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The Framework Laptop

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Re: The Framework Laptop

#841

Post by lovelyviking »

tomtheelder wrote: post #284
lovelyviking wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. I still dream to meet the one who made such 'wise' decision to tell him what I think about it personally! >USB-C, and the correct cables, are all anyone needs. I am…

I think the SD card example encapsulates the issue perfectly. I'm pretty sure that in 2021 that is an _extreme_ niche use case. I feel like only extremely serious photographers and perhaps a particular slice of musicians use them. It makes absolutely no sense for them to have that built into the laptop. 99% of people who own Macbooks or whatever don't own an SD card dongle because they don't need it. However, and ext…

>I think the SD card example encapsulates the issue perfectly

It does. Micro-sd-card reader fits even in raspberryPi Zero ... Neglectable "space saving" advantage vs huge usability disadvantage.

> The point of a laptop is to strike a balance between portability and usability.

I think MacbookPro should be about philosophy of amplifying creative person with power tools for creativity in a portable way. Not a dumb machine mimicking more and more some TV . While this it should also do easily it shouldn't do just this, I think.

Look at my use-case: https://news.ycombinator.com/edit?id=26271855

From my perspective of extensive use of a laptop some people barely use laptops at all and thus perhaps they better be designing something else because for me it appears they have no idea what 'Pro' usage is. When you travel you never know what environment you'll have and therefor ports and connectivity make a difference between: Creative idea done/ not done.

>Requiring the extra like two cubic inches of space in your bag for a dongle is assuredly not a design concern.

It's not 2 cubic inches. It's huge adapter with all missing ports. Why Pro Laptop should consist of two parts is beyond me.

Again look at my use-case. I have no place for dongles nor time for dealing with them.

If those real 'Pro' requirements are not a design concerns then perhaps MacbookPro should not have 'Pro' in the title in my opinion.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#842

Post by lmm »

tomtheelder wrote: post #284
lovelyviking wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. I still dream to meet the one who made such 'wise' decision to tell him what I think about it personally! >USB-C, and the correct cables, are all anyone needs. I am…

I think the SD card example encapsulates the issue perfectly. I'm pretty sure that in 2021 that is an _extreme_ niche use case. I feel like only extremely serious photographers and perhaps a particular slice of musicians use them. It makes absolutely no sense for them to have that built into the laptop. 99% of people who own Macbooks or whatever don't own an SD card dongle because they don't need it. However, and ext…

If we actually got enough USB-C ports to make up for all the removed ports (like, 8 or so?) then I'd agree with you, and be willing to put up with the temporary pain of dongles for the sake of a glorious future where everything's USB-C. But we've ended up with the worst of both worlds: say I bring out my laptop for movie night and I want to plug in power, projector, surround sound, a DVD drive, and a mouse, that was easy 5-10 years ago and it's impossible now.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#843

Post by jpetso »

freakynit wrote: post #798

Just add a GPU please. A whole community of people buy windows laptops just so that they can game on it. For work, Mac's are still best choice. But hats off to the initiative. Wee needed this.

A laptop in this form factor won't be great for gaming even if you put a dedicated GPU inside, there's not enough room for cooling and especially not when replaceable components take up more space. For half-decent laptop gaming, you either want a giant beast or an eGPU (generally via Thunderbolt).

Re: The Framework Laptop

#844

Post by mjgs »

I’m definitely down with laptops that have parts that are fully replaceable. It’s not something you really think about until it’s too late, and as such can really land you in some serious issues depending on where you are located in the world.

On a related note, why is it that Linux desktop hardware compatibility is such a hit or miss affair?

I would have thought that given the ethos of the platform and the sheer number of people using Linux worldwide this could be a solvable problem.

I read about VLCs 20 birthday recently and one of the things that made it such an amazing piece of software was that it came bundled with every single codec imaginable. It was revolutionary at the time that it just played literally every single video file you had in your computer. My point is, that it is possible.

If there was a website a bit like caniuse.com, that listed every Linux distro and test results with various hardware. People could register to be ‘drafted’ to test new releases, and there could also be associated discussion forums for workarounds etc.

Even if it was just for laptop hardware, it would be amazing. Not knowing if an expensive purchased laptop will work or not is such a big barrier to entry.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#845

Post by TheRealSteel »

nkrisc wrote: post #474
throwaway894345 wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've still never seen a PC with a sane touchpad. That's the first issue in a long tail of grievances with the PC laptop ecosystem. EDIT: This isn't a generic "pro-Mac" dig, I want a nice PC laptop because I like dabbling with Linux; however, even the high end trackpads are clunky, even with the pre-installed Windows (never mind the eternal sadness that is Linux trackpad configuration).

