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If you like anonymity, then the Retro thinkpads should still be the best as they are numerous and hardware profiling is useless (if you are a TAILS or tor user – “Windows” everywhere!).
Also, check out the “hardware compatibility list” from Qubes OS (they’ve got an endorsement from Snowden right on their homepage). The i5 and i7 Intel CPUs virtualize and are very well understood by people that work with Xen. Notice how Intel just crashed with the latest generation CPU lines. Just because it is brand new, doesn’t mean it is highest security and reliability. (For example, nuclear silos sometimes still use floppies and are air gap compartmentalized with people in the loop. Might not be best for all the nukes to be on skynet and latest videogame capable. Depends on what you are doing for what is “best.”)
Modularity on Framework is pretty cool though.
Such a bummer we have to worry about hardware profiling. Seemingly a nearly intractable problem.
Actually, I have never received a proof that there actually is such a thing (all mass produced looks like every other mass produced) besides electromagnetic properties https://www.whonix.org/wiki/MAC_Address#Burner_Wi-Fi_USB_Sticks but there is, unfortunately, “clock” which is the totalitarian World Order.
Something some thinkpad users value a lot is the trackpoint. I’m seriously considering breaking a 4 thinkpad (3 X2x0, one X1 carbon) spree with a 13" framework but not having trackpoint is a big issue for me. I’m using the fact my X1 is still fast enough for my use to wait and hope for framework to get a trackpoint. There’re more people in the same boat in framework’s forums.
Is trackpoint the official name for the thinkpad clitoris?
Yes
This is the first time I’m hearing about Framework. Is it worth it? I’m looking for a new laptop anyway
If you’ve got the cash to spare, they just about kick the shit out of absolutely everything on the market, and are consumer repairable to boot.
Best laptop I’ve had so far, but they’re quite expensive for their performance tier. The expectation is that you’d never replace it, so theoretically the cost pays itself off over time, but that would assume that you are able and willing to do that sort of long term maintenance.
Basically, I would only recommend it if you were a tinkerer.
Agreed. If you buy the minimum spec bare bones version and get RAM and NVME from a third party, the price is somewhat comparative to other MRSPs. If you go for a higher spec or compare to sales prices instead of MSRP you pay up to 50% premium according to my research.
If you however factor in downtime of a broken and non-repairable device, plus the time spend on setting up a replacement, the framework can easily compete if your setup is complex.
I disagree on the comment about cost disparity. Spec’d equivalently, even the Framework 16 (without GPU) is no more expensive than the smaller ThinkPad X1 Carbon. The more comparative Framework 13 even less so.
The modular ports (and GPU on the 16) are a nice bonus, but I agree that the largest attraction is for the tinkerer.
I think the fact that it is easily upgradable makes it a clear winner on the merits alone.
I did a price comparison three years ago when I was exploring laptops and the price for a Framework was really high. Like it was “cheaper to buy a used laptop every three years for a decade before I break even on a Framework” high.
I’m not knocking it at all and I think it’s a great idea. It just the cost is so high, and they don’t have the means to produce where the price is at a consumer level.
I guess it depends what you value. I have a Framework 13, first generation. I run Linux on it and really enjoyed putting it together myself (I ordered the DIY option).
I absolutely love their ports. You swap in the ports you want. I normally run a USB C on either side (so I can charge from either side) plus a USB A on each side (the Framework 13 has two slots each side, I think the 16 might have 3 each side?). But I also have HDMI, Display Port, and micro SD in case I need them. I can hot swap them in.
Their guides are awesome. I broke a screen and was able to order another and replace it myself following their guide. When the time comes (probably in the next year or so) I’m planning on upgrading. A bit like a desktop, since it’s been a few years it means replacing the motherboard (what they call the mainboard) and RAM since technology moves on. I"m pretty sure like all laptops the CPU is fixed to the mainboard, but you can upgrade RAM or storage without replacing the whole guts (assuming same slot type). In fact you can buy without some pieces and reuse stuff you have or buy from elsewhere to save some money.
When I eventually do it I’m planning on strapping the old mainboard to the back of my TV as a HTPC (replacing the old dying laptop currently there).
There are plenty of downsides. No touchscreen. I wish the screen was a little brighter, it’s not bad but could be better (might be better with later models?). I replaced the hinges with their more resistant ones but the screen still moves if I carry it around with the screen open (not sure if it’s still an issue on newer models).
I really value the idea of repairability and upgradeability. When I was younger you could swap a bigger harddrive or RAM into a laptop if you had a screwdriver (and sometimes even without), and repairing other parts was also possible. These days you’re more likely to find the whole thing glued together. Framework lets you do your own repairs, and has guides to walk you through every step.
