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Preparing for Pre-Orders! (Framework modular laptop)
- edf13 5y agoAm I missing pricing info? Can’t find it... looks very interesting!
- shimonabi 5y agoThey are hiding the pricing info for a reason. Everything over 1000$ is not acceptable.
- dewey 5y agoWhy would over 1000$ not be acceptable for a niche product which is manufactured in small quantities?
- faeyanpiraat 5y agoAnything can go wrong until September, then you can say goodbye to the $.
- CarelessExpert 5y agoHell, even if it wasn't, $1,000 is mid-range in the laptop world (e.g. a bottom end Dell XPS 13 or Envy clocks in around that price point), and anything below that starts to get pretty hit-and-miss.
- Closi 5y agoEh, it’s the price of a M1 MacBook Air which isn’t exactly a slouch of a machine.
- dexterdog 5y agoThe base m1 air is often $900 at places like costco and is always available via the educational discount which anybody can get. Granted, it needs a RAM and HD upgrade for most HN users which quickly becomes highway robbery with apple's upgrade pricing, but still the base is under $1K.
- dubcanada 5y agoIt doesn't actually appear that it's ready, this seems to be more of a pre-pre-order. You signup to signup to the pre-order when it's released.
- wott 5y agoYet it says "the final batch of pre-production Framework Laptop development units just came off of our manufacturing line in Taiwan". If they don't have any idea of the price at that point... Edit: a quick search on their forum seems to show that they don't want to give any hint about the price there either.
- nrp 5y agoWe'll be announcing pricing at the time we open pre-orders. This really is a pre-pre-order blog post that we very much did not expect to see on HN! It's more a heads up to folks who are currently on our email list that they can register an account before the upcoming pre-orders.
- codemac 5y agoOne of the terrible parts of these kind of "modular" laptops is all about the size of the different modules. If you built a laptop even 10 years ago with modular parts, the ratios would be all out of whack compared to modern laptops. The battery would be half the size it should be, and the storage and ram sections would probably 2x too large. The only laptop that came close to true modules was novena[0], as the ratio between parts could be changed. However, it was a beast. If anyone has more info on what it means to be able to "change the motherboard" and if it includes different sizes/shapes, it's much more interesting. [0]: https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena https://www.crowdsupply.com/sutajio-kosagi/novena
- gizmo686 5y agoThere is a bit of a Ship of Theseus question going on here; but if you built your modular laptop 10 years ago, then you have a 10 year old laptop. A modular design offers more opportunities to maintain and upgrade your laptop (potentially with modules more advanced then what was available at the time you built it), but at the end of the day, you are maintaining and upgrading a 10 year old laptop, not constructing a new one. Of course, even the ability to meet this promise depends on the continued availability of parts in the old form factor.
- wmf 5y agoIf a sealed laptop lasts 4-5 years then a modular one should last 8-10 years to be worth bothering. Future-proofing generally isn't compatible with rapidly advancing tech but maybe the slowdown of Moore's Law will make modularity more worthwhile.
- fao_ 5y agoMy X200 is very performant on Ubuntu 20.04, and for my mother, her X230 is a good daily driver.
- pmontra 5y agoMy HP ZBook 15 from 2014 is still good. I upgraded it to 32 GB RAM, 2 TB SSD starting from 8 GB and 750 GB HDD. I replaced several keyboards (usually because I worn out the most used keys) and a defective screen when it was under the original guarantee. I hope it won't break. I can see me using it for many years, no need to buy something else. If only HP would offer an option without the number pad.
- 0xffff2 5y agoThis title is utterly useless for anyone who has never heard of the project and therefore doesn't recognize the domain. Honestly, even after browsing around the site for a bit, I'm not really sure what this project is about. What does "Upgradeable, repairable, and 100% yours" actually mean?
- dubcanada 5y agoIt's upgradable (you can get more storage or more ram), repairable (you can take it apart and add more storage or more ram and not void a warranty or need a masters degree in electrical engineering), and it's 100% yours (you can do what ever you want to it).
- 0xffff2 5y agoAnd how is that different from my Thinkpad?
- dubcanada 5y agoTo be honest, nothing. I guess this target audience is more of the "nice looking (looks like a macbook), portable, slim, lightweight, upgradable" target audience. Then the "I already have a upgradable/repairable" laptop audience. Apparently it's modular, but all desktops are "modular", and a fair amount of laptops are "modular" so it's a fairly meaningless word.
