I can't remember the last time I so badly wanted a company to succeed AND also believed it was possible for them to thrive.
I think the landscape is right: awareness of reparability is probably at the highest its ever been, along with access to information and tools. The chip shortage and general lack of breakthrough gains in processing aside from Zen has stalled the upgrade cycles a bit, giving Framework time to dig its heel into the ground without being having to deal with new internal components. And the chip shortage also might produce a sense of "whatever I buy needs to last", which is a perfect match for Framework's platform.
I agree that this is the time to shout loud about the need for reparability, But an average consumer doesn't even know that manufacturers from automobile industry to consumer electronics are silently switching their internals due to the chip shortage[1].
Yet still the automobile industry is way better in terms of reparability, 1950s Mercedez Benz, Porsche can still get official parts and yes they're luxury products but tech media calls the consumer electronics brand which sells >$1000 phone as luxury brand too; May be it's just for aspiration porn but if I drop a minute old $1000 phone and it goes to garbage because it cannot be repaired its not luxury it's garbage.
> if I drop a minute old $1000 phone and it goes to garbage because it cannot be repaired its not luxury it's garbage
Pretty sure if you drop a Porsche from 1m at a random angle it also goes in the garbage.
Better comparisons are maybe things like Commodore 64s or Ataris, for which there are spare parts and active Enthusiast scenes still available. Not sure if that will ever be the case for iPhones, but I could imagine it happening for Mac's or Macbooks.
I hope this company grows and never forgets its openness. I'd love to see them absorb an open source phone, like Pine Phone, and create a cohesive open platform and device ecosystem.
Imagine if they grew big enough to buy out Remarkable. Note taking, ebooks, ... I'd love to have all my hardware and productivity tools from an open company and have them all be hackable, extensible, repairable, and interoperable.
Maybe they could even scoop up Mozilla and give everything a singular purpose. Computing as a liberating force yet again.
Why do you think the best case scenario for openness is centralization? I love all of the organizations you listed and I think the best way for them to thrive is to remain separate.
You want good integration between an open phone, laptop, and e-ink tablet? It's far better for open standards to be established to make this possible, so that any future company founded on similar principles with a similar business model can step right into this ecosystem.
Is is possible that they learned lessons about fairness and openness as a result of their experience at Facebook? Is the stain of being associated with Facebook so indelible that no redemption exists?
I am no fan of Facebook and encourage all current employees to quit. I do worry about a future where actions committed in ones past are considered so severe to be unforgivable. I would hate to be judged in such a manner.
I agree with you 100% and think it's ridiculous that we crucify people over the past when brains are clearly capable of changing over time.
That said, I do think it's fine for companies to put a 12 month hiring ban in place for current Facebook employees. Such a move would speak to your organization's principles and hopefully make Facebook employees think about what their tenure at the company is doing to the world.
> So you discourage FB employees from leaving the company because no one will hire them for 1 year? That doesn't sound like a wise idea.
I think you'd want to give Facebook employees an out, such as asking them to speak to a better vision for Facebook. Or ask them to tell you that respecting a user's privacy and not manipulating their emotions is paramount at your company.
But the real intention of such a policy isn't to protect Facebook employees or make them feel safe. It's to make potential future Facebook employees think twice about seeking work there. Get them to question the things they would have to do or overlook if they chose Facebook instead of their other options.
Eventually such a policy might cause the Facebook's workforce to hollow out.
Society tells people that stealing and murder are wrong, and we point to the moral and judicial consequences of these actions. I don't see why similar social and career consequences for working at Facebook wouldn't help. And as you brought up, I think it's appropriate to give Facebook employees incredible latitude to side-step such a hiring ban. The goal isn't to harm the employees so much as it is to protect your own company's culture and to hopefully decrease the attractiveness of working at Facebook.
I believe they recently got more funding to expand operations because Linus from LTT said he was personally investing in them. That makes me feel a little bit better about waiting for a 14" form factor and/or an AMD chip
> I believe they recently got more funding to expand operations because Linus from LTT said he was personally investing in them. That makes me feel a little bit better about waiting for a 14" form factor and/or an AMD chip
IIRC he wasn't even a main investor and his investment was around 200k, which isn't that much.