There are probably more downsides, but I do love it and would buy another in a heartbeat. But if there are special things you need then carefully check. For example last I checked they did not have a full size SD card reader module available (though of course you can use a regular external one if you really need to).
The biggest one that I’m glad to never have to worry about:
User replaceable battery
You can even put a bigger battery in down the line if you wish. No planned obsolescence.
I mean, all the dell business laptops I’ve purchased have a replaceable battery. You just have to unscrew the bottom panel to do it. But no, they don’t have a swappable battery.
My experience with laptops in recent years is that having a replaceable battery is the exception.
Yes! I don’t really rely on the battery that much but it’s nice to know I could buy a bigger one in the future.
Worth pointing out it’s not swappable, and many people have found the battery life a little lacking.
The SD expansion card is “comming soon” according to their store page, and they showed prototypes that looked close to production on their youtube channel. My best guess is release in Q4
Yeah their youtube has a video talking about their struggles with getting a commonly available full size SD card reader to fit into one of their expansion cards. I have an external reader I inherited from somewhere so I’m not too worried.
I like mine a lot but as the other commenter alluded too they’re pretty pricey but for the 13inch one I think it’s the best laptop on the market at that size at the moment.
if you’re willing to pay a bit extra for futureproofing your setup, then absolutely.
I own two (work and personal) 13" framework, and they are great little machines.
Some people don’t like the size (or the 3:2 ratio screen), but I think it’s perfect
I love it, it’s amazing.
I do have the first generation which has a battery drain issue, which has since been fixed.
I always use my hardware for a looong time, but I look forward to only having to replace the main mobo and not the screen or keyboard when I do need an upgrade.
And even when you want to replace your main board, you can take the old one, 3D print or buy this Cooler Master case, and turn it into a relatively powerful server or HTPC or K8s node or whatever.
Is the youtuber Investor Linus (tech tips)? If so, what are his controversial politics?
I guess the generous amount of coverage and media attention Framework gets from their videos
Well they do disclose their investment but I dont think it is what they were referencing. It makes sense for them to cover as they have a stake in the company doing well.
Calling adblockers piracy is one i remember
I don’t support ltt but that’s the weakest (most cope least knowledgeable) argument there is honestly
like that makes sense because by adblocking you are basically receiving “paid” content for “free” (i put quotes bc the site isn’t getting paid unless you click but whatever)
he elaborates to say that he isn’t criticising it, just drawing an analogue, and that he uses one himself iirc
ublock origin+sponsorblock <3 btw
btw my reason for not liking ltt is just that i don’t like the consolidation of media and info sources, and that there’s just higher quality content to watch
I wish more places had the resources to make an equivalent to ltt labs. There’s still rtings which is pretty darn good though.
Ad blockers are piracy though. Calling something piracy isn’t making any moral judgements
Not to be an Internet pedant, but technically most definitions of Internet piracy describe it as illegally copying and distributing copyrighted content. Adblockers aren’t doing either, they’re just hiding UI elements and letting you access content your browser has already fetched, right from the original source
He also said that he would consider Linus Media Group unionizing a “personal failure,” which is about as good as you could typically expect from a business owner but still not great.
Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he probably meant that if a business owner treats his employees well, there shouldnt be a need to unionize. But that would mean he fundamentally misunderstands what a union is and why you want one. I dont know which is worse.
Your benefit of the doubt assumption is correct. He has explained it in detail a couple of times. Like you I find it unfortunate and frustrating.
Still, based on some of the numbers they have talked about their employee retention is very good and considering how talented many of the people who work for him are, if it were a shitty place to work that could likely easily find work elsewhere. I have a number of criticisms of Linus and his ADHD snap judgments or out of touch privileged takes, but he still strikes me as someone that does genuinely want to do the right thing that got insanely lucky and had to adapt to a crazy situation no random person off thee street would ever be that prepared before.
His POV on that from what I could tell was that he didn’t want a union to be necessary. He wasn’t opposed to the benefits one would provide, he just wanted to have a workplace where people didn’t need to unionize just to get those benefits.
Although he admits to using one. Still a stupid take but he’s not like, adamantly anti-adblocker.
He also admits to pirating games and media. So like I think I agree, adblockers are a way to access things without “paying”. Think people thought he was saying piracy like it was a bad thing. But I think he was just being literal.
In essence what he said was “know what you’re doing” from what I can tell. No major judgement of the behavior, but instead just a notice that one should be aware of their actions. Personally I’d love if more sites just added a ko-fi link or similar. You made good stuff? Here’s some money I can spare, and if I get even more use out of your content in the future, I’ll pay you a little more then.
