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The Framework Laptop 13

• Laaas 3y ago
  I still hope to see a non-x86 version. The less bloat the better.
  • jaegrqualm 3y ago
    Is there any reasonable Linux support for a laptop with ARM right now? Asahi and Apple are one thing, but qualcomm's offerings haven't looked enticing at all.
    • goosedragons 3y ago
      Pinebook Pro count? There's also some support for the Thinkpad X13s Snapdragon.
      • mbreese 3y ago
        Not for me. I mean, it “works” as in it is a functioning computer, but it’s not really useful as a daily driver machine. Mine is very touchy and build quality-wise, it’s not great. It is great for what you pay, don’t get me wrong. And I’m sure some people could use it daily, but between the battery life and sluggish performance, it’s not really in the same conversation as the Framework model here. I think for me the real issue I have is that with the Pinebook Pro (and Linux on ARM in general), you’re limited to a specific set of “blessed” Linux distributions. There is still a lot of custom code that goes into these, so it’s not at the point of being able to just download your favorite distro and running it. It’s getting better, but there are so many variations of chips that it’s hard to get things running smoothly. The flexibility of the OS and ARM CPUs really makes it difficult without a major OEM/vendor taking charge.
        • pierat 3y ago
          I would have loved to be able to rely on Pine products. But they are all garbage-tier unsupported crap. Their modus operandi is to take reference circuits, splatter on a few peripherals to IO lines, make a case, and call it a day. Happen to have 2 USB-C ports (ala pinephone pro)? Hope you which one to use cause the other one will fry stuff. You have a pine SBC? Says it will boot on their micro memory chips instead of mSD? Nah you still need a mSD to pass to the chip. And they'll wash their hands of any support requests, and blame the open source community for support. Save yourself the pain, suffering, and lost money. Do not buy Pine anything.
          • arp242 3y ago
            From the website: "As a new open source platform, Pinebook development is an ongoing process and represents a great opportunity to get involved with computing on a different level, to customize and personalize the portable computer experience, to understand what is going on beneath the surface. If you are looking for a device in a convenient laptop form-factor that you wish to tinker with, then it is safe to say the Pinebook is the right device for you. We do no wish to discourage anyone from getting the Pinebook, but it is not a daily driver, so if you are looking to replace your current work or school laptop it may be wise to look elsewhere." They have been extremely upfront about this from day 1. Your expectations are not realistic or in alignment with what Pinebook themselves has said about their devices.
        • rjsw 3y ago
          I run NetBSD on my Pinebook Pro, you are not restricted to specific Linux distributions.
      • cultofmetatron 3y ago
        I have a pinebook. its. a fun toy but the trackpad is trash and there's not much if any HD space so I still use my MBP as a daily driver. I'd happily pay more for a pinebook pro with at least 512 gb of space, 8 gb of ram and a beefier battery. the cpu performance is on the low end but workable.
        • rjsw 3y ago
          You can put any size of M.2 SSD you want into the Pinebook Pro. The RAM limit is down to the SoC itself, the next generation laptop would probably use a RK3588 which can address more RAM.
        • Phelinofist 3y ago
          I would love to have a pinepook (without pro), but whenever I check their site it is not orderable. Anyone know when it will become available again? Is there some newsletter I can subscribe to? I did not find anything and asking in their discord did also not help
    • MisterTea 3y ago
      MNT reform uses the well documented NXP i.MX8 SoM from Boundary Devices. The SoM can be replaced to swap out CPU/memory and there is an FPGA module being worked on. It's more DiY but for some that is a huge boon. Used one in person and its quite bulky and heavy but feels pretty solid and comfortable enough to use. The mechanical keyboard and trackball option are unique and welcome additions. I liked it so much I ordered a pocket reform though I intend to run 9front on it.
    • rtpg 3y ago
      while in theory there are arm things available on various package repos, in practice I've hit a good amount of stuff not packaged yet (in my case, the context was more around people doing stuff via docker M1)
      • bdcravens 3y ago
        Is this current info? On the various projects I find myself working on (usually web-related across a few different stacks) I don't really run into any without an ARM64 version.
        • vetinari 3y ago
          From the top of my head: swagger, postgis have no arm64 docker image. For the more desktopy thingies: chrome has no arm64 build.
      • spyremeown 3y ago
        Alpine, Debian and Arch have never given me a miss regarding packaging for arm64/hf. And I work specifically with embedded Linux using those distros as a base.
    • Laaas 3y ago
      I'm using the Acer Chromebook Spin 513 with a Qualcomm SC7180 processor as my daily driver and almost everything Just Works except hardware decoding (of videos) and 4k 60Hz display port output.
      • candiddevmike 3y ago
        Are you running ChromeOS or a Linux distro?
  • babypuncher 3y ago
    Does anyone other than Apple make ARM chips worth using in a laptop? ARM-powered Windows devices have been terrible, and the only good Chromebooks I've seen are x86.
  • snvzz 3y ago
    There should be at least two RISC-V microarchitectures next year that could potentially be used in this manner. Ventana Veyron, TBA before end of year, and Tenstorrent's Ascalon, TBA 2024, competitive with Zen5.
