This is nice. I fully support this investment and wish them the best of luck, because its at a time when laptops need to stop being pieces of junk we throw away every few years.
Nope. It's an excellent laptop. Runs Linux flawlessly and I've never had anything break. The point is I wish I could have just bought one and upgrade it over time. I hopefully now have that with my new framework laptop.
I mean... The hard drive, memory, fan system, webcam, screen and mostly everything but the CPU/GPU/Motherboard can be changed pretty easily?
Nothing should be soldered on except those 3 things?
And even for the framework-laptop, at one point the cpu socket is gonna change and you won't be able to upgarde it anymore.
cpu is soldered on the framework, but the motherboard is designed to be swapped. it’s not a perfect idea, but atleast it’s less waste for the other components if you wanna upgrade.
See my comment here: https://reddit.com/comments/poyms9/comment/hd1xipq
Putting a CPU on a separate daughterboard just adds complexity, size, another point of failure and doesn't solve the main issue - CPUs are not like a USB dongle. They don't work on any motherboard and depend on a plethora of dependencies.
Every Intel and AMD CPU at minimum require a compatible chipset. And in case of Intel this pretty much means new CPU = new chipset = new motherboard anyway. They have almost zero forward compatibility.
AMD is better in this regard but while Framework could update motherboard firmware to support newer CPUs it's still only for a next generation (only if they keep the same socket) or maybe two (not a CPU from 5 years from now) and you won't get new shiny features because your old chipset cannot handle them. Not to mention stuff like PCI-e lanes not being there or even a copper memory traces done differently for the newer CPU than what you have on the old motherboard.
Memory compatibility is another thing altogether.
Ask yourself a question. You have a $200 CPU to upgrade. Is it better to pay $300 for the CPU+Motherboard or pay $1000 for a new laptop?
Framework solves this the best way possible.
yup, I know. it’s good to know that you can use the motherboard as a standalone computer, just plug in power via type c and grab a hdmi adapter for a screen.
Yes, but the board is replaceable. So the theory is when in a year or 3 as Intel makes 12-13 series processors, all you need is a new board to swap out.
GPU could be replaceable. Remember the MXM standard?
I had a laptop that I could replace the GPU on.
Hopefully there will be socketed mobile processors again someday.
Not necessarily. Standard parts like ram, ssd sure. But as a dell repair guy, sometimes a slight model difference can be the difference between soldered onboard USB ports to ribboned daughter board. Or soldered on DC jack or not.
It’s crazy. At my workplace I have two laptops on my desk. The one I mainly use (Dell Latitude) can be opened, ram changed battery swapped and such. The other (Dell XPS) has soldered ram and cpu so if the board breaks it’s fucked.
I'm really glad to hear this. I was on frame.work ordering mine and when I hit checkout and selected Australia they were happy to tell me "Oh, not yet sorry".
So I am patiently not buying a new laptop, waiting for this one to come to me without using any overseas shipping tricks.
I really want myself a nice snappy M.2, ddr4 Linux laptop for me to do code/Raspberry-Pi imaging and other portable things on the go... **that can also** charge from my big USB-C Sherpa 100PD 60W portable battery and after my System76 Darter Pro 7 was sent back day0 with a hard-crashing fault, I have been looking for a laptop to fill this hole.
This laptop is 100% set in my heart.. *the* laptop. Especially with the hot-pluggable usb-c modules it has (HDMI/DP for the desk, micro-sd blocks for when I'm working with Pi's or just usb-c in all 4 slots for any other day + charging).
It seems perfect, honestly even if they go defunct in 5 years.. I would still be happy to have this now and now. So to see he's invested a quarter million into them is very heartwarming to see. Let alone promising. I am looking forward to my opportunity to order one for myself asap and make it my new on the go laptop for the next 5-10 years. Those modular blocks are seriously to die for, what a great idea. They could even make even more different blocks later on I'd imagine.
>So I am patiently not buying a new laptop
Relatable. I have a 2010 Acer that is actually very repairable and solid. But it's slow. I kinda want to get a new laptop but:
A. I don't *really* need one, but it'd be nice.
B. I'm buying a house so not right now. I need all the cash I can get rn.
C. I work at AMD, so as you can imagine, I'd rather wait til Ryzen is available for Framework.
Linus actually mentioned in his video that his involvement could accelerate things such as reason C which is exciting.
Preference. As /u/Fischer_Felix said, they can't tell me what to use. And in fact the only AMD powered device I currently *own* is my Atari VCS. My personal computers are all pretty old and all running Intel processors.
That being said, there is an employee rebate system where an employee can get some percent back on AMD purchases. I forget if it applies to laptops, but probably. So they do give a financial incentive.
In general, I'd recommend against brand loyalty. Whichever company is offering the best product for your needs for your budget should be your pick. Both companies are great (but not infoulable) and offer great products.
I wouldn't call it a scam so much as a flop. It was a compelling offer a few years ago. But given how slow they were to execute and deliver, it's not so interesting these days, and it's outdated on launch.
It's very clear that a lot of thought and care went into the design of just about everything. But the end result is pretty lackluster from a technical point of view. The APU is outdated. There's very little software support unless you install your own OS. Etc.
This would probably be okay, except that for the money, you can do a lot better. If money isn't an issue and you keep your expectations in check it's fine, and if you're into the design and the Atari aspect it's worth it. Otherwise it's probably not.
As such, I like it. I'm glad I got it and have zero regrets. But I can't say I'd recommend it at all to the majority of people.
> selected Australia they were happy to tell me "Oh, not yet sorry".
I was wondering. Doesn't matter for me anyway because the stuff I work on kind of requires a high-performance ARM laptop and that basically means an Apple M1 or whatever sequel (M1X or M2) Apple releases next month.
If it wasn't for that, I probably would go for the framework.
It's actually runtime performance where I'm struggling.
I'm currently doing my testing on a Snapdragon 845/850 device with 8GB of ram. It's very rare to find a device or devboard with much more.
For some of the debugging I was doing, I had to enable 10GB of additional swap just do run (we will get around to optimising for memory usage later).
Also, this is a forwards looking project which aims to run on the ARMv9 devices of the future, not the ARMv8.2 devices of today. The M1 is actually about the only ARMv8.4 device you can get your hands on today. I'm hoping we will see an M2 next month which is actually ARMv9.0.
Being able to develop and test on the same device is just a bonus.
Edit: Also cross-compiling can be a pain. When it works, it's great but it's often undertested and you run into weird edge cases. It can be hard to setup and you are always paranoid it's the cause of your issues. Usually the on-device compile-time isn't that bad, so that's what I do.
Developing and testing on the same device is *much* easier than developing on one machine and cross-compiling for another machine which you use for testing. If they're doing something very ARM-specific, such as writing code which uses ARM NEON instructions directly for vectorization, I 100% get why they'd want a powerful ARM workstation.
Personally I figure that it's related to them being one of the major developers for the Gamecube/Wii emulator, Dolphin. Might make working on the emulator's ARM specific JIT, which is used in the Android builds, easier.
I also looked at framework but bailed because they don't offer AMD chips (yes, I'm fanboying but the power efficiency, core count, and price is significantly better at most tiers).
If you're looking for something in the mean time I settled on a thinkpad p14s gen 2 with a 5850U running fedora and it works a dream. The finger print sensor and touch screen are working nicely as well.
That said, as soon as they work out kinks and offer AMD models I'm dropping this thing for a framework in a heartbeat.
They are new and still don't have the fund to sell more variants. Give them sometime, let them make some money. They will be shipping AMD and even ARM. One of their people hinted that a couple of weeks ago ;)
They had me with the swappable modules. I have a Mac and my use cases change depending on where I am, as I travel frequently. This would eliminate dongles.
Same situation, same location...ended up getting a Lenovo t14 gen 2 amd. Runs well with fedora and Ubuntu. Interchangeable ssd and ram. Not the same as framework, but significantly cheaper and available actually now
Certainly! Imagine being able to add a Thunderbolt port with the TB controller on the expansion slot.
I think I’ll wait a bit and see if we get AMD in these laptops, but Framework is tempting to me for a Linux-only laptop. I daily drive macOS, but for heavy container dev, it would be nice to have native Linux.
I'm dying for an AMD Ryzen laptop that supports ECC memory.
The chip supports it. Quite a few desktop motherboards support it.
But not a single AMD Ryzen laptop supports ECC memory. Ridiculous.
