I expect my current thinkpad (2018/T480) to age well for another 2-3 years. I’m excited about this. I’m really hoping it does so well that the obvious choice for the thinkpad’s eventual replacement is the second or third generation of this.
It pleases me that the PC Magazine review prominently features a journalist taking the laptop apart. That’s a good sign.
I feel they emphasize the wrong things to be modularizable; I think the battery is the most important by far. Everything else is likely not worthwhile due to signalling changes/bottlenecking/etc, but batteries are perishable and the most important thing for portability. It’d be great if you could easily put in some 16850s without soldering and have it Just Work.
which is about why it’s internal vs. external, but one of their employees confirms that it is at least replaceable (it is internal mainly for space savings; there’s a genuine design trade-off there).
I don’t really care about being able to hotswap batteries - that’s a stupid parlour trick. What matters more is if you can get new (not NOS, since those decay) batteries that fit. Prismatic batteries are an essential compromise, but they make this much harder.
Honestly, I’ve never seen the appeal in ultrabooks. Oh, it’s thin? That’s nice. My mechanical keyboard is at an excellent height, and that’s rather more than an inch off of the table.
What matters is weight and mechanical stiffness. If the user can pick it up, open, by one corner, and not get flexing, there’s nothing wrong with the physical specs.
Size and weight matter. I don’t want it to weigh much when it’s in my bag or even carting it around desks, but thickness is underrated in terms of “can I hold it around my arms easily?” and “can I fit more stuff into my luggage?”
I will say my MBA is much thinner and lighter than my old X230t, yet is much more physically stiff. Old ThinkPads are bendier than people remember.
Well… the form factor is just the bigger priority for lots of people, myself included. For long life, max power, upgradeability, and all the other good things I have a big beefy desktop already. I don’t need a laptop that competes with the desktop, I need a laptop I can take anywhere easily — it must occupy minimum weight and space in my backpack, should be light enough to carry around in one hand.
I understand the argument about weight, but what kind of backpack do you have that you can’t fit a non-ultrabook laptop in it? Maybe you should buy a bigger bag instead of a less useful laptop.
I would think most people who care about an open hardware platform would also care about open software. Why isn’t Linux front and center as something to run on this? Im not excited by ‘a bunch of distributions will work and we’ll provide instructions’…
It’s easy to sell something familiar to people with the promise - “it’s repairable, too!”.
The market for Linux and BSD and more niche OS is much smaller than the market for Windows laptops that won’t fall apart in two years and be terribly expensive to repair.
While I look forward to receiving mine, I think the other blog posts such as the one that paid lip service to right to repair are more on topic. This one excited me when it hit my inbox but seems off topic for this site.
I’m kinda new and I am still trying to build a solid model of “on topic for this site”. Is there a discussion or page you would recommend to that end? This is the closest I have found so far: https://lobste.rs/about
imo it’s about the technical “meatiness” of the article, that is, you may learn or understand further something technical be it hardware or software outside of just the specifications of some given product.
Its hard to explain. When people updvote it and the admins dont ban it then it is on topic. Sometimes its hard to determine this beforehand (also for experienced users). This for example as of the writing of this comment is upvoted by 35 people and only 3 think it is off-topic, so I would conclude it is on-topic. However the outcome could be way different on a very similar post.
I would love to see a laptop that featues a minimal ergonomic keyboard, like the Gergoplex. With the Framework Laptop this seems to be much more in reach.
Really? It seems like the Framework focusing on thin aesthetics at the expense of functionality precludes useful features like this (and makes repairability much more difficult than it needs to be!) The MNT Reform explicitly makes it a design goal to allow the keyboard to be swapped out with a more ergonomic design, and the chassis has room for something with decent switches.
This is neat! For now, there are still lots of older laptops from mainstream brands that are user-repairable. I still use a 2014 Macbook and have replaced parts in it several times. But, in a few years, all these will be very out of date and there will be a real need.
That’s true for some of the parts I’m sure (due to necessity since the market doesn’t have a concept of “standardized laptop enclosures”), but the expansion cards are just internal USB C dongles. They’ve also released the CAD files for the expansion card housing, so people can make their own.
Maybe, apart from the screen, expansion cards with ports on them, speakers, memory, storage, camera, microphone, plastic bit around the screen, wifi module.
Nothing is stopping people from buying the same components or compatible components or even making new compatible components. If I am wrong and naive then please tell me why.
Proprietary as in “only used by the one company”, or proprietary as in “fees required for production of compatible devices”?
If the former, that’s how most good hardware standards start off - someone makes their version and shows it can work (and gains nontrivial marketshare), then others produce components that can match.
3:2 aspect ratio display? Great, I look forward to every game I own being distorted or letterbox’ed on it. I didn’t know they even made displays with that aspect ratio.
