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I'm returning my Framework 16

yorickpeterse.com

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Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#391

Post by pmdr »

This summer I bought and returned a FW 13, the newer AMD variety. Specs and performance were top notch, albeit a bit pricey I'd say (I brought my own 96GB of RAM and 2TB NVMe and the laptop was still 2200 EUR). Tinkered with it for a few days, tried Windows 11. The Mediatek Wifi card was horrible and it took a few hours of driver hunting to finally get it working in a stable fashion.

Reading the FW subreddit, a lot of said 'just drop in an Intel wifi card instead.' Well, yeah, that would surely have worked, but, again, I had already paid a lot for the machine itself. Battery life was subpar for it to be of much use as a laptop, but I didn't really mind. The screen was quite okay.

But what really put me off was how HOT and, consequently, LOUD it would get by merely watching YouTube at 1080p. Hot means really uncomfortable to touch and definitely not something you'd want sitting on your lap. People heard the fan from another room more than 10 meters away. That's when I decided that the little fan inside it would never be enough. With proper cooling, it would've been great as a workstation, though not as laptop meant to be carried.

tl;dr FW has a lot to work on noise, cooling and battery life. I don't suppose there will ever be a huge market willing to overlook these aspects just for the sake of repairability.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#392

Post by pdimitar »

makeitdouble wrote: post #348
pdimitar wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop. With all due respect -- meh. I have a fairly old-ish laptop that I am not bothered to upgrade because a Ryzen 5500U is super capable to this…

> keyboard and a mouse That's the part that's hitting me the most. I have two dongles for the wireless connectivity of both, and the choice is between sticking both in a dock and bring the same huge dock every single place I go, or move them from dock to dock as needed. Having two USB-A would mean I stick them on the machine itself and never think about it anymore. Then if they could completely disappear inside the p…

I understand. I have a mini hub, something like 10x4x1 cm. Works fine for me and it even also has Ethernet.

As mentioned, I'm sure Ftamework has valid usages. To me they command a much higher price premium than I'm comfortable with paying for those valid usages however.

I do love and want a libre booting stack. To me _that_ is the really good stuff. But they need to chill on prices.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#393

Post by YorickPeterse »

a_sulvanite wrote: post #373
YorickPeterse wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The photos are just meant to illustrate the difference to the reader, not to be anything scientific. Of course manual calibration is ideal, but having a somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine.

I am aware that most people don't have any idea of what "display calibration" is actually about (which is primarily about display profiling ), but the observation that the "The colors of the display are overly saturated, with reds in particular looking more intense than they should." seems to be to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening here. The framework 16 has a screen that is more capable of displ…

Thank you for mansplaining what color calibration and accuracy means, but I'm well aware of how it works due to my background in photography and having spent plenty of time calibration displays in the past.

In particular, there's a big difference between "can show more colors" and "shows the same colors but overly saturated".

The Framework 16 suffers from this by default, something that's quite obvious when comparing it by looking at photos for which you know what the actual colors look like, something I did do but didn't cover in the article.

Whether this is because the display operates in a different colorspace by default (e.g AdobeRGB) or not I don't know, but there's at least no option for it anywhere in the BIOS that I could find.

Claiming the Framework is superior over a monitor literally meant for color grading and photography is laughable to be honest, and seems to suggest you interpret display quality as "more intense is better".

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#394

Post by wqaatwt »

goku12 wrote: post #386
Dylan16807 wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time. This dismissal of the feature is bizarrely shortsighted. The main things I keep long term are the drives and power supply, and those can be kept on most laptops too. In the medium term I get a lot of use out of separat…

I think a major clarification is in order here. I'm not talking about just the framework here. If anything, the problems with framework is the direct result of the absolutely stupid industry-wide product design culture and market tastes. You can see all the major open-ish hardware designers grappling with similar issues - pinephone, System76, Librem... I will explain later why it is so. But here is the point - we nee…

> soldered-on RAM modules

That can have significant performance advantages, though. Which might be hard to overcome due to physics

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#395

Post by atoav »

comte7092 wrote: post #8

I appreciate the authors thoughtful review here, but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn. Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only…

As someone who has done more than one hardware project: most people generally have got no idea how pricing comes to be.

Usual points involve:

- not understanding that a manufacturer has to charge more than parts cost ("But the parts only cost X, why does the product costs 3 times X?")

- not understanding economies of scale ("Why does your product [selling a hundred pieces] not cost the same as the product by the market leader [selling hundred-thousand pieces]?")

- not understanding that certain things are genuinly complex and thus expensive ("Why does a mere fusion reactor cost X, when I can get a single bicycle dynamo for 5 bucks?")

