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Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

frame.work

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Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#61
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro. It perfs incredibly well in a bunch of areas it was expected to. Con. It can't even run code from a whole segment of apps because of archi it's built on. Result - Perf was nothing out of line with expected results from what you'd expect the market to come up with for the next range of products. It's really nothing special from the user end of things.

The MacBook Pro 2021 M1? It is totally something special: 1) The hardware is first class. Everything is back where it should be and improved. You can't get hardware like this anywhere else. 2) It is extremely fast. Nothing ever slows down. I can't figure out anything to throw at this thing that will turn on the fan even. 3) It just works. No drama. This is very valuable if your real value is writing code and not doin…

Seriously. No other laptop on the market can do all of:

- have an insanely long battery life

- stay completely silent

- have excellent performance

The other laptops which can theoretically beat the MBP at some tasks utterly fail at being silent or having long battery life under load.

And the other silent laptops (chromebook maybe) can’t manage heavy workloads.

So it is very unique in the laptop space.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#62
post #39
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting that the mbp garnered so much attention from tech folk. Perf AVG, build eh. Ethos...terrible. yet still. Gets people in the door to buy it. Humans are wack.

> Perf AVG, build eh What kind of MBP have you looked at? I agree with the ethos part, but the current M1 devices are pretty unique in the laptop space.

The performance is fantastic for a Macbook. The past 10 years was like watching Apple trapped in the laptop stone age, slowly realizing that replacing the ACPI tables on a laptop chip wasn't enough to change it's performance profile. With M1, they finally got to do what they wanted, albeit at the expense of x86. For the majority of Mac users that won't matter though, since Apple was never a particularly great steward of the x86 arch in the first place (like when they dropped x86 32-bit support because it was "too slow", or whatever).

Relative to the rest of the laptop space though? I think I'd simply call the M1 "competitive". It's not the first laptop we've seen with a powerful iGPU (AMD's Vega graphics were first to the party in that regard), and it's CPU performance is good but not great (it's effectively a quad-core system no matter how you end up using it). On the higher-end, it's almost a little embarrassing how hard Intel about-faced with Alder Lake and took Apple to the cleaners with a more bloated ISA, decidedly worse silicon and a complete lack of experience designing heterogeneous systems.

So far, the only unique thing I've seen from the M1 is the battery life. I anticipate other manufacturers will catch up on that front as we transition to big.LITTLE and more dense silicon packages, so I'm not really that worried for the rest of the industry. I'm glad Apple has made a laptop that their fans can enjoy, but x86/32-bit support is non-negotiable for my workload, and they have yet to prove themselves with higher-end hardware. Time will tell, but I'm just happy that the performance wars aren't as much of a blowout anymore.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#63
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro. It perfs incredibly well in a bunch of areas it was expected to. Con. It can't even run code from a whole segment of apps because of archi it's built on. Result - Perf was nothing out of line with expected results from what you'd expect the market to come up with for the next range of products. It's really nothing special from the user end of things.

The MacBook Pro 2021 M1? It is totally something special: 1) The hardware is first class. Everything is back where it should be and improved. You can't get hardware like this anywhere else. 2) It is extremely fast. Nothing ever slows down. I can't figure out anything to throw at this thing that will turn on the fan even. 3) It just works. No drama. This is very valuable if your real value is writing code and not doin…

While I think the Apple Silicon macs are generally high end, the most fantastic thing to me is the battery life.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#64
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also do have the battery drain issue running 21.10. I'm generally otherwise super happy with it though. The speakers don't bother me much, they're good enough for calls, and if I'm actually trying to listen to music I'll just use actual bluetooth speakers or headphones. I'm most happy about the fact that they put an actually decent screen and key switches. Many other laptops that run Linux have shitty 1080p screens…

Some big points there, I can't even get the 64gb Macbook because they decided not to bring more than 32 into my country. So being able to get whatever I want from amazon at market rates is amazing (and probably the biggest feature of this laptop) There is an issue with ram timings not being supported that affects the more flashy ram chips. I was lucky enough that it didn't affect the 32gb module I bought but it could…

Yeah personally I've settled with 100% with larger fonts. I probably spend 90% of my time in web browser + coding + terminal combined and they all handle arbitrary fractional scaling well from within the app.

