Anything you can share about the actual process of getting it certified, from say (I assume much earlier) 'we think this is ok' to certified?
I assume it's not self-certification (like CE) from the phrasing, so you sent some units off somewhere? Was there much back and forth with changes required, or was it purely administrative and from a technical standpoint the earlier units are just as compliant?
Thunderbolt documents are behind NDAs (as far as I know), but you can get a good feel for the types of testing required by checking out the USB-IF Compliance Test Specifications: https://www.usb.org/documents
I'd love to hear an example of what such a certification test failure would look like. I have no experience with hardware, so I have no idea what kind of tests you would do.
I totally understand 15" screen size, but unless you have your eyes right up against the screen I highly doubt you are going to see a difference between 1440p and 4k. If you're dealing with graphics on a laptop screen you probably should be zoomed in anyway.
Similar, I'd really be interested in a 15/16 inch HiDPI model that sticks with with P series CPUs. This would hopefully allow for a bigger battery and better cooling than the existing model.
Other vendors offer this, but with H series CPUs which seem to throttle quite a bit.
Congrats on the TB4 certification! If you're ready to talk about it, I'd love to hear more about the battery life improvements hinted at in the blog post. Battery drain when suspended is probably my #1 QOL issue with Linux on a 12th Gen framework (closely followed by the mutual exclusivity of the brightness keys and the light sensor).
We'll be writing a more detailed blog post, but basically it involves forcing the retimers into a suspend state when they should be suspended in more cases. In theory, this should happen anyway, but we're apparently hitting some edge cases on the retimer behavior currently that prevents proper suspend in some cases.
Not related to this, but were there any improvements planned for a power loss during sleep on Linux (also possibly mentioning it on the product page)? A laptop losing 40% of it's battery while it's suspended isn't really nice. I know there are work-arounds but this is something I would assume would work out of the box. I've sold my Framework laptop for now, and gone back to my old cheap trusty Dell machine.
It would be nice if you guys manage to take a shot at a laptop more inspired by the Thinkpads/Latitudes rather than the Apple devices.
The firmware update mentioned in the blog post includes some improvements related to retimer suspend behavior on both 11th Gen and 12th Gen units that should improve suspend battery life on Linux.
I didn't expect this to be something where all of the failures could be fixed in firmware. I don't know anything about the subject, I just would have thought it'd require hardware changes.
Are there any plans to get at least some of the BIOS fixes to the 11th gen? I know it wasn’t sold as Thunderbolt compliant but the experience is pretty rough and I would appreciate anything that could offer hope to address some of the issues I’ve had.
You may want to add information about the display to your product pages; I had to dive into the user manual to find it, It's a very important spec to omit...
A question for laptop manufacturers in general and a variation just for you:
The general question: Why do you make laptop keyboards with the up and down buttons smooshed together?
The up and down buttons are the two most used buttons on my keyboards. I cannot use a regular laptop for more than 30 seconds without becoming incredibly frustrated and I'm certain that I'm not alone.
I'm entirely convinced that half of all ThinkPad laptop sales are because they allow space for their arrow keys to not be smooshed together.
---------------
And a question for you: What would it take for Framework laptops to go the ThinkPad approach with their keyboards?
Does it really cost you $9 to ship one of these? It is probably Amazon's fault, but it just kills me to pay that much for shipping (although I'm fine w/ paying some reasonable amount for shipping).
Yeah, I now realize I was commenting on the wrong thing... but I was talking the expansion cards themselves. They're 8g. I'm totally fine with whatever the laptop costs to ship, but I'm not a fan of the Marketplace shipping fees.
Have you tried it yet? I thought all the hardware and software was pretty much there-they just hadn't gotten the cert to officially say it yet due to some weird edge cases, and in the meantime people have been successfully using TB eGPUs
I'm running an nVidia GTX1080 in an eGPU enclosure connected to my framework and it works pretty well. Have to disable the Intel Iris card in device manager to get games to use the 1080 and then re-enable it before you undock, but other than that, it's seamless.
If you look at the framework subreddit and their forums you can see different setups people are using successfully. I think the only caveats are that Linux doesn't reliably support hotswapping in some configurations (Windows is fine), and if you get a super-beefy GPU you'll still be bottlenecked by other things
I use a Sonnet egpu box with an nvidia 1080ti for casual gaming on a framework 11th Gen running arch.
It mostly worked with minimal fuss. From what I remember, most of the headaches were getting sway and my multi monitor support configured to my liking.
with my gen11 i5 framework laptop I did run my mantiz venus enclosure with a gtx980 TI under WIN11 without problems (even hotplug worked) same now with a Radeon 6750XT and Fedora 36 in my gen11 framework (only hotplug does not work, I need to restart, besides of that no problems with wine etc...)
I'll skip a few intel generations and upgrade later then :), the only downside for framework is still the battery life, even with all the tweaking.
I had mine shipped to Germany and then forwarded to Switzerland by one of the many parcel forwarding companies.
They usually forward the shipment for about US$ 15, and keep the German VAT. They pay the Swiss VAT from those earnings.
But: there was a problem with the commercial invoice by Framework (it was missing the VAT rate iirc) and I had to pay some penalty fee to the importers.
I am tempted to give my 2019 MBP to my partner and switch to a Framework laptop. I'm cautiously optimistic it'll become a perfect hackintosh target (though I know the Framework folks would never go out of their way to condone that).
I'd wish you the best of luck, but at this point investing into a hackintosh setup seems a bit like booking a ticket on a sinking ship -- what with support for Intel-Macs ending in the coming years.
