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The Framework Laptop is now shipping

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Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#351

Post by audunw »

victor9000 wrote: post #254

This device is seriously the answer to all my laptop problems. I really like the form factor of the XPS 13, but now I'm stuck with the complete inability to upgrade RAM. In what universe is that normal? Then I accidentally nuked the USB-C ports on the left side when it got wet, and now I'm left with a single port for everything, including charging. What!? Why? I tore the entire thing apart and there's just no way to…

You better get used to it. RAM is going to move closer and closer to the CPU for speed and power reduction. And every major laptop manufacturer will move that way to compete. Especially now that the M1 Mac has shown what’s possible when every part of the system is optimized for low power.

What we can hope for is that SSD acts more like RAM. Maybe it could have a decent sized RAM chip that the OS can dedicate as cache for virtual memory. There’s a chance that at least some hardware manufacturers will continue to allow for replaceable SSDs.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#352

Post by formerly_proven »

ribit wrote: post #320
nspattak wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please point us to some technical report or something where they document the energy saving of moving from dimm slots to soldered ram/ssd ?

Unfortunately, I am not aware of any document like that. There are some papers comparing everything efficiency of different types of RAM, and there is of course indirect evidence of premium notebooks having significantly improved the battery life after moving to LPDDR.

LPDDR does many, many things to reduce power consumption (the current version even does DVFS, which I think is a first for main memory; graphics cards have been doing interface DFS for a long time, but a high end graphics card will burn around 30-70 W in the memory chips, and uses extremely high speed PHYs running at around 20 GBit/s per pin in the current generation).

The only thing that really changes between DIMM and soldered on is a somewhat increased trace length. That accounts only for a very small increase in power.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#353

Post by Aeolun »

nrp wrote: post #80
winter_blue wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the likelihood of a 4K (like 3840x2400) screen option appearing anytime in the near future?

We don't have any plans we can share yet, but we did design the display to be easy to replace by putting it behind a magnet-attach bezel and using fasteners to affix it the lid.

I’m curious about these responses. They kind of read like “Yes, but we don’t want to commit to anything right now.”

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#355

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

eptcyka wrote: post #312
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but we were talking about "user upgradeable" here. Even my local dealer won't upgrade engines and most car owners have no idea how to change their oil or a tyre, let alone perform engine transplants. One-off custom cars are a different thing same how there are YouTubers putting headphone jacks in their iPhones or upgrading the soldered VRAM of their Nvidia graphics cards.

Yes, but a lot of car owners do change their own parts, replacing various filters, adding bolt-on parts, changing out suspension, tyres and the like. Just because most people do not do this, doesn't mean that this is something that should be forbidden or designed against. Cars are built to have replaceable parts, why can't laptops be the same? There are issues with the M1 equipped macbooks burning through flash due t…

>Just because most people do not do this, doesn't mean that this is something that should be forbidden or designed against.

And where did I say that reparability must be forbidden?

I was saying hat operations like transplanting a more powerful engine into your car is rare and difficult nowadays since grandparent made a reference to cars being easier to upgrade than laptops when that's not always true.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#356

Post by Delk »

hughrr wrote: post #288
victor9000 wrote: post #254

This device is seriously the answer to all my laptop problems. I really like the form factor of the XPS 13, but now I'm stuck with the complete inability to upgrade RAM. In what universe is that normal? Then I accidentally nuked the USB-C ports on the left side when it got wet, and now I'm left with a single port for everything, including charging. What!? Why? I tore the entire thing apart and there's just no way to…

Realistically 99% of the corporate and consumer laptops I have been party to are built to order with the right amount of RAM in and never upgraded. Those of us who actually upgrade are an insignificant minority at this point or pulling them out of the ex corp recycling lifecycle. Another point is stuff that is soldered in is a lot more reliable as a whole. Amazing how many old machines can be resurrected by reseating…

Maybe it's because I'm often looking at business-oriented laptops as a consumer, but I usually find the RAM and storage to be on the low side compared to the CPU specs.

I don't need a top-of-the-line i7 CPU (the improvement when going from e.g. an i5 usually isn't enough to really matter), and the premium you pay isn't negligible. On the other hand, the lower-end models that don't splurge on an i7 and come with a mid-range CPU such as an i5 instead still often have only 8 GB of RAM. That's definitely not future-proof or even present-proof for a laptop that otherwise has mid-range specs in terms of performance.

It seems ridiculous that you have to either pay for a top-of-the-line model or be stuck with sub-par RAM for the entire lifetime of the device.

Corporations will of course happily buy the higher-end model for their developers, so this probably isn't a problem in an actual corporate environment.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#358

Post by Const-me »

ribit wrote: post #286
victor9000 wrote: post #254

This device is seriously the answer to all my laptop problems. I really like the form factor of the XPS 13, but now I'm stuck with the complete inability to upgrade RAM. In what universe is that normal? Then I accidentally nuked the USB-C ports on the left side when it got wet, and now I'm left with a single port for everything, including charging. What!? Why? I tore the entire thing apart and there's just no way to…

> In what universe is that normal? In a universe where you want high-performance energy efficient RAM. Premium ultracompact laptops have long moved to LPDDR which is both faster and consumes significantly less energy than regular modular DDR. And LPDDR does not come in DIMMs. And then you have Apple who are using custom package technology with custom RAM chips to cut down RAM power consumption to under one watt activ…

RAM energy efficiency is not important because very small fraction of the energy consumed by other components.

It only somewhat matters for power consumption in sleep mode when the RAM is the only component being powered, but at least on Windows that’s solvable with a fast SSD and hibernation.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#359

Post by dredmorbius »

Having been delighted with a 13" e-ink display with roughly comparable display resolution, I've got to say "dayuuuuum" on the display specs. Aspect ratio, resolution, DPI, and nits all look excellent.

(E-Ink differs notably in characteristics, but simply on density, 200+ DPI is amazing to look at.)

The rest of the specs and design intent also look impressive. Very nicely done.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#360

Post by emodendroket »

Delk wrote: post #356
hughrr wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Realistically 99% of the corporate and consumer laptops I have been party to are built to order with the right amount of RAM in and never upgraded. Those of us who actually upgrade are an insignificant minority at this point or pulling them out of the ex corp recycling lifecycle. Another point is stuff that is soldered in is a lot more reliable as a whole. Amazing how many old machines can be resurrected by reseating…

Maybe it's because I'm often looking at business-oriented laptops as a consumer, but I usually find the RAM and storage to be on the low side compared to the CPU specs. I don't need a top-of-the-line i7 CPU (the improvement when going from e.g. an i5 usually isn't enough to really matter), and the premium you pay isn't negligible. On the other hand, the lower-end models that don't splurge on an i7 and come with a mid…

Supporting tons of slightly different configurations is an impediment to efficient operations though. There’s some logic to doing things that way.
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