5 ms·

>Upgrading is cheaper than a whole new system. This saves consumers money. Modern laptops increasingly solder parts down, making upgrades nigh-impossible (I've

>Upgrading is cheaper than a whole new system. This saves consumers money. Modern laptops increasingly solder parts down, making upgrades nigh-impossible (I've tried multiple times). A MacBook Air can easily last 5 years+. I've had mine for 10 years. Will the average Framework laptop last as long as the average MacBook? >Countering planned obsolence and expensive repair costs associated with modern products. Macbooks receive updates for 5+ years usually. Even after that, it's perfectly usable. I highly doubt that the hardware inside Framework will be supported for as long as Macbooks. >Enabling upcycling, repurposing, and reducing ewaste. There are a fair number of environmentally conscious people in tech and tech-adjacent industries. Upgrading parts cause e-waste, especially if the chips aren't generally as good as Apple Silicon so you have to upgrade more often. If you trade in or recycle your laptop with Apple, they should be able to do a better job of recycling than your average Framework user. To me, the main selling point of Framework is that geeks can upgrade the CPU/GPU every year or once a year because they always want the fastest. The fact that Framework markets this as "environmentally friendly" is just a way to make them feel better about constantly upgrading. You can't convince me that the average Framework laptop is more environmentally friendly than a Macbook Air over its lifetime.

kstenerud 4y ago
> A MacBook Air can easily last 5 years+. I've had mine for 10 years. Will the average Framework laptop last as long as the average MacBook? I don't see why not. My old thinkpad is still perfectly usable 8 years after I bought it (used, already 5 years old). All I had to do was put more RAM in it and replace the hard drive with an SSD. The display is starting to go, although I could get a replacement for $40. I also replaced the battery awhile back for less than $100. This thing will easily last another 5 years, probably more (after which I'll probably repurpose it as a pi-hole or print server or something). > Macbooks receive updates for 5+ years usually. Even after that, it's perfectly usable. I highly doubt that the hardware inside Framework will be supported for as long as Macbooks. It's running Linux, so, yeah it absolutely will. I can still get the latest and greatest Linux updates for my 13 year old laptop. Windows support for it is also still strong. Meanwhile my 2011 MBP is long since no longer updatable. > Upgrading parts cause e-waste, especially if the chips aren't generally as good as Apple Silicon so you have to upgrade more often. If you trade in or recycle your laptop with Apple, they should be able to do a better job of recycling than your average Framework user. Now this is just getting downright silly. > To me, the main selling point of Framework is that geeks can upgrade the CPU/GPU every year or once a year because they always want the fastest. The fact that Framework markets this as "environmentally friendly" is just a way to make them feel better about constantly upgrading. You can't convince me that the average Framework laptop is more environmentally friendly than a Macbook Air over its lifetime. And, of course, finishing off with a final strawman flourish.
- schoen 4y ago
  > It's running Linux, so, yeah it absolutely will. I can still get the latest and greatest Linux updates for my 13 year old laptop. For example, Linux explicitly supported 386 CPUs until 2012 (its successor CPU came out in 1989) and is only discontinuing support for the 486 CPU now (its successor CPU came out in 1993). https://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-removes-486-cpu-support https://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-removes-486-cpu-supp... I'm running some 20-year-old Dell desktops with Linux, and they still run a mainstream present-day distribution and get software updates.
  - kstenerud 4y ago
    This really is the kicker. CPUs over the past 20 years have gone from 2.4GHz to 5.6GHz clock speeds + bigger cache size and more cores. For most common tasks you're not going to see much difference between a 2-core and an 8-core CPU. There just isn't much need for CPU advancements in today's average workloads (browsing, word processing, spreadsheets). Any further advancements (such as AI) will happen in the GPU (or whatever they're going to call the accelerator cards now that they're multi-purpose), while the CPU fight switches over to energy efficiency.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sonzohan 4y ago
> You can't convince me that the average Framework laptop is more environmentally friendly than a Macbook Air over its lifetime. How do I put more RAM in my 8GB Macbook Air?
- rhn_mk1 4y ago
  *without replacing the entire thing
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    If you’re planning on keeping it a long time, surely you’d get more RAM at purchase time? Minimum ram is never going to be good in 5-10 years.
    - SXX 4y ago
      It's exactly what I usually doing. ThinkPad X220i with 16GB RAM in 2011. Macbook Air M1 with 16GB RAM in 2020. In both cases it was the most RAM I could get.
    - rhn_mk1 4y ago
      If you have enough money up front, or foresight, then yes. Even if that's the case in the minority of cases, that's enough to make it less environmetally friendly that being able to upgrade.
    - chpatrick 4y ago
      Some people can't afford that, and Apple sells storage and RAM at extortionate prices. Maybe you start out thinking you just need to do your taxes but then get a job in video editing. People want to upgrade all the time and it's really bad that you have to toss out the whole computer to do it.
    - sonzohan 4y ago
      You usually have to customize the order on Apple's website to do this, which means your laptop could take a few weeks to arrive. There's also other circumstances where this isn't an option. When I worked at a public university (UC system) that had an agreement with Apple, we could only purchase hardware that was in the University bookstore. The University bookstore only stocked base models. Even the top-of-the-line 15" Macbook Pros didn't have a 16GB option once the RAM started being soldered down.
guywithahat 4y ago
You're being down voted but I think you're 100% right. Most processing intense tasks are done on the GPU nowadays anyways, so even if someone truly needed the fastest machine to train their neural networks (which frankly still wouldn't justify a new motherboard every year) they couldn't use a framework laptop anyways because it only has a CPU

