I know exactly what I’m talking about. Just because you assume I don’t know about it doesn’t mean I don’t. Just because I didn’t mention every single little details of every tech involved in it doesn’t mean I don’t know that they’re needed, and I don’t need to list them. I know about how this technology has been improving over the years. I was simply describing one example of an old product that had this technology. The thing is that the technology has existed for many decades, so why can’t it be included here? This things are not new.
I was merely asking why or how you optimize the use of a touchscreen in a typing and data manipulation heavy program like excel. You don’t need to lecture me (us) about this technology we already know about.
You are assuming it does. It doesn’t directly relates to Excel in the terms of touch screen. What I was trying to say is that the 17" display is better to work on with Excel and other apps, but if it has the touch screen is a plus for many other apps like Photoshop, Illustrator, etc. Nothing spacial about Excel that would require touch screen with all it’s bells and whistles. All I was saying is that I would like to have that option on my laptop.
If you have a touchscreen laptop, you have some really interesting alternatives than mouse/trackpoint/trackpad.
So like for Excel, you can just tap your finger on the cell you want to edit and it will be selected. Drag to select work amazingly well.
For Word, you can tap a place to insert stuff, or double tap to select a word. Drag to select also work very well.
In both cases, you do not have to move the mouse to see “uh my mouse is at this location so I need to move to this location first, click and then move my hand a certain distance in a certain direction to have the pointer move to this location”, especially in a cramped environment like in your lap or on a airplane where the free mouse movement isn’t very possible.
You can even use this to play games, to a lesser extent. Non-first-person games such as Bloons TD, Fallout shelter and others work very well with touchscreen. And draw stuff in paint.exe. You can even create digital signature without it looking like a chicken scratch, because now you have touch input, you can just draw on the screen.
But at other times, it’s a little bit more than a novelty item.
Then there’s the screen size, which allow everything to be bigger and touch input to be more precise.
I think it will not be difficult (at all) to have a touchscreen panel as a option. But as the screen size come the chassis size, non-13 inch size is quite a argument.
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poll on possible features for a 15":
https://community.frame.work/t/questionaire-features-for-potential-15-version/8278
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Didn’t see ‘matte screen’ option in the poll.
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So larger screen (and matte) isn’t happening in the near future, correct?
Asking because I’d really like to get a Framework laptop, but can’t deal with small 13", and looking to get a laptop this year.
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I really hope it is happening with less than a year. Need bigger matter screen version of this device.
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Likely, yes.
They can’t understand the comfort of a 15 inch screen. You can lie back (and tip your chair too) and, with eyes 5 ft away from the screen and still see everything clearly.
If you are desperate (like me), you can consider a Dell Latitude 5520. It have two Thunderbolt, HDMI, Ethernet, card reader, Micro SD card reader, and USB-A. Two RAM slots, two SSD slots and plenty of performance. I think if you are lucky you can even have touchscreen.
This is their motherboard.
Wow. WWAN too. What a beast. Cooling looks very iffy. Ports are also not replaceable. But I might be able to live with it.
HP books either have no Thunderbolt, or no other ports. They can’t have both, which is what that bugs me.
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I checked it on their site. Drawbacks that I noticed:
Intel® Iris® Xe graphics - no dedicated gpu
15.6" FHD (1920x1080) Non-Touch, Anti-Glare, 250nits - less than 400 nits should be illegal these days. I have used 250 nits for the past 7 years and it’s bad bad.
16 GB, 1X16 GB 3200MHz DDR4 Non-ECC - does it support more than 16GB, since 16 can be limiting already now, not to mention 5 years from now.
Seems that the Latitude model nr. 5521 has options for dedicated graphics - Nvidia GeForce MX450, and up to 32GB DDR4 RAM. Display still 250 nits.
Price around $2300 USD.
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Not a fan of Dell, but am looking at a couple HP ones, just weighing if I want to.
I like HP more than Dell also. Gotta wait til next year to see what new systems they offer. Or get Framework if they come out with 15" option.
They are not too shabby, and I think given enough thermo, power and RAM to play (usually something a 15 inch can sufficiently provide) with they can actually do some work. But again, you can configure that.
Again, this probably is configurable. Especially aftermarket, since the computer use the same chassis as the precision (a.k.a. interchangeable parts).
Personally I don’t care about the brightness, and as long as the resolution isn’t ridiculous (1366x768 anyone), I’m ok. Some icing on the cake would be touchscreen and anti-glare.
It does have two slot, and it says right there is a 1x16 so it’s one stick. you can pop another 16 stick in the future. Again, this is also configurable.
I looked up and the MX 450 is a slower GTX 1650, and especially so with lower watt chips.
notebookcheck “review”
Again, you can configure the specs.
