Framework Laptop 16 | Hacker News Reader

Framework Laptop 16

frame.work

93 pointskristianp33 comments

Duplicate, discussed when the article was published two months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35286544 (682 points, 370 comments).

They did just publish a new article, Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive - Display <https://frame.work/blog/framework-laptop-16-deep-dive---disp...>, but https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36064079 (8 hours ago, 5 points, 2 comments) didn’t get much traction.

I don't understand why they dropped the 3:2 ratio for the larger model.

I thought these are targeted at professionals and not media consumption... I can't see myself going back to 16:9 or 16:10

Just seems like a dumb move. They even seem to have the space with those hideous bezels from 2010. There are tons of similar 16:10 options. It's a saturated market, while there are only a small handful of 16inch 3:2 laptops

- written from a Huawei Matebook 16

Their "screen deep dive" [0] mentions this bit:

> There was no existing panel that satisfied all of these needs, so we instead developed a semi-custom LCD display module with BOE, the same panel maker we use for the Framework Laptop 13. The “semi” part is that we customized the backlight for higher brightness and liquid crystal chemistry for better contrast and color gamut while leveraging an existing TFT mask set to avoid needing to pay a few million dollars in tooling fees.

So probably the existing TFT masks all where 16:9 and 16:10?

I personally would also have preferred a higher aspect ratio screen (my favorite laptop is still the IBM Thinkpad X41, which had a 4:3 display), but the other features are probably more important than... 8% more screen height.

[0] https://frame.work/blog/framework-laptop-16-deep-dive---disp...

It's a good guess but i don't think it's true

Check here under Display

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Huawei-MateBook-16-AMD-Review-...

It's a 16 inch 3:2 display. The Display model is listed as "BOE TV160DKT-NH0 X-Rite i1Pro 2"

Same BOE they claim to be working with

It's possible they weren't able to source 16" panels in that ratio? (at a price that worked). I wouldn't exclude a different ration screen in the future maybe?

From the newsletter: "There was no existing panel that satisfied all of these needs, so we instead developed a semi-custom LCD display module with BOE, the same panel maker we use for the Framework Laptop 13. The “semi” part is that we customized the backlight for higher brightness and liquid crystal chemistry for better contrast and color gamut while leveraging an existing TFT mask set to avoid needing to pay a few million dollars in tooling fees." Looks like they had to make some compromise. P.S.: I personally like what they did and especially the resolution of 2k, for me the best compromise between work, video and gaming. I will for sure get one (when they support enough memory for my needs).

Who makes 16" 3:2 displays?

HUAWEI MateBook 16 has one so somebody must make them.

Surface Laptop also has a 15" variant.

What makes that screen ratio non professional?

A 16:9 screen is too short when working on 16:9 video.

It is really nice to have video span, if not the entire viewport, most of it, with the timeline down below. 16:10 gives you a nice bit of control area.

But 3:2 is even better. Hell, give me a 5:4 screen—I live and die in Figma all day, working on mobile app mockups. Which are very tall, obviously, and get awfully small on these HDTV-ish aspect ratios.

You could just rotate your monitor 90 degrees and change the orientation from landscape to portrait in the desktop.

Except this still isn’t great with a 16:9 aspect ratio…well I guess 9:16 now…display.

It’s still too damn narrow. Yeah, I get plenty of vertical space, but then the Figma chrome gets jammed into teeny little strips along the sidebar.

This solution does better in Adobe applications, where you can break panels out of the parent window…but still, just, no, 16:9, too skinny, too gawky, give me closer to the Golden Ratio.

Somewhat hard to do with a laptop

It's a laptop.

So?

https://preview.redd.it/would-putting-my-laptop-like-this-ha...

While I found your question funny, I must say that a 4:3 (or 3:2) ratio allows for better use of screen estate for a lot of work cases. I write a some music arrangements, and being able to view a larger vertical part of a score without having it zoomed out is a big benefit.

I also prefer it for programming. I cap my lines at either GNU lines or 92, meaning horizontal space is never a problem. Getting more vertical space in all Windows when I split my screen in 4 or 1+2 is nice.

Writing (including code and word documents) tends to push the vertical bounds of screenspace rather than horizontal.

Media (widescreen cinema) is more horizontal.

Side-by-side is horizontal.

I'd like three terminals or code editor windows side by side. I don't care about the vertical space as much.

exactly. even just comparing a diff side by side sucks on most laptops.

Is your favourite handheld also the Gameboy Advance?

- Sent from my Icecream maker

I wanted to preorder the updated 13 inch model but it turned out that in EU Framework sells their products only in a selected few countries (also they are actively preventing people from using forwarding services so there's no good way to sidestep this). It would be great if they had a distributor somewhere in the EU or something that could resell their products otherwise it might be a very long wait till they're available where I'm at.

The "old" Framework 13 is still not available in the vast majority of countries[1], including most of the EU (and forget about it if you live anywhere outside the Western world).

I find it pretty surprising that designing an entirely new device has higher priority for them than making sure people who don't live in one of 9 countries can buy their existing product. I get that the listed countries are huge markets, but there are also huge markets elsewhere and entering them doesn't seem to be a priority for the company at all, with snail-like progress on regional availability in the 2 years since US+Canada started shipping.

[1] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/what-countries-and-regions-...

I wrote them twice asking them to at least add my country to the list (so I can be notified when they start shipping here), got two replies ("sure, try again in a couple of days"), and it's been... years? They just don't care.

Companies can do two things at the same time. The people working on sales and marketing are probably not the same people doing design and engineering.

If entering a new market requires obtaining a bunch of safety certifications, I wouldn't be surprised if a decent amount of engineers' time would be involved in that.

Compliant with local customer protection law and import regulations are not easy.

Unless they go rogue like china sellers, guess it won't be fix anytime soon.

the EU has a number of regulations both for the product and after sales which carry an up front investment and which require some local representation. they are all good for the consumers but nevertheless they mean a barrier to entry to that market.

not sure if that is the case here but it's a plausible explanation.

Is this an announcement of an announcement? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35978833

The Chromebook version of this looks exciting. I hope driver issues will not prevent mix-and-match modules from coexisting.

A US$2000 chrome os experience? But why?

While I like ChromeOS and I believe it’s the perfect fit on low-end devices, I never quite understood the premium Chromebook market. Why would you pay so much for a device which you then can basically only use for browsing and binge watching?

I use mine for work, though it's designed for gaming. It runs all PWAs, Android, and Linux. ChromeOS is a leader in the primary and secondary education markets, and my community college loans them out. Thanks.

> We’re excited to share our next major product category

Isn't this still in the category of laptops?

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