Broke: adblockers are like piracy, which is bad.
Woke: adblockers are like piracy, which is based.
He regularly talks about how much he pirates on the wan show. He’s very pro piracy
Last year, the social media manager left and accused LTT of being a toxic workplace with sexual harassment. They also started to favor quantity of content over quality.
They also started to favor quantity of content over quality.
While true before a year ago, at the same time the SMM thing happened, they did some content mistakes, owned up to them and started doing the exact opposite of what you’re saying
I certainly hope so. I stopped caring about them years ago for other reasons. I simply saw that story over the news when it happened. But I could argue that it still took them the departure of their social media manager to realize what they were doing. If she just left without talking about her experience, who knows how they would be today.
the leaving of her and the change in content production were actually seperate issues. iirc she spoke up once the content issues came up. Her problem wasn’t even “just” toxic work schedules/loads, but actual harrasment from someone, which aparently wasn’t properly dealt with at the time
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I can’t help but feel that if someone like Linus said he “loves capitalism” in a video then it was probably a joke. Would you mind providing a link?
I don’t know of a specific example, but it’s not hard to imagine that the owner of one of the biggest content creator companies on YouTube loves capitalism.
Can’t speak to the rest, the independent investigation came out a month or so back and didn’t find any wrong doing. 🤷
Linus never said he hates unions, he said he’d feel that he failed as the owner if his employees felt so underrepresented that they needed a union.
He has historically expressed support of unions in other companies and hasn’t been against one in his own, he just doesn’t want his company to need one.
In regards to the misconduct…
Announcement on the WAN show of the 3rd party results
Post that matches the one on TwitterAnd the actual contents of the post:
There were a series of accusations about our company last August from a former employee. Immediately following these accusations, LMG hired Roper Greyell - a large Vancouver-based law firm specializing in labor and employment law, to conduct a third-party investigation. Their website describes them as “one of the largest employment and labour law firms in Western Canada.” They work with both private and public sector employers.
To ensure a fair investigation, LMG did not comment or publicly release any data and asked our team members to do the same. Now that the investigation is complete, we’re able to provide a summary of the findings.
The investigation found that:
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Claims of bullying and harassment were not substantiated.
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Allegations that sexual harassment were ignored or not addressed were false.
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Any concerns that were raised were investigated. Furthermore, from reviewing our history, the investigator is confident that if any other concerns had been raised, we would have investigated them.
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There was no evidence of “abuse of power” or retaliation. The individual involved may not have agreed with our decisions or performance feedback, but our actions were for legitimate work-related purposes, and our business reasons were valid.
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Allegations of process errors and miscommunication while onboarding this individual were partially substantiated, but the investigator found ample documentary evidence of LMG working to rectify the errors and the individual being treated generously and respectfully. When they had questions, they were responded to and addressed.
In summary, as confirmed by the investigation, the allegations made against the team were largely unfounded, misleading, and unfair.
With all of that said, in the spirit of ongoing improvement, the investigator shared their general recommendation that fast-growing workplaces should invest in continuing professional development. The investigator encouraged us to provide further training to our team about how to raise concerns to reinforce our existing workplace policies.
Prior to receiving this report, LMG solicited anonymous feedback from the team in an effort to ensure there was no unreported bullying and harassment and hosted a training session which reiterated our workplace policies and reinforced our reporting structure. LMG will continue to assess ongoing continuing education for our team.
At this time, we feel our case for a defamation suit would be very strong; however, our deepest wish is to simply put all of this behind us. We hope that will be the case, given the investigator’s clear findings that the allegations made online were misrepresentations of what actually occurred. We will continue to assess if there is persistent reputational damage or further defamation.
This doesn’t mean our company is perfect and our journey is over. We are continuously learning and trying to do better. Thank you all for being part of our community.
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framework 13 snapdragon x edition when
If there was enough demand for those keyboard nipples, certainly someone could make a keyboard to slot in.
Ok fuck it.
Tell me why i shouldn’t go for this as my next daily driver after one MBP after another for over 15 yrs. I’m serious.
You shouldn’t buy a framework because you will be robbing yourself of the joy of a brand new laptop every 3 to 5 years because the battery is not replaceable or the WiFi chip went bad and it is soldered in. Think of all the innovations you will be missing out on because you are just swapping parts out like some kind of animal.
Do you think this is some kind of investment or something? Computers are just disposable things that everyone can afford. Why bother fixing things? I just have my butler go grab me a new one whenever I accidentally drop it in the pool while browsing on my floating inflatable chair.
lol. Look at the current state and trend of tech and tell me with a straight face that it’s you who will be getting the innovation. What amazing feature was introduced in the last 10 years you couldn’t live without? How much garbage was introduced just because companies could get away with it because the average consumers PC is powerful enough to not notice the spyware/adware/bloatware running in the background?
