Framework Laptop

[Sandy Bridge]

Has anyone picked up one of these?  https://frame.work/products/laptop  Looks interesting, I like that going forward you'll be able to replace the whole mobo and keep using the same chassis/screen/etc.  Less e-waste, and ought to be less expensive as well.  They're available in the US, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, and Austria, so semi-decent availability.

 

I'm hoping they eventually have a larger model with slightly more key travel (they have 1.5mm; I'm used to 1.9mm on my current laptop), full-height arrow keys, and perhaps more ports.  Still, they have some cool features such as swappable ports, QR codes on the parts so you can look them up and order replacements if need be, and generally making it easy to replace things one component at a time.

 

It still isn't quite as upgradeable as my old Dell with a socketed CPU... but it is easier to swap out some other components like the motherboard and display bezel, and if they come out with a swappable second-gen mobo, they'll be blazing new ground.

[Hertzian56]

We had a decent discussion on nbr about it I think someone did end up getting one, nbrchive probably has it. It's good if you are ok with non-gaming or very lite gaming because you can't upgrade the gpu separately from the cpu, whole mobo is no different than any other bga one except for the input ports etc being modular which wouldn't be too useful imo. I've never had the need to change ports apart from needing a minimum of 3 usb ports but that could be solved by just a hub. The cpu's were not top level stuff I think just the 4 core i7's and below. From what I remember they only have igpu's as well, so no casual or serious gaming. 13" screen only too and from what I remember it was 60hz and somewhere above 1080p but below 1440p so an odd resolution.

 

I do like the fact that they are designed with swapping things out, it's a major pain to do it with your typical laptop now. Keyboard comes to mind for laptops especially. I hope they grow because it would be nice to get some generic options for at least the ports besides buying directly from them only, kinda like car parts etc Still from a price standpoint you'd get better specs from a low end 3060 laptop for about $1000. I think the minimum you'd spend on a framework for a configuration with windows, 8gb ram, 256gb, typical ports, cheapest wifi card etc  is about 1100$. A 16gb model with a better cpu would be go beyond $1500.

[Ishayin]

I was thinking of starting a thread on this with all the talk over BGA/socketed and upgradeability, so happy to find someone already did!

 

I suppose that even if it's not socketed, being able to easily swap out the mainboard for a CPU upgrade is better than most laptops these days. I found a discussion on their forums about this point here:
https://community.frame.work/t/put-the-cpu-on-a-different-pcb-than-the-rest-of-the-mainboard/20701

 

Overall, I think it's an interesting approach but still not quite mature enough to be fully tempting yet. My main issue with it is that you only get four expansion card slots to work with at any one time, which seems far too limited to me considering they have to cover all of your interface ports, as well as storage expansion, and you need to dedicate one of those for the USB-C charging:
https://frame.work/gb/en/marketplace/expansion-cards
 
So I very much agree with what @Sandy Bridge says above. I might be interested if they ever do a beefier version with more expandability in the future.

[jaybee83]

1 hour ago, Ishatix said:

I was thinking of starting a thread on this with all the talk over BGA/socketed and upgradeability, so happy to find someone already did!

 

I suppose that even if it's not socketed, being able to easily swap out the mainboard for a CPU upgrade is better than most laptops these days. I found a discussion on their forums about this point here:
https://community.frame.work/t/put-the-cpu-on-a-different-pcb-than-the-rest-of-the-mainboard/20701

 

Overall, I think it's an interesting approach but still not quite mature enough to be fully tempting yet. My main issue with it is that you only get four expansion card slots to work with at any one time, which seems far too limited to me considering they have to cover all of your interface ports, as well as storage expansion, and you need to dedicate one of those for the USB-C charging:
https://frame.work/gb/en/marketplace/expansion-cards
 
So I very much agree with what @Sandy Bridge says above. I might be interested if they ever do a beefier version with more expandability in the future.

give them some time to expand, theyre barely getting off the ground atm. im routing for them and what they stand for, lets hope this is the start of something grand 🙂

[Reciever]

Hopefully on the next one they will have thunderbolt (unless I missed it?) 

 

Would be useful to see if there is any drive for gaming side of things 

[jaybee83]

in this context, update from Linus regarding his Framework investment:

 

[Ishayin]

On 8/1/2022 at 6:45 AM, Reciever said:

Hopefully on the next one they will have thunderbolt (unless I missed it?) 