Yeah, I didn't mean to insinuate that he was personally keeping them afloat - but if they were taking on funding to expand their operations, I have a feeling they'll be around for a few years at least.
For what it’s worth, the current 3:2 13” option has about the same screen real estate as a 16:9 14.0” display, so it’s not as bad as the diagonal dimension suggests.
I've always appreciated LTT, while acknowledging that they do contribute to the tech-industry product innovation churn. They seem self-aware and truly knowledgeable about the tech.
I've probably only seen a few partial videos, (out of not wanting to see more of them) but it just comes across as consumer tech blog masquerading as more technical to me.
It's a mix of different content, most of it not terribly technical except that a bunch of it is PC components. It's about as technical as mainstream content gets though.
One thing of note, it's where a good portion of a generation of nerds learned how to build a computer, so it gets some cred for that.
not everybody is in their audience, but I find they generally do a decent job of trying to explain the concepts and ideas they are planning to talk about or review in a video. It can often be a good primer for bringing someone up to speed before sending them off to find more info.
You know what I would love to see? The mechanical keyboard community get a hold of this.
Actually, what would be kinda cool and a bit more "practical" (in a since, at least) would be an option without any keyboard at all (plain aluminum or like plexiglass or acrylic or something) so I can use my own keyboard. I know from experience my Planck or Atreus fit on top of a normal laptop keyboard footprint, but I always feel so weird putting a mechanical keyboard on top of a laptop keyboard, damaging something or another.
Actually, I'm off to go through that into the community forum
I think it will likely take significant modification to fit a mech keeb in the laptop as is. [I asked about the stock keyboard dimensions and was told the module is 3.8mm thick](https://community.frame.work/t/the-keyboard/155/5) which doesn't leave enough room for low profile mechanical keyboard switches that are all ~8mm thick without accounting for caps.
That said, I'm right there with you hoping to see some cool mech keeb work around these laptops!
they want the ability to use it as an external keyboard, by just setting it on top of the existing keyboard, then removing it when they need to close the laptop. they don't want to do this now, because they worry about damaging something by doing so.
So they want the laptop to have a blank cover where the keyboard normally is, so they have somewhere to put their mech keyboard while they use the laptop.
There isn’t the thickness necessary for mechanical switches. What I’d love is to see some ergonomic layouts, kind of like Corne or Kyria (staggered columns and thumb cluster).
The battery of my top of the line 2018 Surface Book 2 is failing and it would cost me $599 before tax to replace it. Instead, I'm going to put that money towards a new Framework laptop. I'm super excited to finally own a fully servicable laptop, really rooting for Frame.work to succeed.
Looking to get off Apples ecosystem after their last couple years of privacy debacles etc.
I'm also facing a 350eur battery replacement as my mbp trends below 70% life and Apple requires me to replace about half of the laptop to get a new battery.
This is the answer that I've been waiting for.
My MBP is 15" and I prefer the bigger size / spec but this laptop is only 13" and would normally be a dealbreaker for me however, I'm going to put that to one side and jump in as soon as I have the capital. I want to be part of something that I see as good and a move in the right direction for repairability, openness and choice.
I see a lot of people holding off because it needs X or they want an AMD cpu, I just want to say support this team now, they're doing great stuff and we as a community need to back them.
I replaced my mbp battery recently, it wasn't too bad. Apple also quoted me needing to replace logic board, etc. due to some water damage indicators tripped. Just go slow and it's only ~<$200 for battery.
Not to hold you back from getting a new framework, I replaced my battery but am still looking at one of these too!
I went from a 15" MBP to 13" M1 MBP. Had concerns about the screen size, but it's not been an issue. The performance upgrade has been significant, even though I went from 16GB RAM to 8GB. Main gripe is the limitation of one external display, so I'm hoping the larger MBPs about to be announced fix that. Anyway, don't let the smaller display put you off.
The amount of keyboard languages supported it fantastic. I was certain I wouldn't see "Canadian French" included but that definitely tipped the scales for me.