kstenerud 4y ago

> A MacBook Air can easily last 5 years+. I've had mine for 10 years. Will the average Framework laptop last as long as the average MacBook? I don't see why not. My old thinkpad is still perfectly usable 8 years after I bought it (used, already 5 years old). All I had to do was put more RAM in it and replace the hard drive with an SSD. The display is starting to go, although I could get a replacement for $40. I also replaced the battery awhile back for less than $100. This thing will easily last another 5 years, probably more (after which I'll probably repurpose it as a pi-hole or print server or something). > Macbooks receive updates for 5+ years usually. Even after that, it's perfectly usable. I highly doubt that the hardware inside Framework will be supported for as long as Macbooks. It's running Linux, so, yeah it absolutely will. I can still get the latest and greatest Linux updates for my 13 year old laptop. Windows support for it is also still strong. Meanwhile my 2011 MBP is long since no longer updatable. > Upgrading parts cause e-waste, especially if the chips aren't generally as good as Apple Silicon so you have to upgrade more often. If you trade in or recycle your laptop with Apple, they should be able to do a better job of recycling than your average Framework user. Now this is just getting downright silly. > To me, the main selling point of Framework is that geeks can upgrade the CPU/GPU every year or once a year because they always want the fastest. The fact that Framework markets this as "environmentally friendly" is just a way to make them feel better about constantly upgrading. You can't convince me that the average Framework laptop is more environmentally friendly than a Macbook Air over its lifetime. And, of course, finishing off with a final strawman flourish.

schoen 4y ago
> It's running Linux, so, yeah it absolutely will. I can still get the latest and greatest Linux updates for my 13 year old laptop. For example, Linux explicitly supported 386 CPUs until 2012 (its successor CPU came out in 1989) and is only discontinuing support for the 486 CPU now (its successor CPU came out in 1993). https://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-removes-486-cpu-support https://www.tomshardware.com/news/linux-removes-486-cpu-supp... I'm running some 20-year-old Dell desktops with Linux, and they still run a mainstream present-day distribution and get software updates.
- kstenerud 4y ago
  This really is the kicker. CPUs over the past 20 years have gone from 2.4GHz to 5.6GHz clock speeds + bigger cache size and more cores. For most common tasks you're not going to see much difference between a 2-core and an 8-core CPU. There just isn't much need for CPU advancements in today's average workloads (browsing, word processing, spreadsheets). Any further advancements (such as AI) will happen in the GPU (or whatever they're going to call the accelerator cards now that they're multi-purpose), while the CPU fight switches over to energy efficiency.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

sonzohan 4y ago

> You can't convince me that the average Framework laptop is more environmentally friendly than a Macbook Air over its lifetime. How do I put more RAM in my 8GB Macbook Air?

rhn_mk1 4y ago
*without replacing the entire thing
- lostlogin 4y ago
  If you’re planning on keeping it a long time, surely you’d get more RAM at purchase time? Minimum ram is never going to be good in 5-10 years.
  - SXX 4y ago
    It's exactly what I usually doing. ThinkPad X220i with 16GB RAM in 2011. Macbook Air M1 with 16GB RAM in 2020. In both cases it was the most RAM I could get.
  - rhn_mk1 4y ago
    If you have enough money up front, or foresight, then yes. Even if that's the case in the minority of cases, that's enough to make it less environmetally friendly that being able to upgrade.
  - chpatrick 4y ago
    Some people can't afford that, and Apple sells storage and RAM at extortionate prices. Maybe you start out thinking you just need to do your taxes but then get a job in video editing. People want to upgrade all the time and it's really bad that you have to toss out the whole computer to do it.
  - sonzohan 4y ago
    You usually have to customize the order on Apple's website to do this, which means your laptop could take a few weeks to arrive. There's also other circumstances where this isn't an option. When I worked at a public university (UC system) that had an agreement with Apple, we could only purchase hardware that was in the University bookstore. The University bookstore only stocked base models. Even the top-of-the-line 15" Macbook Pros didn't have a 16GB option once the RAM started being soldered down.

guywithahat 4y ago

You're being down voted but I think you're 100% right. Most processing intense tasks are done on the GPU nowadays anyways, so even if someone truly needed the fastest machine to train their neural networks (which frankly still wouldn't justify a new motherboard every year) they couldn't use a framework laptop anyways because it only has a CPU