So am I, notice I’m not making video’s about bad power management, or the faulty TouchPad cable that broke on my unit despite the “tape Fix”, or the overheating expansion cards. Because I wasn’t promised the “Best Battery life” or the ability to infinitely open the chassis without problems. Those are issues that arose, and I addressed with customer support. They “get a pass” on all of that, more than any other company would. I was however, promised the ability to use the mainboard free of the rest of the laptop at the time of sale, and not at some future date that hadn’t been established yet. This is the one of the only reason I bought the first generation of the laptop. Because, I knew I was essentially “stuck” with that board, and because I planned on using it as a test board to build other things. If those things were successful I could then buy another mainboard from the marketplace to drive it. Yes they are working on it according to their statement, but their statement also said it currently works with a higher wattage power supply. I’m using a (verified) 100W power supply. USB-C doesn’t, as of yet, get more powerful than that. Still doesn’t work. It may be a “niche” feature but don’t those in the niche have the right to know?
This sums up the situation for me.
Yes, I agree that the communication should have been very clear if this was an existing vs. future feature and I understand your disappointment as it was communicated that this feature was working prior to making your purchase.
Once this feature is added via firmware update, I would like to see you revisit this topic again as you have mentioned some interesting use cases using the motherboard. Keep up the good Framework content on your YouTube channel.
The video was supposed to be about repurposing projects for the mainboard, once it works I’ll make that video. TBH I only discovered @nrp statement about the firmware update when I was grabbing my research screen cap footage for the video (about the 100W power). I was disappointed as I already had all the dims and the sketches started in Fusion 360. I didn’t think for a minute it wouldn’t actually work.
I think it’s “weird” (your word, not mine) that you made a video to call out Framework publicly for the yet-to-be-completed firmware support for this particular feature / use case. I don’t begrudge you if you choose to leverage the company’s popularity to grow your YouTube channel, but this feels like you’re trying to drum up conflict to capture viewers.
There are a number of issues affecting the Framework laptop, and I’m glad that this community site exists for us to share and learn together. I’m grateful that the company continues to be transparent about their plans as well as existing limitations, which is far more than traditional competing manufacturers have done.
I wouldn’t ask you to refrain from using your channel to discuss these problems publicly, because it is important to understand the capabilities of a product for potential buyers. But I also think it’s important to maintain a balance between journalism and sensationalism, especially when the latter becomes a distraction for Framework’s already limited and finite engineering & support resources.
@obfuscurity the point is it wasn’t
That is my entire point. It wasn’t “yet-to-be-completed” when I purchased it. It was advertised and functional and supported.
Nobody (to my knowledge) is arguing this point, only the manner in which you’ve presented it.
I think we can sum up this thread as that Framework should have been more clear as to the feature set of their product
That while unfortunate that this feature does not exist in a production or release build of the BIOS, it is coming
That such a feature is not truly needed right this second and will be useful when owners upgrade the mainboard
And that everyone here really needs to chill out-this is not a hill to die on, there are many other things that rank higher on the to-do list and many forum members(including myself) are tech enthusiasts but not actually skilled coders
Ding ding, we have a winner.
It’s not only this issue - I don’t intend to use the motherboard in this case for some time, if EVER.
I do plan on using my microphone…
Xorg…
And IMO the frame.work is engineering the machine on the backs of its first adopters. I wasn’t told that.
Also, /s means save message, from back in the day when computers caused less headaches. 
I love my Pinebook Pro for tinkering and figuring out how to fix issues. $199 is great for that. This is not premium, by any stretch.
I think that’s a brutally unfair characterization of framework
I don’t deny that Linux can be buggy
That is not on Framework
Blame Nvidia, Blame Intel, Blame AMD, Blame the companies that refuse or otherwise drag their feet on supporting Linux
You cannot blame Framework for how well Linux is supported if they are going to use bleeding edge parts
Fractional Scaling has been a mess for ages-you can get annoyed at that but you must have known the resolution of the panel before purchase and what that might entail
You expect far too much at the start-I expect Framework to make good on their promises
Hell, I was super stoked to buy a Purism laptop and then got scared off by the constant shifting of delivery dates
I have yet to see a forum post declaring that Framework failed to deliver what they ordered in the time that was stated
This is far better than some crappy kickstarter that takes your money and disappears in the night
They have completely designed and manufactured their own board design and that’s really freaking hard
Hold Framework accountable to deliver on what is promised but don’t start assassinating their character by implying they’ve delivered a broken system
Framework delivered on the hardware, they delivered functional and improving firmware
Ultimately anyone buying this product should know 2 things
-
You are an early adopter, expect bugs and bug fixes as hardware rolls out
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This product is no different than any other OEM-you can find support horror stories for any OEM on their respective forums/subreddits-expecting a flawless product from a startup was unrealistic
Hold Framework accountable to deliver on what is promised but don’t start assassinating their character by implying they’ve delivered a broken system
Basically this.