 

Would be useful to see if there is any drive for gaming side of things 

 

I noticed Linus connects to a Thunderbolt eGPU in the above video from jaybee, and it looks like they do indeed support Thunderbolt 4, just perhaps not able to advertise it yet:

https://community.frame.work/t/thunderbolt-4/255/20

 

More discussion here:
https://community.frame.work/t/4-thunderbolt-ports-on-the-model-40gbps-on-each-port/1779

[saturnotaku]

Looks like 12th-gen motherboards are now available for the Framework, which will bring a significant increase in performance. I just wish they also offered an AMD option.

 

 

[jaybee83]

2 hours ago, saturnotaku said:

Looks like 12th-gen motherboards are now available for the Framework, which will bring a significant increase in performance. I just wish they also offered an AMD option.

 

 

i think it was mentioned in the latest LTT freamwork video that theyre planning to also bring an AMD option in the future. naturally, theyll need a solid baseline first and make sure they dont expand too quickly.

[1610ftw]

On 8/12/2022 at 7:54 PM, jaybee83 said:

i think it was mentioned in the latest LTT freamwork video that theyre planning to also bring an AMD option in the future. naturally, theyll need a solid baseline first and make sure they dont expand too quickly.

 

It is too bad that they have decided that their best chance to survive is a baseline of tiny and boring nothingness...

[jaybee83]

1 minute ago, 1610ftw said:

 

It is too bad that they have decided that their best chance to survive is for the baseline has to be tiny and boring nothingness...

what do u mean?

[1610ftw]

I mean that they basically try to build the windows equivalent to a 13" Macbook that is serviceable. While I support the idea of modularity and upgradability I cannot really get excited about a company that wants as much money for a new mainboard that elsewhere gets me a decent Lenovo gaming laptop with a 15 or 16" screen.

 

The problem I see is that for this kind of laptop the price for a new mainboard is too high and just does not make sense as for the money of the upgrade one could easily get a new mainboard with similar or better performance.

 

If that would be possible with let's say a chassis like the one of my MSI GT75 that I like a lot it would be fantastic - I would immediately replace the mainboard and drop one in with a 12800HX CPU and the ability to hold 4 x 32GB memory instead of 4 x 16GB.

 

So I think that the idea is very good but the laptops have to be higher performance and more powerful for it to really make sense and I would like to see them team up with a big manufacturer to improve upgradeability, serviceability AND performance.

 

And just in case it comes over differently - I like what they are doing in principle and if those kind of designs help them grow they did everything right, it is just not something I can get excited about.

 

 

[Hertzian56]

Yeah the 13" is probably to save costs for them and customer but for the available upgrades 15.6 would be better imo. The buyer of this isn't too concerned with price/perf mostly to support the company and the easier interchangeability/upgrade concept. Working for a long time in one place just bring along an external screen though.

[jaybee83]

4 hours ago, 1610ftw said:

I mean that they basically try to build the windows equivalent to a 13" Macbook that is serviceable. While I support the idea of modularity and upgradability I cannot really get excited about a company that wants as much money for a new mainboard that elsewhere gets me a decent Lenovo gaming laptop with a 15 or 16" screen.

 

The problem I see is that for this kind of laptop the price for a new mainboard is too high and just does not make sense as for the money of the upgrade one could easily get a new mainboard with similar or better performance.

 

If that would be possible with let's say a chassis like the one of my MSI GT75 that I like a lot it would be fantastic - I would immediately replace the mainboard and drop one in with a 12800HX CPU and the ability to hold 4 x 32GB memory instead of 4 x 16GB.

 

So I think that the idea is very good but the laptops have to be higher performance and more powerful for it to really make sense and I would like to see them team up with a big manufacturer to improve upgradeability, serviceability AND performance.

 

And just in case it comes over differently - I like what they are doing in principle and if those kind of designs help them grow they did everything right, it is just not something I can get excited about.

