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Framework Raises $18M Series A
- kodah 5y agoThe first time I set eyes on their modular port tech, I knew this company was going places. I have a Lenovo X1 Carbon but I think my next laptop will be a framework if I continue to hear good things. Any statements on quality since people have had them for a bit now?
- m0ngr31 5y agoLove mine. Been my favorite laptop ever. Haven't touched my Macbook since (but I never enjoyed MacOS so that wasn't hard).
- canadaduane 5y agoI've enjoyed this laptop a lot, with build quality and ease-of-DIY my top likes. The only issue I've had is with the touchpad mechanical click not registering, but they replaced it and I'm happy with it now.
- nrp 5y agoEdited: We've posted in the February Who's Hiring thread too: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30165535 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30165535
- JimBlackwood 5y agoIt’s always a shame such cool positions are US only. Would love to find some of these kind of companies in the EU (or more US positions that more easily allow non-US workers)
- nrp 5y agoWe're currently hiring in the US and Taiwan, where we have entities set up. We will likely set up an EU entity to open up hiring there too, but we don't have a timeline for that at the moment.
- laurex 5y agoYou might check out New Horizons. https://nhglobalpartners.com/ https://nhglobalpartners.com/ Disclaimer: I’ve not used them (and have no affiliation), just seems relevant.
- sharikous 5y agoFrom an Israeli: I wish you will set up an entity in Israel too! Or, more modestly, that you open ordering here.
- OJFord 5y agoI suppose the gripe is more that 'CA or remote' means (typically, and as here) 'in the US'; whereas 'our US and Taiwanese entities are hiring' doesn't have to mean that (though I appreciate it's a lot simpler) - you can be British or German or whatever, in that home country, and employed by a US entity. Anyway, congrats; eagerly awaiting my UK pre-order!
- Karsteski 5y agoWill you be opening up any Canada positions? I would love to be able to apply in say a year.
- hackerlytest 5y agoMaybe Linus can also present the idea to them. Since he's now a shareholder and possibly their most popular owner.
- dom96 5y agoDefinitely please at least consider hiring EU remote. Really exciting positions I'd even be willing to relocate for, but chances are the US visa system will make that too difficult.
- biztos 5y agoYou probably already know this, but "an EU entity [for] hiring" means very different things for EU citizens than for permanent residents or visa holders/seekers. Since the EU is not an immigration union, as a permanent resident of Germany I am only allowed to work in Germany, not in any other EU country. Granted, I could probably get a work visa for another EU country, but if I wanted to remain a German resident things would get tricky very fast. For fresh or prospective immigrants it's generally less favorable; and every EU country has different regulations as well as attitudes to immigrants from different regions. Thus I recommend, when you get to that point, that you do some research about which EU countries are most advantageous to you and your potential workforce, and open subsidiaries in the countries that make sense. Probably more than one, out of the gate. Because missing out on the pool of immigrant talent in Europe is probably not your goal. And congratulations on the funding!
- ignoramous 5y agoCongratulations! Can you please blog a bit on origins of framework? I read in press releases elsewhere that you 3D printed the prototype laptop. It'd be very interesting to see how such startups get off the ground. Given that multiple tech-shops have tried and binned plans for modular hardware, framework's early success is remarkable... yet, the story of its nascent stages remain elusive.
- nrp 5y agoI wrote a blog post yesterday about how I think about hardware startups, which generalizes some of how Framework has worked so far: https://eclecti.cc/bytes/what-hardware-is-hard-really-means https://eclecti.cc/bytes/what-hardware-is-hard-really-means I would like to write more about Framework as well, but will give it more time to be more sure of what worked and what didn't.
- sergiotapia 5y agoI hope you guys crush it, you can become the next Apple - the future of computing!
- lillecarl 5y agoIf they IPO they'll be evil like everyone else eventually. I hope they become the next developer choice, the market is definitely big enough.
- 3np 5y agoCongrats! Some feedback from a global visitor-who-tried-but-gave-up-to-preorder: Please decouple preferences for language/location/currency. You may be surprised about the number of people in your target market who aren't native speakers of the local language in their place of residence, and using credit cards denominated in a foreign currency (sometimes with ridiculous conversion rates). Having them default to the same might be reasonable but never make hard assumptions about your visitors like that. Look at iherb.com and aliexpress for two sites that IMO get this right.