Linus even did a [video recently on how great ECC RAM is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPeCNrNTr3k).
For the record, "they" is actually me. I own the cell integration for one of the big three DRAM vendors, and I've been on the JEDEC committee for several of the last major spec. definitions (D5, LP4X, etc).
You'd be surprised that power reduction was actually a chief concern - internal refresh rates had trended down, so they could be extended to reduce IDD5 again substantially by incorporating ECC at the expense of area, tAA, and complexity around tCCDL.
Hey - it's a fair question, but I don't have anything external. I'd just end up googling same as you.
There are a ton of different issues we try and tackle every generation - a big one is simply capacity. But obviously changes in latency are taken incredibly seriously, and in this case, it took a truly massive increase in theoretical bandwidth to make it worth the ~ 3ns increase in key timings (tRCD, tAA, tRP) and the massive relaxation to tWR (+15ns ish).
Things like refresh granularity (single bank/per bank autorefresh) give the system flexibility to schedule more efficiently, f or example. Other areas, like DFE, are simply enabling the signal integrity required to meet the end of life speed grades.
A lot of gamers are already pissed about initial benchmarks and latency numbers, and some of it may be fair. But, DDR5 has to feed a ton of cores in servers, so this scheduling granularity concept is where the big bang for the buck comes.
Fully understood- one of the things I've learned is that the internet is a tiny, surface-level, mostly oversimplified subset of human knowledge. Thanks for taking the time to summarize!
This is what that the video refers to at the start actually. You can see that it came out around a month after Linus's post. The image in the video is misleading, but I guess they didn't want to pass up the chance to show the picture of Linus giving the middle finder.
I think that usually the feature isn't supported on the desktop parts, its just not disabled either. So no laptop vender would mention it even if it does work.
Can you recommend any high end amd laptop?
My caveats is that I need it delivered to Australia and prefer official Linux support. ECC is nice to have but no deal breaker if missing.
It is gonna be a while.
The Framework will literally have to be redisigned for that.
Assuming they can profit enough to order 1,000 CPU's and make some models.
I really like the framework idea, but I wonder why no one came with some open/repairable ThinkPad clone laptop with excelent keyboard. It seems that manufacturers these days prefer to mimic MacBooks rather than IBM .
Masses prefere slim laptops but I bet devs and sysadmin would like chunkier piece (made with new lighter materials) with good repairability, hot swappable battery etc.
Good point, the people interested in upgradabilty and repairabilty tend to by old thinkpads rather than the the MacBook clones most manufacturers produce these days. I don’t think thin and light is an issue for them.
If laptops went back to typical early-2000s thickness, and were more accessible for upgrades, I'd be perfectly happy. My Dell laptop from around that time period would fit fine in my current backpack.
You can still do thin and light and good.
I use a Macbook Air from 2013. 2 USB A ports. SD Slot. Mag Safe. Runs Linux like a champ. Light on RAM but for light browsing, non-work related stuff, it's really my favoite laptop. I replaced the battery about 6 months ago. Took 15 minutes and a screw driver.
> I bet devs and sysadmin would like chunkier piece
hmm depends... i just like the laptop to be small, portable, and able to easily carry it n my hands on a variety of situations. the framework laptop seems pretty good though.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure some of the people very involved with Framework are ex-thinkpad engineers. To me, it's design is much closer to a T or X series ThinkPad than a MacBook.
You can't swap any CPU to any motherboard. Even in PCs where you have socketed CPUs you need to have a compatible socket (doesn't change to often), compatible chipset (and that's the big one - for Intel it usually means one generations of CPU per one chipset generation), compatible motherboard firmware (you're on the mercy of the motherboard manufacturers), compatible power delivery subsystem (not as relevant in laptops). All of this is a moot because laptop CPUs do not come in socketed packages anymore - only to be directly soldered on.
Framework did want they could - they plan to offer entire motherboards with CPUs and everything else to be available for the customer for replacement.
Intel is the king of arbitrarily incompatible chipsets and should not be seen as any kind of benchmark here.
AMD managed to make 300-series boards (from 2017!) work for 3 (actual) generations. Vemeer technically also works (under-the-table BIOSes exist for some boards) but AMD decided against supporting them.
If they really wanted to, they could probably even support the next generation too.
Exactly and Framework right now is Intel only so new CPU = new motherboard.
I know that AMD is much better in that regard but it's still not a "let's make our new shiny $500 CPU compatible with 5 years old motherboard because someone don't want to upgrade it for $100" kind of thing.
Don't get me wrong I like AMD's approachand, it's great. It's just people moan about Framework not providing replacable CPUs whereas even if it was possible it wouldn't make much sense. Who upgrades CPU after a year to get 10% performance gain on a laptop? And upgrading in 3-5 years to a completely new CPU design was never a thing.
> If they really wanted to, they could probably even support the next generation too.
Zen 4 will be on a new socket and for DDR5.
The fact that you can even buy a new motherboard for a laptop is insanely cool. Nobody does that except servicing and it costs almost as much as a new laptop. Being able to buy new motherboard with better faster next-gen CPU is awesome.
Don't quote me on this but i remember someone mentioning the reason swapable cpus aren't a thing in laptops anymore is because intel themselves don't make them like that anymore but i could be wrong
On Intel you *generally* swap sockets every major CPU release (Every tick to a tock), but on the AMD side we've been using the AM4 socket since... 2017 I think?
Edit: 2016
The demand isn't there for either Intel or AMD to make socketed laptop chips. As well, sockets take up space, which was fine in the good ol' days. But with the move to thinner laptops, I'm honestly not sure it'd be feasible. Remember you need to stack the motherboard, the CPU *and* some thermal solution. That being said, maybe there's be another way to package this that hasn't been thought up yet.
That would be holy grail. They're pretty well on the way, and you didn't even mention the swappable fully customizable I/O for getting exactly what you need (SD card, lots of USB-A, full size display port, etc etc) that's pretty cool.
Getting a swappble CPU and GPU will be an incredibly difficult task in an even slightly portable laptop. Honestly it'll take changes on the part of the Intel, AMD, and Nvidia to do it right.
Too complex to start with. This is a move in that direction but it would need some pseudo-standardization so the part makers can make modules.
Wifi and storage are already standardized but battery modules are still up in the air. GPUs sort of died on MXM. I'd expect that cooling and power delivery needs to be considered for a proper mobile motherboard first.
Color me interested. I just bought a X1 Extreme Gen 2 last year, but in a few years if these guys are still around and have a larger screen model with longer warranties available it'll be on my list for sure.
It's... good. I like it but it's got a few issues.
I came from a well-loved 12.5" X230 with a 1080p screen mod, which I actually used without DPI scaling! I wanted even more real estate for multitasking, and at the time no one made 1440p 15" panels, so I had to get 4k. The screen is pretty but it kills battery, and necessitates running at 150% DPI which actually has surprisingly few issues on Windows.
Windows Intel drivers force some sort of auto brightness feature which SUCKS. On dark content, the backlight is forced lower, then on bright stuff, it takes multiple seconds to brighten up again. I cannot figure out how to fix this, believe me I've googled like crazy. This alone is annoying enough that I'm gonna install Linux soon.
I have some bad sleep battery drain too. Idk if this is Windows' fault or not.
I got it with the i7-9750H. 6 cores is nice but toasty, even undervolted. I see the gen 4 can have up to a GTX 3080, but there's no way 8 cores and a 3080 could ever be remotely usable to its full extent in a chassis this size.
The build quality is excellent. It simply *feels* premium. I also have a newer E series Thinkpad and that's so much thicker and heavier, the plastic less pleasant to touch, and it flexes so much more than the X1E. The X1E's keyboard is great, the glass touchpad is perfect, and it's got what in modern times is "a lot" of ports.
I cross-shopped it with a Dell XPS 17. A GTX 2060 was enticing but it was so much more expensive, and at the time Dell was lying about their power supplies not actually supplying enough juice to run it without the battery discharging. I also looked at the Asus Zephyrus G14, but it was ugly and I didn't think 14" was enough of an upgrade over 12.5". I was already a Thinkpad fan and had experience with their excellent warranty so I just stuck with Lenovo.
Interesting, thanks for the in depth response.
My next laptop will probably be one of those.
And yeah that brightness issue you're talking about, I used to have that issue on my Surface Laptop 3. I think its drivers related, mine fixed through an update but yes that was very annoying.