Yes, buy the new thing. Consume. Trash. Buy new.
I don’t even value repairability to save a buck long term. I value it because I know I can get my system up and running again ways before I finish setup on a new device.
There have been a ton of innovative hardware and software features. Such as ADs in the start menu, firmware locked parts to the system, always on facial recognition cameras, soldered on ssd storage, windows recall, AI processors, planned obsolescence.
So much innovation in such little time.
At least the framwork has windows support - I couldn’t bear the thought of forcing linux onto people and have them missing out.
If I could expand my storage then there would be less point in my OS begging me to subscribe to my own computer. That’s why soldering the SSD is good, it will help me enjoy my subscription to my hardware.
What are you going to use 64GB of RAM for?
Futureproofing it for the next N years? Playing some mad games? Honestly no idea I just thought to take the current top tier benchmark and one-up it.
Edit: on reflection I generally max out my MBPs out of habit to get the longest shelf life possible. Perhaps it’s just habit.
Edit2: if it helps I tend to get a new laptop every 5/6 years. The aim here would be to happily bespoke the hell out of a system and get more than 6 years out of it.
IDK about them but I’m running 3 vms and RDR2 at the same time and like 60 Firefox tabs.
compiling programs with gcc takes roughly 2GB per thread, if you want to compile with all but two threads and play modded Minecraft on the remaining two it can definitely take a lot of ram
unfortunately it’s a reasonable amount of memory nowadays. I do 3D and print, and I tickle the bottom of my 32GiB more often than not. I’m upgrading soon
I work with typescript on a very large codebase. If I have the code editor open and the run a typecheck at the same time, plus some electron apps and Spotify playing, it can easily fill my 32GB of ram, so 64 would be the next cool number to not have to worry about ram ever.
You had me at typescript.
Fuck Electron. I hate that current trend. I like my long battery life and being able to run more than 3 applications on my MacBook Pro.
I will always use the example of how I subscribed to Spotify for a couple months back in 2015 and realized that the app constantly sat at the top of the Using Significant Energy list on my mac and was the reason the fan was so loud. I switched away to Apple Music for that sole reason. iTunes by comparison was very power efficient. It plays music for gods sake. How can you fail at playing music that badly.
For some reason Spotify is even worse than the average electron app. Back when I still had only 16GB of ram (and worked on this same project), running out of ram would cause some random app to close. If I had Spotify open, it would freeze the whole system instead.
sighs deeply
I love modern software development. “What are you doing with that 32GB of RAM?” “Editing a 6KB text file”
You are doing it wrong. Framework is easy to DIY, use that option and bring your own memory and storage. Only get what you need right now, you can always upgrade later when prices come down. Instead of the included charger, get a high quality third party 65W GAN charger. All that gets the cost down to about 1600 with barely any downside. Don’t buy a modular device without using the modularity to your advantage.
This is exactly what I did. I love my framework.
Will it be a legend like Thinkpad in 10years? Probably not. Is it better than 99.99% of unrepairable essentially disposable laptops ? Fucking yes it is.
I think you might need more storage.
Wow thats a both pricey and monstrous specs (IDK about the proc but seems like a beast too!).
What’s the 3 x 1TB cards? SSDs ??
I’d assume they’re SSDs. Fitting three disk drives in a laptop sounds like a bad idea to me.
Be me, using my 2011 MBP in 2024
Actually rational take?? Holy hell
Electrically? Yes.
Mechanically the expansion card has higher durability because the force on the USBC is minimized. It’s also convinient to have build in “carry slots”, so for your standard loadout you don’t need to bring a bag with accessories. Compare it to the dongle storage in a wireless mouse.
So your criticism is them offering an Ethernet port add-on that fits into their modular system but is slightly larger than the rest?
Is that right?
That’s for a second ethernet port right?
Or a first, or a third.
A unique feature of the Framework laptop is the reconfigurable port system. Where many laptops these days just have some USB-C ports around the edges and if you need to plug something different in you need a dongle, Framework has these little cutouts in the frame that port modules snap into. They’re basically dongles you can install into the chassis. You can equip the laptop with whatever ports you want wherever you want, or change them out on the fly. I kinda like the fact you can leave them attached to the laptop.
Nice, but isn’t that a whole lot of failure points? I remember a mobile phone based on the same idea and I always felt it could not be very sturdy with all the connectics.
