Framework Laptop review: The anti-MacBook has arrived | Hacker News Reader

Framework Laptop review: The anti-MacBook has arrived

tomsguide.com

37 pointsmmerlin17 comments

Honestly, I love the idea, but I'm not sold on the execution.

It's thin for a highly modular laptop, but I would not consider it to be thin by current manufacturing trends.

I do think the keyboard being so easy to remove is a nice feature. I've repaired more laptops and desktops in my life than I would have cared to, and that's a rather uncommon and repair-friendly addition. I hope interchangeable keyboards / top cases become a thing with this laptop. I'd love to have a keyboard no Caps Lock (sub. Ctrl) and no windows key (sub. Super key, Meta, etc..).

Does anyone have any idea how the various Linux bistro support is on this device? I can imagine the driver compatibility being a nightmare, but then again, I imagine a lot has changed since I last ran Linux as my main OS (about 6-7 year ago).

I can see this being great for companies. In-house repairs would perhaps be more common and would save companies time and money. However, for personal usage and for a laptop in that price range, I'd still take the MacBook even with the CSAM junk, over this laptop. I still wish the company all the success though.

> It's thin for a highly modular laptop, but I would not consider it to be thin by current manufacturing trends.

Does anyone in the target audience actually care? I sure don't. My current laptop is ~50% thicker than this and could easily fit twice in my laptop bags. Because in reality it doesn't matter how thin that thing is, you'll still also carry the charger and 5 adapters with you.

Then again I never really understood this constant obsession with the thickness and weight of laptops and smartphones everywhere. In my personal experience better numbers in those two categories usually mean higher price for lower performance and a broken irrepairable device after 2-3 years.

> Does anyone have any idea how the various Linux bistro support is on this device?

Apparently everything works out of the box except the fingerprint sensor.

Laptop hardware support isn't that bad nowadays as long as you avoid the garbage from NVidia. Some distros are able to handle the NVidia Optimus cards though, just a few years ago it meant either no graphics driver or a blank screen after installation.

I don’t understand this obsession with thinness either. I guess this is what happens when Apple’s marketing machine repeatedly touts it.

What difference does a few millimeters make? Or even a pound (in weight)? For most people it makes zero difference. I’d take a bigger battery and more ports over thinness any day

I don’t care about thinness but I do care about weight. Carrying a heavy laptop on my back every day gets old.

Why do you feel like it's not thin? The framework laptop is 15.85mm thick, Apple's Macbook Air is 16.1mm tall at its thickest point. It's literally thinner than a MBA.

I don’t really like the laptop compromise. Where you’re trading performance (and maybe reliability) for mobility. This laptop seems like a good attempt at making the compromise less bad, but, I’ve gone back to desktops instead.

I’ve found that the majority of my work is always at my desk so I switched my main machine to desktop. It’s much, much more upgradeable/repairable than a laptop can be. I still keep a laptop for when I can’t be there but mostly just use it to remote into the main machine so it doesn’t have to be from this decade.

I’m looking forward to the moment I can plug a keyboard into my phone and connect into an EC3 instance or something like that and not worry about hardware at all.

This is what I have been doing for personal projects and I really enjoy the experience. Zerotier + SSH + tmux + neovim has been working really well for me.

However Im still looking for a decent laptop where I can use to remote into my main machine. Ive been able to get pretty far with an ipad pro but it still isnt quite there. The terminal app (blink) allows me to SSH and has advanced features like mapping caps lock to escape and better fonts but not having browser dev tools is a deal breaker for any serious work.

Have you considered a ms surface for accessing your main machine? I’ve been tempted to use one running a linux disto for pretty much your use case, but haven’t pulled the trigger quite yet

Ive been thinking about it definitely. Id be nervous about loading linux in a surface since it has touch. Im also considering macbook air and the framework laptop. So far nothing has wowed me and Im sort of waiting to get super excited.

I’ve been using an M1 MacBook so far. Optimizing for battery life and durability (in the sense of it won’t fall apart when dropped) and that’s where I’ve landed. I was using a Chromebook for a while before that (with the Linux add-on) and I think I liked that one a bit better. I like being integrated into the iOS ecosystem more than Android though, if I get to choose.

If you need browser dev tools, have you tried the iPadOS browser called Inspect?

I have not! Ill check it out thanks

https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-air-late-2020

https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/intel-core-i7-1165g...

Honestly, this anti-macbook is way better than I expected.

What are great laptops below 3.5 lbs?

I know XPS13 and Lenovo’s Carbon X1.

That looks pretty thin and light for such a serviceable laptop, but it is not as thin and light as a MacBook Air. Not even a MacBook Pro…

It’s the same 2.8 lbs as the MB Air and nearly the same Thickness 0.62in vs 0.6in.

Am I missing something?

The new MBA is 0.63 inches at it's thickest point too...

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