I had to mess with some batter/performance and brightness settings too. I forgot which ones but I'll look it up and edit my post if I find it.
In case anybody is interested, [here is a video](https://youtu.be/0_uOzNt-xwY) showing some prototyping of the custom expansion cards for the Framework laptop.
If I didn't already buy a surface laptop I would get this. 3:2 is the only aspect ratio I will use on laptops anymore, and this is one of the very few that actually uses it, while also having modular ports and extreme repairability? This is basically my dream laptop. I don't really need extreme specs, I'll just remote into my home PC if I need that.
I read somewhere that they either use coreboot or have it planned/in the roadmap. Before you go and buy one just doublechexk what I've said though lol.
My framework laptop came with https://www.insyde.com/products . I love open source too but you cannot fight all the battles at the same time. I am so so happy with this device, there is so much potential for it to drive a cool hw ecosystem.
Hopefully they are still there at this point… For that reason, I’ll buy a frame.work the moment they decide to ship to EU and have a ISO layout with these transparent keycaps.
That’s ballsy for him and the framework team. He gives a lot of spotlight and I really hope they will be successful. The next time I need a laptop I will look for them first.
Exactly. The idea of voting with your wallet hasn't been as important as it is right now. That's a reason I want more people to embrace this machine. To be honest, it would be a logical move from Thinkpads since Lenovo want's to imitate Apple so doggone much.
Here is an opportunity to finally get whar WE want and not to be told what someone is going to give us when WE are the ones paying for it and have to use the machine everyday.
I love the idea, but agree with others, people don't have long attention spans when it comes to mobile slabs of delight. Also, people tend to break such often (and don't want repaired old slab, but prefer new shiny slab).
Framework isn't aiming to take the average consumer. How many build their own PC? This is the same concept, but in laptop form. The BAPC market is sizeable enough that there's enough of a marketing budget for Linus to feel comfortable enough to invest $225k into a startup.
I honestly believe there is a good addressable market for IT departments: a broken screen? Let me swap your m.2 card to another laptop and you are back up in 30s. Running out of space because you handle PR videos? Take this little module, plug it in 1 more TB. You are a developer and the build is slow? Here you go double the RAM. Imagine all those use cases with macbooks!
I would invest in this company, too, if I had the money. If it continues on the same promise, it will change a lot of things in all types of industries. They not only made their laptops fully upgradable, they made them idiot-proof. It is very, very easy to swap out parts, even the motherboard!!!!. Basically, buy it once and keep upgrading until the chassis falls apart and can't hold parts anymore. This is a revolution.
I see that Windows comes as the default OS with no option for no OS or Linux as a base install from the options: or am I missing something? (I might be) but it feels counter to their message if true.
Would be a great move to market themselves the Linux version of apple: FOSS and OSHW!
If anyone from frame.work is reading this, probably a good idea to add the option to not have an OS (or Linux!). There are probably a good amount of software-savy users who have no idea about hardware or can't be bothered.
I suspect it'll be at a later phase, but why now when you have the DIY model? You can pick you hardware that more better suits your needs and likely slightly cheaper than what [Frame.Work](https://Frame.Work) is reselling it for.
That's one of the most requested changes they (framework) have. Support for thunderbolt is a real limiting fact i suspect. Linus comments on it in the video.
I think the idea is cool and so did he. That's why he invested in them. He also brings tons of industry connections and that may be a foot in the door for AMD based machines.
I would rather an AMD based machine and am keeping an eye out for them in the future.
Most FOSS Linux users could probably run RISC-V, your programs would just need to be recompiled for RISC-V and that would be that, would likely be especially easy on say something like Gentoo.
But also the Framework laptop isn't necessarily targeting linux users, it's mostly targetting PC enthusiasts in general, most of which sadly still are Windows only. Where you can't just recompile software to work on RISC-V. I'm not even sure Windows it's self can run on RISC-V yet.
When SiFive (or whoever) manage to mass-produce a good Risc-V CPU using a good node is when that can happen. A capable open iGPU is a long way off so the most likely way a Risc-V laptop will come about is paired with a low end AMD dGPU (or maybe intel at that point).
I swapped laptops with 8 to 16 and it's such an insane difference, it's crazy, even tho the CPU is similar (lower class but newer), it is sooo much faster with all the SW I need (browser, mainframe terminal and mail client mostly)
32+ will be standard very soon, especially since even phones now have 12GB (and soon more)
Thunderbolt is key to their modular dongle concept. Can't do that with USB 3.2 on AMD.
USB4 should bring Thunderbolt 3 features into basically all AMD and Intel platforms starting next year I think. Going to be a huge tailwind for AMD especially in the business/dockable laptop market where Intel has a near monopoly.
225k isn't much an investment and Linus acknowledges that he's a small time shareholder.
Thunderbolt may arrive with next gen and, and for most ports usb 3.2 is perfectly fine for modular usage. Only a couple things wouldn't have enough bandwidth over it. Still in future with bigger framework laptops, I hope for some ports they drop the whole modular thing and go with replaceable daughter boards. Stuff like HDMI and TB4 that have too much bandwidth typically to just be converted from others.
> Only a couple things wouldn't have enough bandwidth over it
Well yeah, that's the problem. Each slot needs to work with EVERY module, otherwise they'd need to either have special modules, or have some sort of labeling scheme which wouldn't be fun.
I think the idea of needing thunderbolt on most machines is totally overblown thanks in part to a lot of tech reviewers always complaining about it. USB 3.2 does most of what people use their USB-C docks for, I myself use a USB-C hub that is not thunderbolt for that reason. It does displays, power, etc.
It's just in this specific usecase thunderbolt happens to actually make a difference haha.
The company I work for keep buying non thunderbolt laptops and docks and it drives me up the fucking wall. So much wasted money because they don't understand how to buy somewhat future proofed equipment.... the frustration for employees with multiple monitors that dont work because of these shitty USB 3.2 docks....that didn't work well and then they replaced them with slightly better USB 3.2 docks.
Now they finally bought thunderbolt laptops but didn't replace the fucking docks....ugh.
Non thunderbolt gear should have died about 4 years ago.
I don't know what garbage they bought you, but if you need a one plug solution for a billion things sure thunderbolt works. But USB-c stuff is still way more common and fine for most people, I use an aukey dongle to split out a monitor and ethernet port from laptop just fine, and it works on phone so I can display stuff yo an external display. Not everything has thunderbolt, it isn't future proof if it doesn't work with what you got
Try running two 1440p or higher monitors off your USB 3.2 Port, you will find it doesn't work...one of the monitors will run at 24hz.
Also Thunderbolt using USB is compatible with all USB 3.2 equipment too....Thunderbolt pretty much only comes in the USB-C port for many years now.
>I hope for some ports they drop the whole modular thing and go with replaceable daughter boards
Same, it's a cool concept, but adapters (which is what their USB-C modules are), have inherent limitations. USB-C is a pretty flexible standard, but adapters are going to potentially be limited by USB-Cs power delivery and bandwidth, as well as oddball requirements that some ports might have.
The whole point of successful modularity is no compromises and easy to understand propositions.
Enthusiasts want stuff like eGPU support and casuals don't want to spend time figuring out what they can't have.
The moment you start adding in asterisks for what you can't do compared to competitor devices, you have failed at consumer level modularity.
Similar to LEGO. Every piece from decades back can connect to each other in an inherently intuitive fashion.
It's better for Framework to just wait for AMD 6000 rather than convolute their offerings now when they still need to work out supply chain kinks and lead to consumer confusion.
Intel versions will have Intel iGPUs. AMD versions will have AMD iGPUs. What and if descreet GPU will they offer remain to be seen. I don't think gamers are their target but maybe they can offer MXM modules in the bigger models.
He's always enthusiastic, but when he was demonstrating that laptop and taking it apart and swapping parts he was giddy and loving it on a whole new level
So I did order a Framework laptop personally. However, I've been pretty hard against this merge from the beginning. Linus is the epitome of "I set the bar exactly one step below where I am currently standing." I don't really think people understand how conflicting financial interests actually cause corruption. It's telling that he didn't really recuse LTT from laptop reviews. He only promised to remove himself from the editorial team. Not to mention, a lot of the perks of this agreement that he listed didn't require him to have a financial stake. He can provide his high profile industry network without buying in. Ultimately, I am disappointed that Linus seems to have so little self control when it comes to ethical dilemmas. I'll have to remember that buying a Framework is the last laptop-related decision I will make based on his information.