I definitely understand prioritizing repairability and supporting a small company doing cool things as well... but maybe not well enough to pay the same money for what feels like a much worse CPU architecture for MacOS and mobile devices at this point. shrug.
Apple ARM is heavily customized beyond the original design. Secure Enclave alone rules out third-party ARM, but there's also custom neural-network, video encoding, and Metal acceleration that just isn't found on any other chip. We probably won't see another generation of Hackintosh.
Try one of the following on your Macbook:
- replace a battery
- upgrade the memory or SSD/NVME
- get your data off a Macbook whose motherboard has died
In other words, do any of the common repairs. To spend top dollar for a laptop and not be able to do repairs is rubbish: intentional planned obsolescence and vendor lock-in IMO.
The narcissistic tendency to conflate consumer preference with quality (or moral weight) is drearily common on HN these days.
We get it, you have a fetish for replacing RAM (but seem to have forgotten that CPUs can also be replaced, oops your computer can't do that? soldered it to the mainboard? rubbish).
slow ram and low quality graphics. also i dont trust build quality considering apple’s recent history. had issues with my macbook pros, and mac mini. keyboard is decent but bluetooth seems to stutter for whatever reason every now and then when wifi 5g is on, same for the mouse. the mac mini 2018 encryption chip just failed out of the blue one day. i did consider buying a brand new maxed our macbook pro but i am seeing more and more reasons for not pissing 3600 gbp in the wind…for a one tb laptop with lame graphics. better quality builds out there for a better price.
What's wrong with Apple hardware? I hated the 2016-2020 era of butterfly keyboards, limited ports, overheating processors, and touchbars as much as anyone, but I'm really happy with my 16" M1 Max these days. I wish it had a USB-A port instead of an HDMI port, but it's otherwise brilliant.
Meanwhile, macOS frustrates me more and more each update. Back in 2015, I would never have considered switching to Linux. At my last job, I spent an entire year on Manjaro and only switched back to macOS to do iOS dev.
I actually like Apple's hardware a good bit - but I absolutely despise the OS. It's a bloated hog of a thing.
I still wouldn't ever buy an Apple product, but the work issued macbooks are generally decent hardware, just avoid the 16 inch intels they put out, those are rubbish.
The software is annoying as all get out though, and they're only becoming more and more tight with control around it.
Kexts going away is painful
documentation is bad
scripting is much harder than it should be
FS is... obnoxious at best, utterly bug ridden at worst
The apps they put out are fine I guess (I really don't use basically any of them) but the base system feels like a tire fire right now.
i tried it but i am genuinely against piracy. plus i wouldnt be able to use it in a professional environment. i appreciate the effort behind hackintosh but i think we should make linux more user friendly and good looking. i am considering sponsoring a nice little theme for ubuntu. may be cheaper to do so and buy a high end laptop than buying a new macbook pro.
Out of curiosity, what parts of the hardware do you find rubbish?
The hardware seems fantastic to me. The M1/M2 chips, trackpad, keyboard, fingerprint reader, Liquid Retina screens, audio, etc. are all great compared to other laptops I've had. Wifi and Bluetooth are also more reliable on my MBP than any other laptop I've owned. The only thing I can think of is that it's not upgradable like a Framework laptop or the old butterfly keyboards.
see my reply to a different person in this thread: slow ram, low quality graphics, historic build issues, extreme pricing. apple’s selling an overpriced os on above average hardware - but still not superior.
Really? I thought the recent MacBooks use LPDDR5 modules and have significantly higher bandwidth than e.g. Framework laptops. Although I'm not super familiar with the graphics side, I also thought the Apple silicon graphics were comparable to AMD and Nvidia laptop GPUs while also being especially more power efficient.
I can't disagree with the historical build issues, the pricing, or limited OS support, although the latter two doesn't seem to make the hardware rubbish.
from what i read LPDDR5 ram is planned for upcoming versions of macbook pros and is not yet there. but i am certain once it comes out it will be the slower version compared to what you could get for the money on a custom laptop.
if your expectation is to use the macbook pro as a text editor (ide) and video chat then yes its powerful. but if you want games and the ability to install other os’ then its not really that cool, for the money.
When I make Linux my daily driver once the Linux sleep issues are straightened out on the Framework laptops, I will try out running macOS in a VM with sosumi to help with the transition for anything that simply cannot be done natively on Linux. Once I reduce that envelope of non-Linux applications to just the Microsoft Office suite, I plan on switching to a VM running Windows when untethered.
The module’s connector needs to be the same connector shape and with the same electrical connectivity, but the form factor of the module body could just be longer, too.
In fact, the SFP itself is long, but does the housing for it need to be?
My Framework is the first machine I've owned that seems to appreciate in personal value over time rather than leaving me longing for something shinier and newer. It's like an inverse of buyer's remorse.
The ability to upgrade hardware incrementally is a big part of it for me.
Also just seeing updates like this one, where Framework is intentionally trying their best to future-proof devices.
Basically any other vendor would have said "Upgrade to the Framework 3.0 with the new Thunderbolt chipset!" forcing you to buy a whole new machine for thousands of USD, and then soldered in a single thunderbolt port so only the other 3 were modular going forward.
I've been using my Framework all year for intensive engineering work and love it. Will likely be a customer for a very long time.
That's a big part of it, yeah. My list of reasons:
- The USB-C modules are a bit of a gimmick right now, but being able to swap things around is really nice, and it seems like there's a good possibility of there being a healthy module ecosystem in the coming years.