    • FullyFunctional 3y ago
      Veyron is a data center chip. I haven't seen TDP numbers but it's almost certainly unsuited for a laptop. Ascalon is IP and is AFAIK only available as such or as part of a data center machine learning chip. I don't think the market forces are driving towards a RISC-V laptop chip (TH1520 is the only one that has mentioned notebook, but it's a very low-end Cortex-A72-class processor). Hopefully this will improve eventually.
      • snvzz 3y ago
        >Ascalon is IP and is AFAIK only available as such or as part of a data center machine learning chip. AIUI it is an actual chiplet, which you're then supposed to combine with your own. They expect something physical people can buy next year, but I do not doubt there's a fair amount of extra work for it to be put into a laptop. The IP is not only one design, either, but it is parametrized so that many presets can be built. They have several steps from small (2 wide) to large (8 wide). Ultimately, what I meant to highlight is that the best RISC-V microarchitectures are about caught up with AMD/Apple/Intel, if not better. This is possible because of how much better RISC-V is. Else we could never have got to this point so quickly. Actual products follow IPs. There'll be these next year from what we know, but there is also Rivos, MIPS and SiFive working on their very high performance microarchitectures we know much less about, and possibly more we don't even know about at all. RISC-V laptops will happen. RISC-V is inevitable.
• Decabytes 3y ago
  Can't wait to see some performance reviews on these new Framework laptops
  • capableweb 3y ago
    > These are both pre-orderable today, with batches shipping as early as Q3 this year. Seems you unfortunately are gonna have to wait a while for that...
• reacharavindh 3y ago
  I’ll wait to see if they have proper “sleep” mode such that they don’t keep draining batter while not in use, particularly when running Linux. This is something that baffles me about non Apple Laptops how they just refuse to catch up to such a great benefit.. (alongside the trackpad experience which I can may be live with).
  • f_devd 3y ago
    It might be a bit of tinkering but you can enable suspend-then-hibernate with logind/systemd which gives you a similar setup to Macbooks but slightly slower to wake from deep sleep as it needs to go through post/grub again. With the bigger battery provide and new CPU I do hope it lasts longer when idle though.
    • sowbug 3y ago
      Does that require a LUKS unlock step?
      • f_devd 3y ago
        I believe so, I remember an article on hibernation+luks being more difficult to set up
        • dathinab 3y ago
          it mainly lacks good UI/UX tools to do so and an agreement on what the right approach is, especially if combined with raid without raid it's not too hard, just bothersome and finding the right information can be annoying the main gotcha is that lockdown mode is incompatible with hibernation (no matter if it's encrypted or not) and some distros enable it by default when secure boot is used, which is most times the case with a full disk encryption setup
    • hutzlibu 3y ago
      "It might be a bit of tinkering" Thats an understatement. I never made suspend-then-hibernate work reliable on linux and I tried it over the years on different systems. So I just had developed the habit of always entering hibernation, if I intend to close the lid for longer. On windows suspend-then-hibernate never failed so far. Drivers are just the crux with linux in too many cases. Not much you can do about it, except reverse engeneering drivers as a side project.
• winterqt 3y ago
  Title should be changed to mention the fact that this is about the Ryzen mainboard.
  • tuukkah 3y ago
    And what's all new today is that preorders are now open: "Framework Laptop 13 with AMD Ryzen preorderable"
    • jonesetc 3y ago
      The new thing is the specific CPU announcement. I'm pretty sure preorders have stayed open since the initial announcement a few weeks back.
      • tuukkah 3y ago
        I see. So before today, you could preorder Framework Laptop 13 with Ryzen 5 or Ryzen 7 without knowing which CPU model you'll get, but today you can preorder with Ryzen 5 7640U or Ryzen 7 7840U specifically.
        • nrp 3y ago
          Correct. AMD officially announced the processors today, which means we get to announce them too. Before this, people were basically operating on trust that the Framework+Ryzen combo was going to spec out positively.
          • komali2 3y ago
            Not that much trust, I pre ordered but all it required was a 100$ refundable deposit. More than worth it imo.
      • kej 3y ago
        Correct, and AMD preorders recently sold out for Q3 and are now into Q4.
    • deleted 3y ago
• column 3y ago
  I am puzzled by the lack of keyboard layouts for Switzerland (we have the cash to spend on such novelties!). Also, no DVORAK? Is this for hackers or not? French Canadian $99 English International $99 German $99 US English $99 French $99 British English $99 Clear ANSI $109 Blank ANSI $109 Black ISO $109 Clear ISO $109
  • Entinel 3y ago
    > Also, no DVORAK? Is this for hackers or not? I can't imagine they would sell enough DVORAK layout to make it worth it.
  • Taywee 3y ago
    As a long time Dvorak user, I'm always baffled by people wanting visual Dvorak layouts and physically rearranging their keycaps (which is a really bad idea on many keyboards, with cap angle differing by row). Dvorak really speeds up touch typing (edit: hypothetically, or at least makes it more comfortable). If you're looking at your hands while typing, just use qwerty. Dvorak won't help you. You can use Dvorak regardless of what letters are printed on the keycaps.
