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I was thinking the same thing. Sure, this is better than a dongle in some ways, but is still an order of magnitude worse than the normal, flush-fitting expansion cards.

I do recall someone on the Framework subreddit saying that they carry a laptop around with them on a shop/factory floor, but mostly use wired ethernet when they stop and put it down on a workbench. Using a dongle wouldn't be great because it'd be something that would swing around unpredictably as he'd walk around a crowded room with lots of people and machines running. So in this case, this expansion card would probably be a useful step up from a dongle.

Regardless, a retractable "XJACK"[0] from the PCMCIA days might have been a better choice for this, if the hardware could be made "short" enough in that dimension. Downside there is of course fragility; I imagine they're easy to snap off.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XJACK

yeah, that was a clever hack...but not really very stable or long lived

I thought it wouldn't be long lived - but I once tried to put as much torque and pressure on that jack on an older/broken card - and I was amazed at how much abuse it took - I'm not even sure I was able to snap it off. Much more rugged than it appeared (though the cards died all the time - we had stacks of them).

> Regardless, a retractable "XJACK"[0] from the PCMCIA days might have been a better choice for this

Ah thanks for finding the name, I tried to describe it in an older comment [1], on the same topic of Framework laptop expansions.

Agree with you, I hope such a version exists one day!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28609464

My Megahertz XJack never snapped off, but it felt precarious and ugly. Imagine some Cat-5 with RJ45 connector pointing down, snapped into this narrow XJack frame, stiff cable sticking up beside your typing fingers and tension pulling on it.

3Com also had a proprietary connector on the PCMCIA card edge, and an adapter cable of a few/several inches that went from that to a bulky RJ45 socket housing with an LED on it. It meant carrying the adapter with your laptop, but the experience during use felt a little better. The PCMCIA-side of the adapter stuck out a bit and wasn't a very solid attachment, but that might've been partly by design. If the cable gets jerked, the connector might pull out before dashing the much more expensive laptop to the floor.

Overall, I liked the Xircom RealPort PCMCIA/CardBus cards of the same era, which took up the space of 2 PCMCIA slots, and basically added 1 or more flush connectors to the side of your laptop. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=xircom%20realport

(I mentioned all 3 of these kinds of cards, in a vagabonding laptop writeup at the time: https://www.neilvandyke.org/linux-thinkpad-560e/ )

It looks to me like the RJ45 jack is taller than the expansion card slot, and the depth of the bump is more or less the depth of the RJ45 jack + the space needed to wire it in. I'm not sure what else they could have done to produce something that fits in the expansion slot. You can always just use a USB-C ethernet dongle if you think you're going to disconnect it every time it goes into a bag.

Just looking at it, as long as its manufactured to reasonable tolerances, you'd have to do quite a bit to damage the laptop via the protrusion. I'm not sure how big of a deal this is. I'd just throw it in a bag and not worry about it, protrusion and all.

Couldn't they have copied one of the expanding RJ45 designs? There's so many out there, like:

https://imgur.com/eJVvlQx

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1520/4366/products/type-c-...

https://cdn11.bigcommerce.com/s-n2pgpewhfn/images/stencil/12...

Trying to fit ethernet into a slimmer form factor has been around for a loooooooong time....

No.

Those fucking suck, and some of us use our laptops on our laps, with ethernet connected. Those expanding jacks basically only work while it is on a desk because if the cable bends downwards even a tiny bit it just comes out.

I dunno why your comment was marked dead, but I vouched for it. That's a good point / use case that should be kept in mind.

There are likely patents covering those, which probably are owned by existing laptop vendors.

Even the USB and PCMCIA ones? They're pretty different designs.

> I'm not sure what else they could have done to produce something that fits in the expansion slot

They could've made the expansion slot bigger. It's unlikely that Ethernet wasn't talked about at some point when they designed the laptop. They chose not to, which may very well be the right choice, but then we're talking about trade-ofs not about possibilities.

The size is surprising, it looks like something from early 2000's.

There are definitely small jacks [1] that seem to work fine. There's also plenty of 2.5G usb dongles that have a pretty small form factor. So it doesn't seem like there's a technical reason it has to be that big.

Perhaps the folding connectors don't have the long-term durability? (Though, a huge benefit of the Framework is a broken port doesn't mean your entire machine is broken).

Maybe component availability? Maybe it was they only way to build it at a reasonable cost for the sales they expect?

[1] https://thetechnologyman.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/HP-P...

The issue with the folding connectors is that they fold down. Due to the Framework laptop's thinness, the port wouldn't be able to fully open if the laptop was sitting on a flat surface.

Ah, right, and the port is right at the bottom (whereas the the HP laptop's port is mounted a bit higher, and with the slight bevel has room to open).

I fucking hate those folding connectors, they get wedged between the strain relief boot on the ethernet cable and are very difficult to unplug. I witnessed a classmate completely destroy the back plastic on his laptop because he couldn't get it out.

dont get me wrong i'm sure there are better designs than others, but when its bad, its really bad

Those strain relief boots are nightmares on ALL ethernet ports. I've had them get stuck on way too many ports/laptops/desktops/hubs/switches to count. The first thing I do on any cable is move that thing back or cut it off all together...

