Great that in some months there will be a high-end laptop that you don't have to throw in the garbage bin once a ram chip fries. High expectations.
Good detail hear about the process if making the case - really interesting to read.<p>Injection molding semi-liquid magnesium seems…quite difficult to say the least!<p>Tangentially, I wish there was some online resources for learning how best design for manufacture for things like laptops and cases.<p>Contract CNC fabrication is really inexpensive these days until you need 10 iterations to fix your dumb mistakes.
This case looks great. Love that we have replaceable graphics on this one.<p>I’m most excited for the ortholinear keyboard attachment. That makes it a must-buy for me, since after switching to a Kinesis Advantage I just can’t type on a staggered layout anymore.
I really love my Framework. I love that I can hack it (I made a Yubikey adapter so I could always have it inserted: <a href="https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-a-security-key-for-the-framework-laptop/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.stavros.io/posts/making-a-security-key-for-the-f...</a>), I love that I can trivially repair any component that breaks, and it feels great as well, it's very light and solid.<p>The only issues I have with it is battery life (though I have the battery set to charge to 70% max, which leaves a lot on the table), and the fact that Intel processors heat up very easily.<p>I really hope Intel and AMD get their shit together and release a processor as efficient as Apple silicon, I don't want to end up using my MacBook more than my Framework.
I thought this line was interesting:<p>> with no externally visible fasteners<p>I wonder if it was easier or thinner to do that way, or if it was a deliberate design choice for a more minimal appearance.<p>Personally I don't mind seeing fasteners. After swapping LCDs on my old Thinkpads a couple times, I stopped replacing the screw covers and embraced one fewer step for future maintenance.
Me and many of my friends all have zombie Frankenstein desktops that perfectly illustrate why the Framework laptop both does and doesn't make sense.<p>I can understand why people with money to burn might not understand the limitations of trying to make a modular architecture work over the long term. Back in the day, dropping in an SSD represented a massive, relatively inexpensive upgrade. But, a desktop has cross-compatibility and flexibility primarily afforded by its massive size and weight. I'm not convinced these sorts of cross compatible upgrades will continue to surface into the future. And especially not on a laptop/mobile form factor.<p>Now, my desktop's IO ports are 2/3 fried. Its memory, motherboard, CPU, GPU, OS and hard drive are hopelessly outdated. It will never make sense to meaningfully upgrade it, upgrade would mean wholesale replacement of everything. I could keep the case and the CPU cooler, big whoop.
I find the battery life on my framework 13 really bad (ubuntu installed).<p>There's some issue where the battery drains fairly quickly in suspend which requires enabling "deep sleep" mode, but it still drains a lot faster than other laptops I've had.<p>And then the battery life in general isn't very good; I'd say ~2 hours at full brightness with some video streaming mixed in with normal browsing.<p>I wonder if that's the same experience other people have? And whether the 16 will have better battery life?
I don't know if magnesium is a common choice for computer enclosures, but one of the few examples of magnesium that I immediately recall (besides Surface) is a NeXT computer that went up in flames: <a href="https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://simson.net/ref/1993/cubefire.html</a>
Still waiting for the other shoe to drop with a pricing announcement. I keep getting almost excited about the Framework 16", but then I'm remember it's probably going to be well over $2500USD for a decently specced model (without a GPU even) and my excitement quickly dissipates.
Given the whole idea here is total user freedom for ports and I/O expandability, it bothers me that I cannot get this with an SD card slot, a feature that comes standard on newer macbook pros.
No ARM option? Also, the battery compartment is tiny. Put the two together and I'm guessing this is not going to run for long.<p>Love the idea though. If I ever buy a laptop again it will be one of those.
The picture at the end shows the laptops shadow on its left made it look like the laptop had a cheap shape. You can’t hVe sharp shadows like that on a photo
I’m strongly considering buying a Framework 16 when they come out. But with all the hype they’re generating, I feel certain that I and many others have to be disappointed. It can’t live up to it.
Apropos of nothing, I learned (thanks to a recent Linus Tech Tips video) that Framework's DIY Edition laptops are preassembled for QA and then disassembled prior to shipping. I found that amusing. Not sure I could buy a DIY model knowing that.
See also<p><a href="https://starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://starlabs.systems/pages/starfighter</a>