- The sheer number of Type-C ports is itself really handy as more and more devices use Type-C. I don't need a hub to run my Type-C microphone and Type-C webcam at the same time while charging over Type-C.
- The repairability is unmatched, and I'm increasingly confident that I can keep upgrading the internals for a long while to come (in fact, I might very well do that in the near future and swap out my current 11th Gen motherboard for a 12th Gen or maybe even whatever comes after that).
- Framework has been relatively open when it comes to things like firmware and hardware design files, making it easier to use Framework parts beyond the intended laptop use case (related to the above-mentioned planned upgrade, I can see myself 3D-printing an enclosure to turn the old motherboard into a SFF desktop or home server).
- Linux works great, and with recent releases OpenBSD works great.
- The 3:2 screen ratio is a godsend, and I'm quite frankly amazed that so few laptops offer it. I had previously bought a Pixelbook just for that alone.
i actually feel a tiny bit of buyer's remorse for having gotten a lenovo thinkpad just before framework really took off. my next laptop will almost certainly be a framework.
PowerBI is the killer app for windows is seems. The only two things we have a windows box in our office for are powerBI and writing SD cards for windowsCE.
While it is not exactly PowerBI the only thing I have found that is similar and is on Linux is metabase[0]. It's open source and free to run locally (or self-hosted) without user limits. It can connect to multiple dbs, and allows for visual query editing as well as SQL. You can build dashboards, save SQL snippets, etc. You can even send automated emails based on query results. I hope it works for you. My company and I are very happy users.
In addition to metabase there are redash[0] and apache superset[1]. They are more or less similar to metabase with some different quirks. You can also visualize quite a bit of data in grafana[2] as well.
Offtopic, it's amusing and really interesting to me how Framework solved the "dongle" gripe by just... integrating the dongles into the frame.
From a HW I/O perspective, they're not much different than a Macbook Pro with all its USB-C ports. But but recessing them and creating a form-factor that gives you the dongle's feature within the laptop's bounding-box, they've effectively solved the problem.
and best of all, if I do leave something attached and shove it into my bag and break something, I'm breaking a $9 add-on card instead of the type-c port on my laptop's motherboard.
Don't think of it as a dongle. It allows them to build a combinatorial number of SKUs off of a linear number of them. Basically, you get a fully custom laptop body.
At least the EU hasn't regulated away the possibility of this to some brilliant idea. To me it's also pretty solid - the built in dongle as it is means i can use my laptop on my lap with different wires - or on my work bench with less clutter...
Not really, you're perfectly free to put USB-C ports in and you can use your standardised dongles if you want. Or mix and match.
I can't imagine what other existing form factor would have been suitable and more useful than them just creating their own and open sourcing the design.
If you want to continue working with USB-C you have the freedom to install a USB-C module, so I'm not sure what new problem you are identifying here. But, if you know ahead of time precisely what modules you need, you no longer have to have them dangling from your laptop.
I'm trying to conceive of what other possible solution there could be?
It’s a cutting off your nose to spite your face comment.
Is there even such a thing as a standard dongle? Pretty sure there isn’t. And as you say you can just use the USBC module and continue using your USBC dongle. I bet you could even 3D print an enclosure to make sure that your existing dongle fits nicely into the module port so you don’t need the module.
And I don't think of or treat them like dongles - I don't carry spares around, I just have the configuration that makes sense for me. (I don't even have spares to change it, but with a holiday coming up I did think I'd swap one for an SD card reader if I had one.)
It would also benefit a lot from a dedicated external multiport USB-C Hub with recessed ports so they can be used to plug more expansion cards than the ones the laptop could allow in its own ports. That could also allow to set some standards for the development of bigger expansion cards carrying hardware that needs more space.
These look cool but I just don't find Intel processors appealing anymore after Apple spoiled me with M1. The idea of buying another space heater Intel machine just stops me from entertaining any other laptops right now. Am I the only one?
No, the performance/watt of these ARM64 machines is just in a whole other category from Intel or even AMD. We'd need a much more power efficient x64 machine or a switch to ARM to interest me.
I agree, but it will take some time before ARM/SoC-based laptops completely overtake existing architectures. Framework might be the best upgradable/repairable laptop of its kind, but it might be in a shrinking product segment.
Picked up a System76 for a Linux work laptop earlier this year just to have a beefier CPU compared to the Framework (this was before their CPU refresh), and it's actually been fantastic (surprisingly good compared to the last desktop Linux machine I had a decade ago). However, I love the idea of the Framework so much that I'm still trying to find any excuse to pick one up anyway. You know how important work/life balance is in the remote era, so that means I should really have one machine for work and one machine for personal use, right...?
Call me crazy, in this world of constant technological treadmills, but I'd be ecstatic if I had a laptop that I could ship-of-theseus for the next two decades or more.
If this helps ... Framework have refurb models which are extremely reasonably priced.
Personally I tried the System76 but I found the keyboard layout obnoxious. I'm not sure it was all models, but the one I picked up was unusable for me, coming from a mac. They tried to shove everything on the keyboard, like num pad, which wasn't necessary IMHO. Not sure if it was just a bad pick, or every model.
Agreed, I'd happily trade my System76's numpad for a full-sized right shift key that doesn't yield space to the arrow keys. Not all System76 models have the truncated right shift, but don't think that I haven't noticed that it's full-sized on all the Framework models...
