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I'm returning my Framework 16

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Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#271

Post by heavyset_go »

cromka wrote: post #148
ndiddy wrote: post #4

I dual boot Asahi and Mac OS X on my Macbook Air, and haven't had any problems with suspend. IMO the two biggest problems are lack of USB-C display output (although this is less of a problem with the Macbook Pro since you can use HDMI) and having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop). It seems like he's looking for a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't…

> having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop) How so? Is this because some proprietary software that isn't available on ARM on Linux?

Most server and embedded oriented software has been compiled for ARM 7 & 8 for a while now, but in my experience, software you'd use on a desktop might not have ARM builds unless it's popular with RPi or handheld gaming enthusiasts.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#272

Post by Aurornis »

makeitdouble wrote: post #253
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody. Reliable machines rarely need repairs outside of owner mistreatment, and most people I know who are technically capable enough to care about upgrading generally do it maybe once every 4-6 years, by which point hardware has usually advanced far enough that buying a new laptop is easy t…

> hardware has usually advanced far enough That's not what we're experiencing. Screens have seen improvements, but not in a significant way within these 4-6 years. Keyboards haven't improved leaps and bounds. Track pads either. Laptop casings haven't seen innovation either. The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me. > port modu…

I have a 6 year old high end laptop that I keep as a backup and I disagree about no progress being made on screens. The current screens are very good, especially in high brightness environments.

> The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.

Laptop motherboards aren’t like desktop motherboards where you can define a big outline and fit standard parts within it. The laptop design leverages tight co-design with the enclosure for thermal performance. If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for. However the optimal solution will always be to co-design the chassis, thermal solution, and motherboard together.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#273

Post by trinsic2 »

cycomanic wrote: post #242
trinsic2 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability. If you are doing this I think you are missing the point. This isn't a apples to apples comparison. I also feel the frustration of the parent, and I also see that many people don't want to pay or consider the ramifications of where we we are at right now in this given time. Most devices a…

> IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability. But is it really more sustainable to have a poor quality but easily repairable/swappable laptop where you had to exchange multiple parts over e.g. 10 years, compared to a high quality laptop that lasted the full 10 years and didn't need any repairs? And that is not unusual, my 10 year…

I don't know if I consider Framework laptops poor quality. I wonder if you are considering the impact to the planet though. We have tons of waste everyday from devices that are not built with sustainability in mind. Yes Framework has a ways to go with that, but its the only company that I know thats really doing something about it. We have all these devices that if they are not built around sustainability in contributes to a worse climate and I worry what kind of world we are leaving behind for our children.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#274

Post by Aurornis »

heavyset_go wrote: post #269
Aurornis wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they're only barely portable, Maybe for a very small person or someone who strictly travels light? But I’ve never had any problem with 15” or 16” laptops even while traveling internationally. > and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop This isn’t really true any more unless your desktop is a gaming monster or full of multiple drives or something. I can have a 128GB RAM laptop with ult…

You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads. Laptops are thermally inefficient and require throttling even with active cooling, meaning mobile chipsets are programmed to emit less heat over time. You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops. Then there's the fact that mobile…

> You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.

So? I can’t carry a full desktop or even Mini ITX build around just in case I need to run a very long sustained load at absolute peak performance.

My 16” MacBook Pro has no problem consuming 80W or more at a time. The fans spin up, but it’s fine. It’s basically near desktop level performance for everything I’m actually doing on the go.

I think people talking about the sacrifices of laptops are either comparing to extreme high end builds or they’re stuck thinking about laptops from 6 years ago.

A 16” MacBook Pro is basically a high end Mac Mini or a base Mac Studio with a battery and screen built in. They only really start to diverge from the bigger machines when you get into the really expensive Mac Studio builds.

> You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.

If you’re looking for sustained high performance computing then a laptop is a bad choice, I agree. But what are we even talking about here? Even for compiling large codebases or exporting a YouTube length video project, you don’t need the full thermal solution of a desktop anymore.

Throttling also isn’t a hard stop where the system comes to a halt any more. It just means the system is 60-80% as fast as it could be, which is still very fast. Throttling has become a bogeyman but really, it’s fine. I’ll take the boost for compiling that big project for several minutes. It’s great.

