We are not sustainable And neither is any other device maker. This industry is full of “feel good” messaging, but generates 50 million metric tons of e-waste each year. We believe the best way to reduce environmental impact is to create products that last longer, meaning fewer new ones need to be made. Instead of operating on feels, we operate on data and actions. With funding from Intel, we commissioned Fraunhofer IZM to do a detailed life cycle analysis (LCA) on Framework Laptop 13 to help us understand where we are today and where we can continue to improve. Check out our thoughts on reducing environmental impact and download the LCA report here…
if i need a new laptop i’d save for a framework laptop
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To be fair, all these ports put together can’t match a single USB-4 in bandwidth. And I get they are pretty useful to avoid dongles, but I bet your ThinkPad (with that many ports I’m guessing a W or T, maybe 30 series?) weights more than a framework and a competent USB-C hub.
(But I love the ergonomics of old ThinkPads, that’s why my x201 gets almost as much use as my T480)
A modem!? Does your ThinkPad also have an IR blaster? 🤣
I feel like the modem held on in laptops far too long. By the Windows 95 era, most modems were just weird sound cards that put most of the work onto the CPU to convert the data into sounds. They were dirt cheap, so laptop manufacturers could keep them there for the hell of it.
Oh god I forgot those existed. They were always terrible, even for modem technology. I remember having to help my mom’s friend with her Emachine with one of those and the drivers were a trainwreck.
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Check what facts? No model number was provided. The ThinkPad spans decades. We don’t even know if this is an IBM era or Lenovo era Thinkpad.
That it has e-SATA would put it in the Lenovo-era, possibly one of the models that still had the IBM badging.
For the humor-impaired, there were also ThinkPads with an IrDA port too.
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Or they were making a joke about ridiculous things that engineers were putting in all kinds of random devices for a while there and you got huffy about it.
We don’t know your life or what you know. And not all of us are memorizing old laptop models or care enough to look them up.
Conversation can be light and fun and not all pedantic technical documents like we’ve all been replaced by machines already
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It’s not okay to make ironic comments damaging my post’s credibility.
By someone trying to make a casual joke to make conversation? Holy moly dude, tell me you don’t get much socializing in with less words next time.
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It’s unfortunate that the Framework modules aren’t quite big enough. They can’t put two USB-A ports side by side on one module, and there apparently isn’t enough room for the USB hub electronics, anyway. Just a bit wider and they’d make it.
Still the best laptop I’ve owned.
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I am not in the market for a new laptop at the moment, but my next one is very likely to be a Framework. At least if they decide to add Nordic keyboard and support shipping to Denmark.
Yeah that’s my attitude as well. I have no need for a laptop at the moment. It’s a want, but I have bigger expenses to worry about at the moment. In a year or two when I feel like it’s time I’ll likely go with them.
Last I checked some months ago they haven’t entered the EU market and don’t have near term plans to :(
They also don’t recommend importing as that kind of defeats the purpose seeing as you’ll be unable to easily source parts or even get support, maintenance or warranty
They are active in some EU countries
I know. That is partly why I don’t intend to buy one before they support the EU.
Are components replacable, repairable and upgradable because that is a pretty major thing in extending the lifetime of a device
The entire laptop is user serviceable, including replacing the Motherboard/CPU with a newer model, or even switching between Intel and AMD now. New 16in model will have upgradable discrete GPU.
yes, that’s their whole selling point
That’s their whole deal. The computer is designed to be repairable by the end user as a first principle. It’s easy to disassemble, easy to replace or swap components, and they have a store where you can buy replacement or upgrade parts.
Yes they are
It’s a great idea and I’m very interested but this article is just an ad. There’s very little substance.
Normally I’d be rolling my eyes but they could probably stand some free advertising.
I just wish they’d jump the pond already.
It’s kinda funny how North America has the repairable laptop, while Europe has the repairable phone.
Well, somebody here made a repairable laptop. They seem to be having some trouble making traction. You guys will probably force the existing manufacturers make repairable laptops before these guys even become a well-known product.
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It’s just a blog page on their own website. If you want to know more about the product you can go to frame.work. The only reason I know more about him is because Linus Sebastian shuffed his head directly up their ass for a while. His shilling tendencies aside the product looks pretty f****** solid.
I don’t really have a problem with it being linked to let me technology because I think some more people should look at the products.
That’s a fair observation, but it’s not an article, it’s the company blog talking about upcoming things. I think the most remarkable thing is they admit their approaches are not sustainable, even though they’re trying to be green. And that’s a healthy thing to admit.
My only concern is that they might turn into the next Unfairphone. But for now, I’ll remain cautiously optimistic about them.
What’s wrong with fairphone?
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Louis is a really cool guy but to link his old rant video and leave out the newer favorable one where he literally talks about them releaseing shematics as firt smartphone manufacturer ever is a really shitty move!!!
