Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Framework Laptop is now shipping

frame.work

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 785 posts

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#361

Post by emilfihlman »

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…

>You simply can’t have this with socketed RAM.

[Citation needed], there is no real electrical engineering reason why you couldn't.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#362

Post by OJFord »

nrp wrote: post #4

Framework Founder here! I am happy to answer any questions on the product.

Can you give the roughest of indications for European orders (UK for me, if it's going to be that granular)? I've been signed up to the mailing list to be notified since first post here, really looking forward to it; I've been tempted to use Canadian pre-order via a favour ever since that opened up, but should I just be patient, will it be 'soon'?

Do you anticipate that (if this goes as well as I hope and assume it will/is) a v2 model would have an upgrade path from 'v1' (as it were, that for pre-order/sale now) - i.e. buy new case, new motherboard (or whatever) and it's effectively the same as if you bought the new one? Or have you accepted/do you think that not all parts can be fully modular and independently saleable?

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#363

Post by emodendroket »

audunw wrote: post #351
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…

Yeah, I’m really curious where they go from here because it seems like the lesson is that modularity has a major performance penalty.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#364

Post by plater »

kaszanka wrote: post #296
plater wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the very thinnest of laptops it's probably difficult without soldering the chips on board, but many users would prefer a slightly thicker laptop where you can replace the RAM, SSD etc. I have never had a laptop where the thickness has been an issue and I have done a fair share of traveling while working in sales. It's like a thoughtless race to make the thinnest laptop as if that is something that is useful. I bi…

I bet these "small vibrations" are due to some kind of coupling between the mains and the case. Dunno, not an electrical engineer. See if it still happens on battery power.

No, it's nothing electrical. It's all mechanical. It's the surface which is slightly striped or bubbly or whatever and when sliding the hand or finger lightly over it, it generates a vibrating feeling. It might be less now after some months of use. Maybe the small cracks are filled with finger fat or something :).

The sharp edges are still there though.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#365

Post by Const-me »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #155
peregrine wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any plans for AMD or ARM processor options? The amd ryzen stuff has nearly good performance per watt that the M1 does. I really can’t see myself buying another intel processor for at least a few generations.

You seem to be misinformed. Everyone loves to hate Intel (and rightfully so) but Tiger Lake has better IPC and implicitly better single threaded performance than Ryzen. In real world tasks (web browsing, opening an IDE) it often comes on top of AMD. It only loses to AMD in multi threaded benchmarks because of the lower core count (everyone loves to flex Cinebench scores online, but I buy my laptop to use, not run ben…

> In real world tasks (web browsing, opening an IDE)

My real-world task is not opening an IDE, it’s using that IDE. Modern C++ compilers are using all available CPU cores just fine.

> It only loses to AMD in multi threaded benchmarks

These are the only workloads I care about. Not just compilation, many other things as well.

You only need single-threaded performance for 2 things, for the stuff that’s inherently serial like gzip, or to run programs made more than 5-10 years ago.

I don’t normally play games on a laptop, but even videogames use multiple cores for decades now, since the Xbox 360 / PS3 generation.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#366

Post by littlestymaar »

ddalex wrote: post #317
michalf6 wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would really prefer that a laptop was just a tiny bit thicker to fit a 100WH battery to compensate for that. My T480 gets 12-16 hours with normal use, I imagine it could easily hit 20 with current processors.

> a 100WH battery a hand grenade typically releases 250kJ, or about 70Wh you're asking for the equivalent of 1.5 grenades in your lap :)

A chocolate tablet typically stores 4000kJ of energy. Yes that's 15 hand grenades, what are we waiting for: ban chocolate tablets now!

And don't get me started on flour, not only it stores a ton of energy (50 grenades per kg) but it's also highly explosive! [1]

[1]: (only with the right air to flour ratio of course, but accident happen every once in a while: https://www.grupa-wolff.com/a-tragic-flour-explosion/)

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#367

Post by speedgoose »

truth_ wrote: post #89
filereaper wrote: post #28

Any idea if we/when we can get a Ryzen based models? Ryzens have higher thread-counts and Vega Graphics outperforms Iris graphics. If this can be paired with Thunderbolt, I'd be super happy to purchase this laptop. The idea of swappable ports is great! Why not make a large 17" model with desktop components and even more ports?

I would really like an AMD version, too. Buying Intel makes no sense now.

My Intel i9 gaming laptop is pretty good to keep food warm or dry my hair.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#368

Post by baybal2 »

tomxor wrote: post #345
ribit wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> In a universe where you want high-performance energy efficient RAM [.....] You simply can’t have this with socketed RAM. You make it sound like a prerequisite. I'm pretty sure the reason LPDDR is Low Power is not due to (currently) being unavailable in socketed modules - that would seem to be a side-effect of the original target market (smart phones). They are just some BGA packages, I see no reason they couldn't b…

Yes, as I wrote somewhere below, LPDDR4 signal is actually more robust than DDR4 signal, and LPDDR4 controllers have more features to fix degraded signals.

DDR5 has more roots in the LPDDR4 than in the regular DDR4.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#369

Post by dsr_ »

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…

The approach Qualcomm has taken in their flagship ARM processors is probably correct for laptops as well as phones.

There are four low-power single thread cores. They do grunt work at high efficiency but low capability.

There are three medium-power single thread cores. They suck up more electricity when in use but can get tasks that the user cares about accomplished, and sleep all the time that the phone is not running the UI.

Then there is one high-power single thread core, which is just a turbo-speed variant of the medium cores. That's the one that wakes up for user interaction.

Of course, if you can scale power-consumption and computing together, you would just make an 8-core high-power chip and sleep and throttle on demand -- or, in-between, Apple's M1, which has four low and four high cores.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#370

Post by intricatedetail »

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…

Soldering is not a problem. Your average tech should be able to rework most of the things, maybe except BGA stuff. Problem is no access to spare parts.
Post reply on HN