DIY triple-screen laptop based on the framework
youtube.com
youtube.com
If the Framework mainboard becomes a Super-Pi, will Framework owners be able to get the spare parts that they were counting on?
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-chain-update-its-goo...
> Although we are sitting on substantial order backlogs from commercial customers, we expect to gradually increase the fraction of our output which we dedicate to single-unit sales next year until we’re back in our pre-pandemic situation. The chip allocations we’ve received for next year mean that by the end of the third quarter, the channel will have recovered to its equilibrium stocking level, with hundreds of thousands of units available at any given time. At that point, we will have spent a little over two years in a low-stock position: a measure of the severity and persistence of the shortages.
It's been a rough few months to be a pi community member. The 'its totally a supply problem, out of our control' attitude of the company, and then the uncivil outburst of the co-founders wife on the official Pi social accounts didn't do them any favours. That one was made worse by well known and respected former employees chiming in and mentioning that it was how the company was internally probably didn't help.
On the other hand expressif is eating their low end, the pico was too expensive too late. Perhaps they will make a bigger board too. They're much better at integrating with the community than Broadcom, they hired community members like sprite_tm.
In fact, we explicitly encourage this kind of re-use, because it benefits everyone. It’s a great way to absorb a Mainboard that is being upgraded out of a Framework Laptop for example, increasing its value for re-sale and avoiding it turning into e-waste.
I have 2 Frameworks in my UK household as we speak. And when the wife's old Macbook Air gives up the ghost, there will be 3.
I think Framework is probably fine for the foreseeable future.
Review existing RPi commercial use cases to identify features for product segmentation enhancement. Price RPi commercial IP the same as other commercial users of Broadcom IP.
The compute model in particular was a mistake IMO. I'm sure they do great business but their original focus is lost.
You may be able to get build inspiration from that community.
Of course, the video gets away with very little soldering and using only off-the-shelf hardware, which is impressive in itself. I couldn't find any such "eDP splitters" or MST hubs, and you'd still need the iPad screen controllers.
[1]: https://www.embedded.com/edp-a-better-embedded-display-ecosy...
No machine shop or specialized training or anything to replicate the Matt's builds.
There is no modern laptop like it where you can keep a chassis and update the thing piecemeal, easily buy parts for it, designed from scratch to be easily repairable and comes by default with a sensible system for choosing your own ports without external dongles hanging from delicate ports.
The market for a three screen laptop is much, much smaller than that and it would probably work better as a third-party accessory to the base Framework. Of course, it wouldn't make much sense because their only chassis has a tiny screen, but if you believe a three laptop production line is economically viable, surely you also can see how a MBP-like 16-inch screen production line is even more viable.
As I said, barely differentiable. Baring that, its as standard as a plastic laptop comes.
I'd personally be more interested in a portable than another laptop. Most laptop's I've owned have not needed repair for their lifetimes, and very seldom have I ever even thought about needing to upgrade my laptops "piecemeal" rather than just upgrading the whole thing together.
If I wanted a 16" MBP I'd buy a 16" MBP. Plus it can run MacOS.
What nobody makes is a portable workstation rather than a laptop. Laptops are great if you want situations where you want to use it on your lap - airplanes, airports, coffee shops, your couch, etc.
No that people are moving to a hybrid in-office/at-home work environment, and companies are going to "hot desk" models I want something maybe a bit heavier than a laptop, that I can easily transport from one desk to another another, and not have to spend a bunch of time hooking it up when I get there.
That is something really nobody makes.
It's not, uh, intellectually honest to say "here's how to build a triple-screen laptop!" and then follow that up with "oh, btw, don't use laptops, desktop computers are better for you, see?".
All that said, I did enjoy the build and it's really cool to see both Framework parts being used as well as of course 3d printing. Nice.
You could argue that something "truly" designed for lapwork would better deserve the name laptop, but it's just weird to say that something completely unusable in your lap should be called a laptop.
The new Macbooks feel dead cold.
I have a ton of general purpose computers that can be set up on a desk but are otherwise wildly impractical some place like an airplane, or in any kind of moving vehicle.
It is kind of why I still am married to having a traditional laptop instead of just using my iPad with a keyboard case for example. It just gets more fiddly. I’d take my steam deck with me to somewhere I’d be able to set up with for non-gaming use but I’d never try to use it as a regular computer on a plane or even in a coffee shop killing time between appointments or whatever.
We don’t do portables/luggable as terminology anymore but that is where it breaks for me.
I appreciate you offering that perspective though.
Take the part of the laptop that's good (the portability) and adapt it to be something that is even better.
We can quibble with if this is a "true" laptop later...
Yes, but the laptop form factor is the only thing that has any hope of working in the space granted to someone sitting on a train. And "use it while travelling" feels like a fairly important use case for the "mobile computer" niche.
He calls it a laptop since Framework calls its computers "laptops" and the whole setup is battery powered.
That's just a plainly false statement, and there have been several instances where the fact I can use my laptop while travelling has been very important.
Laptops should have keyboard and everything in one portable package, this is unusable without external keyboard and doesn't have built-in keyboard, thus it's NOT laptop.
And I don't care what he says in video, title is clickbait.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6glQCMpqH7M&t=3m40s
It's sorta my dream laptop for asserting dominance in coworking cafes.
Here, two of these ports are used for the side displays, one for a 4-port USB-A hub, and one is apparently exposed to the outside via some right-angle adapter, intended as power input.
Even tho the "power input" could probably be used for a dock or similar, just one USB-C and 4 USB-A is a bit lame for I/O.
Maybe they could've tried to power both side displays from one port by using a dual-DP hub to have one more exposable USB-C port; and/or replace the 4xUSB-A hub with a dock with more features - ethernet, video out and an SD card reader would be useful
I'm also pretty sure that no company I have worked for would have paid for me to have two company computers.