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The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

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Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#991

Post by mirekrusin »

ericpauley wrote: post #253
mikenew wrote: post #124

Been extremely happy with mine the past couple months. The little modular port attachments seemed like a novelty at first, but now it feels absurd that you'd buy a laptop with a bunch of "hardcoded" ports that you can't ever change. The only real Linux related quirk I've run into so far is that you have to disable panel self refresh (it's on by default and causes stuttering). Other than that tiny thing I pretty much…

Maybe I need some convincing here. How is the "modular port" concept any different than a universal port with dongles (i.e., how Macs have been since 2016). To me the fact that the port attachments are recessed is little more than a gimmick. Especially as all of my devices have transitioned to USB-C anyway, dongles/"modular ports" feel more like a stopgap measure than one requiring a permanent form factor change.

It’s not only ports, you can have ssd there for example.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#992

Post by dionian »

strix_varius wrote: post #323
ericpauley wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I need some convincing here. How is the "modular port" concept any different than a universal port with dongles (i.e., how Macs have been since 2016). To me the fact that the port attachments are recessed is little more than a gimmick. Especially as all of my devices have transitioned to USB-C anyway, dongles/"modular ports" feel more like a stopgap measure than one requiring a permanent form factor change.

I find it hilarious that we spend multiple thousands of dollars on sleek, elegant hardware and then hook up chunky plastic dongles to overcome their bad hardware interfaces. So I love the idea of these ports (agreed, they're basically "recessed dongles"). I couldn't lose them / forget them. They wouldn't take up space in my bag while I'm traveling. I could "set and forget" them to perfectly match whatever desktop / d…

I am glad Apple is pushing for USB-C, otherwise we'd still have so many devices coming out with USB-A

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#993

Post by google234123 »

simondotau wrote: post #668
DiabloD3 wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, that's the issue with my MBPR from 2012: it has a 2560x1600 screen, as in, highly non-standard. It is neither 1920 wide, nor is it 16:9. If I had the option to have purchased it with 1920x1080, I would have.

Far from being highly non-standard, 2560x1600 was the standard resolution of 30 inch monitors from 2004 to at least 2014.

1600p is also becoming more popular with some ultrawide monitors now.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#994

Post by keerthiko »

sagarm wrote: post #987
keerthiko wrote: post #969

I'm just surprised the Framework doesn't provide a customizable graphics card slot. Or offer a dock that can support an external desktop PCI GPU. It's a laptop for enthusiasts offering flexibility and repairability and future-proofing, and I think that overlaps with people who want to swap out GPUs and not rely solely on the CPU-integrated one. Perhaps they are waiting for USB-C pass-through GPU enclosures to become…

A discrete GPU comes with thermal and power requirements that change the form factor for the entire laptop. It doesn't make sense to have the same chassis for the with and without GPU use cases.

That is why I suggested a compatible dock with eGPU capabilities. That they haven't considered any way to support it all (even if it's only in the future) is a bit baffling.

Perhaps they will come out with an eGPU enclosure that can just be plugged into an existing swappable expansion bay, and won't need any special design changes? One can hope.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#995

Post by systemvoltage »

lugu wrote: post #560
amiantos wrote: post #536

This is kind of a weird piece that really doesn't mean anything at all. I understand being in the "honeymoon phase" with a new piece of technology, but I don't feel like Cory is aware that he's doing that here. But there's some signs: He loved Thinkpads originally, but over the course of several years the company and the quality of the product went down the tubes. Now he's got a brand new laptop that he's only had fo…

Why being so negative? He seems to like how easy it is to tear down the machine and how easy it is to install ubuntu. That's it. I don't think this will change in 10 years, and I don't want to wait 10 years to hear about his experience.

Why be so needlessly positive and generate unworthy hype?

We need criticisms that call bullshit on undeserving praise.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#996

Post by magicus »

hobojones wrote: post #936
mikenew wrote: post #124

Been extremely happy with mine the past couple months. The little modular port attachments seemed like a novelty at first, but now it feels absurd that you'd buy a laptop with a bunch of "hardcoded" ports that you can't ever change. The only real Linux related quirk I've run into so far is that you have to disable panel self refresh (it's on by default and causes stuttering). Other than that tiny thing I pretty much…

How does the touchpad perform? I'd love to move away from Apple, but don't want to spend the money on a laptop to be disappointed with that aspect. My experience with non-Apple touchpads has been sub-par so far (looking at you Dell), and it's one of the factors that keeps me ensconced in the Apple ecosystem.

I am also wondering. I have seen lots of reviews on how cool the modularity and repairability is (and I love those things, too!), but not much about the day-to-day usefulness. Is the touchpad responsive? Functioning multitouch? Does the fingerprint sensor actually work?