    • cge 3y ago
      For some reason, typing non-word-phrase passwords, especially unfamiliar ones, on a keyboard without being able to see the correct keycaps often seems challenging, even though I can touch type very well for text and for programming. It feels like there is some aspect of typing something that requires a character-by-character rational thought process to type that interrupts an instinctive memory of where each character is located. With that said, having Dvorak keys on my laptop would make the keyboard unusable or very difficult to use for a large number of other people, and so even if one were offered, I'd be unlikely to buy it. Even for many people who touch type well, I think having keycaps that are wrong when one does glance at them is something that takes some experience to get used to, and a Dvorak user typically has that experience, whereas a Qwerty user usually doesn't.
    • pr0zac 3y ago
      I mean yeah, but learning a new layout is a lot easier when the keycaps match. Also if someone who only knows qwerty has to use your computer for whatever reason they can still hunt and peck vs it being completely impossible.
• laweijfmvo 3y ago
  > If you're upgrading your Framework Laptop to the new Mainboard, remember that you'll need DDR5 SO-DIMMs up to DDR5-5600, along with a Ryzen-compatible RZ616 or similar WiFi card. What's a "Ryzen-compatible" WiFi card?
  • javier2 3y ago
    It could be a way to avoid saying Intel wifi card?
  • f_devd 3y ago
    Seems to be just WiFi M.2 cards developed by MediaTek in collaboration of AMD[0], I guess the benefit would be additional verification/optimization. [0]: https://www.amd.com/en/press-releases/2021-11-18-amd-and-mediatek-develop-amd-rz600-series-wi-fi-6e-modules-to-enhance https://www.amd.com/en/press-releases/2021-11-18-amd-and-med...
  • Bairfhionn 3y ago
    I think it means "Don't use an Intel AX201 Wifi Card because that needs an Intel CPU" without mentioning Intel.
    • segasaturn 3y ago
      I've used Intel AX cards on Ryzen (desktop) boards and it worked fine, you just need to install drivers via Windows Update.
    • KeplerBoy 3y ago
      That's not true though, is it? Have an AX200 series wifi chip on an AM4 Motherboard, works well.
      • kitsunesoba 3y ago
        Using AX2XX on my Ryzen desktop too, works great. As far as I know that series of chipsets is one of the best available for Wifi/BT cards.
• jjice 3y ago
  I've been waiting for this machine for so long, excited to see the actual CPU unveil. I may be out of date, but is the issue with not entering sleep mode properly resolved? That's a huge issue to me. Aside from Framework, does anyone suggest any other existing laptops that keep a fairly slim design while also offering lots of user repairability? I've had an okay experience with my Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 3, but she's getting old, especially now that everything depends on video transcoding that it doesn't support at the hardware level.
  • avargas 3y ago
    Apparently with the Ryzen processor, the slots are limited: "The Framework Laptop 13 with Ryzen™ 7040 Series processors has two fully capable USB4 ports, with the back left and back right Expansion Cards slots. The front left Expansion Card slot can handle both USB 3.2 and DisplayPort Alt Mode, while the front right Expansion Card can use USB 3.2. This does mean there is one Expansion Card slot that can't support the HDMI or DisplayPort Expansion Cards, and most OS's will provide a warning if you forget. You can charge your Framework Laptop through any of the four Expansion Cards as well.". This is borderline a deal breaker for me.
    • TOMDM 3y ago
      That's pretty rough, one of the great things about the Framework was being able to treat all ports the same. Is there any explenation on why they couldn't achieve this with AMD's new chips? I'm sure they would have supported that if they were able to.
      • mfer 3y ago
        It has to do with what the chips can support. Compare the AMD USB channels [1] with the Intel Thunderbold channels [2]. Intel has more channels for motherboard/system manufacturers to work with. [1] https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/ryzen-7-7840u.c3212#gallery-2 https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/ryzen-7-7840u.c3212#ga... [2] https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/core-i7-1370p.c3055#gallery-2 https://www.techpowerup.com/cpu-specs/core-i7-1370p.c3055#ga...
• qudat 3y ago
  Can someone explain the power consumption difference between one of these chips and an arm (eg m1)?
  • neogodless 3y ago
    If this[0] is accurate and I'm reading it correctly, "Total Package Power Consumption over Time" indicates no more than 4W at any time (and often way less). Maybe someone can read it for me? A Ryzen 7000 U-series CPU by itself has a TDP (this is not power consumption but rather Thermal Design Power) of 15-30W. This seems to approximate power consumption. This[1] explores comparing the previous generation (6800U) to an M1 Pro[1] and states that the Apple chip is ~2.4x as efficient in single core Cinebench performance while being approximately tied on Cinebench R23 multi-core. [0] https://singhkays.com/blog/apple-silicon-m1-video-power-consumption-pt-1/ https://singhkays.com/blog/apple-silicon-m1-video-power-cons... [1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-7-6800U-Efficiency-Review-Zen3-beats-Intel-Alder-Lake.623763.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Ryzen-7-6800U-Efficiency-R...
• codedokode 3y ago
  > If you're upgrading your Framework Laptop to the new Mainboard, remember that you'll need ... a Ryzen-compatible RZ616 or similar WiFi card. Why does WiFi card need to be "compatible" with CPU? Isn't it enough to be compatible with PCI-Express? Or are there backdoors that do not work with Intel-backdoor-compatible WiFi cards?