11th gen owners aren't going to be happy. That laptop isn't even a year old and it's already being left behind for upgrades. This doesn't bode well for the core value proposition of framework. At the very least they should offer a deep discount for 11th gen owners wanting to upgrade their main boards.
The awesome thing about Framework is that it is even possible to upgrade the main board without trashing the entire machine. Purchasers of the 11th gen system should still very much reap the benefits of the Framework ecosystem. Being able to upgrade is the very key point!
No matter what new camera I buy, the manufacturer going to ship something newer and better soon. So it is with most things in the modern era.
I'm an 11th gen owner. I'm not happy. The fact that its upgradable is great, but that doesn't mean that the company should treat the most expensive component by a long shot as quickly disposable. A $500 disposable mainboard is 80% as bad as a disposable laptop.
Wasn't they planning to release a kit to turn mainboard into a home server like Mac Mini? I guess it was part of appeal that you can reuse mainboard after it no longer used in laptop.
I don't get why owners should get a discount. They purchased an11th gen Intel laptop, they still have an 11th gen Intel laptop. Unlike other brands they can relatively cheaply upgrade them to 12th gen.
I don't recall them advertising Thunderbolt compatibility, it was always an unadvertised feature.
The blog post made it clear they're shipping all the Thunderbolt firmware improvements to the 11th gen as well, it's just minor hardware differences that are blocking a few test cases and official certification. It sounds like you can enable Thunderbolt relatively easily if you're okay with that caveat.
I don't think it's crazy that you don't get evergreen upgrades to a system you've already bought, especially when you can just upgrade the motherboard to the 12th gen (which is actually the core value proposition of framework) https://frame.work/marketplace/mainboards
They do address it in the post:
> For 11th Gen systems, we also have a firmware update in progress to bring in the security updates and power consumption improvements, but not retroactively certify Thunderbolt (there are some test cases we don’t believe we can resolve on that generation, unfortunately).
Sounds like a hardware thing, which again you can upgrade
Yeah, well replacing your whole laptop is an upgrade too. The mainboard is by far the most expensive component, so saying "you can just replace it" obviates the point of the frameowork.
I'm honestly baffled by this. That's not their claim at all, I don't see them claiming that evergreen software updates are "the point" anywhere. They talk about repairability and upgradeability. They never claimed the 11th (or 12th!) gen had or would ever have Thunderbolt 4. I don't see at all why you think that software updates are "the point" of Framework.
My concern isn't about Framework's claim, but about their behavior. It seems like they are abandoning the 11th gen mainboards, which were still being sold until just a few months ago. This points to a business strategy of planned obsolescence for mainboards. My concern is that this isn't so different, from a price or environmental perspective, from the more common strategy of making the whole laptop obsolete.
You're still generating a lot less trash than replacing the whole laptop, but I have a hard time imagining how you can get the level of consumer-upgradeability you seem to want in a laptop form factor. You have to compromise somewhere.
As an 11th gen owner I honestly don't know what thunderbolt certification would realistically do for me. Every usecase I personally have where I plug something into my machine it works just fine. In other-words this announcement doesn't change anything for me nor do I want anything. Maybe when my 12th gen Chromebook gets here I'll be able to tell a difference ;)
Purchased one to try for work (perks of being in the IT department), just arrived today. Personally interested in running FreeBSD on it, and wanted to see how possible that is and what doesn't work (see https://xyinn.org/md/freebsd/wifibox for excellent write-up). Officially I need to test Ubuntu Desktop and Windows on it, but here are my initial impressions to date:
- quality is extremely high; I expected something to suffer for the cost, but it strikes me as a nicely manufactured laptop in every respect
- initial configuration, adding in external ports, memory and nvme drive, took all of 10 minutes from laptop opening to closing again ... amazing job they've done
- every bit of the insides of the laptop is labeled, it's clear and clean and there are 2d barcodes you can scan for all components to get instant documentation
- bios is legit, modern, nicely laid out, simple to configure
- from order to delivery took a few weeks, nothing extreme. Came direct from Taiwan
- the keyboard has nice raised keys, and I'm super comfortable typing on it. Only issue for me coming from a Mac, the function and control keys are swapped on the left side, but that's easy to fix up... overall, one of the nicest keyboards I've seen on a laptop
- weight feels like a current Macbook Air, just a little larger dimensions overall
- switches to hard turn off camera and microphone on the top ... nice!
Overall I'm extremely pleased with this laptop, and I'm thinking there is zero reason I'm spending so much money with Dell (our current standard). I was thinking of using Lenovo, but screw that.. if my testing pans out, this is our new standard.
It's still the case. I reached out for business purchase orders and volume but you still order one by one. Since supply has been an issue, we just make sure to order a few about 2 months in advance of anticipated new hires that don't want macs.
Out of curiosity, how is the split between mac and non-mac between new hires? My company just recently added MacBooks as a new standard and everybody seems to be loosing their minds. There have been so many people ditching their perfectly up to date Windows notebook in favor of new shiny Macbook Pros (which is super unnecessary given that about 60% of the company uses their machines for nothing more than light office work and another huge portion with incompatible programs)
If folks are requesting new machines that aren't compatible with current workflows and those requests are approved, that seems like a problem with management more than anything else. It's the IT department's job to help people be productive, and sometimes that means pushing back when users are requesting permission to screw themselves with incompatible hardware.