This is exciting! I do wonder how Framework will handle some of the logistical challenges associated with running a hardware company, namely distribution. I’ve been waiting on my Framework DIY Edition for several weeks now - it was estimated to arrive a couple of weeks ago but seems to be stuck in the purgatory that is Portland / Troutdale FedEx. Of course everything is kinda upside down in the world at the moment and Framework is barely a year old at this point, so I can’t really fault them here. That said, I really hope Framework is able to successfully scale in this regard. Like it would suck to order a replacement part you need only to have to wait a month or longer for it to arrive in the mail.
Yeah, parent should probably have acknowledged the current black hole that is the trout sale fedex currently. (Though they did call it purgatory)
The current issues there have nothing to do with framework, it’s affecting everyone. My friend recently had their mattress shipment stuck there for over a week.
The entire Pacific Northwest FedEx operation is in shambles. Had several packed over the last few months show up 2-4 weeks late up here in Northern Washington
From what I hear, FedEx nationwide is extremely understaffed and they can't hire enough workers. UPS is also understaffed, but is not having the same issues hiring because they are unionized and offer better pay and benefits.
Mine was delayed by FedEx for a week before being delivered. I chalked this up to what appears to be an at least nationwide FedEx slowdown rather than anything specific to do with Framework.
Of course waiting for my batch of the laptop took quite some time, and I'd be thrilled to see them scale that up.
I really hope they add a keyboard with better arrow key/home/end/pgup/pgdn keys at some point. This is literally one of the most important factors for me in a laptop because I hate the way most laptops do them.
If they release CAD files for the laptop enclosure and pinouts for the keyboard ribbon cable, one could theoretically 3D print or CNC an alternate top cover that can accommodate a keyboard with the desired layout, such as those of old ThinkPads and Latitudes/Precisions.
It seems like releasing specs to build your own parts are part of the intended plans from frame.work and I really hope they live up to those expectations. There's a real possibility of effectively an "ATX for laptops" evolving out of this imo.
Obviously there's a lot of danger to their own business model if things go that way, as there was for IBM back in the day. I want to believe they are aware of and ok with that though.
What laptops have that without having a number pad as well? I know my macbook doesn’t have a better hone/end/pgup/pgdn. I personally hate laptops with number pads because the keyboard is then off center, so I just accept this sacrifice on laptops.
I do really wish they had macbook-like arrow keys, which are very effective for touch typing since the half-size makes them easy to feel.
The last dell (xps 13 2-in-1 from about 2 years ago) I bought has page up and down above left and right (half-size keys, like the macbook, but the gaps filled in), and home/end above in the f-key row. It's not my ideal but it's good enough.
My old Acer C710 and my X1 Carbon also have dedicated pgup/pgdn/home/end keys in those locations. As soon as framework comes out with such a layout I'll buy a new panel.
All ThinkPads up to T420/X220 (2011) have a proper delete/home/end/pgup/pgdown block at the top right. And then the 2017 ThinkPad 25 anniversary edition, which is what I'm using right now and hoping it lasts until there is a proper replacement on the market.
My ThinkPad X1 has no number pad, and puts pgup/pgdn on either side of the up-arrow key, which works quite nicely for me. I picked that laptop specifically for the keyboard.
Absolutely agree. Paging keys are essential. This laptop is huge, but keyboard is crippled. And small lapotps with good heyboards ARE TOTALLY POSSIBLE. Obvious ThinkPads aside, look up ASUS U6Sg, which was an IDEAL laptop in every aspect except power consumption (thanks, Intel!).
Simply out of curiosity, why do you have this sentiment? I've seen it given a lot as the reason why people don't want to buy one yet, but the performance differences are slim compared the current Tiger Lake option; perhaps 10-20% on certain quad core workloads, more if optimized for octa, but worse on single and dual. Additionally, by the time the Ryzen CPU comes along, likely the Alder Lake processor will be released at which point Intel will have the edge performance wise (hybrid cores, DDR5, Xe graphics architecture etc.) Is it brand loyalty or another reason?