  • jeffbee 3y ago
    The Framework wifi card for Intel is an AX201 implementation, which means the only thing on the card is the RF and the rest of the wireless functions are in the Intel SoC. You can't use an AX201 with anything but an Intel platform because of CNVi.
    • duffyjp 3y ago
      Huh really? I put an AX210 wifi 6E card in my absolutely ancient Intel i7-2600 Optiplex and it works great.
      • alanfranz 3y ago
        Yes, really. Cnvi cards only work on recent Intel cpus and they’re a tad cheaper. The problem is not Intel branded cards. Your card (ending with 0) is non-cnvi. Try an AX211 and it won’t work.
      • zen_1 3y ago
        As I understand it, the AX2X0 cards will work with any CPU, while the AX2X1 cards need CNVi support (so a newer intel SoC)
        • duffyjp 3y ago
          Luckily I ordered the AX210 over the AX211 because the AX210 was cheaper. :P
      • maverwa 3y ago
        Reading intel ark, it seem to me that the AX210 is a fully fledged device that can be used with every SoC [0] while the AX201 relies on CNVi [1]. So both can be true at the same time: your AX210 works fine with the i7-2600, while the AX201 would not. Thanks for those product names Intel. Very helpful! 0: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204836/intel-wifi-6e-ax210-gig/specifications.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/204836/... 1: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/130293/intel-wifi-6-ax201-gig.html https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/130293/...
• jadbox 3y ago
  Does it used shared memory between CPU and GPU?
  • neogodless 3y ago
    I'm having a tough time finding a definitive answer, but it seems logical that AMD would enable this. Traditionally, an iGPU would get a designated portion of system memory reserved for it, and unavailable to the CPU (e.g. 512MB to 2GB). But AMD has enabled shared memory between modern Ryzen CPUs and Radeon GPUs, called "Smart Access Memory." So it sure seems logical that they would enable that feature for their APUs.
• bitL 3y ago
  Better display please! 2256x1504 is so 2010!
  • codedokode 3y ago
    For 13" screen isn't that more than enough? I barely see pixel grid on 1080p display.
    • bitL 3y ago
      My ASUS ZenBook has 3300x2200 at 13" and it's the best display I've ever had. Can't downgrade once I got used to it, at 2x pixel density it's basically 1650x1100 but with much nicer pixels. Looks stunning in Linux.
    • chrismorgan 3y ago
      2256×1504 at 13.5″ is 200ppi, which is awkward, clearly designed for a scaling factor of 1.5×. You’ll get drastically better results by going up to 2× scaling with 3000×2000 display like the Surface Book’s (267ppi), partly from the increased resolution and partly just from avoiding the difficulties or quality loss (depending on approach) of fractional scaling. (As a matter of fact, environments that use integral scaling plus downsampling will produce better results on a lower-resolution 1× screen for a lot of types of content.) I now use a laptop with a 188ppi display (which I use at 1.5×), because that was where I found the best compromise at the time. I really miss the resolution of my Surface Book. > I barely see pixel grid on 1080p display. Honestly, if you can see it at all, it’s not high enough.
    • kayodelycaon 3y ago
      It's plenty. For comparison, Apple's M2 MacBook Air has a 13.6" 2560-by-1664 display.
      • bitL 3y ago
        M2 Air's retina resolution goes down to 1280x832 whereas Framework's to 1128x752 which is a notch worse in both dimensions.
• antoineMoPa 3y ago
  I would love if there was an ARM flavour with 10+ hours of battery life under sustained use (like I can get on my M1).
  • systemtest 3y ago
    I don't think I will ever purchase an x86 processor anymore. Everything in my home is ARM powered. If Framework switches to ARM I will strongly consider them.
    • guerby 3y ago
      Why not RISC-V?
      • deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      • FullyFunctional 3y ago
        While I'm bullish on RISC-V (both personally and professionally since before RISC-V was even public), there are currently no chips on the market that comes even close to high-end Arms, and most specifically none for mobile devices. So that's why. This will certainly change, but I suspect laptops will be last, with datacenter (ML esp.) and ultra-mobile (ie. low-end cellphones) arriving first.
  • G3rn0ti 3y ago
    The future is RISC-V not ARM. The former will be everywhere, the latter only in Apple devices.
    • antoineMoPa 3y ago
      ARM is probably the architecture in the majority of devices currently if you account for android phones and iphones.
      • 3y ago
• jefurii 3y ago
  What machine is in the top left of the photo? Looks a lot like a TRS-80 Model 100. A Framework Model 100 conversion would be pretty awesome...
  • nrp 3y ago
    An Epson HX-20! One of the first portable computers.
    • jefurii 3y ago
      Well spotted!
  • dabluecaboose 3y ago
    I thought similarly, how cool would it be to have a framework chassis in a Commodore-64 style?
• exabrial 3y ago
  One thing I've learned from running an M1 processor is how much memory bandwidth actually matters for my use case. I don't see this listed anywhere. Anyone have any ideas how this compares to something like an M1?