And then maybe 5% of the time in graphics editing for which it doesn't matter.

For other locally run apps, scaling at 125% or 150% would be perfect but I think it's just a matter of time before Linux supports it properly without eating CPU.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#65
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pro. It perfs incredibly well in a bunch of areas it was expected to. Con. It can't even run code from a whole segment of apps because of archi it's built on. Result - Perf was nothing out of line with expected results from what you'd expect the market to come up with for the next range of products. It's really nothing special from the user end of things.

The MacBook Pro 2021 M1? It is totally something special: 1) The hardware is first class. Everything is back where it should be and improved. You can't get hardware like this anywhere else. 2) It is extremely fast. Nothing ever slows down. I can't figure out anything to throw at this thing that will turn on the fan even. 3) It just works. No drama. This is very valuable if your real value is writing code and not doin…

I'm currently using Linux (Ubuntu 21.10 on a 2015 Core i3), Windows (on a 10th gen core i7 laptop with lots of RAM but an iGPU), and macOS on an M1 Mac Mini, macOS definitely feels the slowest.

I suspect if my Windows laptop was closer to the other devices it would be slower, but Linux just feels so much faster than macOS in actual tasks. The interactions are so much "snappier", whereas with macOS most interactions feel like a chore (I think it's the animations).

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#66
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perf AVG, build eh What kind of MBP have you looked at? I agree with the ethos part, but the current M1 devices are pretty unique in the laptop space.

What is eh about the build? It’s my first Apple device after a series of high end Windows laptops and I can’t find anything on the build that is not solid in comparison. The only complaint I have is that sometimes the keys leave an imprint on the screen but that could just be my bag being too tight. I would definitely have this problem with a Thinkpad or high end HP anyway. Speakers are the best I’ve heard and the ch…

Your view on what is a good build is different to mine (which it should be!). I as part of my job sometimes fix laptops. Used to do it alot more and see alot more models but less these days. https://www.ifixit.com/News/54122/macbook-pro-2021-teardown There. have a read. Whilst some folks might marvel at that and think its a work of engineering glory.

To me it just looks like the IT equivalent of a john deere tractor. It'll get the job done, bit fancy, but their going to bleed every dollar out of you to do it...and your stuffed if it breaks and you want to fix it. Also after you've been in their loop for a decade....fat luck breaking out of that companies buying cycle easily. Which results in me thinking....eh avg build. avg device. Its definitely nothing special that's just marketing hype.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#67

Interesting that the only two new laptops that have tempted me in years (the Framework and the new MBP) both arrived at roughly the same time yet with wildly different design philosophies.

Same! I bought both and love them for very different reasons.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#68
post #5
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel only at the moment is correct but Windows only? TFA says "no OS" as an option, so you're free to install what you like.

It's possible to install Linux, but it requires a bunch of fiddling. And even then power management tends to not work great. I'd love if Linux has as officially supported and just worked.

I bought a DIY Framework and installed Pop_OS, everything was working well after 5 minutes of "fiddling".

So if that's a reason for you to not buy a computer, I'd suggest that Linux may not be for you.

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#69

You wanna bring it to more of the world? Try adding crypto as payment method. I know you have a political stand against using crypto (the "crypto is bad for environment" FUD spread by traditional financial players), I hope you'll get your heads out of you know where and do this to actually bring framework to the unbanked masses.

I'm sure the coal plants that were shutting down until crypto miners bought them is just pure FUD.

And I guess Satoshi's paper on Bitcoin, which shows that Bitcoin is fundamentally run by whoever has the most CPU power, which has naturally triggered a CPU power arms race which has led to a corresponding increase in power consumption is also FUD.

(Once/if alternatives like Ethereum's Proof of Stake are the dominant force in crypto then yes, power consumption will not be a problem, but it is a very real problem now, and if it had simply been dismissed as FUD then solutions like Proof of Stake would never have been created).

Re: Bringing the Framework Laptop to more of the world

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a Linux configuration https://frame.work/blog/linux-on-the-framework-laptop

Sure, but when you look at the ordering page, it doesn't mention linux as an OS option, just Windows or no OS

It takes 10 minutes to install Linux from a boot drive and have everything setup as you need. Bizarre to me that those 10 minutes would determine whether or not you spend the next x years with a computer.
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