5 ms·

Realistically 99% of the corporate and consumer laptops I have been party to are built to order with the right amount of RAM in and never upgraded. Those of us

by hughrr 5y ago

Realistically 99% of the corporate and consumer laptops I have been party to are built to order with the right amount of RAM in and never upgraded. Those of us who actually upgrade are an insignificant minority at this point or pulling them out of the ex corp recycling lifecycle. Another point is stuff that is soldered in is a lot more reliable as a whole. Amazing how many old machines can be resurrected by reseating the RAM. Really I'm on the fence. I'm sitting here on a 16Gb M1 MBA also. Now what I really want to see is replaceable USB-C ports. Those have a massive repair and replacement risk over the normal lifetime of a laptop. Lenovo / Dell etc solder them directly to the motherboard. One bad knock and the whole thing goes in the trash. At least Apple stick them on a daughterboard.

jarcane 5y ago
The Framework's ports are all on user-selectable, replaceable expansion modules. If one of the USB-C ports dies, you just unplug it and install a new one.
- ttraub 5y ago
  What happens if the expansion port itself becomes damaged? Would you need to change out the motherboard?
- james_pm 5y ago
  AKA square, flushmount dongles.
- wffurr 5y ago
  The expansion modules themselves are USB C dongles designed to fit flush in the case If the internal USB C ports get damaged, presumably the device can be opened and repaired.
  - jarcane 5y ago
    They mention that several other such ports like the audio and power are easily replaceable so that seems a fair assumption. The modules are also track-mounted and appear to lock into place somehow, so it seems unlikely that the internal connection will suffer the same kind of torture an external port would.
  - nrp 5y ago
    It would be extremely difficult to damage the internal USB-C ports on the mainboard itself. The USB-C Expansion Cards are what cables would be plugged into and cycled repeatedly, and our Expansion Card bays also have mechanical retention features that mean the insertion of the card itself is always aligned to avoid wear or damage.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Naracion 5y ago
  What you're missing is that these ports are actually USB C dongles. If one of the _original_ USB C ports dies, it's dead. Ie the hot swap ports basically connect to USB C ports built into the machine. It's a clever UX hack (which I'm totally for), but it's not solving the technical issue here. For transparency I actually love the idea behind the Framework laptop, I've been hyped since January!
Delk 5y ago
Maybe it's because I'm often looking at business-oriented laptops as a consumer, but I usually find the RAM and storage to be on the low side compared to the CPU specs. I don't need a top-of-the-line i7 CPU (the improvement when going from e.g. an i5 usually isn't enough to really matter), and the premium you pay isn't negligible. On the other hand, the lower-end models that don't splurge on an i7 and come with a mid-range CPU such as an i5 instead still often have only 8 GB of RAM. That's definitely not future-proof or even present-proof for a laptop that otherwise has mid-range specs in terms of performance. It seems ridiculous that you have to either pay for a top-of-the-line model or be stuck with sub-par RAM for the entire lifetime of the device. Corporations will of course happily buy the higher-end model for their developers, so this probably isn't a problem in an actual corporate environment.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Supporting tons of slightly different configurations is an impediment to efficient operations though. There’s some logic to doing things that way.
  - thow-01187 5y ago
    Unfortunately, more often than not, the logic behind it is market segmentation, not technical or operational efficiency
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      I'm not sure which is the main thing and which is the pleasant side effect but I have to imagine both considerations enter their minds.
  - davidy123 5y ago
    I don't see why that's the case for Lenovo though (which I'm most familiar with - Thinkpads), since you have to order online. They could do batches of different configurations, it might add a small delay for particular configurations, but that would be ok. What they do now, mostly limiting larger RAM/storage configs to top end CPUs, seems like an upsell (though at least their storage is usually replaceable, and aftermarket offers better price/choice, though the spare small capacity device is a waste). In Apple's case, it simply seems like an upsell. They must have enough volume to sell lower spec, large storage capacity Macbook Airs at stores, or online.
lostlogin 5y ago
> At least Apple stick them on a daughterboard. This is the least Appley thing I’ve heard recently. Making everything as small as possible with every single trade off that entails is their style. I say that as a hardline Mac user.

by hughrr 5y ago

jarcane 5y ago

The Framework's ports are all on user-selectable, replaceable expansion modules. If one of the USB-C ports dies, you just unplug it and install a new one.

ttraub 5y ago
What happens if the expansion port itself becomes damaged? Would you need to change out the motherboard?
james_pm 5y ago
AKA square, flushmount dongles.
wffurr 5y ago
The expansion modules themselves are USB C dongles designed to fit flush in the case If the internal USB C ports get damaged, presumably the device can be opened and repaired.
- jarcane 5y ago
  They mention that several other such ports like the audio and power are easily replaceable so that seems a fair assumption. The modules are also track-mounted and appear to lock into place somehow, so it seems unlikely that the internal connection will suffer the same kind of torture an external port would.
- nrp 5y ago
  It would be extremely difficult to damage the internal USB-C ports on the mainboard itself. The USB-C Expansion Cards are what cables would be plugged into and cycled repeatedly, and our Expansion Card bays also have mechanical retention features that mean the insertion of the card itself is always aligned to avoid wear or damage.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Naracion 5y ago
What you're missing is that these ports are actually USB C dongles. If one of the _original_ USB C ports dies, it's dead. Ie the hot swap ports basically connect to USB C ports built into the machine. It's a clever UX hack (which I'm totally for), but it's not solving the technical issue here. For transparency I actually love the idea behind the Framework laptop, I've been hyped since January!

Delk 5y ago

Maybe it's because I'm often looking at business-oriented laptops as a consumer, but I usually find the RAM and storage to be on the low side compared to the CPU specs. I don't need a top-of-the-line i7 CPU (the improvement when going from e.g. an i5 usually isn't enough to really matter), and the premium you pay isn't negligible. On the other hand, the lower-end models that don't splurge on an i7 and come with a mid-range CPU such as an i5 instead still often have only 8 GB of RAM. That's definitely not future-proof or even present-proof for a laptop that otherwise has mid-range specs in terms of performance. It seems ridiculous that you have to either pay for a top-of-the-line model or be stuck with sub-par RAM for the entire lifetime of the device. Corporations will of course happily buy the higher-end model for their developers, so this probably isn't a problem in an actual corporate environment.

emodendroket 5y ago
Supporting tons of slightly different configurations is an impediment to efficient operations though. There’s some logic to doing things that way.
- thow-01187 5y ago
  Unfortunately, more often than not, the logic behind it is market segmentation, not technical or operational efficiency
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    I'm not sure which is the main thing and which is the pleasant side effect but I have to imagine both considerations enter their minds.
- davidy123 5y ago
  I don't see why that's the case for Lenovo though (which I'm most familiar with - Thinkpads), since you have to order online. They could do batches of different configurations, it might add a small delay for particular configurations, but that would be ok. What they do now, mostly limiting larger RAM/storage configs to top end CPUs, seems like an upsell (though at least their storage is usually replaceable, and aftermarket offers better price/choice, though the spare small capacity device is a waste). In Apple's case, it simply seems like an upsell. They must have enough volume to sell lower spec, large storage capacity Macbook Airs at stores, or online.

lostlogin 5y ago

> At least Apple stick them on a daughterboard. This is the least Appley thing I’ve heard recently. Making everything as small as possible with every single trade off that entails is their style. I say that as a hardline Mac user.