The integrated graphics on AMD is more powerful than Intel with better driver stability in games. Framework doesn't have a dedicated GPU to offset that consideration. AMD in current gens has a better performance per watt, cost and core counts. Biggest issue with AMD on laptops is availability of chips and thunderbolt support.
Hard to compare what is coming with what is currently out, so I won't comment on Alder lake/etc. I am really interested how Xe does as a dGPU but that's outside a laptop context.
Thanks for the reply! For me, it's a preference, like tucked vs untucked. Intel has things outside of the realm of performance that turned me off, so my last few builds have been AMD and I'm generally satisfied.
To your credit, I am typing this from an Intel device that is not my own, and it is performant as you mentioned.
Not sure AMD is any better, but Intel is pretty bad. They're basically a huge monopoly who constantly pushed for anti-features.
Want to own your device? No you don't, Intel does via Management Engine and other universal backdoors. Want to own your system? No you don't, you "need" Intel's microcode to fix all the bugs Intel had on release day [0].
Also, i heard recent AMD processors have tight PCIe integration (> 20 lanes), which if you need a dedicated GPU or network card is a huge bonus, but doesn't matter if you don't.
[0] Yes, i've witnessed with my own eyes CPUs that would fail to boot an OS without Intel's proprietary mirocode.
I don't want to support a company that held back computational advancements for a decade by engaging in anti-competitive practices towards their main competitor then using the gained ground to justify slowing down cpu advancements.
I don't want to support the market segmentation that intel does with ECC and raid. Especially given the single core pref hit you take moving from the mainline i7-i9 cpus to the equivalent xeon ones thats on top of the 2x to 3x mark up for no reason.
In short there is an ethical issue with buying intel some people want to avoid.
AMD has better battery life given that they run cooler at a lower TDP than Intel chips. This is partly due to the processor architecture. So this is one tangible reason to prefer AMD especially in a laptop as battery life is very important.
Genuinely curious: Has this claim been actually realized on similar hardware? There have been many cases where in theory platform XYZ is better than ABC, but then it ends up being worse because of implementation details. E.g. the OS doesn't take advantage of sleep states properly, or a driver bug, or a misconfiguration, etc.
For a while I have been saying "buy AMD now or else later you won't have a choice" (and for laptop we did not have a choice not that long ago, so it's not hard to imagine)
I didn't buy one because I am not sure how well the module system works with regards to converting USB-C to HDMI/DP/etc.
In all of my past experience, converting USB to graphics resulted in one problem or another. It's too much complexity for my taste. Am I wrong about how this laptop works though?
USB-C port can have DisplayPort AltMode support: transferring DP data through an appropriate USB-C cable. I believe the similar holds for HDMI (up to 1.4b).
Considering other commenters are saying how the port is likely TB4 without certification, those should be natively supported too.
I think I have a somewhat relevant comment: as you might suspect for an Intel mainboard whose USB-C ports support such a wide variety of adapters, the USB-C ports on the framework laptop and those adapters are Thunderbolt 3-compatible, they just aren't certified yet.
About a month back I decided it's long past due for me to try a tiling window manager. I've been rocking a DIY edition running Manjaro Sway community edition. There's been a learning curve coming from ChromeOS but I'm ecstatic. It feels like the first time I've had hardware and software tailored towards the priorities I have for a computer.
The only thing I haven't gotten sorted is Bluetooth. I got it working once but it didn't survive a reboot. Others have figured it out, so I'm hopeful that I will too.
Love seeing a reasonably priced replacement battery here in the marketplace. I may buy one now just to throw in the backpack. Swapping it out looks like it'd be a ~3 minute job.
> I've been rocking a DIY edition running Manjaro Sway community edition.
Have you enabled fractional scaling on your DIY? How well do applications work? Firefox, for example, goes haywire and its popup menus start flickering as soon as fractional scaling is enabled.
My sway config has `output eDP-1 scale 1.25`. I started out with 1.5 liked it but eventually felt text still a little too large. At 1.25 I am finding I need to bump font size up with some sites. I've not seen tearing or any other graphical artifacts in any applications.