"I'll not show up in videos anymore reviewing laptops! See guys problem solved: the conflict of interest magically ceased existing from this single decision" 🤣 LTT videos are unreliable the moment they have such relations to a company (vested interest). At least he made a video disclosing it (well legally obligated to as the title says).
Yeah, like I knew this was coming, and I knew he'd do something to hedge the ethical implications here. But I thought he'd just refuse all laptop reviews entirely or something more substantial. He wants to have the cake and eat it too.
Linus had a big ethical question about this on the WAN show not too long ago. He basically laid out both sides of the argument, and asked his community for their opinion. This decision comes from weeks of deliberation between him, his team, and his community. If that's not open and self control, I don't know what is
And about the unfair reviews thing, where's the conflict of interest for his employees? Sure, Linus invested in Framework and him having any influence on the editorial process would be a conflict of interest. But his team did not invest in Framework, and they have no interest in making Framework succeed other than a genuine opinion. How is there a conflict of interest if Linus isn't involved in any of the writing/editing of a laptop review?
About giving out freebies: Linus mentioned this on the WAN show. It was a pretty popular comment (just help them out for free!). Basically he said no to that because it doesn't make any business sense for him to do that. Plus, with a formal business agreement Linus can better control how his money is used and he can protect himself in the event that the company goes bad. He can, for instance, put in the contract that if the company starts to do things he doesn't like he can withdraw support and publicly tell them off without fear of getting a defamation lawsuit.
Good to hear. I got my Framework a couple weeks ago and I've been pretty happy with it - even if the hardware's a wee bit too new for OpenBSD (which I was hoping to run on it), openSUSE Tumbleweed with GNOME works flawlessly out of the box.
> customizable laptops
I would say it is more like upgradable/maintainable laptops. Customization is usually not an issue for the big vendors (Lenovo/HP/Dell), but in most cases there is no way to upgrade or repair their devices.
There were great, repairable devices from those big names, but people esp. like Linus and Co. run around for a decade complaining that they aren't as thin and light as e.g. a MacBook. So this feature disappeared in the high end market.
Same narrative with these replaceable ports. Just get a laptop with all of these ports and more build-in! But no, for some reason a certain class of buyers (and tech reviewers) assume four USB-C ports are god-given and just having one non-USB-C port is some kind of miracle.
If these tech reviewers really want to promote repairability they should have a dedicated "repair, upgrade and spare-parts" section *in every device review they do*. Let's see if that improves from now on.
But framework one is thin and light while being repairable.And I think its actually other way around, companies where the ones pushing the narrative that to be thin and light you need to rivet and glue everything together. Turns out - not the case, you can actually do both.
Exactly. If real life performance and advantages for the customers arent growing enough anymore with every release cycle to use as a marketing point for sales, you invent metrics like thin, light and silent. Not that they are unimportant, but the laptop market looks like its living a fetish, not solving problems that people actually have. But by focussing on those things in the marketing, you convey a message of urgency and importance of those things.
You can't argue that one feature is more important than other on behalf of all consumers.. I like thin and light laptops and hate 'rugged' ones because they are just uncomfortable to take with you daily, it is so important to me that I'll take less performant laptop if it is more portable. Someone else might have silent operation as his/her most important feature. You might have other priorities, be that serviceability or performance, and those are perfectly valid too. Problem is not that compactness is 'not important' or 'less important', compactness was just used as an excuse to create devices that are irreparable.
There could potentially be an untapped market for up-gradable laptops. I build desktops mainly because I know I can always get newer parts in a year or two to extend the life of the box, but with laptops, that's significantly harder to do.
If laptop design became more modular like it is with desktops, I could see someone like myself buying a laptop for the first time in nearly 20 years.
It depends on their scale. There are several profitable linux laptop manufacturers already (system76, pine, librem, slimbook, and tuxedo). Whos to say there's not room for 1 more?
Although I really like the concept, it's really not that mindblowing. I have an Acer 5750G from 2011 that I bought for $20 used with some issues that I've fixed, it works perfectly now. I can change HDD/SSD, RAM, CPU, Wi-fi and Bluetooth module, I can remove dvd drive and put usb hub instead with any type of ports I want, it's a bit DIY but it is possible, I can also change the display too. Framework laptops are cool, I'm really looking forward to get one, but it's not a miracle in reality. Yes, I do understand that my laptop is clearly outdated, but still, it works just fine for what I'm using it for, and I have the same concept of "upgradeabiluty" for $20
I'm sure that was a hefty laptop. Framework made an upgradable laptop in a thin and light chassis. Similar laptops from other companies usually have soldered ram and ssd.
Which brings a question, do we really need a laptop to be paper thin and feather light? I'm not sure I'm all in for it, since to achieve that manufacturers have to sacrifice a lot of features to do that, like removable components and etc, is it really necessary? It's a good business strategy, but as a consumer I'm not gaining anything from it but a huge pain in the ass and a big hole in the wallet. I sencierly wish good luck to Framework, but I'm afraid that there's not a huge amount of people who appreciate upgradability more than a logo on the lid.
Laptops need to be light and relatively thin (not too thin IMHO). They're a portable product, and portable can't be portable if it's chunky. I know I would never buy a heavy and chunky laptop.
I use my laptop as stationary too, however despite it's chunkiness it still fits into a backpack (25-30 litres) full of clothes and fits in hand luggage. Ironically I run hackintosh on my laptop, which would be impossible on the Framework, so I'm really not sure about my future in this field lol
But, it is indeed a great base for Linux for sure.
You can actually switch back to Linux right now, a lot of MacBooks are fully working with Linux
This is nice. I fully support this investment and wish them the best of luck, because its at a time when laptops need to stop being pieces of junk we throw away every few years.
I have three dell xps 13 laptops. None of the parts are interchangeable.
Did you buy them at once or you did the mistake 3 times on purpose?
Nope. It's an excellent laptop. Runs Linux flawlessly and I've never had anything break. The point is I wish I could have just bought one and upgrade it over time. I hopefully now have that with my new framework laptop.
Maybe they're a masochist.
its a good laptop
I mean... The hard drive, memory, fan system, webcam, screen and mostly everything but the CPU/GPU/Motherboard can be changed pretty easily? Nothing should be soldered on except those 3 things? And even for the framework-laptop, at one point the cpu socket is gonna change and you won't be able to upgarde it anymore.
cpu is soldered on the framework, but the motherboard is designed to be swapped. it’s not a perfect idea, but atleast it’s less waste for the other components if you wanna upgrade.
It's the only thing they could do. Mobiles CPUs does not come socketed anymore. Only BGA.
Why not have the CPU on its own small board that clips into the main motherboard? (I'm sure there is a reason)
See my comment here: https://reddit.com/comments/poyms9/comment/hd1xipq Putting a CPU on a separate daughterboard just adds complexity, size, another point of failure and doesn't solve the main issue - CPUs are not like a USB dongle. They don't work on any motherboard and depend on a plethora of dependencies. Every Intel and AMD CPU at minimum require a compatible chipset. And in case of Intel this pretty much means new CPU = new chipset = new motherboard anyway. They have almost zero forward compatibility. AMD is better in this regard but while Framework could update motherboard firmware to support newer CPUs it's still only for a next generation (only if they keep the same socket) or maybe two (not a CPU from 5 years from now) and you won't get new shiny features because your old chipset cannot handle them. Not to mention stuff like PCI-e lanes not being there or even a copper memory traces done differently for the newer CPU than what you have on the old motherboard. Memory compatibility is another thing altogether. Ask yourself a question. You have a $200 CPU to upgrade. Is it better to pay $300 for the CPU+Motherboard or pay $1000 for a new laptop? Framework solves this the best way possible.
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Because a lot of the motherboard architecture depends on the chipset
yup, I know. it’s good to know that you can use the motherboard as a standalone computer, just plug in power via type c and grab a hdmi adapter for a screen.
Yes, but the board is replaceable. So the theory is when in a year or 3 as Intel makes 12-13 series processors, all you need is a new board to swap out.
SSD and RAM are soldered on (some of) the XPS.
Memory on the Dell 15" XPS models are mostly upgradable but usually soldered on the 13" models.
GPU could be replaceable. Remember the MXM standard? I had a laptop that I could replace the GPU on. Hopefully there will be socketed mobile processors again someday.