 

 

 

i get where ure coming from. issue here is the same as always: u gotta attract the masses first, thus a macbook like thin n light crapple design is the way to go. and naturally, that brings along restrictions in space, thermals, wattage and, of course, performance. so with all soldered down on the mobo its kinda unavoidable that its so expensive.... sigh

[1610ftw]

12 hours ago, jaybee83 said:

 

i get where ure coming from. issue here is the same as always: u gotta attract the masses first, thus a macbook like thin n light crapple design is the way to go. and naturally, that brings along restrictions in space, thermals, wattage and, of course, performance. so with all soldered down on the mobo its kinda unavoidable that its so expensive.... sigh

I see that they are following that line of thought but I am not sure that people who actually care about upgradability and modularity really want something that small and cramped. Hope I am mistaken as I would hat to see them fail.

 

With one of the reasons that we do not have big DTRs being that they are expensive to develop vs the sales numbers such an upgradable chassis would be a big benefit as a proper chassis could house different boards and screens and external connectors for many generations and they would only have to develop it once.

[Mr. Fox]

On 9/3/2022 at 2:23 AM, 1610ftw said:

I see that they are following that line of thought but I am not sure that people who actually care about upgradability and modularity really want something that small and cramped. Hope I am mistaken as I would hat to see them fail.

 

With one of the reasons that we do not have big DTRs being that they are expensive to develop vs the sales numbers such an upgradable chassis would be a big benefit as a proper chassis could house different boards and screens and external connectors for many generations and they would only have to develop it once.

The whole concept seems like a very hokey and somewhat pathetic gimmick to me. When you talk about something being repairable and upgradable, I think in terms of modular core components on the motherboard, like CPU and GPU, not buying a modular BGA assembly with snap-in blocks to change ports whenever you wish, like a 21st century equivalent of PCMCIA slots. In my view, this product is a joke. It is probably OK if you still enjoy playing with Legos or Lincoln Logs. It is a real stretch to refer to it as being an "enthusiast product" unless an adjective is missing somewhere in that phrase. I could see calling it a laptop for mobility geeks, maybe.

 

Perhaps "easier to take apart" would be a more accurate way to describe it than upgradable.

 

I do like that they have created their own standard form factor and will not deviate from it across multiple generations. That should really be applicable industry-wide for laptops. The single-model, one-shot proprietary crap should have been outlawed a long time ago, along with dishonest shenanigans like whitelisting components like WiFi modules and display panels. I mean, motherboard form factors have been standardized on desktops for many years. mATX, ATX, eATX, etc. We're way beyond overdue for that to have already happened to laptops. The only reason it hasn't is greed and myopic stupidity.

[1610ftw]

2 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

The whole concept seems like a very hokey and somewhat pathetic gimmick to me. When you talk about something being repairable and upgradable, I think in terms of modular core components on the motherboard, like CPU and GPU, not buying a modular BGA assembly with snap-in blocks to change ports whenever you wish, like a 21st century equivalent of PCMCIA slots. In my view, this product is a joke. It is probably OK if you still enjoy playing with Legos or Lincoln Logs. It is a real stretch to refer to it as being an "enthusiast product" unless an adjective is missing somewhere in that phrase. I could see calling it a laptop for mobility geeks, maybe.

 

Yep - that is it - good idea but they fail in certain central points where it counts. Pricing is an issue with a mainboard at a price that costs more than an X170 mainboard and a 10900K CPU which to me sounds like a bit of a rip-off in their size and performance segment. Not saying they are overcharging based on the costs they have but this segment does not lend itself to such a modular product.

 

But now let's imagine Clevo went that route of a replaceable motherboard:

We could have swapped in a new mainboard into the X170 and went from the 1200 to the 1700 socket at a very reasonable cost of let's say 600 to 800$ - we could have gotten an upgrade and Clevo would have saved on chassis development cost. Pretty sure that many X170 owners would have done that upgrade

 

So if Clevo took some pointers from framework I would now look forward to using my X170KM-G with the same GPU as before but with a brand new 13900K CPU.

 

And don't get me started on the ease of swapping screens - would be great to switch more seamlessly between the different FHD, QGD and UHD options.

 

 

[Mr. Fox]

Yeah there's absolutely no excuse... No legitimate excuse for not being able to hot-swap display panels to anything you want, as often as you want, on any laptop. It should be plug and Play, just like a desktop monitor, and the fact that it's not is totally unacceptable. The only reason I can identify for that is the people that make laptops are short-sighted, idiotic, dishonest losers that are  dumber than a box of rocks. My dad used to call people that think like they do educated idiots, which is a much more civilized and kind way of describing their nefarious incompetence. 

