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Framework Laptop 16 Deep Dive: Display
- manaskarekar 3y agoDoes it use PWM or DC-Dimming? (Don't see it mentioned at a quick glance)
- amstan 3y agoIt really shouldn't matter as long as the frequency is high enough (>2000Hz). On their 1st gen laptop it seems seamless to the point where I can't tell (if it's DC or not).
- manaskarekar 3y agoThanks for sharing. The high frequency doesn't seem to matter (example newer Macbooks). Unsure additional parameters like temporal dithering play a role.
- bitwize 3y agoSome Hackernews have slomovision and are sensitive to flickering even at frequencies high enough that you'd think it wouldn't matter.
- dandongus 3y agoFor what it's worth, the three most similar models from BOE all use DC dimming: https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NYC_BOE_16.0_LCM_overview_59277.html https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NYC_BOE_16.0_LCM_overview_... https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NY3_BOE_16.0_LCM_overview_51262.html https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NY3_BOE_16.0_LCM_overview_... https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NY3_BOE_16.0_LCM_overview_51262.html https://www.panelook.com/NE160QDM-NY3_BOE_16.0_LCM_overview_... In fact it seems that most every single one of these newer high refresh rate 1440p/1600p laptop panels does, I couldn't find a single pwm one.
- manaskarekar 3y agoThat is very good to hear!
- gnufied 3y agoI know there is lot of gripe about the display not being 4k, but I personally love 2560x1600 on 16inch monitors. In Linux I can run this without any fractional scaling at 100% resolution. To account for small text, I can change font size by 1.1 or something similar via gnome-tweaks and similar font size adjustment for apps that don't honor gnome-tweaks setting. I know this is not ideal if you are coming from Mac, but this IMO leads to much more smoother experience and no blurry text anywhere. The same setting works if I am plugging into 32inch 4k display.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoAs I get older, my vision gets worse. Even with decent(?) eye-glasses, I don't see the screen quite as clearly as when I was younger. I should probably invest a little time in determining what maximum screen resolution actually matters to me at various distances.
- tlamponi 3y agoNote that with a high enough resolution to enable 2x (or even 4x) scaling, text becomes much crisper as anti-aliasing isn't messing with the actual color that much anymore. So, a HiDPI display _might_ make things easier to read/view even for people with a worse vision like you.
- CoastalCoder 3y agoThanks, good point. I guess any conclusions I draw need to consider more than just the screen's native resolution. The software-based systems for rending fonts, and graphics in general, would also matter. As would the screen treatment (matte vs. glossy), since AFAIK all matte finishes add a little bit of blur.
- zozbot234 3y agoAnti-aliasing should not be messing with the color at all. It shouldn't even be messing with brightness and contrast all that much; most common artifacts are due to performing anti-aliasing w/ an incorrect gamma for the display. Gamma-correct and pixel-perfect content makes even a low resolution 768p screen quite usable. And a 1080p screen is crisp enough already that individual pixels are not visible when looking at the whole screen. Anything higher than that is pure overkill.
- kristopolous 3y agoAre there third party modular suppliers? Could I say, replace the keyboard like I can on a desktop? If not, are they open to that? If I wanted to say, make something more "thinkpad" like for people to swap things out, would they openly support me selling this?
- JamesAdir 3y agohttps://github.com/FrameworkComputer/InputModules https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/InputModules
- CoastalCoder 3y agoThis is fantastic! Maybe this means my next laptop will be from Framework. The keyboard was the deciding factor in my last laptop purchase. TL;DR: I really wanted an all-AMD laptop (with dGPU) for development and gaming on Linux [0]. So my first purchase was (IIRC) an ASUS ROG Strix G15 [1]. But I really hated the feel of the key caps and their action, so I sold it. I ended up settling on a Lenovo Legion 5 Pro (16ACH6H). I'm still bummed about the non-AMD dGPU, but I'm confident I made the right trade-off. [0] I didn't need an nVidia GPU because I wasn't doing CUDA development. And I've had better luck with AMD's Linux drivers than with nVidia's. [1] https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-strix-g15-advantage-edition-15-6-qhd-gaming-laptop-amd-ryzen-9-5980hx-16gb-memory-radeonrx-6800m-512gb-ssd/6486485.p?skuId=6486485 https://www.bestbuy.com/site/asus-rog-strix-g15-advantage-ed...
