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They're just USB-C dongles that snap into the chassis.. You can see better shots here: https://frame.work https://frame.work This is an unpopular opinion, but

They're just USB-C dongles that snap into the chassis.. You can see better shots here: https://frame.work https://frame.work This is an unpopular opinion, but I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. This solution is sort of clever but it sacrifices a ton of internal space that could have been spent on a bigger battery. USB-C, and the correct cables, are all anyone needs. (the Nespresso analogy is ridiculous, a laptop doesn't exist to consume adapters. But I presume you were enjoying a little tongue-in-cheek with your coffee)

znpy 6y ago
> This solution is sort of clever but it sacrifices a ton of internal space this is true, yet... I'd be okay with that, to be honest. My current work laptop (a dell latitude 7390) is a jewel also because it's got a lot of ports. I have used them all at least once, but quite frankly, never all at the same time. So yeah, being able to unplug a port and plug a different one it's almost the perfect middle ground. we're pretty much all carrying dongles anyway (not me, the dell latitude 7390 has all the ports i might need)
baybal2 6y ago
Luke Leighton tried to make something like this for a really long time.
sho_hn 6y ago
> the Nespresso analogy is ridiculous Well, sort of :-) Nespresso is a famous implementation of a "your basic machine stays static, you swap out a different element of the system based on temporary/current needs, but you can only buy those elements from one vendor" pattern. Printer ink cartridges are another. Yeah, add-on cards to a computer aren't consumables per se - but the entire premise is that as time goes on you might want to get new ones (because your current needs change), i.e. upgrade. Whether I can pick upgrades from different vendors, and what the tax imposed on creating and/or selling upgrades is, matters.
- gregmac 6y ago
  I don't understand this criticism. On every other laptop on the market today, if you want different ports you either buy dongles or buy a whole new laptop. Every laptop I've ever owned has at least one port I never use, and after a couple years it's missing some other port I'd rather have. This one seems to solve that problem, extending the life of the machine and/or avoiding dongle hell.
  - sho_hn 6y ago
    If the value prop is that it's nice to move the port adapter dongle into the chassis rather than having one dangle from a port, so it's an ergonomic improvement you're sold on, sure. I'm not saying that can't have a market. But if you can only buy the dongle from one vendor, it's going to be more expensive than if there's a market where multiple vendors compete. It's that "you can only buy the adapter from Apple, and it's really expensive" thing, just moved into the chassis. Hence the question which one of those we're looking at here, and it was kindly answered by a rep above.
XorNot 6y ago
Apple burns almost all of their space savings on making the machine thinner, to the point of absurdity. Apple is content to push everything into dongles (which you have to carry around anyway) to get it thinner. The point at which I can't have a wired RJ45 ethernet port is already ridiculous - that is not a thick connector. Same with fullsize USB ports. Battery life there are hard limits as well: nobody is making a laptop with more then 100Wh, because that's the limit that you can carry onto an aircraft.
- Razengan 6y ago
  > a wired RJ45 ethernet port is not a thick connector. ……………
  - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
    There are ultra-slim foldable RJ-45 connectors[1], which manufacturers could use if they could be bothered but they don't, because they would rather save the BOM cost of it and advertise the WiFi capabilities instead. Only Fujitsu use them AFAIK. [1]https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/8/16750574/pop-out-ethernet-jack https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/8/16750574/p...
    - bombcar 6y ago
      I don't see how that DOESN'T get broken on the second use, honestly.
      - GekkePrutser 6y ago
        That one yes. But Lenovo has great collabsible Ethernet ports that are very durable and this laptop is more than thick enough to house one.
      - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
        Because it's meant for ultra-slim devices that will be docked on Thunderbolt 99% of the time and that foldable RJ-45 jack is for the "in case of emergency break glass" scenarios, that 1% of the time when you need to patch into a server physically without wasting time looking for a dongle, not for you to constantly plug/unplug ethernet cables in your laptop. If your uses case requires you to constantly plug/unplug ethernet cables in your laptop then you need a workstation class laptop with a full sized RJ-45 jack, not a sleek thin and light.
bryanlarsen 6y ago
Is it a useful form factor on other laptops? The market for RJ45 dongles is a lot larger than the market for framework, so if a vendor can hit both markets with the same product they'd be more likely to do so.
CarelessExpert 6y ago
Looking at the design, I'm not sure that expansion card concept is responsible for the thicker case. The reality is, supporting replaceable memory, mainboard, etc, likely necessitated a somewhat thicker design. Assuming that's correct, I think it's kinda clever... it's basically a dongle system that allows the modules to sit flush instead of jutting out of the side of the laptop.
lovelyviking 6y ago
>I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. I still dream to meet the one who made such 'wise' decision to tell him what I think about it personally! >USB-C, and the correct cables, are all anyone needs. I am not sure you can know what anyone needs. For instance you do not know what I need. I wish you'll be around when I need to copy my files from the camera with idiotic dongle in the field when time is precious. I would love then to hear how sticking card directly into the slot without any headache is less comfortable than looking for some dongle in the bag while holding your camera equipment and then hanging dongle on it's wire because there is no table around to put your laptop on or put it somehow on your lap and try not to move to avoid it breaking during the transfer because then you'll have to start again transferring your important pictures. Then pray it will work because some times it will not when you need it most. Removing sd-card reader slot is example of the most idiotic design decision I can imagine. It is taking what works perfectly and destroying it for no reason at all. It is pure damage without any benefits taking size of it into account. It was done by people who never used laptop for transferring photos from the camera using sd-card. They never thought that while you transfer with the sd-card your other card is available to continue shooting in critical or unexpected situations. This is what makes the difference between making some shots and not! I would never understand this idiocy of removing sd-card slot to "save space". The whole point of laptop is to save YOU space and headache or space in your BAG! Not in the laptop itself by making it useless. Such a dumb decision to remove useful ports. Goodness.