- fckthisguy 5y agoAbsolutely! A great suggestion. Even more important for countries with multiple dominant languages. Switzerland comes to mind: four official languages, a pretty even split between French, German, and Italian, and a large number of non-native speakers who prefer English. It drives me crazy when these are coupled because they have to make an opinionated choice that, for the Swiss use case, has to be wrong for the majority of users.
- echelon 5y agoI'd love to see a phone and eInk notebook (like Remarkable) in your future. If you can create an ecosystem of products, you'll capture much of the tech field. Very excited for your raise!
- victor9000 5y agoAny distant plans to branch out to other consumer products beyond laptops?
- dang 5y agoPlease do that in the Who Is Hiring thread instead. The Feb thread is just out today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30164271 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30164271.
- eatonphil 5y agoAnyone have any good independent reviews of the laptop to recommend?
- cyber_kinetist 5y agoAlways check notebookcheck.net for the thorough reviews. They test everything meticulously, up to the build quality, monitor (brightness + color + response time), heat dissipation, noise, battery life, etc. These are probably much more important than raw CPU/GPU/RAM, as raw hardware specs are kinda similar around the same category of laptops. https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Laptop-13-5-Review-If-Microsoft-Made-A-Repairable-Surface-Laptop-This-Would-Be-It.551850.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/Framework-Laptop-13-5-Review-I...
- mohaine 5y agoI have one and can give a quick review. Overall, it is very nice, but with a few small quirks. 1)Default Ubuntu install was very laggy. Not sure what was up with this. 2)Default Arch install is pretty much perfect. 3)Both Ubuntu and Arch have ok battery life. Pretty much as I expected for an Intel laptop. (i.e. not great) 4)By default, battery drain with the lid closed is pretty bad though. Don't expect to leave it laying around and it to still have battery when you go back to it. There is probably an easy solution to this but I haven't had time to look into it.
- nrp 5y agoThe lag in Ubuntu was likely a Panel Self Refresh support issue in that kernel. We posted a workaround here: https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Ubuntu+21.10+Installation+on+the+Framework+Laptop/109?lang=en#s659 https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Ubuntu+21.10+Installation+on... There is some community discussion on ways to optimize suspend power consumption as well: https://community.frame.work/t/ubuntu-21-10-on-the-framework-laptop/7941 https://community.frame.work/t/ubuntu-21-10-on-the-framework...
- yepthatsreality 5y agoTurning off PS2 emulation in BIOS was huge for me on battery savings as well as the other steps linked in other comments.
- dncornholio 5y agoThis website showed to me in French while I have my browser in English and am in the Netherlands. If I want to switch to Dutch, it won't let me. My basic understanding of French is that this product is not yet available in my country. Still horrible experience. Why not show me the English page? This website makes the wrong assumption someone's language is tied to the location.
- berkes 5y ago> This website makes the wrong assumption someone's language is tied to the location. This is a bit of a premature "remote debugging" done, though. From what I see, they use Solidus and Rails as backend. This does not rule out your conclusion. But it is not a typical thing: in Rails (and Spree, from which Solidus is forked) it is, for example, far easier to read out the `Accept-Language` header than to do geo-ip language detection. It is easier to the right thing than the bad. Again: not saying this makes it guaranteed the cause. More likely causes: location-based caching (you got a cached version which was generated using French), or same thing with a CDN. More likely, because with Rails (and Solidus, and Spree) it is easy to make too-simple-caches, easier to ignore a parameter when building a cache, than to do right thing.
- dncornholio 5y agoWhat if I'm in France but speak English? It won't let us switch language / region separately. This is what I meant
- berkes 5y agoI'm not dismissing the issue you encounter: it is stupid and ugly. I'm merely pointing out that your analysis of why it happens, is lacking. It reminds me of customers who submit a feature-request or issue in the form of a concrete solution, rather than a good description of the problem they encounter. "I want a dropdown with flags to switch to another language" vs "I cannot switch languages". The latter presumes nothing, leaves the implementation to product-manager, -owner, UX designers or developers. The former is not only bad (flags for languages are stupid) it has a big chance of being dismissed entirely. Big chance the dev sees it and thinks "hmm, out of date, we already have that dropdown", but that due to a bug, setup, caching, incompatibility, browser-plugin or whatnot, it doesn't show up for the client.