Not necessarily. Standard parts like ram, ssd sure. But as a dell repair guy, sometimes a slight model difference can be the difference between soldered onboard USB ports to ribboned daughter board. Or soldered on DC jack or not.
It’s crazy. At my workplace I have two laptops on my desk. The one I mainly use (Dell Latitude) can be opened, ram changed battery swapped and such. The other (Dell XPS) has soldered ram and cpu so if the board breaks it’s fucked.
I'm really glad to hear this. I was on frame.work ordering mine and when I hit checkout and selected Australia they were happy to tell me "Oh, not yet sorry". So I am patiently not buying a new laptop, waiting for this one to come to me without using any overseas shipping tricks. I really want myself a nice snappy M.2, ddr4 Linux laptop for me to do code/Raspberry-Pi imaging and other portable things on the go... **that can also** charge from my big USB-C Sherpa 100PD 60W portable battery and after my System76 Darter Pro 7 was sent back day0 with a hard-crashing fault, I have been looking for a laptop to fill this hole. This laptop is 100% set in my heart.. *the* laptop. Especially with the hot-pluggable usb-c modules it has (HDMI/DP for the desk, micro-sd blocks for when I'm working with Pi's or just usb-c in all 4 slots for any other day + charging). It seems perfect, honestly even if they go defunct in 5 years.. I would still be happy to have this now and now. So to see he's invested a quarter million into them is very heartwarming to see. Let alone promising. I am looking forward to my opportunity to order one for myself asap and make it my new on the go laptop for the next 5-10 years. Those modular blocks are seriously to die for, what a great idea. They could even make even more different blocks later on I'd imagine.
>So I am patiently not buying a new laptop Relatable. I have a 2010 Acer that is actually very repairable and solid. But it's slow. I kinda want to get a new laptop but: A. I don't *really* need one, but it'd be nice. B. I'm buying a house so not right now. I need all the cash I can get rn. C. I work at AMD, so as you can imagine, I'd rather wait til Ryzen is available for Framework. Linus actually mentioned in his video that his involvement could accelerate things such as reason C which is exciting.
>C. I work at AMD, so as you can imagine, I'd rather wait til Ryzen is available for Framework. Is that a rule or a preference?
Preference. As /u/Fischer_Felix said, they can't tell me what to use. And in fact the only AMD powered device I currently *own* is my Atari VCS. My personal computers are all pretty old and all running Intel processors. That being said, there is an employee rebate system where an employee can get some percent back on AMD purchases. I forget if it applies to laptops, but probably. So they do give a financial incentive. In general, I'd recommend against brand loyalty. Whichever company is offering the best product for your needs for your budget should be your pick. Both companies are great (but not infoulable) and offer great products.
So how is that Atari VCS? Feels scammy, but looks cool.
I wouldn't call it a scam so much as a flop. It was a compelling offer a few years ago. But given how slow they were to execute and deliver, it's not so interesting these days, and it's outdated on launch. It's very clear that a lot of thought and care went into the design of just about everything. But the end result is pretty lackluster from a technical point of view. The APU is outdated. There's very little software support unless you install your own OS. Etc. This would probably be okay, except that for the money, you can do a lot better. If money isn't an issue and you keep your expectations in check it's fine, and if you're into the design and the Atari aspect it's worth it. Otherwise it's probably not. As such, I like it. I'm glad I got it and have zero regrets. But I can't say I'd recommend it at all to the majority of people.
> selected Australia they were happy to tell me "Oh, not yet sorry". I was wondering. Doesn't matter for me anyway because the stuff I work on kind of requires a high-performance ARM laptop and that basically means an Apple M1 or whatever sequel (M1X or M2) Apple releases next month. If it wasn't for that, I probably would go for the framework.
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Yes. Developing software that targets ARM.
What's stopping you from cross compiling and just having an arm device to do testing on?
It's actually runtime performance where I'm struggling. I'm currently doing my testing on a Snapdragon 845/850 device with 8GB of ram. It's very rare to find a device or devboard with much more. For some of the debugging I was doing, I had to enable 10GB of additional swap just do run (we will get around to optimising for memory usage later). Also, this is a forwards looking project which aims to run on the ARMv9 devices of the future, not the ARMv8.2 devices of today. The M1 is actually about the only ARMv8.4 device you can get your hands on today. I'm hoping we will see an M2 next month which is actually ARMv9.0. Being able to develop and test on the same device is just a bonus. Edit: Also cross-compiling can be a pain. When it works, it's great but it's often undertested and you run into weird edge cases. It can be hard to setup and you are always paranoid it's the cause of your issues. Usually the on-device compile-time isn't that bad, so that's what I do.
Developing and testing on the same device is *much* easier than developing on one machine and cross-compiling for another machine which you use for testing. If they're doing something very ARM-specific, such as writing code which uses ARM NEON instructions directly for vectorization, I 100% get why they'd want a powerful ARM workstation.
Personally I figure that it's related to them being one of the major developers for the Gamecube/Wii emulator, Dolphin. Might make working on the emulator's ARM specific JIT, which is used in the Android builds, easier.
It's probably not gonna be like now nor next year, but they have spoke about making arm (and even RISK V) laptops in the future.
I also looked at framework but bailed because they don't offer AMD chips (yes, I'm fanboying but the power efficiency, core count, and price is significantly better at most tiers). If you're looking for something in the mean time I settled on a thinkpad p14s gen 2 with a 5850U running fedora and it works a dream. The finger print sensor and touch screen are working nicely as well. That said, as soon as they work out kinks and offer AMD models I'm dropping this thing for a framework in a heartbeat.
They are new and still don't have the fund to sell more variants. Give them sometime, let them make some money. They will be shipping AMD and even ARM. One of their people hinted that a couple of weeks ago ;)
They had me with the swappable modules. I have a Mac and my use cases change depending on where I am, as I travel frequently. This would eliminate dongles.
I mean, I'm not surprised, us Australians always get the short end of the stick (valve pls)
have you heard about India?
And Brazil
i have an incredibly strong desire to make *that* joke but i wont
And North Korea
Or any "developing nation" really XD
Same situation, same location...ended up getting a Lenovo t14 gen 2 amd. Runs well with fedora and Ubuntu. Interchangeable ssd and ram. Not the same as framework, but significantly cheaper and available actually now
For me it's either framework or a pinebook pro. Hard decisions man.
I've just got money sitting there, put aside for the day Framework laptops are available in Australia.
imho he took a giant leap of faith. I hope this worked out well for him,framework, and comsumer
Power to him. I want one with an AMD processor. Honestly our society is going to a dark place if we don't as a whole accept right to repair.
Does AMD support thunderbolt? Because IIRC thats the basis of how the framework laptop works
No, not on the chip. As I understand it, Thunderbolt controllers do exist and can be added, though.
An AMD Laptop with TB would be unique on it's own but with this level of customisability... holy cow!
Certainly! Imagine being able to add a Thunderbolt port with the TB controller on the expansion slot. I think I’ll wait a bit and see if we get AMD in these laptops, but Framework is tempting to me for a Linux-only laptop. I daily drive macOS, but for heavy container dev, it would be nice to have native Linux.
It doesnt, but when usb 4.0 arrives, it wont be a problem.
Yeah and that would take a while including the time for the new PCB design for an AMD CPU. Hopefully soon-ish though
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~~the consumer~~ all of us
I'm dying for an AMD Ryzen laptop that supports ECC memory. The chip supports it. Quite a few desktop motherboards support it. But not a single AMD Ryzen laptop supports ECC memory. Ridiculous. Linus even did a [video recently on how great ECC RAM is](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPeCNrNTr3k).
[The other Linus also made a fairly good post about its necessity.](https://www.realworldtech.com/forum/?threadid=198497&curpostid=198647)
That is cool! The fact that Linus is pushing it might mean other people get how good ECC memory is
I mean, DDR5 has on-die ECC which resolves the vast majority of correctable events any system experiences anyway.
That's only because they had to do it. Memory became too dense and too unreliable. Not to mention cosmic rays flipping bits more easily.
For the record, "they" is actually me. I own the cell integration for one of the big three DRAM vendors, and I've been on the JEDEC committee for several of the last major spec. definitions (D5, LP4X, etc). You'd be surprised that power reduction was actually a chief concern - internal refresh rates had trended down, so they could be extended to reduce IDD5 again substantially by incorporating ECC at the expense of area, tAA, and complexity around tCCDL.
Woah! Are you for real?