- nrp 5y agoWe really did build this in part as a reaction to the historically modular and repairable notebooks becoming decreasingly so. Even the former standard-bearer for upgradeability, the ThinkPad T4xx (now T14) series no longer has two SO-DIMM sockets. We then took that a few steps further by making the mainboard upgradeable, adding an Expansion Card system for port customization, and enabling personalization through color-customizable bezels and keyboard language selection.
- input_sh 5y ago
- antognini 5y agoHN discussion from Framework's initial announcement: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26263508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26263508
- nfoz 5y agoSomehow I'm more impressed by the MNT Reform DIY laptop https://mnt.re https://mnt.re https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform https://www.crowdsupply.com/mnt/reform
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tedd4u 5y agoCool, I hadn't seen the MNT, thanks for posting. Frame Work appears to be 70% thinner and about 30% lighter so probably appeals to a different buyer.
- iFreilicht 5y agoVery cool as well, but a completely different product in my eyes. The Reform is something I’d tinker and play with, the Framework is what I’d put in my backpack and take to work every day.
- pcdoodle 5y agoVery cool project! I hope you can make this form factor through future iterations!
- ncmncm 5y agoThe e-mail announcing pre-orders had a phishing site linked [0], which my browser extensions blocked, instead of frame.work. I notice Carta (a stock options management outsource) notifications do this too. When did it become normal to allow bulk e-mail senders to substitute a phishing site for the customer's? What would lead me to think it more likely to have been permitted than that the emailing service had simply been cracked and suborned? What are the security practices probably like at an emailing service that does not know such links indicate a phishing attempt? [0] http://trk.klclick1.com http://trk.klclick1.com
- nrp 5y agoWe did have an error on one of the email links, but it's worth noting that we (and perhaps also Carta, among others) use Klaviyo for these emails, and klclick is one of their domains.
- ncmncm 5y agoEven if you don't personally understand that such link substitutions indicate a phishing attempt, and so check links in emails before clicking them, any competent emailing service would know. Even my browser knew. Not to put too fine a point on it: get a better service; don't allow them to substitute a link to a domain that people who allowed you to use their address do not expect to see.
- nrp 5y agoDefinitely a fair concern, and thanks for reporting the issue. We're now working on moving to only using links on domains we control.
- ncmncm 5y agoSo both Klaviyo (on behalf of Framework) and Mailchimp (on behalf of Carta) are aggressively oblivious about security. The latter is more immediately worrisome, because they are entrusted with information about Carta customers' stock transactions.
- 5y ago
- julienb_sea 5y agoTheres some negativity in the comments, but honestly from the images this looks like a very well executed design. This is the first modular laptop I've ever seen that appears to be competitive from a design and realistic usability standpoint with a modern packaged laptop. I really hope this works out. This concept could have real influence on design choices made by large manufacturers.
- nrp 5y agoThanks! Having a great looking and great feeling product was tablestakes for us. We didn't want people to have to choose between usability and modularity.
- ncmncm 5y agoI was disappointed to find they have no plans to offer an AMD CPU. No longer interested. But I cannot unsubscribe from email notifications, because a phishing link is substituted in place of a proper "unsubscribe" link in the email notification.
- ceocoder 5y agoI’ve signed up - Nirav, lmk if you want more beta testers - happy to pay full price for testing. If somehow you can convince large tech companies to switch from MacBook Pro, I’d be in your debt forever.
- fleaaaa 5y agoI don't have much fluidity in my savings but have been saving some for this a while. Looks so great on paper so far, can't wait!
- boatsie 5y agoGiven this is meant to be repairable and maintainable, I am disappointed that there is only a one year warranty. If this Laptop is really built to last, offer a longer warranty that proves the company making it truly believes it will be high quality for years. At the very least certain components like the shell or main board should have a long warranty otherwise what’s the point of servicing a laptop where the case/board isn’t worthy of being reused.
- turtlebits 5y agoBeing repairable means a longer warranty isn’t necessary. 1 year is pretty standard on laptops. I’m not sure why you are focusing on the chassis or motherboard when they both are user replaceable.
- sim_card_map 5y agoWindows only.
- iFreilicht 5y agoUntrue. The DIY-edition can be bought with no operating system, and they explicitly mention they’re testing for compatibility with popular linux distros.