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Comment by je42 | Hacker News Reader

you can switch the ports pretty quickly on framework laptops.

In my experience (my partner has a Framework), changing a port is not something easily done without putting the Framework bottom side up. In practice you need to stop whatever you are doing to first sleep the laptop, turn it over, change the port and then get back to what you were doing before. Repeat the process if you want to get the ports back in the original order.

I have a 16, not a 13, but I thought that the module swapping system was relatively similar, and this is not at all my experience. I just tilt up the bottom, click the port lock, and then pull out the module, and put in the new one. It takes me less than 10 seconds, all while the computer is on and open. So unless they module swap system isn't the same, I would have expected it to be even easier on the smaller, lighter 13.

Don't think I've ever done this. I reach under it, press the release button with one finger and with the adjacent finger grab the indentation under the card and slide it out. Card comes out in like two seconds.

Yeah, I agree with this. I find it simpler to just carry a couple of usb-c to whatever hub/adapters for when I need to a port my framework doesn't have built in.

The expansion cards seem pretty gimmicky to me. You're replacing a hub with... a bunch of hubs with one port on it. I know it opens up to some third party modules (this one seems particularly cool: https://github.com/LeoDJ/FW-EC-DongleHiderPlus) but for the most part you are getting less connectivity than other laptops. You don't even get an audio jack without taking up one of your expansion slots (edit: on the Framework 16. 13 includes it).

If the expansion slots were larger then they could have maybe facilitated something like getting 2 usb-a ports in exchange for the one USB-C which feels like an actual thing to consider. As it is, it just doesn't feel like you're gaining anything. If you're carrying any additional expansion cards with you you lose the only advantage it has over buying a hub, which can turn that one usb-c slot into multiple usb-a ports, ethernet, hdmi, audio, sd card reader, etc.

For what it's worth, the 13 does have an audio jack. It's only the 16 that requires an addin card for that.

I get what you're coming where you're coming from though. For me, the whole package was worth it, but that's probably not true for everyone.

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