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Framework Laptop 12 review

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Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#361

Post by badc0ffee »

chrismorgan wrote: post #360
badc0ffee wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your displays are high enough resolution that you may not notice the compromises being made, especially if you don’t get an opportunity to compare it with real fractional rendering, but the compromises are real, and pretty bad at lower resolutions. Pixel-perfect lines are unattainable to you, and that matters a lot in some things. And you might be shocked at how much crisper and better old, subpixel-enabled text re…

Nothing handy, sorry. For comparable results, you’d need to use an old version of Mac OS X. Up to 10.13, I think, if you can ensure subpixel text rendering is active.

Sorry, what I mean is, is there an image or PDF I can bring up that will show me imperfect lines on these displays?

As for rendering of text, there is definitely antialiasing in play. Subpixel rendering is no longer used, but I don't think you need it at these resolutions anyway. I'm not even sure what the subpixel arrangement is of my display (is it neat columns of R -> G -> B, or larger R and B with smaller but more numerous G? At 250-some PPI, the pixels are too small to notice or care!). But, I agree that if I was using my old 1920x1200 monitor I would miss it.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#362

Post by leptons »

criddell wrote: post #355
leptons wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Apple's quest for thinness and quiet they have made lots of undercooled devices that overheat and thermal-throttle and just plain die. That Dell replaced a MBP which replaced another MBP that had to have the motherboard replace 8 times before Apple forced us to sue them in a class action (and we won). If only they had just cooled the thing properly. >there's a big market for small, efficient, silent laptops with g…

Assuming everything you say is correct, there are a lot of people with more money than sense. Why is Apple the only company to chase that market? Apple’s margins are the envy of the industry. Their stores have revenue per square foot numbers that few other retailers can match. Why isn’t there a Dell store across the street from every Apple store? Why doesn’t HP have a machine that goes toe-to-toe with every SKU that…

Nobody wants to run Windows on ARM. The software base just isn't there. Framework could make a fanless ARM-based laptop, but few people want those.

We were stuck with a perfectly good x86 MBP that Apple no longer supports, and we had the choice of buying an M-series Apple or buying the Dell. We went for the far cheaper and more powerful option, with a far larger softtware base. Most people do the same.

Apple stores are a place for fanboys to spend money, the stores are part of the corporate luxury persona. Dell and other PC manufacturers don't need retail stores in the age of the internet. And again, Apple is a luxury brand charging luxury prices, it's no wonder fanboys spend a lot of money at their stores, their identity and self-worth depend on it.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#363

Post by bestham »

einsteinx2 wrote: post #354
kelnos wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because the old machine is still useful intact I do wonder how many people repurpose old laptops when they get a new one. I have three old laptops, two of which I haven't turned on since I transferred my stuff to the next one. My partner uses the third one to game sometimes, but she's recently gotten a new laptop of her own (her old one is ancient ), so I expect she'll stop using that one as well. My current laptop…

Maybe I’m reading into this too much, but just the fact you even had to make repairs (plural) in a 3 year old laptop doesn’t speak highly of Framework’s quality. I’d expect to make exactly zero repairs in 3 years of owning any decently built computer.

Perhaps they dropped their laptop from great height? Something would render a conventional MacBook a write off. You cannot know that led to the repairs. Only that they were successful.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#364

Post by criddell »

leptons wrote: post #362
criddell wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming everything you say is correct, there are a lot of people with more money than sense. Why is Apple the only company to chase that market? Apple’s margins are the envy of the industry. Their stores have revenue per square foot numbers that few other retailers can match. Why isn’t there a Dell store across the street from every Apple store? Why doesn’t HP have a machine that goes toe-to-toe with every SKU that…

Nobody wants to run Windows on ARM. The software base just isn't there. Framework could make a fanless ARM-based laptop, but few people want those. We were stuck with a perfectly good x86 MBP that Apple no longer supports, and we had the choice of buying an M-series Apple or buying the Dell. We went for the far cheaper and more powerful option, with a far larger softtware base. Most people do the same. Apple stores a…

No, nobody wants Windows on ARM. At least not until Microsoft gets something like Rosetta up and running.

