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It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#311

Post by chromadon »

dangus wrote: post #306
DanieleSalatti wrote: post #302

> The problem is, for an overall worse experience, are you willing to pay 20-40% more? This is subjective. For me: yes. It buys me a lot, repairability and not being in the apple ecosystem are two things I value enough that it makes sense for me to go with Framework. It flips it to an overall better experience.

Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer. They offer free trials which you can’t cancel without immediately ending the trial. (E.g., you can’t turn off auto-renewing without forfeiting the trial) A device that has ads and/or behavioral pushes to subscription services and costs $500 doesn’t really cost $500.

- "Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer."

I've literally never seen an advert outside of a 3rd party app or website on any Apple device I've owned (many).

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#312

Post by nucleardog »

analogpixel wrote: post #254

- The Framework is more expensive : Kind of care, but not really if it's worth the money. - slower (in most cases) : I care about this. Blender needs to render. - louder (its fan ramps up quite often) : I care about this, it needs to be silent. - has a pretty poor display : I care about this, I don't want poor screen quality, poor color quality, poor text rendering. - but it is a touchscreen: could care less about th…

> I'm thinking Apple might just be better at figuring out what specs actually matter, and which specs just make nerds happy but don't actually sell. (except liquid glass, they failed on that.)

Or maybe this is just a totally different product?

I'd also call out, anecdotally, of the people in my life the non-technical people are interested in touch screens, don't care about speed as long as it runs a few Chrome tabs without feeling slow, and have literally never mentioned noise except to complain about some absolutely absurd "gaming" laptops. I've only ever heard the "nerds" talking about this stuff you're saying actually matters to the non-nerds. Maybe you're one of the nerds?

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#313

Post by LelouBil »

codedokode wrote: post #307

What I don't like in Frameworks: Tiny screens. Imagine running a browser on a 13" screen, where part of screen space is used by taskbar, tab headers, address bar, sticky site header, cookie bar and you get less than 50% left for content. And of course site designer will use the largest font available so that you can fit only one paragraph of text into remaining space. Obviously you cannot fit VS Code or KDEnlive (it…

You know they have a framework 16" ? And the keyboard of the 16 is running customizable firmware so you can have your layout switch key and whatever else you want ? It has 6 usb-c ports, that are the other end of the extension modules

I bought it two years ago, I like it, but I still think it's too expensive for the actual hardware, but I liked funding the mission as well as receiving a product that I liked.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#314

Post by chromadon »

pdimitar wrote: post #274
trouve_search wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using an asus zenbook 14 OLED with linux. Compatibility is great. The screen blows apple out completely. It's clearly, obviously better. The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple. The keyboard feels better to type on, the trackpad is slightly worse, but not enough to annoy me. The new Pop OS cosmic is a very fun OS concept for laptops with the autotiling workspaces as a fundamental primitive.

Is the fan turning on often? Is it very loud? From my research on Macbook alternatives only the Zenbooks looked like almost-an-even-match to me. Curious what's your experience with day-to-day fan noise and heat.

I know someone with a modern Zenbook and it sounds like a jet engine at all times, battery life is awful too.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#315

Post by saidnooneever »

whimblepop wrote: post #83

I was seduced by Apple Silicon after experiencing the exceptional battery life and performance. Those things are great, as are the screens and the speakers. But I'm still excited about the Framework 12 because I don't love macOS. I don't need an alternative to beat Apple on every line of the spec sheet. I just need them to align with my values, support Linux well, and cross a certain "good enough" threshold. The late…

battery life is not only factor of the laptop. having moved from Linux (ran gentoo quite minimal...) to freeBSD default install makes my laptop last about twice or thrice as long.

the art of idle software and efficient energy consumption is not landed in windows and Linux takes too much work..

mac does it not too bad + having good batteries, but thats not to say a laptop with a lesser battery should be trashed by a bad OS.

mobile operating systems are usually much more tuned to being good with battery life. I suppose Linux and perhaps windows do not seem to have laptops as main target even for 'desktop' distros or versions.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#316

Post by dangus »

chromadon wrote: post #311
dangus wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer. They offer free trials which you can’t cancel without immediately ending the trial. (E.g., you can’t turn off auto-renewing without forfeiting the trial) A device that has ads and/or behavioral pushes to subscription services and costs $500 doesn’t really cost $500.