I use fusuma for gestures. Had to change BAT0 to BAT1 in waybar config to get the battery to show up. Had to install Intel's WiFi drivers, probably because the Sway edition is on 5.10 kernel. I've upped to 5.14 without any noticeable issues.
> My sway config has `output eDP-1 scale 1.25`. I started out with 1.5 liked it but eventually felt text still a little too large. At 1.25 I am finding I need to bump font size up with some sites. I've not seen tearing or any other graphical artifacts in any applications.
The last time I enabled fractional scaling in Sway, I quit using Sway and Wayland in frustration and moved back to i3. Firefox, and many other applications, just don't behave appropriately when scaling (integer or fractional) is enabled. There are also bugs open on the Sway github issue tracker for this so it's not like this issue is restricted to just me.
So it's best to have a laptop which needs either 100% scaling or 200% scaling, nothing in between.
Sorry to hear that it wasn't working well for you. I'm sure there's a pile of edge cases yet to resolve in Wayland and its compositors. I can only say that for my experience on this very bleeding edge of hardware, kernel, tiling manager, I'm not encountering anything of import. I saw some flicker in tooltips on Bitwarden FF extension's popup window yesterday. I can live with that. Hopefully you'll have a better experience soon.
As for Linux support, it's already there. There are papercuts, like needing a fairly recent kernel and certain packages (for the fingerprint reader), but it works fine, by all accounts.
I'm expecting my DIY edition to ship in the next week or so, and I'll be running Linux on it full-time.
Sure, i'm just disappointed they would force this on everyone. First, because it means they vet the practice while we should strongly discourage it (if not for ethical, at least for security reasons). Second, because Framework laptop sounds good otherwise, but i really don't want to financially support corporations who buy into this biometrics hellscape.
Running Manjaro KDE on mine. Only issue is typical Linux hibernation drains the battery. Otherwise flawless, fingerprint reader even works with KDE once configured.
Does is sleep properly on lid closing? Even more specifically, can you enable S3 sleep from the Bios? Some newer laptops have things locked down so sleep doesn't work right on Linux, meaning the laptop dies after a few hours of the lid being closed.
You pretty much have the option between s2Idle, s2deep, and hibernation. The s2Idle mode is really responsive, but it drains battery at a really high rate. s2deep isn't technically supported IIRC; I was able to turn it on and have seen the battery life under sleep improve, but it takes about 10 seconds to wake up to a point where I can log in.
If I know I'm going to be away from my laptop for a long time, I'll generally put it in hibernation mode.
There might be a better solution out there, but the general consensus seems to be that Linux + Tiger Lake aren't a great marriage at the moment when it comes to sleep.
You'll have to live with fractional scaling if you buy the FrameWork laptop. I know many people will say it works "perfectly" for them even though fractional scaling is discouraged by almost every DE and window manager (including sway), not to mention many applications exhibit weird behavior like weird placement of popup menus or popup menus simply disappearing or flickering.
I'm waiting on V2 of the DIY. I want to really get a sense of how upgradeable the laptop is. I hope I don't see "works on V1 not V2" and "works on V2 not V1" on their parts.
It's interesting they chose such a compact form factor for their laptop right from the beginning. I'd reckon a 15.6" build would have been much easier to put together for modularity and ease of repair, and maybe once it gained traction they could have expanded to smaller forms. Their initial customer base (I'm guessing it'd be engineers and enthusiasts) would also have been compatible with a bigger laptop, even if the mainstream laptop market has been overrun with small devices for some reason.
Aren't the expansion modules all just things that are standard ports and storage options on normal laptops? Would be cool if they offered something a little specialized. But of course if the current setup lets them offer the base laptop with less ports at a reduced price compared to a less modular laptop with more standard ports, it could be a win too.
I see the expansion modules as a better solution to "dongle hell" that most users on new usb-c only machines are facing.
My last two machines (work and personal) have been usb-c only, and for the most part I love it (shared chargers, shared docks, shared displays, etc).
