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

The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

pluralistic.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 1001 posts

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#151

Post by powerwaif »

tombert wrote: post #77
tshaddox wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you actually have any example of a corporation that makes laptops saying that it’s impossible to have slim laptops that are customizable? I would be very surprised if this ever happened, but I’m willing to be proven wrong.

You know, I can't think of a concrete example of that, when pressed, so it is possible this was just something repeated to me by coworkers and friends doing Apple apologia, and I just treated it as a truth. A quick Google doesn't appear to show Apple or any other corporation saying it, so I'll take the L on it. I think my overall point still stands. I still find it irritating that, until very recently, the only way t…

You don't need a direct quote proving it. They just do it.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#152

Post by topspin »

epistasis wrote: post #39
topspin wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus (the "tech tips" one) said something that sticks in my mind: "The only reason other companies can't do this - and Framework proved it - is because they don't care."

Well, the other reason is that customers don't care either. I certainly don't. The last desktop build I made 5 years ago hasn't had a single component changed in that entire time.

"The last desktop build I made 5 years ago"

A desktop you built using standardized components you sourced from a competitive market with a plethora of alternatives specifically designed for easy assembly. Should any component fail you can obtain a replacement and perform the repair yourself. Doubtless these affordances are a part of why you chose to assemble you're machine yourself.

You do indeed care. The inability to extrapolate this to laptop machines seems obtuse.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#153

Post by dinkleberg »

webmobdev wrote: post #143
collinvandyck76 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here but for fan noise. Since I've gotten the m1 macbook air, I don't think I can go back to a laptop that runs hot and needs a fan. In the event that I must get a non-m1 laptop, I can definitely see myself buying the framework laptop and putting ubuntu on it.

I've never met someone before that cares about cpu fan noise. Genuinely. It never bothers me so I have never thought about it. Perhaps also because my workflow involves playing music when I work to make me more productive.

As someone who records lots of videos it is quite frustrating. The less noise the better.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#154

Post by stakkur »

tombert wrote: post #25

It feels like for years we were constantly told by these corporations "it's impossible to have slim, tiny laptops and make them customizable", and I guess at some level I believed that, and just accepted that laptops with upgradable components were a thing of the past. After seeing the framework, I'm more than a little annoyed that I fell for this. They proved you can have a slim, clean laptop that's somewhat modular…

I love the Framework idea, and believe in repairability. But I’ll be interested to see what Framework does when they have the (enviable) challenge of manufacturing, distributing, and supporting half a billion of them.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#156

Post by nkellenicki »

ashtonkem wrote: post #50

I still remained baffled by the popularity of the laptop. Literally everyone I know works with them fixed in one location; their desk. Yes, some people do need mobility, but this appears to be a minority of consumers. We could’ve had all this repairability and modularity years ago if most consumers just admitted that really they wanted a desktop all along. It also fixed complaints about keyboards.

Literally everybody in my company (a large enterprise) uses a laptop as their main workstation. They work with them docked at their desks, but then unplug them to take them to a meeting room, a shared working space, etc.

Outside of work, 90% of people I know have a laptop as their main computing device at home. Very few have a desktop PC - those are the PC gamers.

Your anecdotal experience doesn't match with my anecdotal experience.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#157

Post by webmobdev »

rcthompson wrote: post #91
ashtonkem wrote: post #50

I still remained baffled by the popularity of the laptop. Literally everyone I know works with them fixed in one location; their desk. Yes, some people do need mobility, but this appears to be a minority of consumers. We could’ve had all this repairability and modularity years ago if most consumers just admitted that really they wanted a desktop all along. It also fixed complaints about keyboards.

Even when I'm home 90% of the time during COVID, I use my laptop in lots of places: my desk, my bed, my dining table, my kitchen counter, my couch. I can't drag my desktop setup all around my apartment like that.

It makes sense if you use the laptop as a desktop - plugging it to a bigger monitor with an external keyboard and mouse. Otherwise it's hard to have good ergonomic with a laptop and you can't work long hours on it without developing some body pain.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#158

Post by tombert »

toast0 wrote: post #136
tombert wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back when I was making crap wages, I would get the cheapest laptops I could afford that would more or less give me decent performance (on the order of ~$500-600). It's not too hard to find a new laptop that performs well at a reasonable price, but you always run the risk of them reclaiming those costs by cheaping out on all the mechanics of it, and it's not like I was able to afford paying ~$2000 for a high-quality m…

Looking at your trend, you've got $500 laptop / 2 year, or $2000 laptop / 5 year, which reduces to $250 laptop / year vs $400 laptop / year. Getting low cost laptops isn't necessarily a worse financial outcome, although it depends on how fast the processor updates are moving; when a 2020 intel cpu is about the same as a 2015 intel cpu, it would probably have been better to pay a little more in 2015 for a faster one;…

Yeah, I've actually done this math too, though I don't think it's quite this simple. When a laptop started falling apart, I usually tried to just put up with it until I couldn't.

For example, I used to have an Asus computer whose plastic surrounding the screen decided to start coming detached from the monitor flap. This made the laptop substantially more fragile and annoying to use, and after a certain point I tried to remedy this with gorilla glue and it led to this ugly mess on the bottom left corner. The laptop still "worked" in the sense that still did computation, but it was crappier. Then the 7 key broke off the keyboard, I was unable to put it back on, so I just decided I didn't need the 7 key, since I didn't type 7 that often, and when I did I could still hit the little switch. Again, the laptop still "worked" in the sense that it still did computation, but it was crappier. A bunch of other stuff ended up happening (e.g. the LED for the backlight started to go out and become this flickery mess, the connector to the battery didn't always seem to make contact, etc).

Stuff like that starts to add up, and "experience" is substantially more difficult to quantify. I bought an expensive Macbook, and I never had any issues outside of the inevitable "moores law" depreciation.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#160

Post by soperj »

philliphaydon wrote: post #118
renke1 wrote: post #60

I am growing increasingly unhappy with Thinkpads in general, but as far as I know there is no real alternative for TrackPoint users. There are some that have a TrackPoint but they lack three physical mouse button that are in reach of ones thumbs.

Why are you growing unhappy? (I have a X1 Extreme Gen 1, and Legion 7, and Legion 5 Pro, so I'm curious)

Soldered Ram.
Post reply on HN