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Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

frame.work

171–180 of 238 posts

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fullack. Returned my framework laptop because of 3 hours battery life (streaming Netflix, measured multiple times), the 747 sound (customer support told me "works as expected"), and if I want to fry eggs I have other devices for that. I'd say "there's room for improvement".

I’m not a fan. Thinkpads have had magnesium enclosures since 2000. I don’t like the framework design or philosophy. You’d have to be insane to buy an Intel laptop for the same money as an ARM Macbook. This reusable thing doesn’t make a bit of sense to me either. Do you really want to be using a 10 year old chassis with new parts? What’s the point of trying to save the environment when the other 8 billion could care l…

If the parts are made to fit the chaos and the design is reusable, what does it matter of the chaos is old?...unless say it's greatly worn and the integrity is impacted....but then you can buy a replacement part.

Their pricing on the 13 is fair for the components they offer. I'm not in the market for a new laptop, still rocking a 2015 mbp...but if I need a new one, I hope they're still around.

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#172
post #6
post #3

I find the battery life on my framework 13 really bad (ubuntu installed). There's some issue where the battery drains fairly quickly in suspend which requires enabling "deep sleep" mode, but it still drains a lot faster than other laptops I've had. And then the battery life in general isn't very good; I'd say ~2 hours at full brightness with some video streaming mixed in with normal browsing. I wonder if that's the s…

The 13th gen apparently has dramatically better battery life, which is great since the battery life otherwise prevented me from buying one. They spent a lot of time optimizing it both in hardware and software.

Meanwhile the firmware update to improve battery life on the 12th gen has been in beta since last year :( I've held off on installing it since some of the bugs sound scary (breaking USB ports)

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#173
post #147

Me and many of my friends all have zombie Frankenstein desktops that perfectly illustrate why the Framework laptop both does and doesn't make sense. I can understand why people with money to burn might not understand the limitations of trying to make a modular architecture work over the long term. Back in the day, dropping in an SSD represented a massive, relatively inexpensive upgrade. But, a desktop has cross-compa…

> I'm not convinced these sorts of cross compatible upgrades will continue to surface into the future

They've already outdone every other laptop manufacturer: you can swap a new 13th gen system board into an original 11th gen Framework.

My friend's wife has a Framework, and she suffered a liquid spill which reached the system board. He ordered parts, did the swap, and she's back in action for less than half the cost of a new laptop. If it were Dell or Lenovo, you'd be trying your luck with used eBay parts. The housing would have ~20 tiny plastic clips that you break one or two of every time you open it up. (Or adhesive, ugh.) It's just a sketchier proposition.

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fullack. Returned my framework laptop because of 3 hours battery life (streaming Netflix, measured multiple times), the 747 sound (customer support told me "works as expected"), and if I want to fry eggs I have other devices for that. I'd say "there's room for improvement".

Can you name a laptop that meets your expectations and lets me connect an external GPU? (not for gaming)

Define "connect an external GPU? (not for gaming)"

I can connect to an external GPU via SSH or Jupyter from my MBP fine.

The internal GPU is also surprisingly capable for machine learning (which is the only usage I'm really interested in).

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#175
post #147

Me and many of my friends all have zombie Frankenstein desktops that perfectly illustrate why the Framework laptop both does and doesn't make sense. I can understand why people with money to burn might not understand the limitations of trying to make a modular architecture work over the long term. Back in the day, dropping in an SSD represented a massive, relatively inexpensive upgrade. But, a desktop has cross-compa…

I disagree, I still upgrade my desktop like the Ship of Theseus, there are even over 10 yo hard disks in there.

My last upgrade was RAM to 64GB, before that the GPU (RX 470 to RX 6600), before that, the mainboard and CPU from some ancient Intel i3 to Ryzen 5 3600. And between all those upgrades, more and more SSDs were added.

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because a desktop isn’t portable? When I go into either one of my corporate offices (rarely) or a client’s office, it’s nice to be able to just plug my laptop in the night before and not have to worry about a finding any place to plug it in during the day, going back and forth between conference rooms, etc. I also go home to see my parents for a couple of weeks sometimes and work from there. And I realize this is a v…

> Because a desktop isn’t portable It almost sounfs like you knew the answer to your question the entire time.

But once you’re asking about an external GPU, portability isn’t the most important thing is it?

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#177
post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fullack. Returned my framework laptop because of 3 hours battery life (streaming Netflix, measured multiple times), the 747 sound (customer support told me "works as expected"), and if I want to fry eggs I have other devices for that. I'd say "there's room for improvement".

I think that's a consequence of the gen 11/12 Intel chips used? I think the AMD versions would be much cooler and have better battery life (or so I hope!)

it's a consequence of framework not having good power management/speedstep support, although supposedly it's gotten better recently.

Using AMD chips is also not a magic bullet if you don't implement power management properly - a 25W AMD chip and a 25W Intel chip notionally pull the same power (although there are always games).

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re just keys - you can remap the middle ones to be your enter, tab, backspace and escape. That’s basically what I do with my Planck layout. https://github.com/qmk/qmk_firmware/tree/master/keyboards/pl...

In the pic, the ortholinear keyboard is not the full width of the 16", so it wouldn't be anymore split than your tiny planck. A full-width ortholinear with excessive keys would be another story.

Mine is split in the sense of having the main keys in the middle of the keyboard on your strong fingers (like the old typematrix which was the first ortholinear keyboard I ever used) it’s not in separate modules like a kinesis or ergodox obviously. I don’t know if that would work on a laptop without it being excessively wide.

For my personal mix of tendon and joint problems actual separation isn’t helpful because some pronation is actually good for me. But obviously that’s going to vary.

Re: Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive – Enclosure

#180
post #12

I don't know if magnesium is a common choice for computer enclosures, but one of the few examples of magnesium that I immediately recall (besides Surface) is a NeXT computer that went up in flames: https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html

One additional note is that it's possible to make Magnesium alloys much more resistant to burning (adding Calcium and Yttrium for example): https://www.ait.ac.at/en/research-topics/casting-technologie...

Related:

* Testing of WE43/Elektron 21 vs AZ91, ZE41: https://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/2010Conference/files/Magnesium_U...

* Final FAA evaluation of flammability of various magnesium alloys (for aircraft use): https://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/pdf/ar11-13.pdf

* The Wikipedia is a pretty good overview of a bunch of the material properties: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_alloy

For context btw, ignition temp (in furnace) for magnesium alloys is around 600C, which a house fire can reach: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00109...

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