  • seabrookmx 3y ago
    You should be able to find benchmarks online using 7th gen Ryzen and whatever speed DDR5 you plan to pair it with, to get a ballpark. I wouldn't expect it to touch M1 though, given M1's integrated design.
    • exabrial 3y ago
      Is that in reference to the physical locality, or the bit-width of the interface
  • neogodless 3y ago
    https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-7840u https://www.amd.com/en/products/apu/amd-ryzen-7-7840u DDR5-5600 would be 69.21GB/s[0] which is slightly more than the base Apple Silicon M1 (66.67GB/s) but well under the M1 Pro. M2 has 100GB/s of unified memory bandwidth[1]. [0] https://www.crucial.com/articles/about-memory/everything-about-ddr5-ram https://www.crucial.com/articles/about-memory/everything-abo... [1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/06/apple-unveils-m2-with-breakthrough-performance-and-capabilities/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2022/06/apple-unveils-m2-with...
• rektide 3y ago
  There's a "Ryzen AI" on these AMD cores that is really a modest sized fpga, supposedly. Linux has been landing some support for interfacing with this- calling it XDNA (on a new "CDX" bus) - but no signs yet that users can program it. Would be a fun thing to get exposed to users. Fingers crossed that actually happens; I could definitely see this being very vendored up, that it ends up only really running a couple predefined ML workloads.
  • stingraycharles 3y ago
    This makes a lot of sense, I was just waiting for their acquisition of Xilinx to materialize in their consumer products in some way. This seems a great way to unlock e.g. some ML potential. The possibilities seem endless.
    • pca006132 3y ago
      I think AMD already acquired Xilinx?
      • rektide 3y ago
        Yes. But the question remains of when & how we see Xilinx technologies/capabilities boost AMD's core businesses.
        • stingraycharles 3y ago
          Exactly. Just like we can see Nvidia’s acquisition of Mellanox starting to make sense now that we see Nvidia shipping entire clusters of hundreds or thousands of GPUs connected through InfiniBand, I’m waiting for what AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx has to offer.
    • ejiblabahaba 3y ago
      You're already seeing it. Xilinx led the industry in chip interconnect technology, SERDES, MCMs, die stacking... they've been making chiplet designs since 2011. They were the ones inventing all the interconnect and packaging technology AMD is using in Zen, Epyc, and now Radeon products. This sketchy-looking link is a marketing slide for Xilinx chip-to-chip interconnect tech from 2019. It's illustrative of the kind of IP AMD was shopping for. https://146a55aca6f00848c565-a7635525d40ac1c70300198708936b4e.ssl.cf1.rackcdn.com/images/7c40a4d3a19a3f844a79930ff5f648b3f5fc5911.pdf https://146a55aca6f00848c565-a7635525d40ac1c70300198708936b4...
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• candiddevmike 3y ago
  I wish their mainboard became an actual motherboard spec (something like LAPTOP-ATX), it seems like it's proprietary. Would open the door for more folks to build swappable laptop boards.
  • prettyStandard 3y ago
    They seem to be doing everything they can to make it not proprietary. I'm not sure if there's more that they can do.
    • zamnos 3y ago
      a couple possibilities off the top of my head, starting with actually working with other vendors, so it's not only them making them. Work on the whole supply chain - including recycling - for these things. do a "buy one give one" type deal to seed the hardware more widely. write a bunch of software for the device so there's even more of a draw to get one of these. develop an ARM board. All of these projects are non-trivial but until they have the sales to support the kind of staying that would require, they'll need more capital first. Know any VCs? just dumping the specs on the website isn't enough. they need to to actually talk to other vendors and get them involved with the project, and figure out the right financial incentives for them, which won't be easy.
      • dcow 3y ago
        Lol wut? You want VCs to fund the creation/incubation of a laptop mainboard spec using equity from Framework just to spoon-feed other vendors into competition? I mean it kinda seems like the onus is on new vendors to work off the published specs and and with Framework as interest grows to codify a standard so they can be relevant. I’m sure Framework would love that. It’s really dumb to see people advocating for Framework to waste resources solving a problem that doesn't exist.
        • candiddevmike 3y ago
          For me, all of their openness kind of falls flat when you realize it's just another locked-in laptop ecosystem... It's great that they publish their specs, but that doesn't mean anything to me if they're the only ones making them.
• jacknews 3y ago
  Where's the framework 'surface'?
  • neogodless 3y ago
    The design philosophy of Framework seems to be diametrically opposed to Microsoft's Surface. If there is a market for modular transformable tablets, is it large enough to cover the expense of research and development?
    • jacknews 3y ago
      Opposed to microsoft's version of the concept, perhaps. To me, modular, upgradable, repairable fit the tablet form-factor even more than a laptop - you choose your own keyboard, mounting system (eg a folio case to use the combo as an actual laptop, vesa mount holes or adapter to stick it onto a monitor mount), etc.
• vrglvrglvrgl 3y ago
  [dead]
• _V_ 3y ago
  The questions I always ask: - Does it have atlest two m.2 slots? - Can I have WIFI and WWAN (5G)? - Can this fit 4 RAM sticks? (96-128G RAM) - Does it have a 4k display? (it's 2023, come on!) Still not many computers do offer these parameters :-( I'd love to have Framework laptop if it would offer these parameters.