[Hertzian56]

Let's not forget profit factors here, big manufacturers are squeezing as much as possible, kind of like how cars are going especially with electrics, only high cost techs at dealerships etc can do work on them in a lot of cases. Simpler mechanical systems that did the job could be fixed/serviced by average people with a bit of experience but try to reprogram this or that, troubleshoot a pcb, change out the battery etc nah. Wish I could get just the manual door locks and window control, no fob required. I can get a 50$ steering wheel lock if I really need more security.

 

Yeah it's only modular in certain ways and in the most meaningful it is not aka the bga pcb, no swappable gpu separate from the cpu and vice versa. I know you can go TB external gpu but that's a whole nother can of worms and cost. As I've said I've rarely had need of different I/O from what most come with anyway, only thing would be 3xUSB but that can be solved with a hub.

 

The best thing about this is that it's made specifically with taking it apart in mind with no molding in place or need to actually break things to get to something else etc But if price/perf ratio is important to you this makes no sense.

[1610ftw]

13 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

Yeah there's absolutely no excuse... No legitimate excuse for not being able to hot-swap display panels to anything you want, as often as you want, on any laptop. It should be plug and Play, just like a desktop monitor, and the fact that it's not is totally unacceptable. The only reason I can identify for that is the people that make laptops are short-sighted, idiotic, dishonest losers that are  dumber than a box of rocks. My dad used to call people that think like they do educated idiots, which is a much more civilized and kind way of describing their nefarious incompetence. 

 

Yep, the inability to easily swap panels is one of the big mysteries of the laptop world. I cannot really see how it could be as easy as swapping an external monitor but framework level ease of installation will do already. It would make things so much easier especially with QHD currently being the ugly stepchild in many high end laptop designs and with flagship DTRs from both Dell and MSI not offering it.

[Ishayin]

16 hours ago, Hertzian56 said:

Simpler mechanical systems that did the job could be fixed/serviced by average people with a bit of experience...

 

Thank you for raising this most fundamental point. The more complicated technology becomes, the less egalitarian it is liable to be in its deployment. If nobody can understand it outside of a few specialists, the more naturally it will become centralised and used to leverage power by the controlling few. To have a truly resilient society we require the sort of flexibility and adaptability that is founded on a degree of community self-sufficiency. So I'm not sure any technology can be considered ethical if it cannot be freely deployed and maintained by anyone with a need for it. Keeping things as simple as possible and avoiding any unnecessary excess or complexity would therefore seem to me to be a central value of importance.

 

...And yes, the older I get, the more of a Luddite I find myself becoming. 

[Mr. Fox]

The problem I have with the concept of egalitarianism is the unavoidable, and often intentional, effect the lowest common denominators have on everything. It is a "nice idea" that really defies common sense and diminishes the moral fabric our world requires to thrive. The fact of the matter is, we are not all the same and we are not supposed to be. We have varying levels of intelligence, interests, desires, passions and challenges. People that don't get it need to rely on those that do. We cannot, and should not, lower the bar to accommodate the less competent or less capable for anything... technology or otherwise. We are male and female, our skins vary in color, we have unique personalities, varying levels of financial resources, physical and mental capacity. If we attempt to normalize or homogenize any of those things, or make everything a grayscale rainbow, we dumb down the process, compromise the product, and success escapes us.

 

That said, I do agree that making anything unnecessarily complicated, difficult, or proprietary, is contrary to sound logic and ultimately not in the best interest of even the most brilliant minds. That often smacks of ulterior motives and selfish ambitions. We should condemn and ostracize the people and companies that drive that model for anything.

 

Please don't beat yourself up on becoming more intelligent as you mature. You're not becoming more of a Luddite. You're actually finding it easier to identify bad ideas, losing tolerance for change for the sake of change,  and losing patience with nonsense and stupidity. Maybe it is because I am aging that I say that and misery loves company, but I don't think so. When a person is young and doesn't know half as much as they believe they do it is harder to recognize because they haven't been exposed to stupidity for as long and haven't been harmed as often by the illogical obsession with variety above need and form over function. Even some of our more observant and intelligent youngsters are figuring out that an awful lot of the crap being fed to them as science or fact, although popular in some circles, is just post-modern bullshit being pushed by people with an agenda that want to brainwash them into a compliant state that can be easily controlled and manipulated.

