet of systems that all have
| easily interchangeable parts, you can reduce downtime and
| manage upgrades at a granular level.
| TYPE_FASTER wrote:
| As software continues to eat the world, and a lot of that
| software is SaaS, much of that software will be developed to
| run on either Windows or some variety of Unix. While the Unix
| market share remains lower than Windows[0], it's enough to
| support a market.
|
| Apple captured a large share of the hardware market both for
| developers who wanted to develop for iOS, but also developers
| who wanted quality hardware that ran a Unix variant that worked
| out of the box. After shipping quality hardware for years, they
| made a sequence of missteps that they are still recovering
| from:
|
| * Faulty keyboards that failed relatively quickly -
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/20/technology/apple-macbook-...
|
| * Thermal issues that killed performance - I use 2019 Core i7
| and M1 MBPs daily, and still find the thermal performance
| differences amazing a year after I bought the M1
|
| * Designs that aren't upgradeable/repairable - I upgraded the
| RAM and drive on my 2008 MBP, and replaced the battery.
|
| I've been reading The Setup blog for a few years now. I noticed
| a clear trend where developers moved to the MBP for developing
| on a reliable Unix platform, and a clear trend more recently
| (pre-M1) where developers moved away from the MBP because of
| the above issues.
|
| I chose the Dell XPS Developer Edition years ago at a startup
| where we were developing on Linux because I wanted to develop
| and test on the same OS we were using for our product. Coming
| from a MBP, it was a let down, in both the hardware quality
| (trackpad, coil whine), and OS compatibility (not great power
| management out of the box, etc.). Maybe it's better these days,
| I haven't used recent versions of the laptop.
|
| I think there's a market for Framework to succeed and take
| marketshare from Apple for devs who are looking to work on Unix
| using an upgradeable/repairable laptop of high quality.
|
| [0] -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_syste...
|
| [1] - https://www.usesthis.com/
| bigpeopleareold wrote:
| You forgot to add in:
|
| - Those who will only buy laptops with TrackPoints
|
| ... But maybe that falls into your last group.
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