- randomchars 6y ago
  > All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. Maybe that's the case for you, but that's far from universal. I have zero need for any adapters. At work, I can use usb-c to connect to my monitor, and if I need to present in a meeting room, I do it wirelessly. At home, I can use airplay to share my screen to my TV.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
e12e 6y ago
I guess someone misses pcmcia modems and network cards. Does seem a bit odd to not just go for plenty of USB c ports.
robotnikman 6y ago
If it were a phone, I would agree. But laptops are much roomier, and the space lost is probably negligible.
JoshTriplett 6y ago
> This solution is sort of clever but it sacrifices a ton of internal space that could have been spent on a bigger battery. I wondered about that as well. Looking at the picture at the top of the main page, I see one small battery, and electronics that take up 2-3x the size of normal laptop electronics. Most current laptops have 60-80% of their chassis space occupied by batteries. However, the description mentions a 55Wh battery, which is quite reasonable for a thin-and-light laptop. It says 1.3kg, which is a little heavier than desirable for the form factor (1-1.2kg), but not by much. On balance, this looks like a much more reasonable set of tradeoffs than past "repairable laptop" efforts I've seen; Framework is putting serious hardware engineering effort into this.
novok 6y ago
I think either are fine TBH. Framework will definitely be a niche play to a segment of a pro market that is currently ignored. It will probably cost more than most equivalent laptops. They could in the future make a chassis that is just 4 USB-C ports and give you the space savings for other things. I think the flush USB-C dongles are actually clever in another way, you could make storage expansion bricks that have pass through USB (or no passthrough) and get more storage on your laptop beyond the one M.2 slot. It would be especially nice for video editor types, who I've seen literally velcro expansion SSDs to their macbooks with USB angle adapters [0] because dealing with dangling drives is annoying. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ljFfuzStEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ljFfuzStEQ
addicted 6y ago
What Apple did was gave people a solution that looks good on the retail floor, but in practice involved carrying a bunch of dongles, which take up more space, can break more easily, can be easily forgotten and are more finicky while using. In practice it leads to a significantly worse product for the vast majority of users, for the benefit of the minority that falls in the pro crowd and is able to get all their work done solely through USB-C ports. But the Apple Pro crowd users tend to include a lot of audio/video professionals who have a lot of expensive devices they tend to connect through USB-A, HDMI, etc, Photographers who were big fans of the SD card readers, and business people who didn’t really need pro devices but could afford them, and were fan of the video outputs for connecting to projectors and monitors, and maybe even LAN inputs because many offices tend to discourage WiFi networks. I think Apples big mistake was a category mistake. If they had made the MacBook or MacBook Air all USB-C, for example, there wouldn’t have been too much of an outcry. But the MacBook Pro line is the same one that carried a FW 400 port years after FW800 had been released and even after FW itself was kinda dead besides certain niche applications (which tended to be popular with Apple pro users).
- zepto 6y ago
  > the vast majority of users The vast majority of users don’t carry a bunch of dongles around. It’s just true. What are most people doing? Zoom, Excel, PowerPoint, Browser, Slack, etc.
  - rsj_hn 6y ago
    There are dongles at home and dongles to carry. For home, I need a DVI adaptor that goes into a separately powered USB 3 hub so I can use a monitor, and I can plug my keyboard and mouse into that. I am not a fan of the extra wiring though, needing to power the hub takes up one more electrical outlet, but it's not mobile and I can hide it, so no biggie. But that means when I carry the laptop around I have to carry a dongle for the mouse or not use the mouse. It depends. The mouse is ergonomic and easier on my hands than the trackpad, so I prefer to carry it. It's just one dongle, and I'm already carrying the mouse, so not too bad. I also need USB 2 for my Yubikey, which is USB 2.0. Before I had USB headsets but that would be 3 USB 2.0 devices and my portable hub only accepts two, so I ditched them and switched to the old wired iphone earbuds since they are light and stateless. That also means I have to give up my ergonomic keyboard and use the flat keyboard, but usually that's OK unless I am on a long trip. If I'm on a long trip, I'll want that ergonomic keyboard after a lot of typing at which point it's 3 USB 2.0 devices and then I need to bring the powered hub with its own adaptor. I can leave that where I'm staying and just take the mouse to the coffee shop. But this adds complexity. All in all, it's doable, I'm not complaining that it is an insurmountable obstacle, but I would prefer a computer that was a bit thicker and heavier but had more ports built just to reduce the overall complexity of the setup and not worry if I brought everything with me. When you compare the weight of the usb hub and its adaptor to the extra weight added by adding a few more ports, I'd prefer the laptop to be a bit less demanding in input requirements. To me that would make for a more mobile solution overall. But honestly these are minor issues.
jonnycomputer 6y ago
Yeah. Who needs a swiss army knife anyway. Just carry two knives, a can opener, a corkscrew, a nail filer, a pair of scissors, a saw, a screw driver, fish scaler, magnifying lens and toothpick.
bigpeopleareold 6y ago
There was at one point a couple of years ago when I had to attend more meetings at work that I would the be the one presenting something on my thinkpad only because everyone else had a macbook and forgot their dongle. It could be solved by buying dongles for each room possibly, but this was a persistent problem anyway. (Thankfully, there is fewer meetings and they are just online now :) ) I don't need the ports that much, but it is nice when the needed ports are just there, because it is usually a selection of ports I need. Maybe other people don't need what I need, but I prefer having some occasionally port present, knowing its there when I need it. I think this project takes a novel approach to the problem, sort of like what expresscards offered. Here, you can just add the ports you need if you need as your defaults.