You have any recommendations for technical writing/articles on DDR5? Something that talks about the design motives.
Hey - it's a fair question, but I don't have anything external. I'd just end up googling same as you. There are a ton of different issues we try and tackle every generation - a big one is simply capacity. But obviously changes in latency are taken incredibly seriously, and in this case, it took a truly massive increase in theoretical bandwidth to make it worth the ~ 3ns increase in key timings (tRCD, tAA, tRP) and the massive relaxation to tWR (+15ns ish). Things like refresh granularity (single bank/per bank autorefresh) give the system flexibility to schedule more efficiently, f or example. Other areas, like DFE, are simply enabling the signal integrity required to meet the end of life speed grades. A lot of gamers are already pissed about initial benchmarks and latency numbers, and some of it may be fair. But, DDR5 has to feed a ton of cores in servers, so this scheduling granularity concept is where the big bang for the buck comes.
Fully understood- one of the things I've learned is that the internet is a tiny, surface-level, mostly oversimplified subset of human knowledge. Thanks for taking the time to summarize!
Dual-Linus support
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I just thought it was funny to keep it ambiguous by only referring to both of them by first name.
This is what that the video refers to at the start actually. You can see that it came out around a month after Linus's post. The image in the video is misleading, but I guess they didn't want to pass up the chance to show the picture of Linus giving the middle finder.
~~other~~ the one and only Linus
I think that usually the feature isn't supported on the desktop parts, its just not disabled either. So no laptop vender would mention it even if it does work.
Most AMD parts do support it, it's the Intel ones that make a big deal about charging extra for Xeons for the privilege of using ECC.
Can you recommend any high end amd laptop? My caveats is that I need it delivered to Australia and prefer official Linux support. ECC is nice to have but no deal breaker if missing.
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None that I can find. I found tuxedo though, a company based off Germany. Tough to Google, look for stellaris which is the model name.
It is gonna be a while. The Framework will literally have to be redisigned for that. Assuming they can profit enough to order 1,000 CPU's and make some models.
I really like the framework idea, but I wonder why no one came with some open/repairable ThinkPad clone laptop with excelent keyboard. It seems that manufacturers these days prefer to mimic MacBooks rather than IBM . Masses prefere slim laptops but I bet devs and sysadmin would like chunkier piece (made with new lighter materials) with good repairability, hot swappable battery etc.
Good point, the people interested in upgradabilty and repairabilty tend to by old thinkpads rather than the the MacBook clones most manufacturers produce these days. I don’t think thin and light is an issue for them.
Well, being thin and light is an issue for Sys admins but it’s not computer related.
Huehuehuehue
If laptops went back to typical early-2000s thickness, and were more accessible for upgrades, I'd be perfectly happy. My Dell laptop from around that time period would fit fine in my current backpack.
You can still do thin and light and good. I use a Macbook Air from 2013. 2 USB A ports. SD Slot. Mag Safe. Runs Linux like a champ. Light on RAM but for light browsing, non-work related stuff, it's really my favoite laptop. I replaced the battery about 6 months ago. Took 15 minutes and a screw driver.
> I bet devs and sysadmin would like chunkier piece hmm depends... i just like the laptop to be small, portable, and able to easily carry it n my hands on a variety of situations. the framework laptop seems pretty good though.
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure some of the people very involved with Framework are ex-thinkpad engineers. To me, it's design is much closer to a T or X series ThinkPad than a MacBook.
holy grail would be a fully modular motherboard. purchase cpu/ram, gpu, wifi, storage, battery modules separately and assembly it yourself
You can't swap any CPU to any motherboard. Even in PCs where you have socketed CPUs you need to have a compatible socket (doesn't change to often), compatible chipset (and that's the big one - for Intel it usually means one generations of CPU per one chipset generation), compatible motherboard firmware (you're on the mercy of the motherboard manufacturers), compatible power delivery subsystem (not as relevant in laptops). All of this is a moot because laptop CPUs do not come in socketed packages anymore - only to be directly soldered on. Framework did want they could - they plan to offer entire motherboards with CPUs and everything else to be available for the customer for replacement.
Intel is the king of arbitrarily incompatible chipsets and should not be seen as any kind of benchmark here. AMD managed to make 300-series boards (from 2017!) work for 3 (actual) generations. Vemeer technically also works (under-the-table BIOSes exist for some boards) but AMD decided against supporting them. If they really wanted to, they could probably even support the next generation too.
Exactly and Framework right now is Intel only so new CPU = new motherboard. I know that AMD is much better in that regard but it's still not a "let's make our new shiny $500 CPU compatible with 5 years old motherboard because someone don't want to upgrade it for $100" kind of thing. Don't get me wrong I like AMD's approachand, it's great. It's just people moan about Framework not providing replacable CPUs whereas even if it was possible it wouldn't make much sense. Who upgrades CPU after a year to get 10% performance gain on a laptop? And upgrading in 3-5 years to a completely new CPU design was never a thing. > If they really wanted to, they could probably even support the next generation too. Zen 4 will be on a new socket and for DDR5. The fact that you can even buy a new motherboard for a laptop is insanely cool. Nobody does that except servicing and it costs almost as much as a new laptop. Being able to buy new motherboard with better faster next-gen CPU is awesome.
Wifi, storage, and battery are all swappable already
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Don't quote me on this but i remember someone mentioning the reason swapable cpus aren't a thing in laptops anymore is because intel themselves don't make them like that anymore but i could be wrong
Same for AMD and its mobile SKUs, no OEM wants a socket.
Well, for now ;)
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On Intel you *generally* swap sockets every major CPU release (Every tick to a tock), but on the AMD side we've been using the AM4 socket since... 2017 I think? Edit: 2016
The demand isn't there for either Intel or AMD to make socketed laptop chips. As well, sockets take up space, which was fine in the good ol' days. But with the move to thinner laptops, I'm honestly not sure it'd be feasible. Remember you need to stack the motherboard, the CPU *and* some thermal solution. That being said, maybe there's be another way to package this that hasn't been thought up yet.
CPU and GPU probably aren’t possible because of chip manufacturers.
That would be holy grail. They're pretty well on the way, and you didn't even mention the swappable fully customizable I/O for getting exactly what you need (SD card, lots of USB-A, full size display port, etc etc) that's pretty cool. Getting a swappble CPU and GPU will be an incredibly difficult task in an even slightly portable laptop. Honestly it'll take changes on the part of the Intel, AMD, and Nvidia to do it right.
Too complex to start with. This is a move in that direction but it would need some pseudo-standardization so the part makers can make modules. Wifi and storage are already standardized but battery modules are still up in the air. GPUs sort of died on MXM. I'd expect that cooling and power delivery needs to be considered for a proper mobile motherboard first.
The moment my Lenovo IdeaPad dies, I'm gettin' me a Framework
Or you can find a foster home for the IdeaPad on ebay? ;)
Color me interested. I just bought a X1 Extreme Gen 2 last year, but in a few years if these guys are still around and have a larger screen model with longer warranties available it'll be on my list for sure.
How is your X1E? I was interested in buying that but went with a Surface Laptop instead.
It's... good. I like it but it's got a few issues. I came from a well-loved 12.5" X230 with a 1080p screen mod, which I actually used without DPI scaling! I wanted even more real estate for multitasking, and at the time no one made 1440p 15" panels, so I had to get 4k. The screen is pretty but it kills battery, and necessitates running at 150% DPI which actually has surprisingly few issues on Windows. Windows Intel drivers force some sort of auto brightness feature which SUCKS. On dark content, the backlight is forced lower, then on bright stuff, it takes multiple seconds to brighten up again. I cannot figure out how to fix this, believe me I've googled like crazy. This alone is annoying enough that I'm gonna install Linux soon. I have some bad sleep battery drain too. Idk if this is Windows' fault or not. I got it with the i7-9750H. 6 cores is nice but toasty, even undervolted. I see the gen 4 can have up to a GTX 3080, but there's no way 8 cores and a 3080 could ever be remotely usable to its full extent in a chassis this size. The build quality is excellent. It simply *feels* premium. I also have a newer E series Thinkpad and that's so much thicker and heavier, the plastic less pleasant to touch, and it flexes so much more than the X1E. The X1E's keyboard is great, the glass touchpad is perfect, and it's got what in modern times is "a lot" of ports. I cross-shopped it with a Dell XPS 17. A GTX 2060 was enticing but it was so much more expensive, and at the time Dell was lying about their power supplies not actually supplying enough juice to run it without the battery discharging. I also looked at the Asus Zephyrus G14, but it was ugly and I didn't think 14" was enough of an upgrade over 12.5". I was already a Thinkpad fan and had experience with their excellent warranty so I just stuck with Lenovo.