The screen was specifically what put me over the top to buy one. I’ve been dreaming about a taller aspect screen since they made everything “wide” ten years ago.
I would prefer a “normal” 4:3. The pixel density of the 13.5” 2256x1504 display is too low for 2x scaling. Something like 2400x1600 should be the lowest option.
It is a lot more pleasant for coding, reading, and writing in my experience. 3:2 is great for that and I prefer it, but I don’t play many videogames anymore.
Work forced me to used a 16:9 display for a while. I use a ultra-widescreen now because that breaks into 3 reasonable panes, but 2 vertical 16:9s was ok. For me, xrandr is linux’s killer-app.
3:2 is great. My old Surface Book has 3:2; I’d much rather get a few inches of vertical space for coding and reading than avoid letterboxing for movies.
In my experience PC games work just fine with 3:2 as well typically.
I used one of the original Chromebooks, the Chromebook Pixel, for several months in 2015 and adored the 3:2 aspect ratio for everything except media consumption. It was a little awkward for fullscreen 16:9 videos but fine for 4:3. I recognize that not much content is 4:3 anymore, though.
I’m a little concerned about the pixel density of the Framework screen being too low for HiDPI but I’m unlikely to buy one anytime soon having just bought a Lenovo Flex 5 CB earlier this year for my main mobile computing device.
Yeah, I have one of those Chromebooks too. The aspect ratio is definitely the best thing about the whole machine by a long shot. If it weren’t for the glossy display I would have been tempted to use it as my daily driver (after wiping the OS of course).
I expect my current thinkpad (2018/T480) to age well for another 2-3 years. I’m excited about this. I’m really hoping it does so well that the obvious choice for the thinkpad’s eventual replacement is the second or third generation of this.
It pleases me that the PC Magazine review prominently features a journalist taking the laptop apart. That’s a good sign.
I feel they emphasize the wrong things to be modularizable; I think the battery is the most important by far. Everything else is likely not worthwhile due to signalling changes/bottlenecking/etc, but batteries are perishable and the most important thing for portability. It’d be great if you could easily put in some 16850s without soldering and have it Just Work.
The battery is replaceable, although internal so you have to open it up. It is a bit odd to me that that isn’t called out explicitly in their marketing, but I did find this thread: https://community.frame.work/t/framework-team-why-did-you-choose-to-make-the-battery-internal/1187/3
which is about why it’s internal vs. external, but one of their employees confirms that it is at least replaceable (it is internal mainly for space savings; there’s a genuine design trade-off there).
I don’t really care about being able to hotswap batteries - that’s a stupid parlour trick. What matters more is if you can get new (not NOS, since those decay) batteries that fit. Prismatic batteries are an essential compromise, but they make this much harder.
True; I think making standardized form factors for prismatic batteries is important future work if this kind of thing is going to take off.
We kinda have this for smaller devices - many Sony, Nokia, and Samsung batteries became de facto standards for things like wireless keyboards.
16850s are way, way too fat for “ultrabooks”. There should be some kind of new thin-but-big battery standard…
Honestly, I’ve never seen the appeal in ultrabooks. Oh, it’s thin? That’s nice. My mechanical keyboard is at an excellent height, and that’s rather more than an inch off of the table.
What matters is weight and mechanical stiffness. If the user can pick it up, open, by one corner, and not get flexing, there’s nothing wrong with the physical specs.
Size and weight matter. I don’t want it to weigh much when it’s in my bag or even carting it around desks, but thickness is underrated in terms of “can I hold it around my arms easily?” and “can I fit more stuff into my luggage?”
I will say my MBA is much thinner and lighter than my old X230t, yet is much more physically stiff. Old ThinkPads are bendier than people remember.
Sure but that’s just another way of saying “ultrabook is the wrong form factor for a device that prioritizes long life” if you ask me.
Well… the form factor is just the bigger priority for lots of people, myself included. For long life, max power, upgradeability, and all the other good things I have a big beefy desktop already. I don’t need a laptop that competes with the desktop, I need a laptop I can take anywhere easily — it must occupy minimum weight and space in my backpack, should be light enough to carry around in one hand.
I understand the argument about weight, but what kind of backpack do you have that you can’t fit a non-ultrabook laptop in it? Maybe you should buy a bigger bag instead of a less useful laptop.
“Less useful” for you, maybe. For him, it’s the ideal compromise.
I would think most people who care about an open hardware platform would also care about open software. Why isn’t Linux front and center as something to run on this? Im not excited by ‘a bunch of distributions will work and we’ll provide instructions’…
It’s easy to sell something familiar to people with the promise - “it’s repairable, too!”.
The market for Linux and BSD and more niche OS is much smaller than the market for Windows laptops that won’t fall apart in two years and be terribly expensive to repair.
I wish they didn’t copy the Apple aesthetic though. Also, does anyone actually like “islet” keyboards?
