But it was a thing of beauty.
Even the 3 key, iirc, keyboard was expensive.
Iāve seen that in the 16 inch laptop you will be able to put the touchpad at the right or at the left. But I would really love to see a bigger touchpad. I donāt know if this could be made but it would be really coolā¦
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The thing about trackpads is that theyāre really, really annoying to engineer correctly. That being said, the only presently existing trackpad Iāve seen thatās bigger than Frameworkās current offering is a MacBook, and given the input modulesās USB connectivity Iām pretty confident someone will find a way to rig up an MBP trackpad to the 16ā at some point.
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Framework has never said that they WONT make a larger trackpad, but they also havenāt stated that they will. the good news for the 16" laptop is that all the keyboard modules are based on the RP2040 processor, and use qmk firmware, so there is a good chance that a community-made trackpad module could be made that is bigger than the standard module.
As for the Framework 13, the trackpad is integrated into the keyboard cover, which means it will be a lot harder to fit a larger trackpad into that device.
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Thereās pretty zero chance for that. Trackpads require very delicate electronics with very sensitive capacitive sensors, fragile materials and lots of manufacturing experience.
You could maybe repurpose an existing trackpad like the Apple one into the Framework but even that will require precision machining and figuring out the electronics and wonāt make much sense financially.
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If someone by chance does end up developing novel trackpad tech thatās both hackable for framework and economically viable, I have an unreasonable ask of a surface that takes up the entire input module bay. 3:2 old school drawing tablet!
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Shame though. I got spoiled by gloriously large Macbook trackpads (I got into Macs back when they wereā¦ repairable, and it took a while to shake the habit). Itās just about the only thing that I miss.
If someone [Framework or 3rd party] were to release a larger trackpad module for the 16āor even better, a large trackpad that you can click anywhere and not just on the bottom, I would happily pay a significant amount of money for that.
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I would add my voice to the chorus.
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Apple really hits it out of the park on the touch pad and it would be great if framework could reach out to apples supplier to see whatās possible.
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As an interim measure it would be nice if they could sell a module that the cover element is as wide as the laptop 16 inch laptop, I would give up the flexibility to get rid of the two side modules.
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If not 2, then maybe on double wide side module replace two narrow ones eliminating one of the lines.
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if not 3 or 2 then at least improve the fitment and color match of the side modules, the silver is very different from the touchpad color.
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if not 2 ,3 or 4 get @dbrand to produce a skin that is one piece for that area.
Lastly, all that said Iām loving the laptop, Its not quite as polished as my 2019 MBP but at least it has a future. Fedora 40 and windows 11 are solid on the laptop.
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It would also be great to get a click anywhere trackpad. It doesnāt need to be like a MacBook where it is all done through a haptic motor underneath it, because thereās not enough room for it. However, I do think that thereās opportunity for a click anywhere touchpad similar to the iPad Smart Keyboard Cover. It is a physical click anywhere trackpad that fits in a slimmer package. If they could increase the size of the trackpad while making it click anywhere it would really be perfect.
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I think a replacement touchpad is in some ways easier than a replacement keyboard, assuming youāre sourcing the actual touchpad module from synoptics or one of the other large vendors. As long as it has an I2C interface the FW16 should be able to talk to it.
Hey, so in theory it would be possible to implement a drawing tablet module? Could be handy for artists or something. Maybe make a module compatible with wacom pens or apple pencil (Iām still learning about those things so idk). But I think the concept would be cool. (Being a college student I believe this would be epic for note taking)
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Iām personally a screen tablet user BUT I do think some kind of pen interface would be awesome. An open-source screen tablet based on the FW16 LCD perhaps???
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Do you mean an alternative to the ātouchpadā module with a small drawing input surface on it? Sounds cool, and if the touchpad uses USB protocol, i dont see why notā¦
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Is there any news for that?
Iām not working on it ATM as I wouldnāt have much time. But maybe someone else. When I get a bit of time Iāll try and research how to do this.
But as for updates I canāt add anything.
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They shared this earlier. A display would be almost impossible to cram into there, let alone a touchscreen. The input modules sadly have a height restriction of 3.7mm. But it would be a cool product if they could manage to get it working!
Sorry, do you have the post or whatever they shared about it with the details of the problem? I wanted to delve deeper
The touchpad is actually an I2C interface, and the keyboard-side modules are USB 2.0 so thereās not a lot of bandwidth to play with. But if someone could find a reasonable thin touchscreen module to play with it would be interesting to try to get it mounted and hooked up.