 

I think holding back the progress of technology so it doesn't require people to learn new things is bad. I think allowing technology to be controlled by a small group or single entity with nefarious motives for making it complex or proprietary is bad as well. It should progress as swiftly as it progresses and the people that can't keep up should get left behind. But, they should have the opportunity to stay caught up if they want to be. 

 

God helps those who help themselves. Big government, big pharma, big tech, and big business help themselves help themselves. They are not gods, but they want us to believe they are infallible, omnipotent and omniscient, and they want us to worship, obey and serve them as if they were.

[1610ftw]

17 hours ago, Mr. Fox said:

I think holding back the progress of technology so it doesn't require people to learn new things is bad. I think allowing technology to be controlled by a small group or single entity with nefarious motives for making it complex or proprietary is bad as well. It should progress as swiftly as it progresses and the people that can't keep up should get left behind. But, they should have the opportunity to stay caught up if they want to be. 

 

This - we often get stupid tech with unnecessary hurdles when it comes to servicing and improving upon that tech - laptops are an excellent example, smartphones and tablets another one. 

 

We should get more capable tech AND better access to service/improve upon it, not the other way around.

 

Just something simple like fan control in a laptop is a great example. Save for a fail safe where at some point fans ramp up and/or the hardware throttles down there is no reason why with almost every laptop manufacturer there is no proper option to control fans. Even something as simple as that has been relegated to the many things that the laptop manufacturers "decide" for their customers and it has been like that for a long time - not going to happen in a proper desktop PC!

 

[Ishayin]

Apologies for derailing this thread. Perhaps we should move these posts to a separate off-topic thread?

 

On 10/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, Mr. Fox said:

The problem I have with the concept of egalitarianism...

 

I probably should have better said "fair" rather than "egalitarian". I agree that neither "equal opportunities", nor "equal outcomes" is quite the right target, given our different needs and preferences as you state, albeit "fair" may also struggle for being rather vague and subjective by comparison. We also need to be very careful in the conclusions we draw. E.g. it is not rare to encounter people using arguments over the imperfections of an ideal as an excuse to act in a selfish, prejudicial or insensitive manner, and then to claim that this is "natural". It rather seems most natural to me to give water to someone who is thirsty, rather than the absurdity of demanding that they first give you something in return for it.

 

The point is not to aim for an idealised state born out of our imaginations – it will always bring unintended consequences, the more likely devastating the more significant the proposed change – but rather to avoid pitfalls and unnecessary suffering where we can. There are so many areas where we know we could do better, but simply fail to acknowledge out of an overly deontological mindset over how things "should" be.

 

With any human endeavour, including developing a laptop say, the primary questions I first ask is "what are the values of the people behind it", and "what is their true motivation". So, e.g., are those people behind the Framework laptop truly driven by a passion for making the world a better place, simply by profit, a need or desire towards "achievement", something else, or some combination? Because in the end, I tend to find that it is the true underlying motivations that have much more impact over the end result than whatever people might say in public, or even to themselves.

 

 

On 10/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, Mr. Fox said:

That said, I do agree that making anything unnecessarily complicated, difficult, or proprietary, is contrary to sound logic and ultimately not in the best interest of even the most brilliant minds. That often smacks of ulterior motives and selfish ambitions. We should condemn and ostracize the people and companies that drive that model for anything.

 

Very much agreed. The challenge is how to get people to reflect on their values more considerately within the existing societal framework that actively encourages selfish ambition.

 

On 10/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, Mr. Fox said:

Please don't beat yourself up...

 

Ha! Sorry, I was only having a bit of fun there really. I meant Luddite more in the original sense of being opposed to the utilisation of technology in an exploitative and socially degrading manner, rather than how it is often used in the modern sense of simply being mindlessly opposed to all new technology. Another sad victory for "PR" there it seems.

 

On 10/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, Mr. Fox said:

I think holding back the progress of technology so it doesn't require people to learn new things is bad. I think allowing technology to be controlled by a small group or single entity with nefarious motives for making it complex or proprietary is bad as well. It should progress as swiftly as it progresses and the people that can't keep up should get left behind. But, they should have the opportunity to stay caught up if they want to be. 