In Framework’s case, the port modules slide into rails in the chassis and click into a latch. They’re surrounded on four sides by the chassis of the laptop only exposed on the bottom and the outboard edge where the port is. The USB-C port on the motherboard is actually relieved of most if not all of the strain.
Take a typical machine, like a Macbook Air or this little Lenovo Ideapad I’ve got. The USB ports on the side are mounted either directly to the motherboard which spans the whole chassis, or a separate daughterboard connected with a ribbon cable. Now plug a USBC to HDMI dongle into that, and then a thick, heavy HDMI cable off of that. The weight of all of this is now being supported by the solder joints holding that USBC port to the circuit board. On a Framework laptop, effectively what’s happening is the USBC to HDMI dongle is being braced by the chassis so the little USBC connection isn’t bearing the weight of the HDMI cable. So I think Framework’s solution is less prone to damage in practice.
Furthermore, do you know how many laptops I’ve seen that had dongles sticking out of a port that were dropped on that dongle, destroying that USB port? Framework’s solution does two things: Puts adapter dongles inboard of the chassis meaning no vulnerable protrusions, and if you do have, say, a Logitech Unifying Transciever sticking out of a USB-A port adapter, and it gets dropped on that corner and it destroys the port, it will be the removable module that gets damaged, not the motherboard port. So go to their store, buy another $9 port module, and swap it out yourself.
I imagine it doesn’t work so much in a phone for a few reasons. Phones are a lot smaller and internal space is more precious, so user level connectors would take up a lot of room. Phones are some of the most abused electronics out there since we handle them nearly constantly, so ideally they’d be carved out of solid granite. We’re talking about attaching larger overall pieces of the device together with a phone, instead of clipping a module in you’re talking about attaching a quarter of the device. And, mostly, no one was really asking for that kind of functionality in a phone.
Seems like a lot of hassle to me for not very much benefits. I mean I have never broken an inbuilt usb port, but connectics are quite often getting unreliable and glitchy, even sometimes inside a phone or laptop.
Thanks for the rundown though and it feels like a fun tinker laptop, cheers :-)
the way they market it is "most laptops these days have like 2 USBC ports on one side and that’s it. it’s has 4 ports, two on each side, that can be anything you want.
Nope on the framework 13, with an exception on the audio jack, is modular so you can swap it with another module
Just me but I’d prefer a small rj45 than that quite spacey box IMO, but guess wifi only people prefer it :-)
They have no build-in ports besides audio on the framework 13. The framework 16 only has 6 expansion bays, nothing else.
Alright! That sounds kind of cool actually… Gotta check that out when my t490 dies 😅
This is like saying that a penis and a “vagina” are the same thing because they are both sex organs that you pee from… You’re not technically wrong but most people would agree there is a pretty big difference between the two.
but people don’t pee from vaginas
You’re being downvoted, but you’re not wrong. At least in the case of the Ethernet module, which most people aren’t going to leave plugged in most of the time.
The utility in the ports being modular is more so in the initial configurability at purchase rather than swapping them out by the user on a regular basis.
But having a laptop with 4/6 USB-C is pretty nice. Add on the fact that my dongles don’t dangle and it is even cooler.
I hate it when my 4 to 6 dongles dangle too. So annoying. Thankfully we finally have a solution for it.
I mean, I only got the ethernet module in case something happens to my wifi card and I have to wait on the replacement to arrive, and I like to use them during install just because.
But it’s nice to have it be an option along with microSD, SD, 3.5mm, HDMI, USBC, USBA, 1tb or 250gb storage, and Display Ports, that instead of a dongle fits nicely in the body like a GBC cart (the Ethernet has the rumble pak though). And on top of that, this is neat.
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Performance yes, build quality and repairability no
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E16s and shit are good. Doesnt really beat my old one. I’d be willing to throw framework on a laptop.
This was me, basically.
I had a Thinkpad X1 Carbon Gen 10 that, by the books, should have been a beast with good Linux support to boot. I tried for so long, but ended up replacing it with a Framework.
The thermal management on the Thinkpad is awful, under Linux at least but by all accounts attributable to the EC itself. Running the most basic workload would cause the CPU to spike for about one second before it would throttle all cores back to 400 MHz where they would stay locked for the next few minutes despite the CPU temps remaining at 50-60°C the entire time.
And it wasn’t just me, numerous reports from all over. This made the system nearly useless. I shared pages of diagnostic info with them and they just seemed completely uninterested in trying to do anything about it.
Spec’d out equivalently, the Framework 16 (without GPU) is no more expensive than the X1 Carbon but with even better Linux support and unsurpassable upgradeability. I’m glad my company was onboard for me to switch.