> There have been so many people ditching their perfectly up to date Windows notebook in favor of new shiny Macbook Pros (which is super unnecessary given that about 60% of the company uses their machines for nothing more than light office work and another huge portion with incompatible programs)
Maybe it isn't a necessity, but it is extremely nice to be able to go into the office without having to worry about having to charge the device at any point throughout the day at all. I legitimately stopped carrying a charger in my backpack. Sounds like a trivial non-issue, but it makes a difference to me.
I once had a day filled with 5 hours of interviews through videocalls on Google Meet, and my Macbook Pro (M1 Max) battery dipped only from 100% to 70%.
It is hard to overstate how freeing, at least personally to me, it feels. Maybe I don't need all the M1 power on a daily basis. But not having to worry about charging my laptop at any point during the day, regardless of the workload, is always welcome. Add the fact that I've never even heard the fans on my MBP (and neither have I felt it heating up much at all), and you got a pretty solid proposition to switch.
Also, if you are trying to build any large Node project on Windows, you are going to have a bad time. Node is just straight up not as efficient on Windows and takes multiples of time it takes to build on macOS/Linux.
I absolutely understand where you’re coming from, but I have a somewhat different perspective in our company.
Most people are deskbound and use their provided external monitor via the also provided TB3 dock. So charging is a non issue.
With our industry currently being extremely strained (industrial manufacturer in Germany), I think it’s fairly worrying that people spend money on a 2500€ upgrade that’s not justified by any productivity gains, but that’s also approved by the supervisor.
That's entirely fair, thanks for giving your perspective on this.
The part about the industry-specific situation is something I legitimately haven't even considered. That upgrade is indeed a very "nice-to-have", but feels pretty moronic if the company finances are strained.
Out of curiosity, did they have any explanation for their reasoning? Is it just due to some accounting magic, where the upgrade budget was allocated a long time ago, and it was more like "use it or lose it" (without a chance to just "save" that upgrade budget money regardless)?
Light office work still requires looking at screens, inputing things and the device being on.
Macbooks provide best in class displays, keyboard, touchpad, and battery life.
Not to mention many non-macbook laptops apparently not sleeping properly. No idea how widespread that one is but I see it in like every laptop thread including this one.
Did a quick count just now and it looks like 1:10 (non-mac:mac). About 80% of our company is engineering and our codebase is fairly cross platform so anything ends up working. That being said, the M1s have mostly been a boon for us other than when it comes to some virtualization issues (and testing of Pis).
In your case though that definitely sounds like a huge waste of money. For that reason, we order from the following matrix to not waste too much.
Engineering/Developer Advocacy/Product:
Macbook Air - M2, 16GB RAM, 500GB Disk or Linux/Windows, Framework 14", 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Disk
People/GTM/Facilities:
Macbook Air - M2, 8GB RAM, 250GB Disk
Granted there's probably money to be saved on the non engineering side but those folks tend to be comfortable with macs already and those purchases will last a very long time.
The other note I'll make is IME macbooks are significantly easier to maintain via MDM tools.
We now support volume ordering in all countries we ship to. You can order multiple in-stock laptops per order. For larger quantities or multiple units of pre-order laptops, our B2B team can help you out: https://frame.work/support?category=business-volume-ordering...
Note that from a support/warranty perspective, this still uses the normal consumer paths. This is something we're exploring business-focused versions of for the future.
Also do you realise that sadly the UK (where the you can actually purchase a Framework) is no longer a member state of the EU due to the moronic Brexit disaster. So is that five or four?
I guess (as a relatively new entrant) they're hitting up the obvious EU targets, Germany, France, Italy and Spain to provide in-country support. And then working out how to provide the logistics for the rest of the EU.
I was surprised I could order one in the UK to be honest.
I think it has more to do with it being a well designed product. I bought my wife a 11th gen 1 year ago and it has been great with the only bug being the mousepad was a bit "sticky" sometimes. That experience, and the thunderbolt capability encouraged me to just buy the 12th gen for myself for work, which is what I am typing this message on. I have an eGPU and running 2 monitors with the machine closed below my desk. Its an amazing setup. It has so many fan boys because its a good product.
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We're surprised by the amount of interest and traction each time too, but I'm the only person on the Framework team in this comment section.
Attempting to build a good product that respects the customers buying it works better than paying for marketing. We haven't gotten it right every time and won't get it right every time in the future either, but we really do try to!
I think it's the laptop a lot of people have been looking for for a while. I've got one, think it's a great laptop, and prefer both the layout and philosophy of openness to my work Macbook. Macs are walled gardens, ThinkPads are attached to Lenovo, "developer" HPs and Dells have problems, System76s are rebranded generics (not that that's a bad thing, but it's not as carefully designed); Framework comes in as a new company who hasn't made bad decisions yet, has made an acceptable laptop (some things like full size arrow keys can wait a bit), and keeps showing through their actions their commitment to openness and owning your own computer. The expansion cards are a great solution too. The only real problem I have with it is the battery life, which I think even the most enthusiastic proponent will point out
I have no affiliation with them other than having bought two of their laptops. It's not been a utopia, but overall I am quite pleased with it. I would guess that they've just similarly made other people really happy too.
I'll throw my $.02 into this clearly GPT3-generated thread (/s). I waited for the 12th gen/a special occasion, and am now a happy Framework owner. I can live with the battery life. They had me at "upgradable," the aspect ratio, and their quick pivot to support Linux. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality, too! Just waiting for an AMD mainboard now.
I do wish, however, they took the time they used to release a Chromebook and focused it into other product releases (Ryzen, better screen.) The Chromebook play has also left me wondering if they've lost their way on core strategy.