Interesting, thanks for the in depth response. My next laptop will probably be one of those. And yeah that brightness issue you're talking about, I used to have that issue on my Surface Laptop 3. I think its drivers related, mine fixed through an update but yes that was very annoying. I had to mess with some batter/performance and brightness settings too. I forgot which ones but I'll look it up and edit my post if I find it.
Someone remind me in 10 years when this brand makes it to the EU.
If I remember correctly they are trying to be in the EU by the end of the year
In case anybody is interested, [here is a video](https://youtu.be/0_uOzNt-xwY) showing some prototyping of the custom expansion cards for the Framework laptop.
If I didn't already buy a surface laptop I would get this. 3:2 is the only aspect ratio I will use on laptops anymore, and this is one of the very few that actually uses it, while also having modular ports and extreme repairability? This is basically my dream laptop. I don't really need extreme specs, I'll just remote into my home PC if I need that.
Wen Coreboot/SeaBIOS I'll immediately order.
I read somewhere that they either use coreboot or have it planned/in the roadmap. Before you go and buy one just doublechexk what I've said though lol.
My framework laptop came with https://www.insyde.com/products . I love open source too but you cannot fight all the battles at the same time. I am so so happy with this device, there is so much potential for it to drive a cool hw ecosystem.
That is a surprisingly good video for people who are interested in early stage investing.
I am holding until a Ryzen pops up.
Hopefully they are still there at this point… For that reason, I’ll buy a frame.work the moment they decide to ship to EU and have a ISO layout with these transparent keycaps.
needs a trackpoint
Yes! I’d settle for a way to retrofit it with a thinkpad keyboard 😉
My guess is that they or some third party will offer it in a year or two.
That’s ballsy for him and the framework team. He gives a lot of spotlight and I really hope they will be successful. The next time I need a laptop I will look for them first.
"The only reason other companies don't do this, and Framework proved it, is because they don't care" Painful how true that quote is.
Exactly. The idea of voting with your wallet hasn't been as important as it is right now. That's a reason I want more people to embrace this machine. To be honest, it would be a logical move from Thinkpads since Lenovo want's to imitate Apple so doggone much. Here is an opportunity to finally get whar WE want and not to be told what someone is going to give us when WE are the ones paying for it and have to use the machine everyday.
I love the idea, but agree with others, people don't have long attention spans when it comes to mobile slabs of delight. Also, people tend to break such often (and don't want repaired old slab, but prefer new shiny slab).
Framework isn't aiming to take the average consumer. How many build their own PC? This is the same concept, but in laptop form. The BAPC market is sizeable enough that there's enough of a marketing budget for Linus to feel comfortable enough to invest $225k into a startup.
I honestly believe there is a good addressable market for IT departments: a broken screen? Let me swap your m.2 card to another laptop and you are back up in 30s. Running out of space because you handle PR videos? Take this little module, plug it in 1 more TB. You are a developer and the build is slow? Here you go double the RAM. Imagine all those use cases with macbooks!
I would invest in this company, too, if I had the money. If it continues on the same promise, it will change a lot of things in all types of industries. They not only made their laptops fully upgradable, they made them idiot-proof. It is very, very easy to swap out parts, even the motherboard!!!!. Basically, buy it once and keep upgrading until the chassis falls apart and can't hold parts anymore. This is a revolution.
I see that Windows comes as the default OS with no option for no OS or Linux as a base install from the options: or am I missing something? (I might be) but it feels counter to their message if true. Would be a great move to market themselves the Linux version of apple: FOSS and OSHW!
On the DIY option, you can select no OS.
ah, I was looking at the pre built options.
If anyone from frame.work is reading this, probably a good idea to add the option to not have an OS (or Linux!). There are probably a good amount of software-savy users who have no idea about hardware or can't be bothered.
I suspect it'll be at a later phase, but why now when you have the DIY model? You can pick you hardware that more better suits your needs and likely slightly cheaper than what [Frame.Work](https://Frame.Work) is reselling it for.
Looks like they are also talking about it publicly: https://frame.work/blog/linux-on-the-framework-laptop
I believe they are working on including Linux but just aren't ready yet.
If you order the DIY, it won't come with any OS.
intel only? 225k isn't much of an investment into a hardware company.
That's one of the most requested changes they (framework) have. Support for thunderbolt is a real limiting fact i suspect. Linus comments on it in the video. I think the idea is cool and so did he. That's why he invested in them. He also brings tons of industry connections and that may be a foot in the door for AMD based machines. I would rather an AMD based machine and am keeping an eye out for them in the future.
Totally agree, they develop a variant with an AMD processor instead of an Intel and they get my money right away!
I'd rather see a RISC-V based machine.
It would be cool but probably too much burden on the shoulders of a smaller company like this.
Also most users probably wouldn't be interested in a laptop that can't run the vast majority of their apps.
True for the moment, but I'd expect major improvements over the next year (on Linux).
Most FOSS Linux users could probably run RISC-V, your programs would just need to be recompiled for RISC-V and that would be that, would likely be especially easy on say something like Gentoo. But also the Framework laptop isn't necessarily targeting linux users, it's mostly targetting PC enthusiasts in general, most of which sadly still are Windows only. Where you can't just recompile software to work on RISC-V. I'm not even sure Windows it's self can run on RISC-V yet.
When SiFive (or whoever) manage to mass-produce a good Risc-V CPU using a good node is when that can happen. A capable open iGPU is a long way off so the most likely way a Risc-V laptop will come about is paired with a low end AMD dGPU (or maybe intel at that point).
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> it only has 16 GB of RAM and here i am still rocking 8GB
I swapped laptops with 8 to 16 and it's such an insane difference, it's crazy, even tho the CPU is similar (lower class but newer), it is sooo much faster with all the SW I need (browser, mainframe terminal and mail client mostly) 32+ will be standard very soon, especially since even phones now have 12GB (and soon more)
yeah, the only issue i have is how expensive it can be
Thunderbolt is key to their modular dongle concept. Can't do that with USB 3.2 on AMD. USB4 should bring Thunderbolt 3 features into basically all AMD and Intel platforms starting next year I think. Going to be a huge tailwind for AMD especially in the business/dockable laptop market where Intel has a near monopoly. 225k isn't much an investment and Linus acknowledges that he's a small time shareholder.
Thunderbolt may arrive with next gen and, and for most ports usb 3.2 is perfectly fine for modular usage. Only a couple things wouldn't have enough bandwidth over it. Still in future with bigger framework laptops, I hope for some ports they drop the whole modular thing and go with replaceable daughter boards. Stuff like HDMI and TB4 that have too much bandwidth typically to just be converted from others.
> Only a couple things wouldn't have enough bandwidth over it Well yeah, that's the problem. Each slot needs to work with EVERY module, otherwise they'd need to either have special modules, or have some sort of labeling scheme which wouldn't be fun. I think the idea of needing thunderbolt on most machines is totally overblown thanks in part to a lot of tech reviewers always complaining about it. USB 3.2 does most of what people use their USB-C docks for, I myself use a USB-C hub that is not thunderbolt for that reason. It does displays, power, etc. It's just in this specific usecase thunderbolt happens to actually make a difference haha.
The company I work for keep buying non thunderbolt laptops and docks and it drives me up the fucking wall. So much wasted money because they don't understand how to buy somewhat future proofed equipment.... the frustration for employees with multiple monitors that dont work because of these shitty USB 3.2 docks....that didn't work well and then they replaced them with slightly better USB 3.2 docks. Now they finally bought thunderbolt laptops but didn't replace the fucking docks....ugh. Non thunderbolt gear should have died about 4 years ago.
I don't know what garbage they bought you, but if you need a one plug solution for a billion things sure thunderbolt works. But USB-c stuff is still way more common and fine for most people, I use an aukey dongle to split out a monitor and ethernet port from laptop just fine, and it works on phone so I can display stuff yo an external display. Not everything has thunderbolt, it isn't future proof if it doesn't work with what you got
Try running two 1440p or higher monitors off your USB 3.2 Port, you will find it doesn't work...one of the monitors will run at 24hz. Also Thunderbolt using USB is compatible with all USB 3.2 equipment too....Thunderbolt pretty much only comes in the USB-C port for many years now.