  • dcow 3y ago
    Can I ask what workloads you’re running where 8TB storage and 64gb ram aren’t enough? On a laptop…
    • skrtskrt 3y ago
      on a 13 inch laptop at that
    • bitL 3y ago
      M2 MacBook has 96GB at 14". One can use it to run LLaMA 4-bit instead of 3-bit.
      • miloignis 3y ago
        I've run LLaMA 65B 4bit int using llama.cpp on an couple of year old laptop with 64GB of RAM. Not a bunch of extra left, but it does fit!
    • fsflover 3y ago
      Qubes OS? Although 32GB RAM and 3TB storage are currently almost sufficient for me.
    • _V_ 3y ago
      My laptop is my primary and only work machine. I run a lot of VMs and operations on some bigg-ish datasets. RAM disks are quite a good way to expedite these things - along with two SSDs.
  • preya2k 3y ago
    Two M.2 slots, two slots for 5G/WiFi and 4 RAM Slots? You're aware we're talking about a 13 inch device here, right? No way this fits into the 13 chassis.
• whoisthemachine 3y ago
  I'm waffling on my pre-order because I realized Frameworks don't have touchscreens, which I really enjoy when reading long articles. Kind of wild that they offer all these other features that seem very niche, but a common one these days is absent.
  • hall0ween 3y ago
    I'm on the flip side of this preference. If framework laptops had a touchscreen, I would have waffled on ordering one.
    • squokko 3y ago
      Why? You can always turn off the touchscreen. I have on my laptop.
      • WD-42 3y ago
        They make the display worse.
        • whoisthemachine 3y ago
          Could you quantify this?
      • znpy 3y ago
        can you turn it off in hardware though?
    • culturestate 3y ago
      > If framework laptops had a touchscreen, I would have waffled on ordering one. Is there some specific quality-related reason for this? I’m not a fan of touchscreens on laptops but absent some glaring technical issue I can’t imagine that being a blocker for my purchases.
      • voidmain0001 3y ago
• sir_eliah 3y ago
  That's all great, but Framework team, when do you finally extend support for the rest of European countries?
  • sireat 3y ago
    Indeed, I have been on Framework mailing list for 2 years and hate seeing these updates. It seems silly that Framework can't figure some way to ship orders to the rest of EU. No need for specific keyboard, just let us place orders.
    • aksss 3y ago
      Weird, perhaps a regulatory hurdle or different warranty requirements/costs?
      • odabaxok 3y ago
        I would expect that within EEA most of the regulations would be the same and I don't think it's the problem. What you would need though is translated manuals and such by law. Maybe even localized support for warranties that could raise costs to enter a market. This is only my assumption, but it would make sense, that's why they cover even smaller English speaking countries like Ireland. Or for example Germany is a big market, but they cover Austria too, because they have German language for free.
        • odabaxok 3y ago
          I found a nice reply on this topic here in the official forums: https://community.frame.work/t/availability-in-european-union-for-b2b-purchase/27401/6 https://community.frame.work/t/availability-in-european-unio...
          • tuukkah 3y ago
            There must be a simpler way. I can buy any other electronics parts internationally, why not laptop parts from the Framework Marketplace? I also wouldn't mind buying as a business and skipping VAT and consumer protection. There's no import tax for computers either.
• tristor 3y ago
  I had already pre-ordered off the previous announcement, and I'm glad I did. I'm excited to receive my DIY kit and assemble it.
• taraharris 3y ago
  Is there any proprietary firmware on these? If this is truly open, I'm excited, otherwise I do not care one bit. (Scrolling down the comments, I am honestly disappointed that I am the only person asking this question. Or does everyone else already know and I'm just out of touch?)
  • stingraycharles 3y ago
    Just look at the specs of their laptops, plenty of Intel etc hardware that have management engines and whatnot. Openness is not their (primary) goal, it’s about being able to upgrade and replace components of your laptop just as you are able to do with a desktop.
  • detaro 3y ago
    > Or does everyone else already know and I'm just out of touch Sadly I think assuming a new x86-based system could possibly be "truly open" if it isn't a screaming headline-feature is kind of out of touch, yes.
  • justaj 3y ago
    If it's not supported by Libreboot (yet?) then I'm afraid that it won't fit your (and my) criteria of open.
  • bo1024 3y ago
    Don’t think so; you might want to look at Purism, which I think is quite a bit closer. https://puri.sm/ https://puri.sm/
  • codezero 3y ago
    They never claim to be open in that blog post, and on their about page they only say the laptop is open for repair and upgrade.
  • sillystuff 3y ago
    Maybe someday? I'd love to see this too. AMD to consider coreboot/Libreboot support for Ryzen [1] Although, the only Framework with Coreboot support is their Chromebook, which has to use Coreboot per Google. But, comments in this thread seem to indicate broader use of Coreboot may be possible from Framework, in the future [2] [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13781408 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13781408 [2]https://community.frame.work/t/coreboot-on-the-framework-laptop/791/110?page=6 https://community.frame.work/t/coreboot-on-the-framework-lap...
• zvmaz 3y ago
  My ideal laptop. I wonder if there will be ergonomic keyboards for the 13 inch model.