- deltron3030 5y agoIs there a miniature ASIO soundcard planned for one of the slots? Not needing to carry an external audio interface around when working within a DAW is a major factor that's keeping me on MacOS (both pro audio and consumer use the same driver there).
- sprkwd 5y agoThis is something I would be interested in too.
- vorpalhex 5y agoThis could be done by a third party too
- torginus 5y agoDo people not remember that these things existed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC_Card You could get standardised addons for laptops, but I guess they disappeared due to lack of interest/better alternatives. It's weird how the world goes around in circles.
- wmf 5y agoThe only things 99% of people used PCMCIA for were networking (modems, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi) and once that got built in people didn't really need slots. The long tail of I/O is now handled by USB/Thunderbolt dongles.
- mixmastamyk 5y agoI had those, but think framework’s design with a flat face for the port is a better design. For example one of my cards was the xylink? ether card with full-size port was the most useful. Looked like this: https://eu.dlink.com/pl/pl/-/media/product-pages/dfe/670txd/dfe670txd.png https://eu.dlink.com/pl/pl/-/media/product-pages/dfe/670txd/...
- duped 5y agoYou don't need "professional" drivers for your sound card in 2022, latency and stability are mostly a solved problem. There are a few "nice to haves" about ASIO on Windows but it's almost entirely useless, and it's not like Steinberg is maintaining ASIO anymore.
- spamizbad 5y agoI have your laptop (4th batch). It's great! Love it! Looking forward to what you folks do in the future.
- andrewgioia 5y agoLove my Framework. Barring Apple's recent move away from the touchbar it's honestly the first machine I've been excited about in 6 or so years. The build quality is great, love the simplicity and design of the expansion ports, and the repair/upgrade-ability is huge. It's gotten me back into using Linux as a daily driver. I really hope they stay true to their vision and that this means expanding it into other consumer product lines.
- ncallaway 5y agoI can't remember exactly the situation I was in with power cords and devices, but at least once the ability to just swap which side of my computer the USB-A port was on was extremely useful.
- imilk 5y agoGot a DIY one last week with pop_os setup and it's an amazing laptop to have for a reasonable price. Having used a Pixelbook for awhile, it's hard to ever go back from using a 3:2 screen, but that's exactly what you get with Framework (obviously w/ much better specs than a Pixelbook & a full Linux install).
- vorpalhex 5y agoHow is pop on the framework? Any graphics woes?
- loganlinn 5y agoI not gaming, but I do run a 3840x1600 external monitor over USB-C hub with my Framework on PopOS. I have had zero issues so far...
- imilk 5y agoI don't use it for gaming, but there was a slight screen tear issue that can be solved in about 60 seconds. Other than that it works perfectly well with fractional scaling over 3 monitors.
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- palijer 5y agoI'm a biased Framework owner, but fantastic news and congrats to anyone hanging out here. I feel there has been a growing market for a company like this over the last few years with the RTR movement and upgrade cycles for hardware delivering less than they previously did.
- Sebb767 5y ago> We’re not ready to share what the next products are just yet, but this funding unlocks categories even more ambitious than our first one. We have a detailed plan in place for the next two years and napkin sketch ideas going out a couple of decades. It'll be really interesting to see where they go next. Given that they're already in computer and custom board space, I'd make a guess that it's going to be routers - similarly embedded devices and they'd make a great option for replaceable parts (i.e. WiFi, connection options etc).
- ttty 5y agoMore ambitious than a laptop it's a phone
- bcrosby95 5y agoI would love for them to expand their laptop offerings to include something a bit more powerful. It seems like a much easier expansion rather than moving into routers.