This whole thread has been about wanting an x86 version of the M1. Intel and AMD have made some great CPUs that should be capable or running fanless and be competitive with five year old Apple computers, right? Since they are older CPUs now, they should be very inexpensive as well.

I don't own an macOS device, but anytime a family member asks me what to get, I tell them to get a Mac because they can go to the mall and either take a class or schedule an appointment for one-on-one help. That's the real value of the Apple store.

I have a hard time taking the luxury brand charge against Apple seriously. The Apple Store is a luxury store in the same way that Applebees is a luxury restaurant compared to Burger King. Nothing they sell is hard to get, nothing is significantly more expensive than what the competition sells (especially if you value in in-store support and resale value), and everything they sell is extraordinarily common, at least in the US. Nobody sees an iPhone or MacBook Air and thinks "oooh! fancy!".

The exception is probably AR device, which is kind of ridiculous.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#365

Post by Lammy »

michaelt wrote: post #212
Lammy wrote: post #37

I really love the lavender — VAIO-core! I do wish I could get the other modules in lavender too, but I understand why they wouldn't want to fractally-complicate their stock keeping for those items. > the Laptop 12 can only fit a single DDR5 RAM slot, which reduces memory bandwidth and limits your RAM capacity to 48GB According to this post from a Framework team member, a single 64GB SODIMM will work too and just didn…

> I already do “light gaming” [...] Team Fortress 2 The system requirements for TF2 are 1GB RAM, a single-core 1.7GHz CPU and a graphics card with 64 MB of VRAM [1] - the game is 18 years old. If a review told me a laptop exceeded those specs, it wouldn't tell me much :) [1] https://www.5kgamer.com/game/team-fortress-2

The wiki has updated requirements: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Team_Fortress_2#Sys...

Even these feel a little suspect (minimum Intel HD Graphics 3000? no way) since I had to do some tweaking to avoid my framerate tanking on Intel 7th Gen iGPU when playing the PvE mode (Mann vs Machine, waves of robots on the other team far larger than any PvP match would ever be), and/or when other players use cosmetics or weapons with flashy particle effects:

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Team_Fortress_2/Par...

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Team_Fortress_2/Par...

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#366

Post by libraryatnight »

moffkalast wrote: post #115
libraryatnight wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using my framework 13 for a while now and it's been a great laptop - part of what pushed me over was their mission of making devices lives longer, my hope is and was that maybe the vote of confidence they survive long enough to build up to a model the Apple fans here would want or at least not complain about.

How has the build quality stood up so far? My concern with these has always been that laptops do generally get banged up a bit when travelling around, and if half of it is snap fit and designed to detach instead of being all glued together like typically, then it has a higher likelihood of falling apart when you really don't want it to. Might still be worth it if they keep producing spare parts for a decade or more,…

It's been good. I'm not the most abusive laptop owner, I don't travel a ton, but I dropped it off a barstool onto hard tile and it survived. My nephews ran around with it arguing and fighting for longer than most electronics survive before I noticed my laptop was the carrot on the stick causing the trouble, they didn't manage to snap the screen backward or crack anything. As far as just chucking it in a bag or in the passenger seat of my car and going about my day, it's been excellent.

I kind of have this desire to replace some pieces on it just to do it because that's the thing, but I haven't had a genuine upgrade need yet. They did do an upgraded model recently and I was excited to see if I wanted to I could just buy the new guts and go. Hopefully that's still the case the next upgrade cycle when I'll likely bite :D

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#367

Post by libraryatnight »

MostlyStable wrote: post #105
libraryatnight wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using my framework 13 for a while now and it's been a great laptop - part of what pushed me over was their mission of making devices lives longer, my hope is and was that maybe the vote of confidence they survive long enough to build up to a model the Apple fans here would want or at least not complain about.