What do you mean by "matched" or "exceeded"? Are you saying Intel has better performance per watt? Or better idle power consumption? Which Zen generation are you comparing to? Zen 3, 3+, or 4?
Raptor Lake is roughly equivalent in perf/watt to Zen 4 and Apple's M series, at least going by eco mode benchmarks. Seems like E cores would get better idle consumption as well.
I'm pretty happy with the Chromebook thing even though I'll probably never buy one, as apparently passing Google's test suite for Chromebook certification led to several firmware fixes that will help power consumption during sleep for the non-Chromebook models, which is my biggest annoyance with mine.
That's great, but unfortunately I still can't buy one because they still don't ship to Spain. Any ideas when? I'll need a new laptop by Christmas, so after that I'm giving up and buying something else.
Apparently HP also makes an easy to disassemble laptop these days.
Since I assume some Framework product people are in here— my framework won’t go to sleep which is an absolute dealbreaker. Dead battery every time unless I fully shut it down. Forums are no help. Advice?
I’d love to support your mission and recommend this laptop to others, but you need to get the fundamentals working!
See my comment history for other similar reports from other (former) Framework owners.
You might need to set your system to hibernate instead of sleep. Modern x86 laptops lack proper standby power states — they only have a low power "darkwake" state in which they're able to do things like periodically check email, and instantly "wake up" from. Microsoft bills this as "modern standby".
That's nice in concept, but it rarely if ever works as it's supposed to, especially under Linux. I had to set my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano up so after being closed while unplugged for an hour or so it automatically hibernates, because otherwise it'll never properly sleep and Windows will drain its battery.
It's stupid but the only machines that reliably sleep these days are MacBooks.
For 12th Gen Intel Core (the latest version), all configurations are available for pre-order shipping this month. For 11th Gen Intel Core (the original we launched last year), we're selling through remaining inventory. This means that many combinations of CPU+keyboard language are sold out.
180 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 209 ms ] threadI assume it's not self-certification (like CE) from the phrasing, so you sent some units off somewhere? Was there much back and forth with changes required, or was it purely administrative and from a technical standpoint the earlier units are just as compliant?
Thunderbolt is basically a superset of that.
I've often see graphics people doing this when inspecting their works though. Maybe they're up to something here.
Other vendors offer this, but with H series CPUs which seem to throttle quite a bit.
It would be nice if you guys manage to take a shot at a laptop more inspired by the Thinkpads/Latitudes rather than the Apple devices.
The general question: Why do you make laptop keyboards with the up and down buttons smooshed together?
The up and down buttons are the two most used buttons on my keyboards. I cannot use a regular laptop for more than 30 seconds without becoming incredibly frustrated and I'm certain that I'm not alone.
I'm entirely convinced that half of all ThinkPad laptop sales are because they allow space for their arrow keys to not be smooshed together.
---------------
And a question for you: What would it take for Framework laptops to go the ThinkPad approach with their keyboards?
Setting aside power, how many independent full bandwidth TB4 devices can run at once?
I love it.
It mostly worked with minimal fuss. From what I remember, most of the headaches were getting sway and my multi monitor support configured to my liking.
edit: fix gpu name
The most popular choices seem to be Razer Core X or DIYing it with an ADT-Link R43SG (https://community.frame.work/t/my-portable-egpu-setup-adt-li...)
I'll skip a few intel generations and upgrade later then :), the only downside for framework is still the battery life, even with all the tweaking.
They usually forward the shipment for about US$ 15, and keep the German VAT. They pay the Swiss VAT from those earnings.
But: there was a problem with the commercial invoice by Framework (it was missing the VAT rate iirc) and I had to pay some penalty fee to the importers.
I definitely understand prioritizing repairability and supporting a small company doing cool things as well... but maybe not well enough to pay the same money for what feels like a much worse CPU architecture for MacOS and mobile devices at this point. shrug.
I'm happy calling the butterfly keys rubbish: they were. But now? What?
In other words, do any of the common repairs. To spend top dollar for a laptop and not be able to do repairs is rubbish: intentional planned obsolescence and vendor lock-in IMO.
Can you answer without moving the goal posts?
The narcissistic tendency to conflate consumer preference with quality (or moral weight) is drearily common on HN these days.
We get it, you have a fetish for replacing RAM (but seem to have forgotten that CPUs can also be replaced, oops your computer can't do that? soldered it to the mainboard? rubbish).
but i really really like the os.
that def is an unpopular opinion.
Meanwhile, macOS frustrates me more and more each update. Back in 2015, I would never have considered switching to Linux. At my last job, I spent an entire year on Manjaro and only switched back to macOS to do iOS dev.
I actually like Apple's hardware a good bit - but I absolutely despise the OS. It's a bloated hog of a thing.
I still wouldn't ever buy an Apple product, but the work issued macbooks are generally decent hardware, just avoid the 16 inch intels they put out, those are rubbish.
The software is annoying as all get out though, and they're only becoming more and more tight with control around it.
Kexts going away is painful
documentation is bad
scripting is much harder than it should be
FS is... obnoxious at best, utterly bug ridden at worst
The apps they put out are fine I guess (I really don't use basically any of them) but the base system feels like a tire fire right now.
[0] https://hackintosh.com
Out of curiosity, what parts of the hardware do you find rubbish?