• leosussan 3y ago
  Really, really can't wait for the Framework 16.
• trylfthsk 3y ago
  ECC?
• theshrike79 3y ago
  "We haven’t opened ordering in your region yet, but we’re looking forward to getting there!" ...I've been waiting for two years with money in hand. Please let me pay you, please? Printing a set of keycaps for Scandinavian layouts can't be _that_ expensive?
  • Tade0 3y ago
    I feel your pain as I am waiting to do the same. Apparently it's not just the keycaps but also stuff like warranty, returns etc. - quite a lot of legal bullshit before the product can reach you. I haven't seen any official announcement for a Ryzen Framework 16 though, so for me specifically it doesn't change much for now.
  • Dma54rhs 3y ago
    Why not use US/UK layout? The product is mainly for programmers therefore I'm certain the demand for these layouts is low. Scandinavian/German etc layouts are a pain in the ass to write chars needed for programming to behind with. Just map your keys so you get your umlauts with caps from where you are used to, not what your keyboard labels tell you. Or just ä - caps+ a etc.
    • theshrike79 3y ago
      I can't live with the tiny enter key on US/UK layouts. I've spent way too long on the big one :) Also US and UK aren't in the EU, so shipping and taxes are going to literally kill me.
      • arp242 3y ago
        UK layout has a big enter key and small left shift; it's the US layout that has a small enter and large left shit. Ireland uses the UK layout as well, and they're still in the EU. Of course, the letters and symbols printed are different from e.g. the Swedish layout, but the key locations should be the same.
    • arp242 3y ago
      Because it's what people are used to. From experience I know that switching between US and UK layouts is rather painful: the key sizes are different, some keys are in different locations. One downside of having a "special" layout than everyone else is that everyone else's computer is harder to use (and also, harder for others to use your computer).
• freedomben 3y ago
  I'm super happy for this and it's truly great to see framework continuing the quest, and I would still buy a new framework today (if they weren't out of stock) but it is very frustrating how out of stock nearly everything is from current and last generation. You can't even buy a new 12th gen intel at all, and the 11th gen important things (like US Keyboards) are out of stock. As a US English speaker with a a little Spanish, I'd have to settle for French or German keyboard which would annoy me to no end. I cut framework a ton of slack for this during covid since everything supply chain was so crazy, but is this just the normal (or new normal) for framework? The dream of modularity and repairability only works when you can actually buy the replacement parts, and so far I've had my framework for almost two years and it's been quite difficult to get parts when I needed them. Unfortunately the beauty and lightweightness of the framework means it is a lot more fragile than the Thinkpads and Dells I used to buy, so gets broken more when dropped/abused. If I could get the parts I need it wouldn't be a big deal, but as such...
  • nrp 3y ago
    Replacement parts are available in the Marketplace, and both US English Input Covers and US English Keyboards are in stock, along with most other parts: https://frame.work/marketplace https://frame.work/marketplace For older generation systems (12th Gen and 11th Gen), our general intent is to sell out of the older generation just as we start shipments of the newer generation. We usually get pretty close, but sometimes we do have more or less demand than anticipated.
• pcdoodle 3y ago
  That performance per TDP of that 8C chip is unreal. Congrats to framework for doing the right and coolest thing. I am fanatical about what this company is doing.
• genpfault 3y ago
  Hmm, do they have keyboards that fix up the arrow key cluster? Either all half-height (plus page up/down above the left/right keys) or all full-height?
  • tuukkah 3y ago
    Half-height should be easy as the up/down keys are half-height already, and there would be no need for new holes. Wiring for two additional keys can't be that difficult either. Dedicated page up and page down keys would be really practical.
  • dathinab 3y ago
    no it's the curse of semi-13" laptops their 16" laptop doesn't have this problem they could produce a keyboard where right shift is smaller and you have a full up key but UP/DOWN would still be missing and moving the key further down would lead to other ergonomic problems You can work around this by switching some function keys with UP/DOWN (or POS1/END or both). e.g. in a custom XKB key map (you can just extend e.g us, place it under .config/xkb/symbols) you can use following to switch Pos1/End and F9/F10: key <FK09> { [ Home, Home ] }; key <FK10> { [ End, End ] }; key <HOME> { [ F9, F9 ] }; key <END> { [ F10, F10 ] }; it's one of this "not hard if you happen to know how to do it" linux things
• DanHulton 3y ago
  I'd be a lot more interested in this if there was a way to get a decent keyboard on it, i.e. one with t-shaped arrow keys, instead of this terrible bar-shaped one. I ended up with some work Macbooks when they switched to bar-shaped and they were _miserable_ to use. I had to add some tape on the left and right keys just to get some tactile feedback about where my fingers had to end up. It's an absolute dealbreaker for me these days, pretty much no matter how great everything else about the laptop may be.
  • tuukkah 3y ago
    It's kind of a minor nitpick but I also miss the half-size arrow and pgup/pgdown keys of Thinkpads. Framework already provides multiple layouts so they might be able to provide this variant on their Marketplace as well. Your tape trick sounds like a good workaround meanwhile, and people have been doing more complex customizations and prototypes as well, for example: https://community.frame.work/t/changed-my-keyboard-layout-in-hardware-to-colemak/14174 https://community.frame.work/t/changed-my-keyboard-layout-in...