If this Framework laptop would have 7-row ThinkPad like keyboard - then I would bought it.
Because it has typical useless island type keyboard - it make it useless for me and does not differ from all other available laptops out there.
Guess I will stick to my 10 years old ThinkPad W520 for another decade …
I love the keyboard on my X230; when I use my work supplied Macbook Pro I pine for the X230’s keys.
While I look forward to receiving mine, I think the other blog posts such as the one that paid lip service to right to repair are more on topic. This one excited me when it hit my inbox but seems off topic for this site.
I’m kinda new and I am still trying to build a solid model of “on topic for this site”. Is there a discussion or page you would recommend to that end? This is the closest I have found so far: https://lobste.rs/about
imo it’s about the technical “meatiness” of the article, that is, you may learn or understand further something technical be it hardware or software outside of just the specifications of some given product.
Its hard to explain. When people updvote it and the admins dont ban it then it is on topic. Sometimes its hard to determine this beforehand (also for experienced users). This for example as of the writing of this comment is upvoted by 35 people and only 3 think it is off-topic, so I would conclude it is on-topic. However the outcome could be way different on a very similar post.
I would love to see a laptop that featues a minimal ergonomic keyboard, like the Gergoplex. With the Framework Laptop this seems to be much more in reach.
Really? It seems like the Framework focusing on thin aesthetics at the expense of functionality precludes useful features like this (and makes repairability much more difficult than it needs to be!) The MNT Reform explicitly makes it a design goal to allow the keyboard to be swapped out with a more ergonomic design, and the chassis has room for something with decent switches.
Thanks for the tip, yeah seems like it. I’m not that much into laptops at the moment, because I don’t intend to buy one soon.
Any news on when it will be possible to ship to Europe, namely Poland or Germany?
This is neat! For now, there are still lots of older laptops from mainstream brands that are user-repairable. I still use a 2014 Macbook and have replaced parts in it several times. But, in a few years, all these will be very out of date and there will be a real need.
This is just a laptop with a proprietary parts system.
Not sure if this advertisement belongs here.
That’s true for some of the parts I’m sure (due to necessity since the market doesn’t have a concept of “standardized laptop enclosures”), but the expansion cards are just internal USB C dongles. They’ve also released the CAD files for the expansion card housing, so people can make their own.
Maybe, apart from the screen, expansion cards with ports on them, speakers, memory, storage, camera, microphone, plastic bit around the screen, wifi module.
Nothing is stopping people from buying the same components or compatible components or even making new compatible components. If I am wrong and naive then please tell me why.
Proprietary as in “only used by the one company”, or proprietary as in “fees required for production of compatible devices”?
If the former, that’s how most good hardware standards start off - someone makes their version and shows it can work (and gains nontrivial marketshare), then others produce components that can match.
If the latter, well, that’s news to me.
AIUI only the USB3-based slots are open and royalty-free. Anything else is proprietary.
Flagged, Lobsters is not an advertising channel.
3:2 aspect ratio display? Great, I look forward to every game I own being distorted or letterbox’ed on it. I didn’t know they even made displays with that aspect ratio.
People often complains about the lack of vertical space. Why would games be distorted? Only video will be problematic on this ratio.
The screen was specifically what put me over the top to buy one. I’ve been dreaming about a taller aspect screen since they made everything “wide” ten years ago.
I would prefer a “normal” 4:3. The pixel density of the 13.5” 2256x1504 display is too low for 2x scaling. Something like 2400x1600 should be the lowest option.
Obviously it’s all subjective, but I’d say 4:3 feels “dated” while 3:2 feels “super cool”.
It is a lot more pleasant for coding, reading, and writing in my experience. 3:2 is great for that and I prefer it, but I don’t play many videogames anymore.
Work forced me to used a 16:9 display for a while. I use a ultra-widescreen now because that breaks into 3 reasonable panes, but 2 vertical 16:9s was ok. For me, xrandr is linux’s killer-app.
3:2 is great. My old Surface Book has 3:2; I’d much rather get a few inches of vertical space for coding and reading than avoid letterboxing for movies.
In my experience PC games work just fine with 3:2 as well typically.
I used one of the original Chromebooks, the Chromebook Pixel, for several months in 2015 and adored the 3:2 aspect ratio for everything except media consumption. It was a little awkward for fullscreen 16:9 videos but fine for 4:3. I recognize that not much content is 4:3 anymore, though.
I’m a little concerned about the pixel density of the Framework screen being too low for HiDPI but I’m unlikely to buy one anytime soon having just bought a Lenovo Flex 5 CB earlier this year for my main mobile computing device.
Yeah, I have one of those Chromebooks too. The aspect ratio is definitely the best thing about the whole machine by a long shot. If it weren’t for the glossy display I would have been tempted to use it as my daily driver (after wiping the OS of course).