Looks like that same person made a followup video? It was suggested to me under the first one:
Why I was wrong about fairphone
I haven’t watched either yet, planning to do that tomorrow
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
Why I was wrong about fairphone
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRdL0StldJM&t=0&fairphonesucks=true
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Bad bot, that’s a yt link
It’s not, the link text is youtube, but it links to piped
For me it links to YouTube, could be an issue with thunder (lemmy app)
I like the “fairphonesucks=true” Parameter though. That’s a nice touch
I recall the fairphone 2 being touted as an open platform with support for ubuntu touch, phosh and more. There’s not a word of that with the current lineup.
Mainline being worked on for FP4: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_4_(fairphone-fp4) along with a UT port https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/device/fp4
The new one launched with the privacy friendly /e/OS and initial PostmarketOS (Linux) support…
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They still have a SD card reader up to fucking 2TB but got rid of the headphone jack in favor of a little more water proofing, not my favorite decition but certainly not a reason to call the only even remotely fair phone with some actual fair trade and recycled materials and unfair…
I agree with you but want to highlight Shiftphone as another manufacturer which is prioritizing fair and more environmentally advantageous production.
Yea, they are a lot smaller and not that far yet but also a really cool project and definitely worth supporting too! It’s not exactly the same kind of device (you do need a certain amount of knowledge to fix stuff) but also very repairable, unlike with the Fairphone I don’t know anyone who owns one tho so I can’t say that much about it.
I contacted them about putting the Sipeed Lichee Pi 4A RISC-V SoM in… but they seemed unenthusiastic…
Not everyone is riding the hyperbole in tech.
Overall, they seem to be doing the right things for long-term ownership and repairability. As new hardware manufacturers, they’re going to have a couple issues, just like their rechargeable bios battery design, but they’ve handled them well.
I would like them to open source their schematics, but they have contractual obligations preventing them from doing so, so making the schematics open after signing an NDA is a fair middle ground, and more than any other company will do. So kudos for that
I personally own a framework, and worked with them to fix a charging issue, and they did all the right things, professional, no issues at all.
One small issue that people seem to have, is their unwillingness to talk about core boot or libre boot, but that’s a small thing.
They are a startup, so you always have to question what revenue streams they’re envisioning long-term.
They’re my kind of crazy: I hope they succeed, at least I hope they start industry trend for repairability and long-term ownership.
I should add, no matter how much I agree with the company, I won’t do pre-orders. I know framework is my kind of crazy, I can’t encourage anybody to do a pre-order either.
I bought my framework from in stock series 13s.
There’s too much risk tying up capital for months, plus you lose your credit card protections, when it’s been over 30 days. If I buy an in stock unit, have it delivered, and it’s terrible, worst case scenario I do a credit card charge back. I’d lose that capability if I do a pre-order 345 months out.
If you preorder, just 100 $/€ are taken from your credit card. The rest is booked shortly before the device gets shipped. So, your risk is 100$/€ if they went bankrupt before you get your device. I have seen worse, imho.
One small issue that people seem to have, is their unwillingness to talk about core boot or libre boot, but that’s a small thing.
It’s a major issue for me - currently I’m keeping my old x230 alive, but eventually that’ll have to be replaced.
I’m running it with heads, which allows me to do secure boot under my control. I don’t really want to have my main notebook without that nowadays.
I don’t like any of the current notebook keyboards, so it’ll be a “build yourself” project anyway - and the framework mainboard would be nice as they keep the dimensions stable, even though I’m not a fan of some other hardware choices.
My impression of the GitHub discussion on core boot, was that it’s on their backlog. But one of the bug submitters was very vocal, would a commitments, and basically got the developers to close the issue kind of emotionally.
I think it’s something they want to do, long-term, but they’re not actively working on it.
Out of curiosity what are the other hardware issues?
Out of curiosity what are the other hardware issues?
I’m generally not a friend of their USB-C expansion modules - which is mainly due to lots of experience trying to expand older notebooks with USB stuff. USB is not designed for devices to keep a state over suspends, so depending on what kind of hardware you plug in you get interesting results. This may be better with current spec (at least I hope they fixed some of that stuff when they worked on USB-C docking), but given how much I’ve seen fail I don’t feel comfortable to fully rely on that.
I’d have preferred to have a few more mPCIe-slots (I think they just have one for the WLan module), and more storage slots (which I think they finally fixed with the latest mainboard version with two NVME slots). Also what they’ve done about the connection for the separate graphics card might solve my complaints about lack of mPCIe-slots.
If we not only look at the mainboard, but the complete notebook - I don’t like the keyboard, the screen, the case in general, and the fixed battery - but unfortunately all those are bad on pretty much any notebook younger than 10 years.
It would be amazing if they succeeded. Would be nice to be able to grab the motherboard of your old laptop and recycle it into a home server type device, sell your display to someone that can easily use it for personal projects, etc.
If they do it right their old boards could be used for the kind of stuff people buy raspberry pi’s for as well.
That is already being done right now.
You can fashion your old Mainboard into a home server. For example by using their case made in collaboration with I think CooperMaster but you can also 3D print it yourself.
The displays are just standard eDP connectors. So anyone could use that as well with a cheap board.