  • eviks 3y ago
    You can use home row keys JKL; as arrow keys with a thumb right alt as a modifier (or a long hold space), that beats having to move your hand to an unergonomic cluster
• bodge5000 3y ago
  I was almost certain my new laptop would be one of the newer thinkpads, but this might change it for me. Kind of wish they offered a matte-black version though. I know its trivial, but I do love that Thinkpad look
  • qu4z-2 3y ago
    I'm definitely hoping for matte-black too, but the two things I'm actually blocking on are a trackpoint (I realise this is probably not happening) and availability in my country.
    • bodge5000 3y ago
      Oh yeh I forgot about the trackpoint as well. Theres a few things holding me back, but the pull is getting stronger I guess a trackpoint could happen if third parties start getting involved more in making keyboards and whatnot.
• dathinab 3y ago
  I'm _really_ tempted to pre-order. But I need first answers first: - battery life for normal browser usage compared to the intel 11th gen version - does Linux works well (e.g. no intel 12th gen integrated graphic tearing problems or similar), sleep power saving not being grate doesn't matter
  • csdreamer7 3y ago
    > - does Linux works well (e.g. no intel 12th gen integrated graphic tearing problems or similar), sleep power saving not being grate doesn't matter Probably not. AMD laptops have struggled in the past. Even Intel Alder Lake works better with 6.2, but I still have issues where it does not resume properly months after release, which was months after Intel released Alder Lake mobile. When I lift the laptop lid, it stays suspended for a few minutes until it wakes up or I need to close the lid and reopen it. Had similar resume and suspend issues with my Skylake System76 Lemur. Feels like it takes years for Intel to resolve issues with their laptops on Linux. Works better than it used to. Better than when GNOME Settings would crash the system to freeze-haven't had that issue in over a month.
    • dathinab 3y ago
      11th gen Intel didn't had that long lasting issues AFIK. It's likely related to 11th=>12th having been a big step and maybe a hasty one too, combined with a lot of GPU driver resources currently likely going to a partial rewrite of their driver components in context of them entering the dedicated GPU market. And both support for the CPU and GPU arch they use already exist from other similar hardware. Similar the aspect that CPU and GPU are bundled together is also already handled by their current driver. So as long as no of the interfaces or subtleties majorly changed wrt. what the driver has to do it could be proper day 1 Linux support (for CPU+GPU in normal "simple" usage). It's not very likely thou. And the "AI" feature likely will take forever to be nicely usable, but I don't need it. Oh and it's not a major thing but they didn't had an AMD EFI before and I want to use custom platform keys for secure boot, so that is another point I have to check. But not being able to do so might not majorly affect my buying decisions as long as they commit to adding support in later EFI versions.
• csdreamer7 3y ago
  I really like framework and I happy they are offering AMD. But I really struggle to recommend Framework after they were unable at this time to fix a hardware issue. The headphone jack will beep when sound turns on and off. Framework confirmed with me that the vendor intended for this and they were unable to fix it because of the parts shortage. It is so annoying I bought a USB C dac to play the audio in. The keyboard, they minimize way too much, like having to use the fn key for home, end, and pg up/down, as well as insert, I need to press fn+shift+insert to paste something in gnome terminal which means I need to do it for Neovim. Aside from that, I do like the 3:2 aspect ratio, even if it has issues with GNOME and websites. GNOME refuses to let you snap two windows to each side for some reason. Websites think your screen is too small and so you get the mobile version for a lot of sites. Still, beautiful screen, excellent webcam, metal body. Needs more execution.
  • teruakohatu 3y ago
    > The headphone jack will beep when sound turns on and off How did this so-called vendor intended behaviour pass Q&A?
  • arp242 3y ago
    > The keyboard, they minimize way too much, like having to use the fn key for home, end, and pg up/down, as well as insert, I need to press fn+shift+insert to paste something in gnome terminal which means I need to do it for Neovim. This is a common problem with many laptops unfortunately; there seems to be this obsession that keyboards need to be exactly rectangular, so you need to cram. I remapped Windows+p in my WM to paste from PRIMARY and Shift+Windows+p to paste from CLIPBOARD. Even on a regular keyboard it's actually a lot more convenient than Shift+Insert.
  • eviks 3y ago
    Why not just remap it to a convenient shortcut?
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  Will a Framework laptop give me hardware decoded video in Chrome out of the box on Ubuntu Jammy? I have an xps-15 from work and it’s basically impossible to do. I spent so many hours trying things suggested online. As a result my Ubuntu experience is: “no you can’t stream video on battery or if you want to do anything else at the same time.” While I think I should be able to smoothly run video on any modern laptop with any modern browser, Linux is Linux and I paid nothing for it so I can’t be picky. But I’m this close to buying a Framework just so I can have this capability.
• hinkley 3y ago
  Has anyone tried building a home cluster out of these motherboards? For home clusters, quiet and low power are worth a hell of a lot more than they are in a data center.
• wappieslurkz 3y ago
  Am I the only one persistently mistaking the Framework logo for an ugly flower instead of a screw head?