The hardware seems fantastic to me. The M1/M2 chips, trackpad, keyboard, fingerprint reader, Liquid Retina screens, audio, etc. are all great compared to other laptops I've had. Wifi and Bluetooth are also more reliable on my MBP than any other laptop I've owned. The only thing I can think of is that it's not upgradable like a Framework laptop or the old butterfly keyboards.
edit: plus there’s limited support for other os’.
I can't disagree with the historical build issues, the pricing, or limited OS support, although the latter two doesn't seem to make the hardware rubbish.
if your expectation is to use the macbook pro as a text editor (ide) and video chat then yes its powerful. but if you want games and the ability to install other os’ then its not really that cool, for the money.
apple’s marketing sounds a bit like “it’s got electrolytes”. unified memory is fast but not new and definitely not that fast.
do people actually think that apple’s ram runs at 400 gb/s?
Care to explain what you think "cpu bandwidth" means?
Also, I recommend looking at some real measurements: https://www.anandtech.com/show/17024/apple-m1-max-performanc...
In fact, the SFP itself is long, but does the housing for it need to be?
There's a lot of supporting circuitry, and quite a lot of power to dissipate.
The ability to upgrade hardware incrementally is a big part of it for me.
Also just seeing updates like this one, where Framework is intentionally trying their best to future-proof devices.
Basically any other vendor would have said "Upgrade to the Framework 3.0 with the new Thunderbolt chipset!" forcing you to buy a whole new machine for thousands of USD, and then soldered in a single thunderbolt port so only the other 3 were modular going forward.
I've been using my Framework all year for intensive engineering work and love it. Will likely be a customer for a very long time.
- The USB-C modules are a bit of a gimmick right now, but being able to swap things around is really nice, and it seems like there's a good possibility of there being a healthy module ecosystem in the coming years.
- The sheer number of Type-C ports is itself really handy as more and more devices use Type-C. I don't need a hub to run my Type-C microphone and Type-C webcam at the same time while charging over Type-C.
- The repairability is unmatched, and I'm increasingly confident that I can keep upgrading the internals for a long while to come (in fact, I might very well do that in the near future and swap out my current 11th Gen motherboard for a 12th Gen or maybe even whatever comes after that).
- Framework has been relatively open when it comes to things like firmware and hardware design files, making it easier to use Framework parts beyond the intended laptop use case (related to the above-mentioned planned upgrade, I can see myself 3D-printing an enclosure to turn the old motherboard into a SFF desktop or home server).
- Linux works great, and with recent releases OpenBSD works great.
- The 3:2 screen ratio is a godsend, and I'm quite frankly amazed that so few laptops offer it. I had previously bought a Pixelbook just for that alone.
There is no reason to stay limited to M2 2280.
It just takes an extra half-inch and a screw.
Btw does anyone know of any good replacement for powerbi on Linux?
I would like to move fully to Linux on this laptop, but a project I've been tinkering on is heavily dependent on powerbi, which is windows only AFAIK.
Ideally something free, open source and fully local (no web applications) would be great.
While it is not exactly PowerBI the only thing I have found that is similar and is on Linux is metabase[0]. It's open source and free to run locally (or self-hosted) without user limits. It can connect to multiple dbs, and allows for visual query editing as well as SQL. You can build dashboards, save SQL snippets, etc. You can even send automated emails based on query results. I hope it works for you. My company and I are very happy users.
[0] https://www.metabase.com/docs/latest/installation-and-operat...
[0] https://redash.io/
[1] https://superset.apache.org/
[2] https://github.com/grafana/grafana
From a HW I/O perspective, they're not much different than a Macbook Pro with all its USB-C ports. But but recessing them and creating a form-factor that gives you the dongle's feature within the laptop's bounding-box, they've effectively solved the problem.
Brilliant.
We've seen both community developed Expansion Cards and other device makers starting to adopt Expansion Cards.
I can't imagine what other existing form factor would have been suitable and more useful than them just creating their own and open sourcing the design.
I'm trying to conceive of what other possible solution there could be?
Is there even such a thing as a standard dongle? Pretty sure there isn’t. And as you say you can just use the USBC module and continue using your USBC dongle. I bet you could even 3D print an enclosure to make sure that your existing dongle fits nicely into the module port so you don’t need the module.
And I don't think of or treat them like dongles - I don't carry spares around, I just have the configuration that makes sense for me. (I don't even have spares to change it, but with a holiday coming up I did think I'd swap one for an SD card reader if I had one.)
Call me crazy, in this world of constant technological treadmills, but I'd be ecstatic if I had a laptop that I could ship-of-theseus for the next two decades or more.
Personally I tried the System76 but I found the keyboard layout obnoxious. I'm not sure it was all models, but the one I picked up was unusable for me, coming from a mac. They tried to shove everything on the keyboard, like num pad, which wasn't necessary IMHO. Not sure if it was just a bad pick, or every model.
No matter what new camera I buy, the manufacturer going to ship something newer and better soon. So it is with most things in the modern era.
The blog post made it clear they're shipping all the Thunderbolt firmware improvements to the 11th gen as well, it's just minor hardware differences that are blocking a few test cases and official certification. It sounds like you can enable Thunderbolt relatively easily if you're okay with that caveat.
They do address it in the post:
> For 11th Gen systems, we also have a firmware update in progress to bring in the security updates and power consumption improvements, but not retroactively certify Thunderbolt (there are some test cases we don’t believe we can resolve on that generation, unfortunately).