Also, RAM, storage, wireless you should always do it yourself and buy the base spec (because the always charge extras and don’t give you the best components)
The point here is not to say “hey go buy this specific model”. It’s rather to show what Dell fits on their 15 inch motherboard so we can get a reference on what we would like to configure in the first place (e.g. GPU and CPU), and everything else is completely modular that you can just stay with base spec. Hence this motherboard shot I linked to. Yes, it don’t have the replaceable ports that Framework (or even other Dell laptops) have, which is nice, but in the mean time, it have other things (e.g. WWAN, two SSD, etc) that is very compelling.
The cost mostly boil down to the CPU, as the Framework that use a similar CPU is also very steeply priced.
The reason I didn’t show a HP is because they do not have a single model (within reasonable budget) that feature both USB-A and Thunderbolt. Sure they could have released something a month ago that I didn’t catch, but that seem to be the general idea. Either go cheap and not have Thunderbolt, or go fancy and not have USB-A. It doesn’t make any sense.
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The problem with that as far as I know, is that I can’t just buy the baseline frame without those components from a manufacturer like Dell or HP. Meaning, I would gladly not purchase their bundled OS, the RAM or SSD that they offer these machines with, and put it together with components I prefer.
Instead, one must buy the configuration offered, and then change out the elements inside… and try to sell the leftovers it came with, most likely taking a loss.
I remember when I got my Probook many years ago, I chose FreeDOS (which HP has as an option in some cases), but also didn’t want the 1TB HDD it had inside. I even told the store that they could take it out and keep it for lowering the price a bit in exchange… nope… gotta take it as is. I was already using Samsung PRO SSD in my previous machine that I would put into the new one… wtf I do with a spinning HDD at that point… nobody would want to buy that either.
Thus, having to buy machines with undesirable components ends up in a loss for the consumer. That’s why I very much like the option from Framework to buy the device without stuff that one plans to provide themself.
Yes. But you can reduce the amount you spend on those modules by choosing the lowest spec, but also with the things you want (e.g. graphics cards/touchscreen).
That’s partly the reason Framework is quite appealing to me because no more “junk” is generated. But on the other hand, Framework don’t come cheap, and with things like Ethernet port or touchscreen still being sorted out, it’s a bit “ehh”.
It also have only one SSD slot, which, while adequate, leave something to be desired when I have 9 sticks of SSD, 4 of them being 256GB sticks.
Just throwing in my 2 cents to say that I’m going to be purchasing a new laptop within the next month or two and I would have really loved it to be a Framework Laptop, but the screen size is a no-go for me.
I would prefer 16" or 17", though even if there were a 15"/15.6" model I would take it, because I really love what Framework is about and as long as they make good, competitively-priced products, I will shop Framework exclusively.
If I had the money, I would get the current offering just to support Framework. But since I can only get one right now, I have to choose one more suitable to my needs, with a larger screen and discrete graphics.
I look forward to owning a Framework laptop eventually.
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I actually had one of those for work. Really impressive what they crammed in there, though the build itself was pretty disappointing. It also ran pretty hot, especially right above where the CPU is. That long heatpipe isn’t helping the laptop keep stuff cool.
Maybe. Often the upgrades are bundled so you can’t completely mix and match. If you want a higher end screen or processor it’s only available with a larger amount of RAM, or the RAM only comes with a storage upgrade, that sort of thing.
In the case of Dell, the Latitude line (repairable but heavy business laptops) can be configured pretty flexibly. But the XPS (premium lightweight) and Inspiron (consumer-oriented) lines offer less flexibility. RAM on the XPS is soldered now so you can’t upgrade it after the fact.
An example: if you want an XPS 13 with 32GB RAM, you have to also get the 1195G7 processor. If you buy the 1135G7 or the 1165G7 you’re limited to 16GB. That’s marketing; the RAM would work with any of those CPUs.
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Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
So technically, Framework’s 13-inch fills in the gap super-nicely because few 13-inch offer the repairability Framework provides (hp being a notable exception), whereas quite a lot of 15 inch (*cough* Apple *cough* Microsoft *cough*) offer the repairability to reasonably “satisfy” repair technicians or tech-savvy DIY enthusiasts.
Apple is so lame. They literally glue together their desktops like iPads.
It’s certainly not a bad idea for Framework to release a 15-inch (or 16) offering moar repairability (and customization), but I guess because of the current products from the majority of manufacturers the competition will be rather fierce.
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As I have been checking out other brand offers, I realized that the Dell XPS 17" has same size chassis than my current 15" HP. Actually 1/3 thinner also.
Due to bezel sizes decreasing over the past 5+ years, yesterday’s 15" laptop could have 17" display today and still fit into the same footprint.
Thus 15/16/17" could all be an option for the ‘bigger’ model that many of us want.
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