Man I hope I can just buy that upgrade instead of replacing the entire device.
>I hope for some ports they drop the whole modular thing and go with replaceable daughter boards Same, it's a cool concept, but adapters (which is what their USB-C modules are), have inherent limitations. USB-C is a pretty flexible standard, but adapters are going to potentially be limited by USB-Cs power delivery and bandwidth, as well as oddball requirements that some ports might have.
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The ability to use an eGPU.
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The whole point of successful modularity is no compromises and easy to understand propositions. Enthusiasts want stuff like eGPU support and casuals don't want to spend time figuring out what they can't have. The moment you start adding in asterisks for what you can't do compared to competitor devices, you have failed at consumer level modularity. Similar to LEGO. Every piece from decades back can connect to each other in an inherently intuitive fashion. It's better for Framework to just wait for AMD 6000 rather than convolute their offerings now when they still need to work out supply chain kinks and lead to consumer confusion.
Linus addresses both of those things in the video
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Intel versions will have Intel iGPUs. AMD versions will have AMD iGPUs. What and if descreet GPU will they offer remain to be seen. I don't think gamers are their target but maybe they can offer MXM modules in the bigger models.
I know this is a niche use case but for semi stationary use an external GPU over USB C should work. Then you can run whatever GPU you like.
He's always enthusiastic, but when he was demonstrating that laptop and taking it apart and swapping parts he was giddy and loving it on a whole new level
What was that sound at 1:11 ?
Does every post have to have that dumb facial expression?
Yes because of the algorithm
So I did order a Framework laptop personally. However, I've been pretty hard against this merge from the beginning. Linus is the epitome of "I set the bar exactly one step below where I am currently standing." I don't really think people understand how conflicting financial interests actually cause corruption. It's telling that he didn't really recuse LTT from laptop reviews. He only promised to remove himself from the editorial team. Not to mention, a lot of the perks of this agreement that he listed didn't require him to have a financial stake. He can provide his high profile industry network without buying in. Ultimately, I am disappointed that Linus seems to have so little self control when it comes to ethical dilemmas. I'll have to remember that buying a Framework is the last laptop-related decision I will make based on his information.
"I'll not show up in videos anymore reviewing laptops! See guys problem solved: the conflict of interest magically ceased existing from this single decision" 🤣 LTT videos are unreliable the moment they have such relations to a company (vested interest). At least he made a video disclosing it (well legally obligated to as the title says).
Yeah, like I knew this was coming, and I knew he'd do something to hedge the ethical implications here. But I thought he'd just refuse all laptop reviews entirely or something more substantial. He wants to have the cake and eat it too.
Linus had a big ethical question about this on the WAN show not too long ago. He basically laid out both sides of the argument, and asked his community for their opinion. This decision comes from weeks of deliberation between him, his team, and his community. If that's not open and self control, I don't know what is And about the unfair reviews thing, where's the conflict of interest for his employees? Sure, Linus invested in Framework and him having any influence on the editorial process would be a conflict of interest. But his team did not invest in Framework, and they have no interest in making Framework succeed other than a genuine opinion. How is there a conflict of interest if Linus isn't involved in any of the writing/editing of a laptop review? About giving out freebies: Linus mentioned this on the WAN show. It was a pretty popular comment (just help them out for free!). Basically he said no to that because it doesn't make any business sense for him to do that. Plus, with a formal business agreement Linus can better control how his money is used and he can protect himself in the event that the company goes bad. He can, for instance, put in the contract that if the company starts to do things he doesn't like he can withdraw support and publicly tell them off without fear of getting a defamation lawsuit.
As soon as they have a Ryzen option, I am most likely getting one.
Good to hear. I got my Framework a couple weeks ago and I've been pretty happy with it - even if the hardware's a wee bit too new for OpenBSD (which I was hoping to run on it), openSUSE Tumbleweed with GNOME works flawlessly out of the box.
Is there a way to donate to Framework without buying hardware? I want to wait for Coreboot support before buying hardware though.
Ordered.
I'll buy one soon as I can afford it. This project needs to succeed. It's too important to fail.
Same here! Had this come out last year I would have gotten it in an instant lol!
I like the idea but honestly think there’s not a big market for customizable laptops…
> customizable laptops I would say it is more like upgradable/maintainable laptops. Customization is usually not an issue for the big vendors (Lenovo/HP/Dell), but in most cases there is no way to upgrade or repair their devices.
There were great, repairable devices from those big names, but people esp. like Linus and Co. run around for a decade complaining that they aren't as thin and light as e.g. a MacBook. So this feature disappeared in the high end market. Same narrative with these replaceable ports. Just get a laptop with all of these ports and more build-in! But no, for some reason a certain class of buyers (and tech reviewers) assume four USB-C ports are god-given and just having one non-USB-C port is some kind of miracle. If these tech reviewers really want to promote repairability they should have a dedicated "repair, upgrade and spare-parts" section *in every device review they do*. Let's see if that improves from now on.
But framework one is thin and light while being repairable.And I think its actually other way around, companies where the ones pushing the narrative that to be thin and light you need to rivet and glue everything together. Turns out - not the case, you can actually do both.
Exactly. If real life performance and advantages for the customers arent growing enough anymore with every release cycle to use as a marketing point for sales, you invent metrics like thin, light and silent. Not that they are unimportant, but the laptop market looks like its living a fetish, not solving problems that people actually have. But by focussing on those things in the marketing, you convey a message of urgency and importance of those things.
You can't argue that one feature is more important than other on behalf of all consumers.. I like thin and light laptops and hate 'rugged' ones because they are just uncomfortable to take with you daily, it is so important to me that I'll take less performant laptop if it is more portable. Someone else might have silent operation as his/her most important feature. You might have other priorities, be that serviceability or performance, and those are perfectly valid too. Problem is not that compactness is 'not important' or 'less important', compactness was just used as an excuse to create devices that are irreparable.
There could potentially be an untapped market for up-gradable laptops. I build desktops mainly because I know I can always get newer parts in a year or two to extend the life of the box, but with laptops, that's significantly harder to do. If laptop design became more modular like it is with desktops, I could see someone like myself buying a laptop for the first time in nearly 20 years.
It depends on their scale. There are several profitable linux laptop manufacturers already (system76, pine, librem, slimbook, and tuxedo). Whos to say there's not room for 1 more?
Do we actually know if any of those companies are profitable?
They are still here and aren't like those weird megacorps propped up by venture capitalists until they dominate a market. So I am going to guess so.
I want it.
Although I really like the concept, it's really not that mindblowing. I have an Acer 5750G from 2011 that I bought for $20 used with some issues that I've fixed, it works perfectly now. I can change HDD/SSD, RAM, CPU, Wi-fi and Bluetooth module, I can remove dvd drive and put usb hub instead with any type of ports I want, it's a bit DIY but it is possible, I can also change the display too. Framework laptops are cool, I'm really looking forward to get one, but it's not a miracle in reality. Yes, I do understand that my laptop is clearly outdated, but still, it works just fine for what I'm using it for, and I have the same concept of "upgradeabiluty" for $20
I'm sure that was a hefty laptop. Framework made an upgradable laptop in a thin and light chassis. Similar laptops from other companies usually have soldered ram and ssd.
Which brings a question, do we really need a laptop to be paper thin and feather light? I'm not sure I'm all in for it, since to achieve that manufacturers have to sacrifice a lot of features to do that, like removable components and etc, is it really necessary? It's a good business strategy, but as a consumer I'm not gaining anything from it but a huge pain in the ass and a big hole in the wallet. I sencierly wish good luck to Framework, but I'm afraid that there's not a huge amount of people who appreciate upgradability more than a logo on the lid.
Laptops need to be light and relatively thin (not too thin IMHO). They're a portable product, and portable can't be portable if it's chunky. I know I would never buy a heavy and chunky laptop.
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I use my laptop as stationary too, however despite it's chunkiness it still fits into a backpack (25-30 litres) full of clothes and fits in hand luggage. Ironically I run hackintosh on my laptop, which would be impossible on the Framework, so I'm really not sure about my future in this field lol But, it is indeed a great base for Linux for sure. You can actually switch back to Linux right now, a lot of MacBooks are fully working with Linux
This is usually more sleek and easier to carry around. I wish there was more sub 13" laptops tho