znpy 6y ago

> This solution is sort of clever but it sacrifices a ton of internal space this is true, yet... I'd be okay with that, to be honest. My current work laptop (a dell latitude 7390) is a jewel also because it's got a lot of ports. I have used them all at least once, but quite frankly, never all at the same time. So yeah, being able to unplug a port and plug a different one it's almost the perfect middle ground. we're pretty much all carrying dongles anyway (not me, the dell latitude 7390 has all the ports i might need)

baybal2 6y ago

Luke Leighton tried to make something like this for a really long time.

sho_hn 6y ago

> the Nespresso analogy is ridiculous Well, sort of :-) Nespresso is a famous implementation of a "your basic machine stays static, you swap out a different element of the system based on temporary/current needs, but you can only buy those elements from one vendor" pattern. Printer ink cartridges are another. Yeah, add-on cards to a computer aren't consumables per se - but the entire premise is that as time goes on you might want to get new ones (because your current needs change), i.e. upgrade. Whether I can pick upgrades from different vendors, and what the tax imposed on creating and/or selling upgrades is, matters.

gregmac 6y ago
I don't understand this criticism. On every other laptop on the market today, if you want different ports you either buy dongles or buy a whole new laptop. Every laptop I've ever owned has at least one port I never use, and after a couple years it's missing some other port I'd rather have. This one seems to solve that problem, extending the life of the machine and/or avoiding dongle hell.
- sho_hn 6y ago
  If the value prop is that it's nice to move the port adapter dongle into the chassis rather than having one dangle from a port, so it's an ergonomic improvement you're sold on, sure. I'm not saying that can't have a market. But if you can only buy the dongle from one vendor, it's going to be more expensive than if there's a market where multiple vendors compete. It's that "you can only buy the adapter from Apple, and it's really expensive" thing, just moved into the chassis. Hence the question which one of those we're looking at here, and it was kindly answered by a rep above.