 

This is where matters get tricky. I don't support holding back technology, but neither do I believe in the myth of progress (i.e. "that civilization has moved, is moving, and will move in a desirable direction" – not to say it can't, or never does, just that it is not some kind of natural law that can be assumed). I agree that we need to better adapt our educational systems, but we also have to recognise that when technology becomes so complicated that no one individual can fully understand every aspect of it, then it becomes very difficult to determine if matters are going in a desirable direction or not. These abstracted systems we build around us take on a life of their own and we too easily find ourselves in servitude to them without a good understanding of what outcome we are actually working towards. And any outcome which involves "leaving people behind", doesn't sound like a good one to me, though it is hard to say for sure without knowing what that means in practice.

 

On 10/16/2022 at 1:44 PM, Mr. Fox said:

God helps those who help themselves. Big government, big pharma, big tech, and big business help themselves help themselves. They are not gods, but they want us to believe they are infallible, omnipotent and omniscient, and they want us to worship, obey and serve them as if they were.

 

Again I would say this comes back to our basic values and motivations. There's no point complaining about how corporate CEOs act, if you accept in your own life, and from those around you, to compromise on ethics in the name of convenience and personal gain. This behaviour is all around us in the services, products and people that we choose to support over others. To my mind, it is exactly the same behaviour, just on a different scale. Most people utilise conformity as a simple heuristic stand-in for "doing the right thing". This is "the banality of evil" (ref. Hannah Arendt) and one of those deep challenges of human psychology.

 

The other important point here is to not get too wrapped up in modern preconceptions over how people are, but to look at the actual anthropological evidence (which often flies in the face of "common wisdom"), and wider historical context. Our species has been around for a quarter of a million years or so, and within that time we've managed to develop societies that appear to have been stable in certain regions for tens of thousands of years. It's only in that tiny scratch of history of the past 20,000 years that we've being trying out this newfangled agriculture and civilisation business. So far it's been a bit of a mess, but it's early days yet. And the basic psychology surrounding how we interact with each other hasn't changed much in that time. So I think we could do worse that consider what were the important factors that allowed people to live in peace and stability together for so long, and if we really cannot adapt some of these lessons for modern times. E.g. a common element found in stable societies is their suppression of ego, whereas in modern Western society we idolise it.

 

In summary I would say that with all of these issues it is best to start with taking responsibility for working on yourself and your own psychology. It is a difficult enough challenge really that once you're really put the effort into it, it is difficult to be overly critical of other people's failings.
        
And finally, don't take anything I say too fanatically. My interest always lies more in getting people to think more carefully rather than arguing for any given perspective. 

 

[Aaron44126]

Framework today announced a 16" upgradeable laptop, with modular discrete graphics.

(This just got a whole lot more interesting to me.)

 

Optional numeric keypad.  Optional RGB keyboard.

 

dGPUs require an "expansion bay" which makes the laptop stick out behind the screen a little bit.  (This is not an uncommon design for gaming laptops.)  You can remove it and use integrated graphics only.  The expansion bay can also be used for things other than a dGPU.  They teased a dual NVMe enclosure that can fit there.

 

The expansion bay can be variable depth and includes the dGPU cooling, so they can handle future GPUs that require different layouts — it's not like MXM where the board had to be laid out exactly the same from one generation to the next for an upgrade to "fit".

 

Taking orders in the spring but no shipments until "late 2023".

 

Looks like their blog is down right now but here's a video (see 39:55), and an Ars Technica article.

(I love that they had the "courage" to poke at Apple regarding the headphone jack module...)

 

They also announced an AMD option for the 13" lineup.  I haven't looked super closely, but it looks like you could switch to AMD just by swapping out the motherboard of one of their existing 13" laptops.  They have AMD motherboards available to preorder right now.

 

[Edit]

Blog post is live.

https://frame.work/blog/introducing-the-framework-laptop-16-and-both-intel-and-amd-powered-framework-laptop-13

https://frame.work/blog/introducing-the-framework-laptop-16

 

I'd like to see details like, which dGPUs will be available, and I'd love to see support for at least two NVMe drives on one of their 16" motherboards...