Expension cards on non framework laptops

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Hey there! :slightly_smiling_face:

I recently had a thought. What if you could use your framework expansion cards on other laptops? Imagine you have a framework laptop and a friend of you has not, but you could provide them with the expansion cards when they need IO they don’t have a card for. And not just as a box like USB-C dongle.
I know, this is likely not coming in the near future, but could you imagine Dell, HP, Asus or so adopting the system as it is open? This would also make it possible to use older modules for longer, as USB gets faster, and worse names, the cards will likely also need to adopt, but it would be nice to be able to use them on an old laptop further after upgrading the framework.

Also, this would make some laptops buyable again, as they seem to adopt USB-C as the only connector, partly even ditching the headphone jack (Looking at you Dell), which now that there is a headphonejack expansion card, could easily be fixed.

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You can use the expansion cards on any laptop that has USB-C.

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As I said, I want it to be integrated into the laptop like in the framework, because when I use it as a dongle I’d rather carry just a USB-C dock. A box sticking out of a laptop to adapt to another port may even block another port, as many USB-C ports come in pairs right next to each other, when you then put in a box in front of one you can’t use the other, which is really not ideal.

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I highly doubt the other hardware vendors will follow.
Especially since I doubt that Framework will forever keep the expansion card design they have right now.

As said above, you can already use the expansion cards on usb c interfaces, so I guess that’s as much as we will get for using framework expansion cards on other laptop vendors.