XorNot 6y ago

Apple burns almost all of their space savings on making the machine thinner, to the point of absurdity. Apple is content to push everything into dongles (which you have to carry around anyway) to get it thinner. The point at which I can't have a wired RJ45 ethernet port is already ridiculous - that is not a thick connector. Same with fullsize USB ports. Battery life there are hard limits as well: nobody is making a laptop with more then 100Wh, because that's the limit that you can carry onto an aircraft.

Razengan 6y ago
> a wired RJ45 ethernet port is not a thick connector. ……………
- ChuckNorris89 6y ago
  There are ultra-slim foldable RJ-45 connectors[1], which manufacturers could use if they could be bothered but they don't, because they would rather save the BOM cost of it and advertise the WiFi capabilities instead. Only Fujitsu use them AFAIK. [1]https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/8/16750574/pop-out-ethernet-jack https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/12/8/16750574/p...
  - bombcar 6y ago
    I don't see how that DOESN'T get broken on the second use, honestly.
    - GekkePrutser 6y ago
      That one yes. But Lenovo has great collabsible Ethernet ports that are very durable and this laptop is more than thick enough to house one.
    - ChuckNorris89 6y ago
      Because it's meant for ultra-slim devices that will be docked on Thunderbolt 99% of the time and that foldable RJ-45 jack is for the "in case of emergency break glass" scenarios, that 1% of the time when you need to patch into a server physically without wasting time looking for a dongle, not for you to constantly plug/unplug ethernet cables in your laptop. If your uses case requires you to constantly plug/unplug ethernet cables in your laptop then you need a workstation class laptop with a full sized RJ-45 jack, not a sleek thin and light.

bryanlarsen 6y ago

Is it a useful form factor on other laptops? The market for RJ45 dongles is a lot larger than the market for framework, so if a vendor can hit both markets with the same product they'd be more likely to do so.

CarelessExpert 6y ago

Looking at the design, I'm not sure that expansion card concept is responsible for the thicker case. The reality is, supporting replaceable memory, mainboard, etc, likely necessitated a somewhat thicker design. Assuming that's correct, I think it's kinda clever... it's basically a dongle system that allows the modules to sit flush instead of jutting out of the side of the laptop.

lovelyviking 6y ago

>I think this proves that Apple was right to dump legacy ports. How it proves it? Those guys do not drop ports, they just make them modular. All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. I still dream to meet the one who made such 'wise' decision to tell him what I think about it personally! >USB-C, and the correct cables, are all anyone needs. I am not sure you can know what anyone needs. For instance you do not know what I need. I wish you'll be around when I need to copy my files from the camera with idiotic dongle in the field when time is precious. I would love then to hear how sticking card directly into the slot without any headache is less comfortable than looking for some dongle in the bag while holding your camera equipment and then hanging dongle on it's wire because there is no table around to put your laptop on or put it somehow on your lap and try not to move to avoid it breaking during the transfer because then you'll have to start again transferring your important pictures. Then pray it will work because some times it will not when you need it most. Removing sd-card reader slot is example of the most idiotic design decision I can imagine. It is taking what works perfectly and destroying it for no reason at all. It is pure damage without any benefits taking size of it into account. It was done by people who never used laptop for transferring photos from the camera using sd-card. They never thought that while you transfer with the sd-card your other card is available to continue shooting in critical or unexpected situations. This is what makes the difference between making some shots and not! I would never understand this idiocy of removing sd-card slot to "save space". The whole point of laptop is to save YOU space and headache or space in your BAG! Not in the laptop itself by making it useless. Such a dumb decision to remove useful ports. Goodness.

randomchars 6y ago
> All the "saved space" in Apple laptops become amazingly wasted space in your bag with tons of adapters and wires. Maybe that's the case for you, but that's far from universal. I have zero need for any adapters. At work, I can use usb-c to connect to my monitor, and if I need to present in a meeting room, I do it wirelessly. At home, I can use airplay to share my screen to my TV.
- saagarjha 6y ago

e12e 6y ago

I guess someone misses pcmcia modems and network cards. Does seem a bit odd to not just go for plenty of USB c ports.

robotnikman 6y ago

If it were a phone, I would agree. But laptops are much roomier, and the space lost is probably negligible.