- brucethemoose2 3y agoYeah, even with all the improvements, Nvidia hybrid is still a nightmare in linux. Just recently my vscode extensions were all inexplicably failing, and I traced it back to electron messing up, which I discovered only happens when the Nvidia driver is loaded even though I am not even using it for rendering... And this took forever to trace.
- jeroenhd 3y agoMy laptop works pretty well these days except for the Nvidia hardware, but it's not just laptops either. I can choose Wayland XOR external displays. I can update any kernel or driver and reboot days later, unless Nvidia's software gets involved. The Intel GPU also has some issues (random flickering on fullscreen applications for some obscure reason I just can't figure out) but they're much less "how can you possibly have missed this" and more "this seems like an unfortunate edge case".
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- petilon 3y agoThis Samsung [1] is only 14" and yet has 2880x1800 display. That's 200% resolution. Anything less than 200% is not interesting to me. iPhone with Retina display debuted in 2010. Isn't 13 years enough time for PC laptops to catch up? [1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPJWYQSY/ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BPJWYQSY/
- tintedfireglass 3y agoyeah this Asus laptop (https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-home/vivobook/vivobook-pro-14-oled-m3401-amd-ryzen-5000-series/ https://www.asus.com/laptops/for-home/vivobook/vivobook-pro-...) has the same resolution display for the same dimensions too. Maybe this is the only high dpi panel mass produced enough and 16'' doesn't have an economical version due to lower economies of scale? just a guess I am not very sure.
- sspiff 3y agoWhat does "200%" resolution mean? I prefer displays with a resolution where I don't have to do any scaling honestly.
- petilon 3y ago200% means double the resolution of the "previous era" (1990s and 2000s), which was around 96 dpi. Modern applications will not see any scaling artifacts. Applications from the "previous era" that are not HighDPI-aware will get scaling... each application pixel will occupy 4 physical pixels.
- KingOfCoders 3y agoI guess you're lucky that Apple and Samsungs have laptops that you like.
- petilon 3y ago...and Asus... and Dell.. among others
- lousken 3y ago
- brucethemoose2 3y agoThis is fantastic. All the specs are fantastic. I think 2560p is a sweet spot, as 4K is just too hard to drive, and (to my eyes) its usable with minimal scaling. My biggest concern with the framework 16 is cooling. The modular GPU inevitably excludes the huge, integrated heatsink designs something like a G15 would use.
- dishsoap 3y agoPersonally I disagree about the resolution being a sweet spot, in my opinion it's almost the worst resolution imaginable for this size. The pixels are just slightly too small to the point where it becomes annoying and uncomfortable (for most people) to use it at 100% scaling, 200% scaling is out of the question as everything would be massive and you'd only get some 720p equivalent worth of real estate, and fractional scaling is generally subpar and not worth using in many cases. I think both 4k and 1080p are better options for a 15-16" screen.
- jabart 3y agoSame, have a 13 and cooling is an issue. It may be because I upgraded from an older case, don't know.
- seltzered_ 3y ago"and an unusually high 500 nit brightness." I consider this above average, but not unusually high. For the past couple years the MacBook pro can do a peak of 1000nits HDR (unlockable to do it with apps like lunar for outdoor computing). There has also been the MSI creator 17 that supports 1000 nits brightness, and some HP laptop models that do high brightness though more for their 'sureview' screen security feature
- endorphine 3y agoHonest question: why would a happy Lenovo ThinkPad Carbon X1 on Debian user switch to the Framework laptop? What are its selling points that make it attractive to such a target group?
- deepsun 3y agoCustomizable ports (although I'd want 5-6 slots for ports, 4 is a little too few for me, I want USB-C for charging on both sides, 2 usb-3, HDMI and DisplayPort at the same time).