Good point, they definitely suck no matter what

Can agree about cutting the boot.

I used to work in an R&D lab at AT&T (the mothership, pre at&t = cellular/mobile). My laptops took many falls due to someone/something giving the Ethernet cord a tug so I was in the habit of not just cutting the boots but removing the tab that's designed to keep the cable in the socket. I still do that on whatever eth cable goes into my backpack.

It's also good around hyper and small dogs/children :)

Yeah, I don't know why those boots even exist. I go out of my way to buy cables that don't have them. Cables are cheap and easy to replace if they break at the ends. At least those plastic tabs tend to break off if you tug hard... not the doomboots though :(

I think the main difference between built in jacks on laptops and this expansion card is that this needs to have all the circuitry to be a USB ethernet adapter on top of the actual jack. I imagine it's a challenge to fit that in alongside the jack itself, although hopefully people will keep iterating on the design - maybe we'll see a better third party one if the Framework laptop is successful enough.

This is kind of my whole confusion about the Framework module thing itself.

The repairability and linux support of the device is very cool. The easy upgrade internals and well labeled bits are very cool, but the external modules seem kind of pointless to me. They take up valuable interior space and are basically snap in USB-C dongles anyway.

If you have a few of these square framework only modules in your bag is that better than having more universal mac style dongles?

The regular modules fit in pretty snugly and don't add any extra bulk to the device. So you can put it in tight bags or sleeves without having to carry anything else around while still getting whatever ports you need.

This ethernet module is a little bulky, but it still looks like it fits more snugly than any third party dongle would, and chances are you wouldn't want to take it with you when you leave the house anyway.

The bottom of the expansion cards is exposed though - it seems like it should be possible to do the fold open style of connector that a lot of laptops have built in without it needing to expand past the edge. But maybe including the circuitboard as well took up too much space.

Benefiting from the modules doesn't mean not using dongles anymore. Even assuming that modules aren't being swapped around, different people will have different sets that maximize their utility. For me it's one A, two C and one storage expansion; maybe for you it's three C; someone else really wants DP, etc.

I can customize the ports to my liking without having anything protruding from the laptop (aside from ethernet, which I agree removes the utility).

I like having a microSD reader built in for instance, even if most people don't need one. With most laptops now I'd need to carry a card reader around and it wouldn't be flush with the laptop.

Yeah I guess this thing works but honestly I'd rather use a usb-c dongle which at least isn't semi locked in to the framework form factor.

On the other side, I'd also consider ethernet to be something already installed on the laptop, without needing an expansion card. I get the framework laptop philosophy and ideas, but needing an expansion card for something as basic as ethernet seems stupid to me. On the other hand, macs come without one too, so yeah... I might be getting old.

It's worth bearing in mind that _all_ ports on the device are expansion cards, including the USB-C port that the device needs to actually charge. In any case I think WiFi is 'good enough' for most use cases, and as such the number of laptops that provide ethernet as standard is rapidly diminishing. I very rarely need an ethernet port on my laptop, but for the times I do it'd be very helpful to have it installed rather than needing a dongle flapping about.

the USB-C port is a passthrough port because the other side is also USB-C

Well yeah, this is what I consider "stupid".

I prefer the "oldschool" way... give us a bunch of usb ports, ethernet, sd card reader, one or two video out options, etc. then add a few (back in the time pcmcia/expresscard) expansion ports for other things.

The current options seem like configuring a car, and having a steering wheel as an optional addon module.

again, as I said, I might be getting old :)

Eh - I was mostly in your camp until I got a work machine with nothing but USB-C.

Turns out... it just really doesn't matter much, and there are a bunch of upsides.

Namely - I can charge on either side, with basically any decent usb-c charger, and I can plug it into basically any usb-c dock. Those are pretty huge points of convenience. They actively make my life a lot better (seriously - a single charger for all my devices while traveling is SO fucking nice - two laptops, headphones, phone, remarkable... one charger).

The only caveat? I have to throw a single usb-c dongle into my laptop bag for the occasional time I need it. My pick of choice is the pinephone dongle (https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-usb-c-docking-bar-dark-...) since it's cheap, has ethernet and HDMI, plus two usb ports, and works with basically every usb-c device I've plugged it into, on any OS.

Big plus? That dongle is way, way smaller than the extra chargers I'd be lugging around otherwise.

Disagree, don't waste my ports on something most people won't use on a thin and light laptop. Gaming laptop? I get it, but for most uses of this machine I'd rather just connect to WiFi

> needing an expansion card for something as basic as ethernet seems stupid to me

“I never have to undergo those complicated hardware upgrades, because a Mac always comes with everything already.”

— http://www.absurdnotions.org/page129.html

UPDATE: After replying to parent, I read further and saw others mentioned XJACK seventeen hours ago, the actual technology the PCMCIA I mention is using.

- - —

> card that sticks out like that

remember PCMCIA cards? back in those good old days of laptops taking a universal expansion card physical format, the Ethernet cards often had a spring loaded pop-out jack to hold the Ethernet cable.

look at the picture for this on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card#/media/File:XJACK_netw...

Framework is simply “doing it wrong”.

// disclaimer: I own the latest Frame.work model, my bias to want their success is strong enough that I bought one