Other OEMs pull moves like this all the time, except that they have enough stopping power in the industry to absorb criticism and come up smelling of roses every time some bad publicity hits them. We’re desensitised to it from those companies, so I get where @CJ_Elevated is coming from when it appears as though Framework is betraying trust.
I think we need to wait for a statement from Framework that outlines exactly what went wrong here.
On some levels I’d agree with you. If we were talking about billion dollar corporations that are faceless.
But Framework is not a billion dollar corporation nor faceless. The fine folks at Framework have participated on this forum and in this thread often.
Take a look at the world you live in. E-waste is a massive problem, and companies like Google and Apple with their ridiculous upgrade cycles are driving the trends higher and higher all in the name of more revenue.
Framework is not only crucial but they are selling a great product. Falling down on video over something that isn’t even important right now, is only for show. This is the material point.
Purism struggles to this day because of bad marketing and lies. They are rallied against on the internet everywhere. It has seriously damaged their image and hurt their sales. In their case it seems to be completely warranted.
Framework on the other hand has held to all of their promises with a few exceptions. Exceptions I might add which could be seriously out of their control since they are not directly producing their laptops.
My point is that being right and flogging it on video for views is a great way to torpedo something we all want to see survive. Now in 3 months, or a year or whatever, when we get the new mainboard for upgrade if they still haven’t figured it out, clickbait the heck out of it, and wax long winded about it until the cows come home.
Outside of that, accept that you don’t know as much as you think you do about computers and relax.
This is the foundation of the point. I knowingly, “overpaid” for the framework laptop by about $300 because of this niche feature. When I talk to people about the laptop, this is the first thing I tend to bring up. I also wantonly paid for the i5 version with the full intent to upgrade to the i7 version within a year even if it wasn’t running the 12th gen Intels.
This speaks to the old adage: Never buy first gen.
If however no one ever buys, then the company fails, and we never get a second-gen.
“Designed… to” and “can” are not present-tense, they imply possibility, not current functionality. I see the disconnect, the misunderstanding, and where they came from, but I most certainly don’t see where this witchhunt is coming from. I think the quotes above could have chosen their wording better to be more clear about the fact that this was future functionality, but assuming that it was worded to be intentionally misleading is more than one step too far. Framework has done nothing in the past to indicate that they are that kind of company, and what I’m reading here doesn’t appear to be a shift away from their past transparency in the slightest. If anything, I think what I’m seeing here is that Framework has done such a good job so far in supporting their customers and making sure they’re doing the right thing that perhaps we became a bit spoiled, such that it became possible for a 50-post thread to spawn from one bios function still being in beta.
I have a great deal of respect for the Framework team and for many of you here on this forum, including many who have already expressed dissenting points of view to mine here, but we really all need to step back and remember that we (framework staff included) are all human, we all make mistakes, we all miscommunicate, we all overreact, and that’s all okay. Own up to it and move on. We’re here because we agree with the mission to fix consumer electronics; the word ‘immediately’ and its synonyms are notably absent there. This will all take time, we just have to be patient and trust that NRP will keep his promise to ‘not [eff] this up,’ and hold him to it if he or his team reneges on that deal, but nothing here is evidence that any promise made is any closer to being broken, only that the makers of those promises, and those they made those promises to, are human, and that’s okay.
There is another possibility. Framework have said in a comment on the video that ‘It actually works with older firmware as well if you use a higher-wattage power adapter’. I am sure they will not have said that without testing it. They cannot have tested all brands of adapters. Maybe it just happened to work with the ones they used for testing. Maybe there is some reason that @CJ_Elevated’s adapter is not compatible for this purpose. Or maybe there is a fault in his motherboard.
I would have thought that the first thing to do when something they say works but he says does not is to reach out to Framework to investigate it further before posting public videos accusing them of breaking promises. He knows Framework are very responsive on this forum and to support questions, unlike so many other companies.
@njf Er no. It’s not a fault with just one board. They said that they are working on an update to allow it to work without a battery. Which means that it’s not currently implemented.
Further, laptops from yesteryear that had removable batteries were able to start without their battery. This is a normal thing I’ve come to expect from laptops. (granted that I haven’t purchased and torndown a laptop in quite a while)
@Shawn_Lewis I am referring to this quote from Framework.
‘3.06 firmware which is currently in beta testing has battery-less operation working (with a few nits), and will be fully functional in an upcoming firmware update. It actually works with older firmware as well if you use a higher-wattage power adapter, just not the 60W adapter we ship with.’
@njf, Then are you implying that CJ_Elevated’s 100W adapter did not produce 100 watts? Even though he measured it with a meter?