- Sebb767 5y agoI assume they're going to expand their laptop offering either way, but adding a larger model is probably not want they mean with more ambitious :)
- bcrosby95 5y agoI figured adding in a swappable GPU would be fairly ambitious, which is something I'd expect in a model like this. As opposed to just taking what they have and putting it in a larger form factor, which, yeah, doesn't seem terribly ambitious.
- WesolyKubeczek 5y agoI would sure like to have a thick mobile workstation with a better battery, a good initial selection of built-in ports and an ability to add those expansion cards too (think specialist ports like video input or a serial port).
- ziggus 5y agoIs this the company that re-invented the PCMCIA slot, but completely proprietary?
- m0ngr31 5y agoIs USB-C proprietary now?
- nrp 5y agoYep, but without the proprietary part. We have released reference designs under Creative Commons: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards
- loudmax 5y agoI think the recessed USB-C dongles are a fantastic idea. I'd love for this to become a standard feature on laptops. Can miscellaneous third parties can create and sell their own Framework-compatible expansion modules? Can other manufacturers make laptops with Framework-compatible expansion slots?
- wishinghand 5y agoCan something be open source and proprietary?
- kmeisthax 5y agoSome people use the word "proprietary" to mean "different" or "nonstandard" rather than "is someone else's property and costs money to use". It's a weird bit of semantic drift.
- nisegami 5y agoIn the software world, this is usually described as "source-available", where the source is, well, available, but the license has restrictions such as not allowing commercial use.
- rvz 5y ago
- popol12 5y agoIt would be amazing if they could also sell repairable household electrical goods like washing machine, dishwasher, etc - in the future. These are plagued by planed obsolescence. I would totally pay for repairable ones even with a premium. Imagine a dishwasher that you can hack and program yourself :D
- torginus 5y agoWhy do you think these are not repairable? More often than not, these things use PCBs that have been manufactured for decades, with multiple manufacturers often using the same designs. I've just repaired the power supply of my fridge, but if I wanted to, I could've bought a compressor for it, either new or refurb. Imo the main issue, is that these things are so cheap that replacement is cheaper than repair labor + cost of parts.
- jazzyjackson 5y agoYes, I was looking at replacing the bathroom air vents that were likely installed when my house was built 50 years ago, and the manufacturer still makes the replacement motor and fan assembly for the one I got. Replacing these two parts costs about 50% more than buying a brand new one at home depot, but the fact that these lasted 50 years before needing replacement has convinced me to spend the extra money.
- IshKebab 5y agoThere are lots of reasons they aren't repairable. Lack of documentation and debug access is probably the biggest one. My washing machine died, and it looked like some components on the PCB blew. I bought a replacement for around £50 (already a crazy move) but sadly it didn't work. Not really anywhere you can go from there unless you're a professional washing machine repair man. My fridge also had some kind of fault with the drainage tube (kept freezing up) but there's simply no way to access it. The back panel is not removable. > PCBs that have been manufactured for decades ... same designs. Absolutely not the case. Go and look up any washing machine control board. They're different for almost every model. Washing machines & fridges may be better; I've never had to take one apart. The only good solution to this problem I've come up with is requiring manufacturers to dispose of unwanted appliances for free. That way they have at least some incentive to make them last for a long time and be easily recyclable / repairable.
- danr4 5y agoPlease make a 17 inch laptop (a-la LG Gram)
- Karsteski 5y agoA larger version would be great, but I imagine it's not the direction they're going to go initially, given that they already have an attractive laptop for sale.
- netant 5y agoI purchased one last year and it's been great so far. Pros: - price. I have spare RAM and NVME ssd so this brings the price further down - modular port... Cons: - display/hinge is not very stable - touch pad is not as good as macbook's. I can't reliably click-and-drag using a singe hand (thumb finger to click, then index finger to drag). On macbook this gesture works perfectly fine. Wish there is a bigger version, and/or a swappable battery!
- durovo 5y ago"I can't reliably click-and-drag using a singe hand" --- Does a single-finger double tap and drag not work?
- rpdillon 5y agoOnce I learned this gesture, dragging with the touchpad went from "horribly frustrating" to "so easy I can do it without thinking". Would be curious if/how it doesn't work for some folks.
- sudosysgen 5y agoExactly the same story here.
