A lot of laptop have more than 4 IO slots, and it looks like the Framework can potentially have 6 or even 8 slots in total. Any plan to add extra expansion slots?
The decision to go with four is likely to be due to the limited amount of PCIe lanes supported by the cpu.
We have 20 lanes, that makes 4 lanes each plus the internal nvme slot.
I guess it is theoretically possible to add more slots, but you’d loose the thunderbolt speed, since they’d have to share the bandwidth.
Edit:
Also now that they decided to go with four, it is unlikely that they are willing to change the whole board-layout again.
I think that multihport expansion cars are more likely.
- 2x USB-A
- 2x USB-C
I think people have already discounted dual port USB A expansion cards due to there being insufficient room for two ports side by side. But dual port USB C expansion cards (implemented as a 2 port hub with no PD) are being explored: Dual USB-C Expansion Card Mockup
And I would hope that Framework will eventually release larger form factors, with room for more than 4 expansion cards
I guess multiports with one USB-A and one USB-C are more logical, as this way you don’t have to use a USB-C without PD (USB-A doesn’t support it by spec anyway). Also that combination should be easier to fit on a single card.
Multiport USB-C + USB-A cards would be awesome! My dream setup would be two of those with an HDMI output and the extra slot for swappable 1TB storage.