For whatever reason, I've never used a laptop that wasn't a MacBook that has had a trackpad anywhere as amazing as what Apple has done. I don't know if the problem is hardware, software, or both, but as a consumer I don't care. I'll never buy a non-Apple laptop until I can find one that has a trackpad as good or better. That's my personal requirement. On a personal laptop I always use the trackpad so I want it to be…

"I don't know if the problem is hardware, software, or both"

The gulf continues to be so big that after so much time of nobody else even appearing to try to compete, I assume it's patents.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#846

Post by coldtea »

rfoo wrote: post #835
coldtea wrote: post #827

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it includes a GPU driver, then the trackpad driver is trivial compared to that. Actually manufacturing the trackpad hardware might be difficult/expensive, but since that's already a given, the driver can be tweaked in tons of ways to fit the regular macOS experience...

True, but then why don't we have awesome Linux trackpad drivers for Intel Macbooks?

Isn't there a 1-2 year old project that claims to have made great trackpad driver behavior in Linux?

I think this is the case I remember:

https://bill.harding.blog/2020/04/26/linux-touchpad-like-a-m...

Re: The Framework Laptop

#847

Post by fomine3 »

charrondev wrote: post #767
bscphil wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, your point is entirely fair. I should have clarified that I was talking about an older (mid decade) MacBook Pro. It requires enough force that, with my arm just positioned normally, I can actually feel the torque applied down the whole of my forearm. My understanding is that Apple has made the clicks much lighter in their later models - along with doing the exact same thing with the keyboard keys, which for me g…

The latest iterations as I understand are like this: - keyboards were reverted similar to how they were around 2015. - all the new trackpads are don’t require a physical actuation to activate. You can apply the same amount of minimal pressure anywhere on the trackpad and it “presses back” at you to simulate a physical click. It’s quite convincing.

Force touch is useful feature last missing on other PCs.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#848

Post by wiz21c »

FTA :

> Most consumer electronics devices are disposable one-offs by design. The single best way to reduce the environmental impact of electronics is to make them last longer.

Yes. And I really don't see why a framework PC can help with that. If you want to make them last longer, then make hard drive that last longer, motherboards that last longer, etc. Also, make sure the user needs stay the same for longer (for example, as a Linux user, my needs have been fullfilled by my PC for about 12 years now, I just added a bit more RAM (4 gigs) and a new low cost gfx card; notice that upgrading my Debian never resulted in more hardware needs)

> In addition to enabling longevity, we’re focused on improving sustainability across the life of our products.

Just don't produce them. It'd be more helpful if those brains would help big companies to do things better. No, instead, they think they're smarter, and that being smarter, somehow, translate into money making.

> The Framework Laptop is made of 50% post consumer recycled (PCR) aluminum and an average of 30% PCR plastic.

Count how many grams that is. Compare that to a car, which you change about as often as a mobile phone or laptop.

> Our packaging is fully recyclable with no single-use plastics,

And who's going to take care of those plastic. Me ? Just don't use plastic (and if you're so smart, then figure out a way to not need plastic in packaging)

> and all of our product shipments are carbon offset.

Yeah, and what about the other part of the iceberg, ie, the carbon produced while producing your laptops ?

I'm all for ecology, reuse, etc. But at some point, if you're smart, you must realize that all of that is pixie powder.

As I said, I'd much prefer :

- if hardware producer would guarantee a 20 years+ longevity - would reduce the number of form factors (so we can have less production lines) - would optimize for energy consumption (hey, my washing machine comes with a nice card explaining how much energy/water it consumes) - would create less market segments. We don't need a new CPU model every year. Look, my kid changes its game console (not exactly ecological either) every 5 years, so it's perfectly doable. - OS producer would make sure OS upgrade doesn't require hardware upgrade

All of that is way more political than technological.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#849

Post by bscphil »

easton wrote: post #813
bscphil wrote: post #726

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, your point is entirely fair. I should have clarified that I was talking about an older (mid decade) MacBook Pro. It requires enough force that, with my arm just positioned normally, I can actually feel the torque applied down the whole of my forearm. My understanding is that Apple has made the clicks much lighter in their later models - along with doing the exact same thing with the keyboard keys, which for me g…

On 2015 or later MacBooks, you can adjust the force required for a click: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204352 (“Adjust trackpad settings”)

This is software adjustable? That's very impressive engineering. Unfortunately this a 2014 MBP.

Re: The Framework Laptop

#850

Post by Valkhyr »

reasonabl_human wrote: post #740
nrp wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is correct. There’s nothing technical preventing us from offering a pre-built bring your own OS system, but we figured there’s high overlap between that audience and those who want to assemble a kit themselves. This reduces the amount of pre-built inventory we need to hold.

I get the business case of universal pre-built inventory, but offering a Linux version out of the box signals that all hardware is compatible and fully functional... supported at a first-party level. More and more developers in big tech companies using Linux just expect it to work and aren’t interested in monkeying around with drivers and configs.. not to say they can’t, but why increase friction for your dev setup?…

Seconded. I don't really need Linux pre-installed, but when I make a buying decision I would be much more likely to buy a laptop that is (a) guaranteed to be fully compatible with Linux out of the box, and that (b) the manufacturer will honor their warranty no matter which OS I choose to run.

That said, I think offering Linux pre-installed would be very nice as a signaling function to attract technical-minded users.

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