I’m guessing some of these comments are coming from people who haven’t experienced modern MacBook Pro level laptops?

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#275

Post by trinsic2 »

Philadelphia wrote: post #216
trinsic2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer. I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.

We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just to…

I guess its a byproduct of a faster moving curve with improved technology. 20 years ago you didn't need to replace the entire platform for at least 10 years.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#276

Post by paulddraper »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #247
paulddraper wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an insane take. The number of MacBooks I’ve seen shipped back to repair center for weeks, over a single non functional key, is astonishing.

But how common of a problem is this, now that Apple is well clear of the butterfly keyboard mess? I haven’t had to get my MacBooks repaired even once in the past decade and change, and that’s despite two of the machines I’d used during that time being the butterfly/touch bar models! That being said, yes it’d be better if such a repair were quick and easy, but I’m not sure that it’s so valuable as to justify battery l…

You are correct that example has been made very much better.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#277

Post by WackyFighter »

Philadelphia wrote: post #216
trinsic2 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer. I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.

We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just to…

Maybe in the late 90s and early 2000s. These days hardware from over a decade ago works fine. I am typing this comment on a 2011 Dell E6410. Install Debian / Arch Linux and the machine is surprisingly capable. Just running HTOP I am using 2.5G of ram (out of 8GB) and the CPU is at 2%.

TBH, I have a Ryzen 5950X based tower and while it is faster than my previous desktop which was a i7 4970K (or whatever it is), the previous machine would be fine tbh. I am not even sure why I upgraded tbh.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#278

Post by giantrobot »

contingencies wrote: post #93
kec wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or you could just buy a MacBook Air for like $900 (or one of the windows snapdragon machines, but it you care about avoiding Intel I’m assuming you want Linux and doubt the support is as good as asahi on Macs)

Macbook air = small keyboard, small screen, limited battery, all parts expensive to service, etc. Try hacking a Mac Mini instead: https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini

The MacBook Air has a standard size keyboard.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#279

Post by fphhotchips »

zamadatix wrote: post #232
kelnos wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. [..,] Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well. The Framework's screen is officially upgradeable, though, and I see that as a strength: while you or I might not blink at doing an unofficial screen replacement for some other laptop, I'm sure most people would b…

"Most people" don't upgrade individual components of their desktop or spend thousands on their computer either, especially beyond the storage and RAM, so I'm not sure who the average person it's supposed to comfort that it's official vs not to do things as small as upgrade the screen out of cycle from upgrading the rest of the machine. Framework is, unfortunately, positioned in every way for exactly the type of perso…

This is the first time I've ever even heard of unofficial screen upgrades even being _possible_, and I'm at least two standard deviations from the mean on the "likes to tinker" scale.

I can't even begin to think about how a laptop screen upgrade would go. Who's manufacturing them? How do I get just one? How do I make sure I don't spend a month waiting for shipping and get a fake? How do I make sure the housing is going to fit right? How do I make sure the pin outs match?

... and etc etc. An official upgrade pathway eliminates all of that. Sure, it's not bringing you back to "average person", but Framework have been super clear that's not who they're after. They want people in my bracket. To be honest, as a cohort, we've proven we're willing to (over)pay for this kind of thing, too. It's why the PC Market still exists despite graphics cards being overpriced by about double.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#280

Post by Levitating »

idle_zealot wrote: post #191
Levitating wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it. Framework offers repairable laptops at a fixed price. To some the repairability adds enough value to warrant the higher prices, to some it doesn't. (As well as customizability and mainline Linux kernel support). I've found that if you're in the habit of repairing laptops, Frameworks may come cheap to you as you might have spare storage a…

> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it. What is the implication of this? You're not allowed to criticize a product unless you're being forced to buy it? What is the list of companies you're allowed to levy any critiques of, then? Your electricity provider? You could always move, right? Is this the mentality that leads people to only ever criticize government power and let al…

I sometimes feel like people criticize products as if they were offered to them personally. The pricing of a product may be absurd to them but if it were absurd to everyone there wouldn't be a market for it.

You can objectively compare the features between two products and criticize them that way. But to criticize the price you need to attach a monetary value to those features. With a framework one of those features is repairability, which to some is worth nothing, and to others it's worth a whole lot.

So is the frameworks pricing absurd? That depends on the person buying.

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