- comparing apples and oranges ("Why does product A [rugged, incredibly tight tolerances, extended temperature range, waterproof, 10 years warranty, with support] cost 10 times more than product B [broken when you look at it wrong]")

With framework the scale is smaller than the likes of apple, also framework had signifikant R&D cost to make it repairable. And if a repairable laptop is what you want it is one of the only good choices out there.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#396

Post by mft_ »

comte7092 wrote: post #8

I appreciate the authors thoughtful review here, but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn. Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only…

Thank you for this interesting perspective. I’ve moaned a little on HN previously about the relative value of the FW13 - IIRC it was roughly 60% more than an equivalently (or in some areas, better) specced ASUS.

Taking your position —that repairability is a premium feature to pay extra for— the question then becomes how much more is that feature worth? (After all, we’re well used to making value judgements regarding a better screen, more memory, etc.)

I guess what’s missing for me is a more thorough understanding of why the FW13 is so much more expensive than the competition? I can write off some of the difference down to lower production volumes, and some of it down to the direct costs of repairability (i.e. extra items that need to be made that just wouldn’t exist in a non-repairable laptop). But this feels a long way away from explaining the ~60% I think I’m looking for, when many of the major parts of the laptop (e.g. processor, RAM, SSD, screen, hinges, fans) are (or could be?) available ‘off the shelf’ at a similar cost to any other manufacturer?

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#397

Post by nh2 »

myself248 wrote: post #265
MarsIronPI wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. My idea of a repairable laptop is the Thinkpads up until around 2015. And I absolutely agree that the port modules forces Framework to limit the number of ports to the point that I'd hesitate to purchase one because I'd be swapping ports all the time.

As the owner of a Framework 13, you're exactly right. It only has 4 ports, at least one of which is pretty much always for charging, and let's face it you will always want a USB-A, so that leaves two. If you want to be ready for HDMI output or SD cards, that occupies them both, better hope you didn't want another USB-A or whatever. Oh, and there's a permanent headphone jack, for some reason. Compare to my last Thinkp…

I also find the lack of ports in a Framework frustrating.

My Thinkpad has

    USB-A
    USB-A
    USB-A
    USB-C
    HDMI
    Ethernet
    SD
    Charging
and a Framework has only half of that.

Most of these are used at least once per day.

I'm hoping for third party chassis offerings to solve this.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#398

Post by piskov »

Tade0 wrote: post #299

I don't recommended getting a Framework to anyone who isn't interested specifically in repairability, as it has its quirks and doesn't feel like something which should cost this much. I've broken something in every laptop I've ever owned (+the butterfly keyboard in a company 2019 MBP), so to me it's an important feature. That being said my previous device - a "gaming" laptop - was essentially e-waste two years after…

The thing about macbooks is:

- dead silence

- unbelievably good battery life

- tank sturdiness

- great performance

- amazing screen

- amazing speakers

- god-tier trackpad

- repairability in a sense you’ll always find parts (albeit not cheap) and someone to service it

—

It is basically uncontested in a laptop space.

I would only consider windows / linux on a desktop pc

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#399

Post by ahachete »

ragall wrote: post #354
dachris wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing this on a first-gen 13 DIY, so it's already a bit dated. I've already added additional RAM and swapped in a much bigger SSD (really underestimated how much space you need if you heavily use docker and VMs). The 1st year was a bit bumpy with 4k monitors over a USB-C hub being somewhat flaky. Ever since a clean Ubuntu reinstall, I'm very happy, no complaints whatsoever. Sure, it costs more, but the combo of per…

You do realise you can upgrade RAM and SSDs, as well as replace most components on ThinkPads too, right ?

"Most components" seems a bit of an understatement when compared with the Framework.

Sure, some components can be replaced. And not at the same cost (opening and manipulating the Framework vs the ThinkPad). But not all, like the motherboard.

I may have built multiple dozens of computers in my life, so it's not that I'm new to this world.

Re: I'm returning my Framework 16

#400

Post by Hackbraten »

realusername wrote: post #331
Hackbraten wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and homebrew is in the same category as npm. Homebrew runs against a curated and tested package repository maintained by a dedicated team of vetted maintainers. NPM is free-for-all with zero curation. Anyone can upload whatever they want.

If has maintainers, well it's clear by now from all the security problems which happened in homebrew first that it's nowhere as diligent as apt or rpm. Also next problem with it, I really don't want to build everything from source, otherwise I would use Gentoo and not MacOS...

> it's clear by now from all the security problems which happened in homebrew

What kind of security problems do you mean?

> I really don't want to build everything from source

Why do you think that Homebrew forces you to build anything from source?

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