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

631–640 of 785 posts

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#631

Post by formerly_proven »

ribit wrote: post #402
franga2000 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern CPUs are an order of magnitude more complex and usually built on a smaller process, yet we have no trouble putting them on intermediary PCBs to spread out contacts and allow larger pins. I see no reason we couldn't make LGA sockets for DRAM chips in the same way.

The beauty and success of DIMM modules is that they are a simple slide-in to install technology. It's easy to operate, cheap, robust, and it is very space efficient. Imagine RAM modules in an LGA socket instead... how much space would it require? How robust would it be? What will be the price? I am quite sure all of these issues can be solved, but is it worth it? Let's be honest, users who are interested in having up…

The practical interest might be close to zero because in the past memory upgrades a number of years down the road were one of the most common upgrades and added tremendous value and another few years of life. Similarly many older laptops got a second life by being upgraded to SSDs. Accidents like that, which prevent sales of new units, can't happen if storage and memory are soldered on.

I don't think this is the driver of these decisions per se, but it is undeniably a bonus for the manufacturer; non-upgradable devices become obsolete faster, necessitating new replacements.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#633

Post by tele_ski »

FullyFunctional wrote: post #626

This looks great. My only comment is whether the population for whom this is interesting wouldn't be more likely to want Linux? I suspect the focus on Windows is misplaced. I might get one, but I'd want 100% Linux support, notably wrt. power management. EDIT: language

The faq says they'll support main distros, but power management with Linux is always not great in my experience, hopefully it works out!

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#634

Post by mixmastamyk »

This is awesome but Windows? Should ship with Linux option, it isn’t hard. Other nitpicks:

- USB C Module should have two ports at least.

- Ports in the back, who wants a monitor cable sticking out the side? No one does this anymore.

- Waiting for larger screen.

Props for 3:2 screen and modules.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#635

Post by kk6mrp »

trulyme wrote: post #409
eikenberry wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1, please consider offering this. A track point and 3 real buttons are so much nicer than a trackpad. At least to some of us. ThinkPads success seems to indicate there are a lot of us.

As a counterpoint, I love ThinkPads but never understood the appeal of the track point. I don't mind it being there of course, but it is not a reason to prefer one laptop to another, and definitely not the reason I like ThinkPads.

I normally don't ever use it however I discovered in some areas I work it is necessary. Attempting to use the trackpad results in the cursor jumping around the screen and the only thing I can figure is that there is electrical interference messing with it.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#636

Post by formerly_proven »

ribit wrote: post #417
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 ?

By the way, check out reviews of the Framework Laptop for a first-hand illustration of this effect. They seem to be getting 40-50% lower battery runtimes than laptops with comparable specs. That's example the problem — of you design for modularity, you have to leave some optimizations on the table.

Doubtful, the Framework laptop is pretty much like any other USB-C-based laptop, except that it reserves some space inside the chassis so that the adapter dongles are flush with the case.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#637

Post by drstewart »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #623
drstewart wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that this will be a niche product that gets almost no mainstream adoption outside of a small tech bubble, like the Fairphone.

No, it very well could become a popular product. Repairability won’t be enough to get it there. But whatever company culture forms around this repairability thing could lead them to design a killer feature that Apple and Microsoft would never think of. And repairability might be a moat for some feature like that. It’s not inevitable, most new electronics companies don’t hit it big. But don’t write them off before the…

I definitely support their mission and hope to see them do well. And you might be right that they form a culture or feature that proves to be game changing. However, on the surface, I don't believe modularity is something that the average consumer cares about enough to have this become mainstream just on that basis alone.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#639

Post by 908B64B197 »

drstewart wrote: post #548
cconcepts wrote: post #280

I hope you guys slay the market and are able to keep up with the demand that is coming at you. I hope this is the Tesla moment for the consumer electronics industry where the incumbents are forced, through the hubris yet popularity of an upstart, to start innovating again and doing what is good for humanity rather than peddling incrementally changed products each year that are designed to become obsolete within an ev…

The reality is that this will be a niche product that gets almost no mainstream adoption outside of a small tech bubble, like the Fairphone.

I wish enterprise buyers or institutional buyers considered it.

Make sense to buy a fleet of these since they can be pretty easily repaired/cannibalized for parts.

Re: The Framework Laptop is now shipping

#640

Post by yewenjie »

tele_ski wrote: post #633
FullyFunctional wrote: post #626

This looks great. My only comment is whether the population for whom this is interesting wouldn't be more likely to want Linux? I suspect the focus on Windows is misplaced. I might get one, but I'd want 100% Linux support, notably wrt. power management. EDIT: language

The faq says they'll support main distros, but power management with Linux is always not great in my experience, hopefully it works out!

Is TLP not enough? I would be curious to know how else people manage power on laptops here.
Post reply on HN