Yeah, I saw hobbyists are doing it already, but it you could use mass produced cases to fit them in any form factor it opens up the possibility for long term use of motherboards that would end up scrapped otherwise.
100% agreed. If they could come up with some GPL3 framework foundation, that open source to schematic designs, after I don’t know 5 years. So the designs are older, but it’s open, so that people can fashion all of their devices into completely reusable modules. I’d love that.
They’re doing a reasonable job by open sourcing their interfaces, which is good.
I like Framework and pre-ordered a F16 as soon as I heard pre-orders were open.
They seem to be heavily prioritizing reduce and reuse over recycle which is perfect. That’s what you’re supposed to do. Buy a few refillable glass jars and recycle them when they break instead of just tossing them in the recycling and buying new ones type deal.
I needed new laptop and wanted one from Framework but unfortunately they don’t sell it in my country so I went with a macbook pro with the thinking that it will last me longer than anything else and that’s at least somewhat more eco friendly since I don’t need to buy a new one for the next 5 years at least, probably 10 since it’s a mac
I’ve had my macbook for 6 years and it is still my favorite computer to use. I built my own pc and everything, but the mac still feels better. Ot could feel a little snappier opening programs, but it’s still a great machine
But the new ones are more durable! ;)
I get what you mean but that analogy doesn’t make sense
(Almost) Everything is greenwashing because ultimately that’s what consumers want. They don’t really care about making something more environmentally friendly, they simply want to feel better with false claims and splashy marketing.
The whole environmental angle that FW are taking seems OK, but if they are too expensive or don’t make a good product or fall behind the competition, then it simply won’t work. I just found out my old laptop shit the bed, so I would absolutely take a serious look at what FW offers.
One of the things I absolutely hate about their marketing material is this idea that you can buy a module that adds a X port or Y connector to the laptop. Just build those ports into the goddamn laptop from the get go. Every extra module you add, every extra seam on the chassis, every extra cable there is, is an extra failure point in thw product and for something that is mobile, that’s not a great thing. I like the repairability angle they are pushing, but if all the extra modules introduce more failures then you won’t have happy customers.
I’ll tell you what Framework’s IO modules truly are: Dongles.
They plug into USB-C ports on the mainboard, just like the bundle of IO dongles a Mac user has to lug around. But in Framework’s case, they’re “inboard.” They snap into the chassis of the Laptop to present the form factor of a built-in port. So unlike pigtail form factor dongles that stick out of the machine, you can leave them plugged in while the laptop is in your bag.
And because the module is supported by the chassis, that relieves the strain on the USB-C port itself, so if you drop the laptop with something plugged into a module, it might break the module but not the mainboard. Modules are cheaper and easier to replace than the mainboard.
Having used the expansion modules on my framework. I’m kind of in love with them. They remove all cable stress from the motherboard. Because of the modularity, I can just plug in an external disk to boot off of, if I want to run Windows, or a special operating system, and pull the disc out seamlessly through the expansion port.
I didn’t think I’d like them, but I really do. The modularity is undersold, day-to-day driving it’s great. No complaints about them whatsoever.
I think one criticism that Louis Rossman has that I agree with is more ports. I get that the modularity makes it so you can swap things in and out easily but I wish I could have way more ports like my thinkpad.
I bought a 1st gen Framework, making the bet they will still be around and have sell upgrades for my laptop 5+years from now when I need an upgrade. So far they are delivering on their promises and the price remains acceptable (even if high than the competition).
- very satisfied about linux support
- very satisfied about reperability, customizability
- very satisfied with overall spec. and design
- not so satisfied by battery management and autonomy
- not so satisfied by battery management and autonomy
What do you mean with autonomy?
Probably not native. In Italian we also say “autonomia” to indicate battery life or distance you can still cover with the fuel in your tank.
Ah that makes sense, thanks
Yes this is what I mean. I though this was also use in english. Basically, how long you last with 1 charge.
Huh. More you know.
even if high than the competition
it’s not even higher in some cases.
Was looking for a new work laptop a year or so ago, and compared a thinkpad with framework. Same exact hardware inside, and the price difference was 50ct. With the thinnkpad having poorer upgradability, soldered on ram and (imo) worse build quality.
It was the perfect way to test out a framework, and now I own one for personal use as well
Hopefully battery life will get much better with the next gen Intel CPUs (14th gen and later). Of course that means nothing for people who already have the current gen.
They already fixed some HW issue related to that in the 2nd gen (intel 12th gen).
I mean, with Framework laptops, it does mean something since upgrading to a new cpu doesn’t involve buying a whole new laptop.
I’ve never used one of their computers or even seen one in the flesh, but from what I’ve seen they look cool and I will consider them next time I need a new laptop. But for now I’ll reduce e-waste by using my old Acer Chromebook with Linux until it kicks the bucket.
I have toyed with the thought of framework laptops a few times. But the pricing is just too high. I rather buy used company laptops ~3 years afterwards and get way cheaper high quality laptop. Plus, buying used is pretty much always better than buying new in an environmental sense.
