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

It's hard to justify buying a Framework 12

jeffgeerling.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 695 posts

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

#211

Post by JoeBOFH »

866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #147
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…

M-series MacBooks stink, literally. [1] My newest MacBook reeks of strong adhesive from the vents. Googling revealed hundreds of similar complaints, it's allegedly a solvent they use, perhaps flux. I thought it was the battery. Many claim "they all smell like that". Some (insane) people like the smell, I assume they sniffed glue as kids. Unfortunately it's the last one I buy. I won't tolerate a smelly laptop. [1] htt…

Reminds me of when Dell laptops started smelling like cat urine. Dell denied it for a long time then admitted it was an issue with the manufacturing process. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24741832

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

#212

Post by jerlam »

registeredcorn wrote: post #206
deng wrote: post #82

Well, if Apple killed it, Lenovo killed it even more. I recently was looking for a laptop for a student. The Lenovo E14 Gen7 is 800 Euros here in Germany (where prices are always higher, the MacBook Neo is 700 Euros), it has 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, a 2.8k IPS display, a Intel Ultra5 12core CPU, and it has a repairability score of 9/10 from ifixit. Framework doesn't even come close to that package.

> and it has a repairability score of 9/10 from ifixit Do you mean a 6/10? The only score I saw for the neo on iFixIt is here: https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r... I checked the "Laptop repairability scores" page and the Neo doesn't appear to be listed. https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc...

They mean the Lenovo laptop has a 9/10 repairability, not the Apple Neo.

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

#213

Post by cardanome »

benoau wrote: post #101

As nice as Apple's hardware is it's all undermined by who they are as a company, intentionally limiting their devices more and more while they relentlessly argue in courts and to regulators that we owe them more and more for using our devices. Rosetta 2's retirement announcement was when I realized I won't buy another Mac, I'm not interested in a computer that is preoccupied with stopping me from running software. Wo…

That is all true but even as a hardcore Linux and Thinkpad user, I have to admit it is a hard sell when no one can offer the quality of Apple.

Apple is the only hardware company where you can buy a product and it is good hardware wise. Sure other companies have flagship offerings but with apple you get a really good base model.

And that is where it breaks down for me. Pay 20% more for freedom? Yes, absolutely. But pay more for much worse? Yeah, not many people are going to be so idealistic.

I don't know why no one else can produce a laptop with decent battery life with an near silent fan and good display and overall great production quality. Yes, it is much easier when you are as big as apple and can rely on economics of scale but that doesn't totally explain the lack of quality when it comes to the competition.

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

#214

Post by cromka »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #48
cromka wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never run out of memory on macoOS on my M1 Air 16GB. Now that I use Asahi on it, I had plenty of OoM crashes. macOS is really good at memory management, including the compression and offloading to the fast SSD.

You have a buggy program. Zswap has been available for quite a while.

>You have a buggy program.

As in memory leak? No.

> Zswap has been available for quite a while.

Zsawp is not Zram, which is a distant relative of the macOS on-the-fly compression I was talking about. Zram is buggy and still advised against regular use (https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1i3mdrw/comment..., https://chrisdown.name/2026/03/24/zswap-vs-zram-when-to-use-...). Zsawp itself is enabled by default in Asahi.

Zram and Zsawp are mutually exclusive on Linux. On macOS, both concepts coexist – except macOS is able to compress individual memory pages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300432) on the fly. Zram is a compressed RAM block device with a hard capacity limit.

There is really no comparison here at this point. macOS is vastly superior in that regard.

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

#215

Post by delecti »

866-RON-0-FEZ wrote: post #188
Rebelgecko wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

First I heard of this. Apparently it's a meme and Zoomers are huffing their Steam Deck exhaust. Hmm. From the descriptions I've read the smell is similar or identical. Maybe they use the same magic ooze.

Not just Zoomers. I'm nearly 40 and also thought it smelled weirdly good. Though there's a difference between the original LCD and OLED models, with the latter's smell being much weaker and more like generic plastic off-gassing.

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

#216

Post by hmstx »

deng wrote: post #82

Well, if Apple killed it, Lenovo killed it even more. I recently was looking for a laptop for a student. The Lenovo E14 Gen7 is 800 Euros here in Germany (where prices are always higher, the MacBook Neo is 700 Euros), it has 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, a 2.8k IPS display, a Intel Ultra5 12core CPU, and it has a repairability score of 9/10 from ifixit. Framework doesn't even come close to that package.

Dammit. I got an IdeaPad of similar price in december 2024. It didn't have one of the fancier displays from the era but still a decent option, it has 16Gb and I thought I'd try a Ryzen mobile thing that time. Wish I'd gone for the Thinkpad E series had I known about it then : that lower-end IdeaPad feels like trash.

SSD IO is sluggish, fans always spin when plugged in, audio crackles if I so much as scroll a page while a youtube video is playing, the keyboard might be the worst I've touched in many, many years, the 3.5mm audio jack wore out into intermittent connectivity within a couple of months. At least the display still looks good. Went through the windows optimization motions with it too. My x230 with an i5 still has lower and more stable DPC latency and has remained my DJ laptop.

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

#217

Post by carlosjobim »

I hate this talk of "justify". Does everybody think they've become an accountant now? Buy your nephew both computers. Or buy the one he prefers. Or buy the one you prefer.

People are allowed to own several computers. They are allowed to own several phones. They are allowed to install several web browsers and several text editors.

Why are hackers agonizing so much about small and meaningless decisions, which they don't even have to take? You don't have to pick one or the other.

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

#219

Post by ryukoposting »

robspairpears wrote: post #87

Bought the Framework 12 as my personal daily driver (limited hobby projects, Obsidian, light browsing) and for the hardware to grow with my use cases. So even if I could get more bang for my buck with a Neo (yeah, I could), the tinkerability and repairability win over raw specs for what I actually use it for. Did I pay more for a less polished, less powerful machine? Yep. Is it enjoyable to use and fully capable of m…

I've never bought a new laptop in my life, and I have a Framework 13 Pro on preorder because it's the only new laptop I will ever need to buy.

When I did my research, I found that Framework costs more than the competition across the entire stack, but it's by a fixed amount, $150 give or take. That's maybe a 7% premium for a high-end laptop, but a 30% premium at the low end. Obviously the price gap vs a Neo is even wider.

The question is whether that price gap arises from a fixed cost inherent to better product design, or if it's just the cost of Framework's smaller scale. I tend to think it's the latter.

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

#220

Post by LarsDu88 »

curt15 wrote: post #102
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…

> There are also latency and bandwidth benefits how they setup their RAM just from pure physics What sort of physics? Dedicated GPUs achieve massive memory bandwidth without needing to put all of their memory on-die.

Simply physically moving the RAM closer to compute can make communication faster.

Ideally, RAM and compute should be combined. That's kind of what our brains do. We'll probably need more mature memristor technology to achieve that one day.

Post reply on HN