I could find newer stuff, bit it’s all anecdotal. For example, this 2022 Cnet article also suggests about threeish years between component failures from the author’s personal life, if you aren’t being vigilant about things. I didn’t want to use anecdotal evidence because then you get into people aaying they needed an upgrade because their computer got too slow or just because, or their units could have come faulty from the factory and it’s just a problem with their specific one. It doesn’t not happen, albiet usually from batteries that are hard to get to and replace these days rather than chip shortqges.
Sure. Your priorities are your priorities, and mine are mine. I do care about color, but 10+bpc is necessary for flat panels to have good color, IMO – I have a newer panel from 2016 or so I got handed down from a relative and the color banding is laughable. CRT had great color reproduction and less banding issues from the glow blending those hard edges, and while I can’t see it coming back in its original form, Prysm’s LPD is basically just a CRT without the CRT, and 75% more energy efficient than a current flat panel to boot, so once that becomes an option in a consumer display I’ll be the first to switch.
For now, 8bpc is lacking enough that I’m not that picky, it’s all not very good to me. I don’t make money with accurate color anyway as a copy writer and translation assistant, I could use a monochrome screen and not be too bad off for what I do. Hopefully QD-microLED will capture me and I’ll be converted, though.
The two go hand in hand, it’s always going to be cheaper to reuse older parts because you don’t have the price of fabrication or marketing, that’s already been paid for, and you also don’t have the ecological effects of using new components either – whether that be from the manufacturing or from the waste streams. Reduce and reuse coming before recycle wasn’t an accident. When I said a 10 year replacement cycle besides hardware failures was less waste, I meant that from the standpoint of the production of these things, not in terms of money – though I have to say getting a $2,000 laptop for $45 sure is a nice feeling.
Sure. They don’t make money from RAM or SSD sales from upgrades, though, and I believe I’ve heard that the Marketplace will in time be peer to peer similar to eBay, so they don’t even make money on upgrades to previous gen hardware or people who decided against keeping their upgrade board for whatever reason. So there’s incentive to keep the older standards a little longer, so that buying their mainboard is more cost effective and thus more attractive.
Yeah, hoping to see that sooner rather than later. I would like to upgrade from my current 1185g7 to 1280p, but looking at the pricing from Framework, it almost makes more sense just to buy barebone 1280p laptop (and not just the board). Which got me thinking…where’s the advantage with Framework beyond just a repairable laptop? (I’m coming from a long line of 20+ years of repairable ThinkPads)
Maybe I’m too blind to see it. Maybe I have biases in my views.
It would be nice, yeah. I’m sure you can imagine 12th gen isn’t something I exactly need, so the option to sell it off to someone who wants it and get an 11th gen board or one of thoee fancy ARM boards they mentioned having somewhere in the back of their heads instead would be well appreciated. Ideally the latter, though I’d still default to OpenPOWER in the fantasy world we see Framework team up with RED Semiconductor or I guess NXP.
Over here, the barebones is $819 without any expansion cards. A $370 saving isn’t inconsiderable.
For me, it’s being able to, in a manufacturer approved way, rip out the camera and microphone module and take a sledgehammer to it sell it to someone who needs a replacement. That in a 3:2 laptop (3:2 is king of aspect ratios for me, with 4:3 being in close second place) with port configurability is a nice package – M2 MBP, the other option I’d be mostly happy with, has two USB Type-C ports and a headphone jack and you’re happy with it because they’ll never change. Better hope your accessories in 2032 support Thunderbolt 3.
Though… yeah, the repairability is kinda the whole pitch besides the expansion cards.
Exactely the way apple does it… by not selling a laptop… Not only a laptop.
The innovation has you said doesn t lie in “intel 1280 5ghz blabla for 999USD”, it lies in another value proposition.
I think FW is much closer to appel or thinkpad in its value proposition than Lenovo.
If you look at thinkpad for example, you are way better buying a FW (at least if it lives up to the expectation).
Now you are also talking about consumerisme, that s around for some time …
Concerning marketing, we now know it can also be used for the good, like with FW.
The real issue concerning the FW mission “to fixe electronics”, is explaining the value proposition. Especially most people don t get it at all… I have a friend telling me “why do you need a repairable laptop ? Does it mean it is made to fail ?” Apple does all soldered stuff that rarely fails.
I replace my work laptop every 4 years or so; not because they’re too slow for what I need, but because stuff typically begins to break. I don’t baby my laptops–they work hard and they get abused. A new laptop–usually an XPS 13 or X1 Carbon–tends to set me back about $1400USD.
If I can just fix the stuff that breaks–hinges, power supplies, whatever, then the Framework wins. If it lasts long enough for me to upgrade the mainboard in 5-6 years, I’ll consider that a huge bonus.
It’s sort of like an end-of-life car; stuff just starts to break. Hinges crack, keycaps fall off, the battery (of course) needs to be replaced, sometimes the power supply gives out, the display won’t kick up. Some combination of old-age symptoms.
By then, the Dells are out of warranty. Dell customer support is lackluster and repairing mine always turned out to be a project, on the occasions when it was possible.
The Thinkpads are better–I purchase (and usually use) the 4-year onsite repair contract. Once again though, after the contract expires repairs tend to be expensive and non-trivial. Better than Dell, though.
The initial hinges in my Framework were part of the defective batch. Support sent me new ones and it took less than 15 minutes to make the repair. I’m hoping it’s like my old 1960 MGA–stuff broke periodically, but I could almost always fix it quickly.
So for each incident, there’s a decision somewhere that says “nope, not repairing it.”…and continue on?
Typically, either eBay or purchase parts directly ahead of time. For example, I have spare palmrests and keyboards for my Thinkpads. (I know they’ll need replacing after about 7 years). Other parts, you can find a donor system off ebay.
But yeah, having a marketplace is definitely better than a tactical approach.
So in your particular case / example, your focus is repairability…and less so on upgradability. Framework definitely scored a 10/10 in repairability.
That goes for a car, too. I enjoying hacking around on my machines, but at least half the year I’m far too busy at the chocolate shop and don’t have a lot of spare mental capacity for debugging a broken laptop. Framework’s model ostensibly makes fixing easy, which works for my use case.
You’re completely correct. Upgradability is nice to have, but Linux makes it a bit less critical. I do want to keep the thing running, though.