- bubblethink 3y agoUpgradeable wifi would be the main draw. The rest is mostly a wash. Thinkpads have better linux support generally. Thinkpads have firmware updates on fwupd and no catastrophic issues on the igpu models.
- felixg3 3y agoUnfortunately, that depends on the generation and vendor of the CPU. I found AMD devices have much more bugs regarding sleep and GPU drivers than Intel. Within the AMD generations, the 4000-Series was really bad even on Linux certified thinkpads.
- bubblethink 3y agoYes, AMD is definitely worse than Intel, but that's true everywhere. It's more about AMD than Lenovo. I have a rembrandt hp elitebook, and even that has issues.
- wbsun 3y agoI’ve noticed that no other devices can beat the quality of Apple device monitors, no matter how high-definition they are. The display on Apple devices are just smoothing, natural, easy on my heavily myopic eyes. Any expert on display panel? I am just wondering why Apple’s display quality is always better than even the display manufacturers’ own devices (Samsung, LG).
- soulbadguy 3y agoi would love to understand that as well. I am mainly a pc user (both desktop and laptop), but at any given generation macbooks have just better display "experience".Even when compared to the other top of the line devices (MSFT surfaces or dell XPS 13). My guess is simply that other PC companies just don't care much about the display quality beyond head grabbing specs. That and i suspect MACOS is just better at text rendering and color repreduction on the desktop
- xpe 3y agoYour brain telling your eyes that the extra money should be worth it? I wrote this in a joking manner, but I do wonder if a double blind study has been conducted. Not all UIs are created equally when it comes to visual appeal. That could explain a lot of it. Not to mention the factors you reference, aka antialiasing, smoothing, font rendering, and probably lots more.
- soulbadguy 3y agoThat's a fair point, it might be only a placebo effect. However, the machines i am comparing it with are mainly the dell xps 13 and MSFT surface which are generally in the same price range. Plus i have yet to have bough a macbook for myself, usually those are company issued devices. > Not all UIs are created equally when it comes to visual appeal. That's correct. But here i am not comparing the quality ofthe UI element. I am don't particularly like MACOS design language and prefer windows 11 and ubuntu gnome visual esthetics.
- xpe 3y agoWhile macOS might get the visual combination better than competitors, I’d be somewhat surprised if it has any secret sauce left. Oh, yeah, custom silicon… :)
- Animats 3y ago"In the lead-up to opening pre-orders..." "Batch 3 (of older model) Ships July..." They've been at this for a while, and they're still acting like a Kickstarter.
- ubertaco 3y agoI'm not sure I understand whether this is criticism or praise; isn't it a good thing for a company that has announced an upcoming product line to communicate transparently and frequently about progress and timelines for things like preorders?
- wmf 3y agoIt's a criticism because mature companies don't do preorders at all.
- aPoCoMiLogin 3y agolast time i've checked a lot of companies are doing preorders, heck even the richest like apple.
- mschuster91 3y agoElectronics is a high-investment but low-margin product. You either need to have a ton of cash upfront to pay for components and wait weeks to months until products are built and especially shipped to customers, or you need extremely generous payment terms with vendors. The latter you can only get by continuous high-volume orders... which Framework is too small for.
- lousken 3y agoFramework seems almost perfect as a device. If only somebody modded a thinkpad keyboard onto it.
- hbgl 3y agoCould not agree more. Not having full size arrow keys is a deal breaker for me.
- commoner 3y agoThere's an effort to graft a ThinkPad keyboard onto a Framework Laptop 13, with a focus on adding the TrackPoint: https://community.frame.work/t/converting-framework-13-to-a-frankenpad/29302 https://community.frame.work/t/converting-framework-13-to-a-... Judging from the discussion, this project is in the very, very early stages.
- TechTechTech 3y agoI have been following Framework from a distance, but latest video of Linus (LTT) interacting with framework ceo really pushed me towards buying framework as my next laptop. Great to see a caring ceo and company https://youtu.be/iU_iWa9LL_s https://youtu.be/iU_iWa9LL_s