Sounds like a hardware thing, which again you can upgrade
- quality is extremely high; I expected something to suffer for the cost, but it strikes me as a nicely manufactured laptop in every respect
- initial configuration, adding in external ports, memory and nvme drive, took all of 10 minutes from laptop opening to closing again ... amazing job they've done
- every bit of the insides of the laptop is labeled, it's clear and clean and there are 2d barcodes you can scan for all components to get instant documentation
- bios is legit, modern, nicely laid out, simple to configure
- from order to delivery took a few weeks, nothing extreme. Came direct from Taiwan
- the keyboard has nice raised keys, and I'm super comfortable typing on it. Only issue for me coming from a Mac, the function and control keys are swapped on the left side, but that's easy to fix up... overall, one of the nicest keyboards I've seen on a laptop
- weight feels like a current Macbook Air, just a little larger dimensions overall
- switches to hard turn off camera and microphone on the top ... nice!
Overall I'm extremely pleased with this laptop, and I'm thinking there is zero reason I'm spending so much money with Dell (our current standard). I was thinking of using Lenovo, but screw that.. if my testing pans out, this is our new standard.
Maybe it isn't a necessity, but it is extremely nice to be able to go into the office without having to worry about having to charge the device at any point throughout the day at all. I legitimately stopped carrying a charger in my backpack. Sounds like a trivial non-issue, but it makes a difference to me.
I once had a day filled with 5 hours of interviews through videocalls on Google Meet, and my Macbook Pro (M1 Max) battery dipped only from 100% to 70%.
It is hard to overstate how freeing, at least personally to me, it feels. Maybe I don't need all the M1 power on a daily basis. But not having to worry about charging my laptop at any point during the day, regardless of the workload, is always welcome. Add the fact that I've never even heard the fans on my MBP (and neither have I felt it heating up much at all), and you got a pretty solid proposition to switch.
Also, if you are trying to build any large Node project on Windows, you are going to have a bad time. Node is just straight up not as efficient on Windows and takes multiples of time it takes to build on macOS/Linux.
Most people are deskbound and use their provided external monitor via the also provided TB3 dock. So charging is a non issue.
With our industry currently being extremely strained (industrial manufacturer in Germany), I think it’s fairly worrying that people spend money on a 2500€ upgrade that’s not justified by any productivity gains, but that’s also approved by the supervisor.
The part about the industry-specific situation is something I legitimately haven't even considered. That upgrade is indeed a very "nice-to-have", but feels pretty moronic if the company finances are strained.
Out of curiosity, did they have any explanation for their reasoning? Is it just due to some accounting magic, where the upgrade budget was allocated a long time ago, and it was more like "use it or lose it" (without a chance to just "save" that upgrade budget money regardless)?
Macbooks provide best in class displays, keyboard, touchpad, and battery life.
Not to mention many non-macbook laptops apparently not sleeping properly. No idea how widespread that one is but I see it in like every laptop thread including this one.
In your case though that definitely sounds like a huge waste of money. For that reason, we order from the following matrix to not waste too much.
Engineering/Developer Advocacy/Product: Macbook Air - M2, 16GB RAM, 500GB Disk or Linux/Windows, Framework 14", 16 GB RAM, 1 TB Disk
People/GTM/Facilities: Macbook Air - M2, 8GB RAM, 250GB Disk
Granted there's probably money to be saved on the non engineering side but those folks tend to be comfortable with macs already and those purchases will last a very long time.
The other note I'll make is IME macbooks are significantly easier to maintain via MDM tools.
Note that from a support/warranty perspective, this still uses the normal consumer paths. This is something we're exploring business-focused versions of for the future.
Also do you realise that sadly the UK (where the you can actually purchase a Framework) is no longer a member state of the EU due to the moronic Brexit disaster. So is that five or four?
I guess (as a relatively new entrant) they're hitting up the obvious EU targets, Germany, France, Italy and Spain to provide in-country support. And then working out how to provide the logistics for the rest of the EU.
I was surprised I could order one in the UK to be honest.
Is printing a few different keycaps that hard? Just grab the German keyboard and swap Z and Y and It'd be good enough for a Nordic layout :D
Perhaps I am wrong and it is indeed real. It would be easy to check with an automated script.
"Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data."
Attempting to build a good product that respects the customers buying it works better than paying for marketing. We haven't gotten it right every time and won't get it right every time in the future either, but we really do try to!
I do wish, however, they took the time they used to release a Chromebook and focused it into other product releases (Ryzen, better screen.) The Chromebook play has also left me wondering if they've lost their way on core strategy.
The days of 14nm+++++++ are over.
edit: sorry meant Raptor Lake.
edit: found them: https://www.club386.com/intel-core-i9-13900k-vs-amd-ryzen-9-...
M1 ultra Cinebench is 21700 or so.
Apparently HP also makes an easy to disassemble laptop these days.
> To get notified when we open ordering in your region, you can navigate to the locales page and select your region from the dropdown box.
You may want to let them know you're interested, maybe that'll push them to open up: https://frame.work/fr/en/locale/edit?waitlist_country_code=E...
Wikipedia suggests it was released in July 2021, so almost a year and half now, actually.
I’d love to support your mission and recommend this laptop to others, but you need to get the fundamentals working!
See my comment history for other similar reports from other (former) Framework owners.
That's nice in concept, but it rarely if ever works as it's supposed to, especially under Linux. I had to set my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Nano up so after being closed while unplugged for an hour or so it automatically hibernates, because otherwise it'll never properly sleep and Windows will drain its battery.
It's stupid but the only machines that reliably sleep these days are MacBooks.