Are stickers good for laptops?

I’ve been sticker-bombing my old second-hand laptops forever (and i’ve always had second-hand laptops until work started paying for them)… now that i have fancy laptops like the Framework, I’m hesitant in throwing stickers all over them, partly for the resell value, but after seeing the Sticker-bombed Framework I can’t help but wonder:

Do stickers affect reliability, durability or performance at all?

I figured they might change the thermal properties of the laptop…

They would protect the lid from scratches, of course, but then that’s kind of moot since to see the original lid, you’d have to peel off all those stickers which would leave glue all over the place…

It might make the laptop also slightly heavier…

So what’s your take on stickers?

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I mean, I use dbrand and I have no complaints and while it leaves no residue behind, Gloo-b-gone would take care of any residue from stickers.

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Provided you’re not covering any vents, the only thing stickers should affect is aesthetics.

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Yes all of the above

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For me, the main reason I’m fine with putting stickers on my Framework is because at some point I may upgrade to the CNC top cover and hang the current top cover as a nice piece of wall art.

Upgradability for the win!

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Enough stickers to stiffen and you may not ‘need’ a new lid :slight_smile:

and it will change the resonance

what’s not to like, but this is about as far as I am about to go

One of my kids 23 year dayglow old stickers

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uh! i thought the Framework | Top Cover (CNC) was just the same as a regular top cover, but now that you mention it, there’s a separate Framework | Top Cover Kit… interesting! any reason why you would chose one or the other? you can’t pick the cover when ordering the base build, can you?

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The 11th Gen comes with the old pressed ally lid, the 12th Gen with the new milled ally.

The 4Kg hinges are never the deafult.

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Good point!

Reviews report that the new CNC top cover feels more premium and sturdy. If I ever decide to get an upgrade kit, it might be fun to start with a fresh cover to slap more stickers on! :cowboy_hat_face:

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From what I know, as long as you only place them on the lid, they don’t modify the termals.

oh but i already have a 12th gen, so i guess i have the CNC cover already?

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@anarcat you do indeed

Let’s keep things on-topic please.

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Not sure if necrobumping this thread is a good idea, but I wanted to learn more about the possible prolonged effects of stickerbombing Framework laptops.

I have a vague memory of a Reddit post saying that stickerbombing their Macbook has caused uneven aging of metal chassis that unerasable marks everywhere. Do you have similar experience to this?

@ari, I would like to hear from you as well about the treatment method you ended up using and how is your stickers looking so far!

so i now have about 8 stickers on my 12th gen framework laptop, i’d say about 25% of the area is covered. i can certainly imagine adding so many stickers that it would change the weight of the laptop significantly (and I guess you don’t need that much to change it!!) will affect the mechanics of the display.

but at this point, I don’t care. the laptop went from this precious little thing i barely dare touching that i would admire and benchmark from days on end to an actual workhorse i use and carry around every day. it’s an amazing machine, and i love it. If the hinges break or come loose because of the stickers, I’ll change the hinges, because i can! And if the stickers become too much, well darn it i’ll get a new cover!

I just hope this fantastic machine keeps a supply chain working forever. :wink:

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That’s amazing to hear! How are your stickers doing after your regular usage? Are they worn out? Have you done any extra treatment on top of your stickers?

haha what? treatment? what do you think this is, a museum piece? :wink: Nah, it’s all fine: sticker images themselves are fine, the edges are starting to gather dust a little bit which shows up as a grey-ish edge, but that’s nothing unusual…

maybe a little more visible because of the clear framework design (as opposed to my usual black thinkpad design).

I could see this if you left sections unstickered and then put the laptop through the ringer. That’s a little bit like what mine is going through. I have a number of stickers on my top case, probably ~60% coverage at this point, and through use there are some scratches on the unstickered part that the stickered bits aren’t going to have.

That being said though, I’m an OG 11th-gen, so once I fill up my current top case with stickers I’ll upgrade to the CNC case and hang the old one as an art piece like @ari mentioned above.

I never plan on reselling the laptop. The point of my framework is that I will never need another laptop (except maybe a FW16), so it follows that I’ll never get rid of this one, through resell or otherwise.

I also had sticky notes in the little open sections next to my trackpad for a couple months as a kind of notepad, so if you want to be technical you could put stickers as palmrests and change the way the laptop feels to use. The (relative) softness of the paper was kind of nice on my palms, but they just got greasy, so it wasn’t actually viable.

Those of you who’ve placed stickers directly on the body of your laptops, had them there for a while, and then removed/replaced them

do you have any issues with a silhouette being left, such as what’s seen here:

I believe this only applies to dyed aluminum. The framework 13 does not use dyes for environmental reasons.