And of all these, the touchpad is by far the most important, and like you, keeps me to my Macbook.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#997

Post by ajyotirmay »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #700
ericpauley wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I need some convincing here. How is the "modular port" concept any different than a universal port with dongles (i.e., how Macs have been since 2016). To me the fact that the port attachments are recessed is little more than a gimmick. Especially as all of my devices have transitioned to USB-C anyway, dongles/"modular ports" feel more like a stopgap measure than one requiring a permanent form factor change.

What upsets me about the solution is that the whole laptop is limited to 4 ports. They don't even offer the obvious "2 in 1" dongles where one dongle would contain e.g. two USB-A ports. Many other laptops aren't modular - but they offer more than enough ports to make up for it. You need at least 1 USB-C port for charging. If you want to be able to use an external mouse and keyboard without a hub, that's 2 USB-A ports…

> Is supporting at most 64 GB really that much better than a laptop with 64 GB soldered in?

Yes. Normally some people (like me) can't afford to buy the highest spec laptop. Thus, I'll be going with a lower memory and storage version of a machine, and then expect to upgrade the RAM and storage when I've got enough. That's exactly what I did with my current Thinkpad T440. And for a current gen Apple, I can either buy a 8 or 16GB machine, and the price difference is pretty significant for me.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#998

Post by nightowl_games »

kelnos wrote: post #829
nightowl_games wrote: post #670

I can't help but feel as though the people who agree with Apple's (and many copy cats) insistence on USB-C only and refusal to put a single USB A or HDMI port in the computer are simply out of touch. The only people I know who like it always cite the same thing: "docking stations". But if you had a laptop with 1 USB-C you could still use your docking station, but the _vast_ majority of users wouldn't have the struggl…

I guess I just don't use my laptop the way you do. I have 3 USB-C ports (and a micro SD slot), and that's it. Right now I have a power cable plugged into one, and my USB-C Yubikey plugged into another. I'll very occasionally use a USB network interface, but it's USB-C. I've replaced any micro-USB to USB-A cables that I still need with micro-to-C cables (I even have a mini -to-C cable for a serial converter breakout b…

I never said anything about myself owning or using a laptop. I only spoke about the general public's use of laptops. You seem to have completely missed my point.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#999

Post by devmor »

ashtonkem wrote: post #307
devmor wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? This has maintained true for you even during the pandemic? I don't know a single person who uses their laptop in one place. Hell, every one of my co-workers has been at home or in the office with their machine at least a couple times over the past month.

Yes. It has maintained true for me throughout the entire pandemic. Laptop ergonomics are catastrophically bad. Doing any meaningful work on them for any length of time without my keyboard, monitor, and mouse just plain sucks, so I don’t do it. My personal machines (gaming and non) are both desktops. I’ve never wanted to move them, and they cost me a fraction of what an equivalent laptop would have.

I agree about the ergonomics, but most of us I believe have docks at home and work.

Re: The Framework is the most exciting laptop I've used

#1000

Post by mtrower »

Joeri wrote: post #923
mtrower wrote: post #834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What? Windows 10 isn’t particularly slow on my i7-4770K. You’re telling me that the i5-1135G7 (which benchmarks faster) is going to perform worse than my 8 year old CPU in general OS use?

If you’re only used to windows you might not notice how inefficient it is, and you may also be doing the “right” kind of workload for windows. On an i7 6700hq thinkpad I did the experiment and ran both windows and linux for an extended period. In my experience linux was about 30% faster for typical web development tasks (npm install, angular build, …), but performed around the same for web browsing, and was much slow…

Solaris (commercial and open-source derivatives), freebsd, openbsd, at least a dozen linux distros (from debian to things like gentoo, sourcemage, LFS...), MacOS, Windows... a handful of "toy" OSes... I've run a lot of different OSes over the years. I've used heavyweight desktops, lightweight desktops, straight X, straight terminal... across a large variety of hardware from the 90s until maybe 2016 or so. The point being, that I actually do have a lot of experience in a wide variety of environments with a wide range of interactive experiences.

Currently, my primary working environments are some sort of Unix, with CDE, stumpwm, or dwm - pretty ultralight environments by today's standards. I do think these environments can be described as "fast".

As to the actual machine in question (with the i7-4700k), that's my gaming desktop. It's run mostly Windows over the years, with some OS X thrown in there. For the past year or so it's been pretty much just OS X, but I do boot into Windows from time to time for this or that. Neither of these OSes are as fast as the stripped down environments that I prefer, but neither is appreciably faster or slower than the other, either, in my experience (unless something is broken; I could of course tell you horror stories about both platforms). From my perspective, both of them are enormous inefficient monstrosities, but the hardware is also really fast.

> In my experience linux was about 30% faster for typical web development tasks (npm install, angular build, …)

Yeah, these types of things aren't great on Windows. Especially if you run into corner cases, a lot of tools that were written for Unix environments go to dog on Windows. I don't know what most of the individual issues are, and I don't really know that it's even a matter of CPU (vs. operative latency, deadlocks, etc.). But the poster I was responding to seemed to be saying that Windows itself is too much for a modern i5 to handle, and that just isn't my experience.

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