BUT! it can suck when I need to use my machine outside of the dock. In that case, I really want a standard usb-3 port or two, and an HDMI port (normally I'm presenting something, and basically every tv/projector under the sun has an hdmi port on it right now). I don't really want to have a giant chunk of plastic dangling off of my laptop that I have to remember, or that will get yanked on, or that I can accidentally leave behind.
This seems like a nice solution to the problem. Given the current reviews, it seems pretty likely that I'll end up picking one of these machines up as my next personal laptop.
Yes, but they are interchangeable within a single slot. So you're never locked into one type of port. One day you need an SD card reader, the next you need an Ethernet port. Just swap them out.
More ports? There are 4 slots and you can put in what you want. If you want all 4 to be USB-C you can have that. Are you looking for more than 4 slots? If that's the case you'll have to wait for different processors. I think the ones they are using only support up to 4 slots.
Personally I'd like more external ports. My current laptop have like 2 usb-c 2 usb-a, 1 HDMI, 1 Ethernet, 1 audio jack and 1sd reader, which I find pretty convenient for most situations. I think the 4 internal ports are more than enough, but sometimes just being able to plug more stuff at the same time is nice.
Maybe just one card with multiple ports in it would solve that problem. I get the design decision but using one usb c port to a singular function does feel wasteful, when you can plug a dock in that has three USB 3.0 A ports, USB C passthough, ethernet, HDMI, SD card reader all into a singular USB C port (looking at my $40 laptop dock on my desk currently for how many ports they squeezed into it!)
Oh nice, I didn't see options to replace the ports shown in the image with USB C. I'm supposing that's in the configuration wizard when you elect to buy?
> I'm supposing that's in the configuration wizard when you elect to buy?
You're in for a treat if you buy this. You can swap the ports around using modules. So basically if you want different ports for your laaptop, you can do that without replacing the whole computer. You can even change them throughout day as needed.
The ports are all USB C - thing built in dongles that can be swapped.
In the wizard you get modules. You can hot swap modules because the are really USB-C under the hood. The laptop essentially has 4 USB-C ports and a module system to plug adapters in. You can avoid dongles this way.
I'm not entirely sure why they did 4. 4 is more than other competitor laptops in this size category have. It could have to do with what the processor can handle or the space in a form factor of this size.
Looking further at the chips, they only support up to 4 external displays. I wonder if 4 is somehow otherwise a factor down to the CPU/integrated GPU level.
Plugging a peripheral directly into the expansion bay would be awkward, you'd need to sort of reach under the chassis. $9 for the "pass-through" USB modules doesn't seem too outrageous, though.
Well, if anyone has a laser etcher, I'd like to go into a 50/50 business with them (where I'm the "Ideas guy"): we (you) buy the blank keyboards from Framework, etch the keycaps and sell them, and then we split the profit /s
I believe it's about getting attention and committing to a supplier a certain amount of orders so you get to deal with them directly.
If Framework had split the manufacture of this machine between Intel and AMD then the volume of chips may not have been enough to be in a tier one relationship with either. And so you you need to pick one, and they probably felt that going with Intel first was the safe bet.
Not sure of today, but a few years ago, AMD was harder to work with - getting parts, documentation, expamples, SDKs, etc. etc. (If you're not Sony). As I was told, lots of AMD initiatives towards openness were discontinued when AMD was taken over by new director(s) and became the "team red".
DIY version comes partially assembled and has more options when purchasing in terms of specs/components. The other comes fully assembled in certain pre-built configurations. You're getting the same laptop either way though.
"USB 3" is also ambiguous as hell. It's unfortunately talking about one of perhaps 10 different protocols, some of which are different depending on what year you are speaking of, because there's name collisions between incompatible versions.
I think the landscape is right: awareness of reparability is probably at the highest its ever been, along with access to information and tools. The chip shortage and general lack of breakthrough gains in processing aside from Zen has stalled the upgrade cycles a bit, giving Framework time to dig its heel into the ground without being having to deal with new internal components. And the chip shortage also might produce a sense of "whatever I buy needs to last", which is a perfect match for Framework's platform.