- ncallaway 5y agoVery happy owner of the laptop, but the display hinge is the only thing I don't like about it. It's just a bit too lose, to the point that the screen will slowly fold flat over the course of an hour on my lap. It's also just lose enough that it transfers a lot of vibrations on my desk (from typing) into wobble on the camera during screen-shares. If that hinge were just a bit tighter, I'd have no complaints about it. It's a great laptop.
- roland35 5y agoI love my framework as well! My main con is the battery life, although part of that is because I set the max charge % to 90 to hopefully protect long-term life
- CSDude 5y agoI wish I could buy one in Turkey, but probably our customs would add %80 markup over it considering if they'd clear it in a month. I love my Mac, but Framework excites me and even Thinkpad's are not going well. I miss my XFCE with Arch.
- fyzix 5y agoI wished they took it one step at a time rather than tackling so many issues at once. Making a repairable laptop would be enough to jumpstart the mission. Making it repairable, upgradable, customizable and using morally sourced raw materials seems like too much for a start-up to handle. If they focused on 1 or 2 goals at a time, I reckon they'd be able to manufacture these faster and cheaper.
- bradfa 5y agoIt's a similar mission to Fairphone. I imagine as soon as you try to do any one of these things in your product design (repair, upgrade, customize, sourcing, etc) then you get into suppliers, supply chains, and price points where doing all the rest of them is effectively straight forwards and not horribly costly.
- BaseballPhysics 5y ago> If they focused on 1 or 2 goals at a time, I reckon they'd be able to manufacture these faster and cheaper. ... they went from concept to manufacture of a completely new and novel laptop design in a year. The result, in that year, is a laptop that has a premium feel but is as cheap or cheaper than other competitors in the space, while also hitting all the marks on their mission of repairability and consumer focus. This is, as far as I can tell, a complete, out-of-the-park success. I can't imagine how they could've executed any more flawlessly.
- gibsonf1 5y agoCan't wait for the 15" model - hope its coming soon.
- biehl 5y agoMaybe a next step could be a router like https://eu.protectli.com/product/fw6e/ https://eu.protectli.com/product/fw6e/ ? Protectli is very nice, but the area could use a push forward.
- saint_angels 5y agoWhile other comments are wishing for the company to expand outside of laptops, I really hope they won't loose their focus. There is so much they can improve on in laptop space.
- unlog 5y agoI remember finding this laptop when searching for a new one. I loved it, but I wanted AMD instead of Intel. I ended buying an Asus G713QR, gaming laptop, but very powerful and with an amazing screen.
- CoastalCoder 5y agoOne reason I'm hopeful about Framework is that I've recently realized I care a lot about keyboard / key caps. When I shopped for a development laptop recently, some gaming laptops were really good matches for my needs. But the keyboards / key caps were squishy rubbery things that I couldn't get used to. It would be awesome each buyer could tweak the laptop design based on personal preferences, where large manufacturers could never justify selling that exact config due to low demand.
- unlog 5y agoThat's what's good of the Framework. Definitely, the keyboard and screen are the first filters, then specifications. There's really not many options for powerful laptops outside gaming now. The keyboard on this one, it's wonderful. With a friend, we had an idea of making custom keyboards for all laptops. With a 3d printer you may get away dealing with most of the covers. We desisted from the idea noticing that to change the keyboards you have to practically disassembly the complete laptop, testing would be very expensive too.
- saint_angels 5y agoI heard the framework works with linux distros well, can anyone recommend places to check laptops linux support in general?
- Karsteski 5y ago/r/framework is quite helpful. From what I've seen on there, any distro w/ an up-to-date kernel works well. So Fedora 35, for example.
- _joel 5y agoYou might be best picking a distro and then looking at the support specifically for that. The distros that move quicker with the times are probably more suitable, but it's always possible to get stuff like debian stable running on cutting edge hardware, with some effort with kernel and userland. It'll be typical stuff like wifi and gpu support but, at least in my experience, they can generally be made to work. I'm sure you'd be fine with Arch or latest Ubuntu etc.
- mrfusion 5y agoWhat linux distro works best in a framework? Any headaches with drivers?