JoshTriplett 6y ago

> This solution is sort of clever but it sacrifices a ton of internal space that could have been spent on a bigger battery. I wondered about that as well. Looking at the picture at the top of the main page, I see one small battery, and electronics that take up 2-3x the size of normal laptop electronics. Most current laptops have 60-80% of their chassis space occupied by batteries. However, the description mentions a 55Wh battery, which is quite reasonable for a thin-and-light laptop. It says 1.3kg, which is a little heavier than desirable for the form factor (1-1.2kg), but not by much. On balance, this looks like a much more reasonable set of tradeoffs than past "repairable laptop" efforts I've seen; Framework is putting serious hardware engineering effort into this.

novok 6y ago

I think either are fine TBH. Framework will definitely be a niche play to a segment of a pro market that is currently ignored. It will probably cost more than most equivalent laptops. They could in the future make a chassis that is just 4 USB-C ports and give you the space savings for other things. I think the flush USB-C dongles are actually clever in another way, you could make storage expansion bricks that have pass through USB (or no passthrough) and get more storage on your laptop beyond the one M.2 slot. It would be especially nice for video editor types, who I've seen literally velcro expansion SSDs to their macbooks with USB angle adapters [0] because dealing with dangling drives is annoying. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ljFfuzStEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ljFfuzStEQ

addicted 6y ago

What Apple did was gave people a solution that looks good on the retail floor, but in practice involved carrying a bunch of dongles, which take up more space, can break more easily, can be easily forgotten and are more finicky while using. In practice it leads to a significantly worse product for the vast majority of users, for the benefit of the minority that falls in the pro crowd and is able to get all their work done solely through USB-C ports. But the Apple Pro crowd users tend to include a lot of audio/video professionals who have a lot of expensive devices they tend to connect through USB-A, HDMI, etc, Photographers who were big fans of the SD card readers, and business people who didn’t really need pro devices but could afford them, and were fan of the video outputs for connecting to projectors and monitors, and maybe even LAN inputs because many offices tend to discourage WiFi networks. I think Apples big mistake was a category mistake. If they had made the MacBook or MacBook Air all USB-C, for example, there wouldn’t have been too much of an outcry. But the MacBook Pro line is the same one that carried a FW 400 port years after FW800 had been released and even after FW itself was kinda dead besides certain niche applications (which tended to be popular with Apple pro users).

zepto 6y ago
> the vast majority of users The vast majority of users don’t carry a bunch of dongles around. It’s just true. What are most people doing? Zoom, Excel, PowerPoint, Browser, Slack, etc.
- rsj_hn 6y ago
  There are dongles at home and dongles to carry. For home, I need a DVI adaptor that goes into a separately powered USB 3 hub so I can use a monitor, and I can plug my keyboard and mouse into that. I am not a fan of the extra wiring though, needing to power the hub takes up one more electrical outlet, but it's not mobile and I can hide it, so no biggie. But that means when I carry the laptop around I have to carry a dongle for the mouse or not use the mouse. It depends. The mouse is ergonomic and easier on my hands than the trackpad, so I prefer to carry it. It's just one dongle, and I'm already carrying the mouse, so not too bad. I also need USB 2 for my Yubikey, which is USB 2.0. Before I had USB headsets but that would be 3 USB 2.0 devices and my portable hub only accepts two, so I ditched them and switched to the old wired iphone earbuds since they are light and stateless. That also means I have to give up my ergonomic keyboard and use the flat keyboard, but usually that's OK unless I am on a long trip. If I'm on a long trip, I'll want that ergonomic keyboard after a lot of typing at which point it's 3 USB 2.0 devices and then I need to bring the powered hub with its own adaptor. I can leave that where I'm staying and just take the mouse to the coffee shop. But this adds complexity. All in all, it's doable, I'm not complaining that it is an insurmountable obstacle, but I would prefer a computer that was a bit thicker and heavier but had more ports built just to reduce the overall complexity of the setup and not worry if I brought everything with me. When you compare the weight of the usb hub and its adaptor to the extra weight added by adding a few more ports, I'd prefer the laptop to be a bit less demanding in input requirements. To me that would make for a more mobile solution overall. But honestly these are minor issues.

jonnycomputer 6y ago

Yeah. Who needs a swiss army knife anyway. Just carry two knives, a can opener, a corkscrew, a nail filer, a pair of scissors, a saw, a screw driver, fish scaler, magnifying lens and toothpick.

bigpeopleareold 6y ago

There was at one point a couple of years ago when I had to attend more meetings at work that I would the be the one presenting something on my thinkpad only because everyone else had a macbook and forgot their dongle. It could be solved by buying dongles for each room possibly, but this was a persistent problem anyway. (Thankfully, there is fewer meetings and they are just online now :) ) I don't need the ports that much, but it is nice when the needed ports are just there, because it is usually a selection of ports I need. Maybe other people don't need what I need, but I prefer having some occasionally port present, knowing its there when I need it. I think this project takes a novel approach to the problem, sort of like what expresscards offered. Here, you can just add the ports you need if you need as your defaults.