- "Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer." I've literally never seen an advert outside of a 3rd party app or website on any Apple device I've owned (many).

When you buy a new Apple device it comes with a trial for Apple subscription services. My iPhone 17 Pro came with a News+ trial.

If I didn’t cancel it it would charge me.

There was no way to turn off auto-renew without forfeiting the remaining trial period, which is a dark pattern to encourage accidental payments.

Mac devices also encourage things like documents in iCloud directly in settings which encourage migration to paid services.

By default, Apple apps like Music have notifications for subscriptions.

It’s not at the level of Windows 11 but it’s there when you’re really looking for it. Notifications in the system settings are not always critical update type of stuff, they are often semi-promotional.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#317

Post by 866-RON-0-FEZ »

hamdingers wrote: post #275
Rebelgecko wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you compare/contrast with the steam deck vent smell?

On an M4 Macbook Pro it's mild and faintly sweet but not really pleasant the way the LCD deck is. Requires a lot of heat for a long time to become noticeable. Vent is less convenient for sniffing.

Thanks for confirming I'm not insane!

It is a sweet odor, but chemically irritating. It cannot be good to breathe.

I'm shocked no one has identified the source of the odor yet. Is it thermal paste? Flux/solder paste? Turtle jizz?

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#318

Post by sowbug »

hamdingers wrote: post #275
Rebelgecko wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you compare/contrast with the steam deck vent smell?

On an M4 Macbook Pro it's mild and faintly sweet but not really pleasant the way the LCD deck is. Requires a lot of heat for a long time to become noticeable. Vent is less convenient for sniffing.

Some conformal coatings, which protect PCBs from dust and moisture, can emit ethyl acetate or butyl acetate if they weren't fully cured. The smell is sweet but absolutely revolting.

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#319

Post by LarsDu88 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #280
LarsDu88 wrote: post #70

What Framework is trying to do feels like something that would've made more sense 10 years ago. And the reason for that is b/c of Moore's Law approaching its end. The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU. The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a…

> The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU. People have been hyping things like this for decades, but then it turns out the number of applications that need to frequently share data between a CPU and GPU at a faster speed than PCIe can handle are pretty uncommon. Meanwhile putting them closer together has some prett…

- For high end AI inference chips, DRAM already goes onto the interposer right next to the GPU to bring the bandwidth as high as possible. Apple will eventually do this for the exact same reasons. It's not just soldering RAM to a PCB - The chiplet technique and putting everything on an interposer is less integrated from the perspective of the chip manufacturer, but for the consumer -- folks who are going to buy Framework laptops, this is a far less integrated package. CPU, GPU and RAM will sit on the same interposer and purchased together as a unit with no upgrade or swap path for any component. This is not the same as simply soldering everything together on one PCB. The level of intergration is far higher

Re: It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

#320

Post by pyrophane »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #295
whimblepop wrote: post #83

I was seduced by Apple Silicon after experiencing the exceptional battery life and performance. Those things are great, as are the screens and the speakers. But I'm still excited about the Framework 12 because I don't love macOS. I don't need an alternative to beat Apple on every line of the spec sheet. I just need them to align with my values, support Linux well, and cross a certain "good enough" threshold. The late…

I would happily jump ship for any competitor that offers solid AI inference benchmarks at a competitive power efficiency, but as far as I can tell Apple owns that market by a pretty big margin. I’m sure someone will point out if I’m wrong.

I just have a desktop at home that I run inference off of. It is a great setup and I don't find myself wanting to inference models directly on my laptop.
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