- Karsteski 5y agoCongratulations to the Framework team! :) I very much am looking forward to their next product, and I hope they stick to their goal of a sustainable, consumer-friendly laptop ecosystem.
- yannoninator 5y agoMy heart sank when I saw this, is it that do we feel the need to keep raising money from power hungry venture capitalists?
- ramoz 5y agoFYI, my corporate net wont allow me to access the site: Blocked TLDs
- matty0x17 5y agoI would buy a framework in a heartbeat if they add a decent hz display and a few other comfort features I'm accustomed to from running linux on a long line of Razer and the Asus G-series of gaming laptops. 120hz and a 1650ti would make this thing amazing and wouldn't push the price point very far at all (especially if it's optional).
- aidenn0 5y agoEver since the framework came out, I've been half-hoping for my laptop to die. It really is like someone made exactly the laptop I want, but I really don't need a new laptop at this point, and I tend to use laptops for 5-10 years. Here's hoping that Framework is still around say 2-7 years from now!
- DerArzt 5y agoI am in a similar situation. I would love to purchase one, but my current laptop works fine and I don't need to make more e-waste due to cool new shiny thing! But they will stay on my mind.
- aidenn0 5y agoI suppose that's a disadvantage peculiar to manufacturers targeting reduced waste: their customers aren't going to upgrade as often...
- globalise83 5y agoAs someone whose first task on buying a new laptop every ten years is to install the latest Ubuntu LTS version, a company which makes machines that work perfectly with Ubuntu and have a life of around 10 years will have me as a customer for life.
- bhelkey 5y agoIf you are a 38 year old man, actuarial tables suggest that this translates to 4 more laptops over 40 years[1]. I believe their point is that this does not make you a particularly valuable customer. I would argue that there is value in a brand that consumers trust to last for a long time. For example, if Framework launched a printer, you might be tempted to pay a premium for a product you knew was high quality and repairable. [1] https://www.annuityadvantage.com/resources/life-expectancy-tables/ https://www.annuityadvantage.com/resources/life-expectancy-t...
- _joel 5y agoI'm sure a certain youtuber will be happy with this news!
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- goodpoint 5y agoIs the hardware entirely open source and free from patents? I'm talking about schematics, PCB layouts and 3D models of the chassis. Nothing proprietary or patented?
- TheMagicHorsey 5y agoI really wish there was a vendor that makes a high-performance ARM-based SOC available to third-parties. The problem with x86 laptops these days is that they feel a generation behind Apple laptops in both power consumption and performance. This doesn't have to be the case. Apple has a great hardware team, but they don't have a monopoly on ARM. There could be competitors out there doing what AMD and Intel won't do.
- greenie_beans 5y agoi'm conflicted over wanting a framework and wanting a mac with the m1 chip. if this were to happen one day, does anybody know if a framework with intel would be able to use a chip like this? (i hardly know anything about hardware so pls school me)
- ashishb 5y agoWhen is a 15" laptop coming out?
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y agoThis is great news! Congrats to Framework!
- bitigchi 5y agoI wish they'd allow configuring the keyboard layout, at least for most spoken languages of the world.
- yencabulator 5y agoThe selection of countries seems pretty good to me: https://frame.work/marketplace/keyboards https://frame.work/marketplace/keyboards The real genius of Framework is that it doesn't even have to be the Framework company manufacturing your favorite keyboard, it's just a standard form factor. I personally would buy a replacement ortholinear keyboard, if one was available.
- Liskni_si 5y ago> The real genius of Framework is that it doesn't even have to be the Framework company manufacturing your favorite keyboard, it's just a standard form factor. Not sure how that's useful as the form factor doesn't really allow for a 7-row keyboard, or full-sized arrow keys. Which is a real missed opportunity in my opinion: a laptop (any computer, really) is primarily a device with inputs (keyboard, touchpad) and outputs (display) so naturally you want those to be as good as possible (and if there isn't a 99.9+% consensus on what that means, modular/configurable) as that's what you'll end up using for hours every day. Why compromise on a single "pretty" layout of physical keys?
- yencabulator 5y agoIt's a pretty standard 14" laptop keyboard form factor. It's not a "single layout" by any means. If you hate the arrow key layout, blame Apple for popularizing it.