I'm not sure that will ever happen. I own a Framework 16 (and am pretty happy with it), because I value repairability a lot . But the level of repairability and modularity that Framework is targeting comes with tradeoffs. This is simply the reality. Size, build quality/sturdiness, thermals, and more are going to take a hit when you have the extreme level of repairability and modularity. Framework laptops are probably…

Yeah that's all true, I certainly don't need them to ever get to that point, but if they do it'll be because people bought into the mission first. Be the change and all that.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#368

Post by browningstreet »

mananaysiempre wrote: post #5
browningstreet wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

..as much as the CTRL key being moved to the wrong place. (Yes, I could map this elsewhere, but I use too many different machines.)

Define "wrong"? Ctrl-Fn-Super-Alt has been used for ages by everyone except IBM/Lenovo and Apple[1], and (for what it's worth) Fn left of Ctrl is explicitly not recommended by ISO[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fn_key#Fn_and_Control_key_plac... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995#Function_keys

When I started in computers, the CTRL key is where CAPS sits nowadays. At some point it moved.

To me, it makes no sense to me to make less-reachable the key that gets used the most. To reach the current CTRL key, I have to bend and twist my hand so that the pinky finger can reach the CTRL key. I never use the CAPS LOCK key, which is sitting under and adjacent to where the pinky rests.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#369

Post by Tijdreiziger »

wpm wrote: post #316
Tijdreiziger wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that the swappable modules would also make it easy for someone to install e.g. a keylogger, though.

If they are close enough to do that without me noticing I already have a ton of problems to fix instead of worrying about my Framework's module security.

You could simply be in a coffee shop or library.

Re: Framework Laptop 12 review

#370

Post by mananaysiempre »

browningstreet wrote: post #368
mananaysiempre wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Define "wrong"? Ctrl-Fn-Super-Alt has been used for ages by everyone except IBM/Lenovo and Apple[1], and (for what it's worth) Fn left of Ctrl is explicitly not recommended by ISO[2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fn_key#Fn_and_Control_key_plac... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_9995#Function_keys

When I started in computers, the CTRL key is where CAPS sits nowadays. At some point it moved. To me, it makes no sense to me to make less-reachable the key that gets used the most. To reach the current CTRL key, I have to bend and twist my hand so that the pinky finger can reach the CTRL key. I never use the CAPS LOCK key, which is sitting under and adjacent to where the pinky rests.

Ah. Yes, OK, I sympathize with this sentiment but also feel it’s something of a lost cause for mass-produced keyboards. As far as Ctrl moving from one position to another, from what I can find it’s more that the two options coexisted for while, and eventually the current (and arguably worse) one outcompeted the other.

Specifically:

- The ADM-3A[1] (mid ’70s) had Ctrl above Shift and apparently no Caps Lock.

- The Lisp machines[2,3] (late ’70s to mid ’80s) had Ctrl below Shift and Rub Out above Shift.

- The IBM 3270 series (from the early ’70s onwards) terminals (those that were capable of lower-case input) are pictured in Wikipedia[4] with a Caps Lock above Shift and no Ctrl (which agrees with their input model) but I get the impression that IBM produced a bajillion keyboard variations for these.

- The Model F variants for the XT and the AT (first half of the ’80s) has Ctrl above left Shift, Alt below it, and Caps Lock below right Shift[5], as well as 5×2 function keys on the left and no separate arrow keys; the later Model M variants (1985 onwards) use the modern layout; yet once again, looking at the separate pages for the Model F and the Model M, I get the impression that IBM simply produced a bajillion different versions of them.

- The ANSI standard to which the appellation of “ANSI layout” refers is ANSI X3.154-1988, so presumably things had settled by then?..

[1] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Adm3aimage.jpg

[2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Space-cadet.jpg

[3] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Symbolics-keyboard.j...

[4] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IBM-3279.jpg

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_keyboard#Keyboard_layou...

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