I own a Thinkpad X1 Carbon from 2018 and to be honest I've never had to upgrade it so maybe modularity and upgradeability isn't as important to me personally...
I don't understand how you're supposed to use it. All but one of the six "expansion slots" are used to have a normal laptop: charging port, card reader, headphone jack, HDMI, ethernet, and finally you get to choose between having 1 USB A port for your mouse or 1 USB C slot for charging your phone. Connecting a keyboard just is not possible without disconnecting your mouse. Yay?
Dongles at excessive price points (45 euros for a network jack that comes standard on any old laptop?!) is something I associate with (web comics about) Apple people. For years I was so hoping Framework would launch a ~15" version at a reasonable price by the time I needed a new laptop, and now it has (well, still a ~9-month wait if you order today(!)) but then it was actually announced and, while geeking out on pre-release footage, I noticed it's not actually a usable laptop without a bunch of dongles :'(
The bonus is that you get to pick your i/o. I have a display port adaptor because I definitely do not want HDMI and I don't know of many laptops that come with that at all.
I do think they could find a way to cram two USB C ports into a single card or come out with a 1.5x sized card that could fit two USB type A. I understand why this is difficult, but there is plenty of space in the chassis for it. The cards themselves are not space efficient (but the size they are does give designers a bit of flexibility, so it's a game of trade offs).
Hmm probably my taste in laptops but every laptop that's come into my household over the past decade (about 8?) have had HDMI ports. Unless you mean ones that don't come with DisplayPort? Then yeah, I only seem to see USB-C ports that you have to use a dongle for outputting to DP.
So then I guess µSD is the next to go. While a regression from the status quo (when you buy, y'know, any other laptop for half the price), I could live with that being external. Then there's 3 slots available for USB, which is what I have today as well. It's fewer than I would want, and would thus expect from a hacker laptop, but it's workable.
I fully understand what you're saying about the advantage of picking what you want to have on it (let's ignore that every port costs extra and isn't just a configuration). Laptops used to come with both VGA and HDMI: being able to choose is indeed a boon. I don't know what happened to dual video output (how many hackers use multiple monitors?), but I'm old enough to feel like it being an either-or situation is also a regression from how I am used to things being. (I am reading HN currently via a VGA-to-HDMI adapter because, indeed, this laptop has no VGA anymore and replacing a functional screen at the optimal-for-me resolution felt wasteful for both, well, waste and for my wallet.)
It's built into the 13" version as well.
> when you buy, y'know, any other laptop for half the price
Reading some of your comments here, you seem to have a huge misconception about the point of these laptops, and who they are for. If you are price sensitive, you are probably not going to buy a Framework laptop. They are not trying to compete with the $700-$1000 range of laptops.
If you are the kind of person who routinely uses most or all of the 10 various ports present on some laptops with fixed ports, this laptop is probably not for you. Most people do not need all those ports. Four or six ports is generally fine for most people, and it's a bonus that the Framework lets them customize what those ports do.
You seem to be constantly arguing about these shortcomings, when they are not in fact shortcomings to most people. Please... let it go?
A cost always has to match the value that the product brings to either the buyer themselves or to a cause they care about.
For a modular laptop that has real hack value and good Linux support, I really am willing to pay a rather large premium. For example, I also bought a Fairphone which easily costs three times what comparable specs would otherwise set you back, but I really do value what these products both aim for (support for open software; sustainability through longevity). I don't think I'm being "price sensitive" if I say that ~double is too steep for a product that is neither significantly better for me nor for the planet¹. Am I?
¹I never had a laptop physically break in some way, so non-modular hardware that I own also simply lasts until developers decide they want to have another layer of indirection and we collectively get to upgrade anyway. Fairphone's premium partially goes towards more sustainable material sourcing and fair wages
> You seem to be constantly arguing
It feels like that, yes. I don't know why. Is there a better way I can approach these topics? Some way to frame it differently in my head so it's not arguing, but more constructive somehow. Not that everything here has to be constructive and helpful, like, discussing a topic is not necessarily only saying how wonderful everything is because it simply isn't always wonderful, but it still feels like all I do online is argue and complain. The option that I can see is to simply not post when the message isn't positive, and I've tried that in the past, but being a passive observer is also rather meaningless or dull. Is there another way to improve this that you know of?
For what it's worth, it did help me to post this because someone pointed out the headphone jack is actually built in, and that made me think "okay and then I can also forfeit the SD slot and then it works out". So Framework is still an option, and maybe I'll love the product if I decide to get one. But how to get to this point without making people feel like... well, like this I guess:
> Please... let it go?