- abrowne 5y ago> this funding unlocks categories even more ambitious than our first one. Any guesses? I'd love to buy a Framework phone — if they can guarantee Android updates.
- mikece 5y agoI would love a Framework phone with the option to have Graphene OS pre-installed.
- fsflover 5y agoConsider Linux phones instead (Librem 5 or Pinephone). Those are repairable and with lifetime software updates unlike any Android or Graphene OS.
- Jaepa 5y agoModular phones are especially hard. There is both an power optimization & physical size constraints. Neither of which square with modular replacements.
- abrowne 5y agoI'd take one that's repairable and only minimally modular.
- mikece 5y ago> this funding unlocks categories even more ambitious than our first one. A Framework car with open source ECM would be quite an ambitious project!
- sockaddr 5y agoPretty excited about this. Really looking forward to getting the next gen.
- sireat 5y agoReally hoping that this year brings direct Framework sales to European destinations.
- seanwilson 5y agoFor the posts about battery and sleep problems: do Framework have a recommended and well tested distro/setup they know works well? If not, why not?
- fancyfredbot 5y agoI find it interesting we need a start-up to cater for the desire for a repairable and upgradeable laptop. Dell, HP, Asus, MSI etc have already got the money and the expertise. If there's really a market here why haven't they already taken it? My guess is that the market is small though disproportionately represented on HN.
- wmf 5y agoThere appear to be several ThinkPad models that are just as repairable as Framework but maybe they don't count because they're black. Framework's real niche appears to be repairable shiny aluminum laptops (that don't run macOS). Compare https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/t14s_gen2_x13_gen2_hmm_en.pdf https://download.lenovo.com/pccbbs/mobiles_pdf/t14s_gen2_x13... and https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Mainboard+Replacement+Guide/79 https://guides.frame.work/Guide/Mainboard+Replacement+Guide/... Dell recently showed a repairable concept https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/blog/pushing-the-boundaries-of-sustainable-pc-design-concept-luna/ https://www.delltechnologies.com/en-us/blog/pushing-the-boun... that gives pretty strong "don't buy Framework, just wait for us to catch up" vibes. Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29569470 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29569470
- caslon 5y agoA market done correctly can cannibalize another market, and that's very much a bad thing when you own both markets. You want to attempt ventures that can get new customers, rather than moving a subset of customers onto a platform where they will spend less money. Forcing people to upgrade often makes more money. Capitalism doesn't optimize for efficiency, it optimizes for revenue. Small companies are a great tool to squeeze out market inefficiencies. Just look at EVs, which have been useful for decades and only recently seen companies spending large amounts of money on them as a (formerly) small company was laying the marketing groundwork.
- NikolaeVarius 5y agoMy only wish is for an AMD version.
- sudosysgen 5y agoThe Frameworks are really good. However, the chips inside are disappointing, IMO. I was considering the i5 1135g7 Framework with 16gb of RAM. A friend of mine bought it, and it's idle power draw is of 8-9W with Gnome 3 and Firefox open. I decided to get a laptop with a 5800H and an RTX 3070 instead. My power consumption as I'm typing this comment right now is of 7W with a dozen tabs and an IDE, messaging, etc... open. That is despite a 46% larger screen, and a much faster, unlocked TDP, 8 core CPU. That's a real shame, IMO. Combined with a 55Wh battery, it's quite problematic, and was a deal-breaker for me.
- zmk5 5y agoYeah I'm really hopeful there will be a move to more power efficient chips in them. I love this laptop but the battery life from this chipset is a real downer.
- gorjusborg 5y agoMy hope is that they release an ARM mainboard, so I can swap it in. For now though, I'd rather buy from them than the fruit company.
- sudosysgen 5y agoI mean, It's not just ARM. There are plenty of x86 laptops that can get 13-14 hours of battery life under light use.
- rcthompson 5y agoSupposedly it's possible to get the idle power draw down to around 2.5W, but it requires some very up-to-date kernel features.
- sudosysgen 5y agoThat is I/O dependent, apparently. If you use the wrong peripheral cards, it seems you're SOL