Hmm sounds like your preferred ports!
While I have used HDMI and Ethernet, the vast majority of the time, I need
> charging port, 1 USB for headphones
So that's 4 ports left over for me. (I use Bluetooth mice, WiFi, and my laptop's screen.) Of course that's for a gaming laptop. If I used a laptop for work, I'd want screen outputs and probably Ethernet while I'm at it.
If you're on the go (i.e. using your laptop to charge your phone) then how are you using Ethernet and HDMI?
Of course, in my use case, having all those "expansion slots" doesn't really appeal to me anyway.
But I do think that the repairability is still a big plus.
Please mind your ergonomics if this is genuinely what you use a lot of the time
> If you're on the go (i.e. using your laptop to charge your phone) then how are you using Ethernet and HDMI?
The office has no wifi, and I don't work on a laptop screen all day long. If you mean in a train, then indeed I could go without, but if you mean to disconnect them when not in use, we get back to the point about web comics about dongle folk
But yes when I worked in the office and used a laptop, I plugged it into a dock to split out to screens and connect to the network. (At home I just use a desktop that has all those ports and a dozen to spare!) Never found the need to plug my phone in at work, but I get it if you need all those ports - it makes the modularity a pretty weak selling point for you!
I suspect the vast majority of people out there who use a laptop at work have wifi in their office. Certainly some people might prefer to use ethernet while at their desk, but that sort of thing is always what docking stations have been for.
Old laptop, maybe. How many laptops since 2020 have an inbuilt Ethernet port?
The X1 Carbon mentioned doesn't have it on current models.
But, yeah in 2018 when buying my previous consumer laptop, I already noticed that some are now trying to be too thin to fit a network port anymore. I really don't care about it being thin, though: I'd rather have good thermals and a big battery for Linux than filling 2mm less of the laptop pocket in my backpack... Still, so far there have always been options with that port
I was figuring that Framework would be a brand to cater to these hacker wishes, hence my disappointment
Maybe I've been buying some strange laptops, but I haven't had a network jack standard on a laptop in more than a decade (and no, they weren't all Apple laptops).
> Connecting a keyboard just is not possible without disconnecting your mouse
I really don't get this. Isn't the most common use case for a mouse/keyboard on a laptop when you're at your desk? What's wrong with leaving your mouse and keyboard (and anything else you only use at the desk) into some sort of dock or hub, and then plugging just that single thing into the laptop when you sit down at the desk? Personally I'd find that preferable; better to only have to plug/unplug one thing when switching between stationary and mobile.
Or do people actually carry around a keyboard and mouse with them wherever they go, and want to use them at coffee shops or wherever you're laptop'ing on the go? Even then, if you're carrying around the bulk of a keyboard and mouse, it hardly seems like a burden to carry around a small USB hub to go with it.
I also just don't get the constant need for so many ports. I have the Framework 13 (four ports), and 95% of the time the only thing plugged into it is a USB-C cable for charging. I get that people use laptops in many different ways, but it seems a little weird to get all worked up about "only" having six ports on the Framework 16. I mean, look at its physical layout! You're not going to get more than six ports without some serious compromises in physical form factor and board design (they'd probably need daughter boards with internal cables to the main board to service any more ports).
The Framework laptop is not for you, and that's ok! It's perfectly usable port-wise for many, many, many people, and your excessive port needs are not all that common.
- Charging port? Agreed.
- Card reader? Nope. I haven't used a card for data storage in a decade.
- Headphone jack? Nope. One is built in, but I've switched to bluetooth headphones, so I wouldn't waste a slot if it wasn't.
- HDMI / Display Port? Nope, see the comments below about a hub.
- Ethernet? Nope, see the comments below about a hub.
I use a USB-C hub at home and at the office. They have an HDMI port, an ethernet port, power in, and two USB-A ports for my mouse and keyboard. I leave them at the desk, so I just have to sit down, plug in the one cable and I'm ready to go. I can drop down my Macbook or my Framework in the same spot and I'm ready to go. It's convenient enough that I don't understand why you wouldn't want to go with a hub.
My older Framework only has 4 slots. One slot is USB-C for power, video, keyboard, mouse, ethernet, etc. My second slot has a USB-C FIDO key in it. The other two slots are for.... uh.... nothing? I keep USB-A slots in it just so that the bays aren't empty.
If you look inside a gaming laptop like a Asus G series, the entire back of the laptop is heatpipe and heatsink, shared between cpu/gpu and stretching side to side. The modularity sacrifices this by necessity.