I went onto a dark path (relatively speaking) and got a not-so-repairable/upgradeable laptop (testing out my options, may / may not return it). Comparing that with the FL13, I have the following wish list / request. Some I know are not generally available in the laptop market…but that’s what will make it a differentiator for Framework, not only a repaiable laptop or a repairable laptop like other laptops. I hope for a Framework laptop that is best of breed, class-leading:
OLED display option, factory calibrated.
(Near 100% for sRGB, AdobeRGB and DCI-P3. Such as the ATNA40YK20-0, though it’s not a 3:2)
Touchscreen option
NBD / overnight part shipping option (right now, even if one is willing to pay that price for overnight shipping, it’s not even a shipping option)
Esc/Fn-Lock LED indicator.
Muted speaker LED indicator.
Single hardware radio and network kill / stealth switch. (WiFi / Bluetooth / Ethernet silence)
Offer internal WWAN card option (i.e. with internal routed antenna)
Dedicated home / end / page up/down / insert keys.
Thicker chassis for:
2nd internal M.2 2280 slot.
99.9 Wh battery
More RAM modules (192GB+)
Larger heatsink
Better speakers.
Speaker placement: Up-firing or rear-firing (with bounce back…don’t know the right term for it) speakers
Move the lid close sensor to the lid away from the keyboard / lower chassis
Framework-developed graphical fan control solution (no compiling, no scripting, no config file editing), for Windows and supported Linux distro(s).
Framework-tuned speaker profile.
Microphone array with noise suppression (e.g. keyboard typing, fan noise suppression).
The only reasons I purchased a macbook over the framework are:
ARM chip (battery life)
haptic touchpad
a proper battery limiter (aldente in my case)
no screen/lid bouncing
Please just copy Dell Power Manager, and add a “stop charging” and “start charging” percentage (not just the stop percentage currently available in the framework bios).
Thank you for reading! Looking forward to picking up a framework 13 when these features become available.
Hello, I just wanted to chime in with an idea I had as well: (sorry if it has been mentioned before, I didn’t find anything when searching the forum)
I would probably buy a touch screen option if it’s available in the future; however I understand that designing/supporting/making negotiations for one more panel is an overhead that is probably not worth it yet for the team, which is understandable.
So for now I went ahead and bought an external touch screen, which gave me the following idea:
What if instead of shipping a whole 2-in-1, some progress could be made just by shipping a future laptop only with the appropriate hinges and chassis. This allows to:
Fold the laptop 360° on a desk with the keyboard facing up, to allow connecting an external screen, and eliminate the need for connecting extra peripherals
This even provides more reusability options when retiring an old device, as this setup could be an alternative for remounting the mainboard on the standalone chassis etc
Fold the laptop, to use with an external portable monitor (for using on your lap or on an airplane)
Some users might just prefer a bigger screen (e.g. I imagine there would might be even 3rd party folding screens)
Some users might want a touch screen
There is room for the community to make 3D printed designs, to externally clip these screens on the chassis.
This would probably be easier to make, since:
It splits the development cost of a 2-in-1 laptop to 2 product generations
No need to secure the supply of the touch screens right now
It could provide some insights for interest in the touch screen, e.g. maybe the folding hinge could be a customizable option when ordering
If there really isn’t any significant interest, you can still never ship a full touch screen product, while still providing the above usability options
This is a completely unrealistic dream right now, but maybe they will visit this idea in 5-10 years when they are expanding and have the money to throw around.
First, a lot of people seem to be under the impression that the framework laptop is a “developer” focused computer which isn’t exactly true from what I understand. Their modular products appeal to developers and tinkerers, but ultimately, to be successful, they have to target the general market. This is why they don’t make thicker laptops that compromise weight for battery life, keyboard travel, and I/O. They aren’t replacing Thinkpads, they are trying to replace the average consumer’s laptop. (But I may be wrong, so feel free to correct me)
But once FW is a little larger, they could maybe afford to create a more “niche” developer-focused lineup of 14-inch laptops that more resemble thinkpads. It would be a little thicker and heavier but have better battery life, a better keyboard with more travel and independent keys for home/end/insert/PgUp/PgDn/etc, a trackpoint and mouse buttons, a full-size ethernet port, LTE connection, and more. It would have all the little features people have been asking for, but that FW can’t do because they would compromise too much of what the average consumer wants/expects. It would be a productivity-focused workhorse.
Because of the slightly bigger size, it could also come with the more powerful CPU options we see in the FW16. It probably wouldn’t come with an option for a GPU unless they decided to put it on the mainboard which would go against the repairability aspect, but then again, this product line would exist to break some of the rules and constraints that other framework products are restricted to so it could be possible.
Strix Halo support in the FW13. I know it’s a stretch and that the high end SKU’s really won’t fit into the power limiting for current FW13 thermal solutions, but as a video editor who loves the portability of my 13 (and does not want to switch to a giant laptop like the 16), I think that the ability to allocate up to 96gb of vram could make it extremely useful for video editing, and even more so if there is LPCAMM support for the lower latency, lower power draw as well as faster speeds. There is an extra vent on the FW13 that is currently unused, and with LPCAMM2 maybe enough space can be made for an auxiliary fan to cover the extra heat (I’ve heard power predictions of 45w for the lowest end SKU). I would most definitely take the power draw hit of something like this for the performance increase and the amount of VRAM it can provide (there probably wouldn’t be enough physical space for having enough ram to allocate 96gb to the IGP, but anything remotely close to that (over 8gb) is still fantastic.
Combination expansion cards. I know this has been beaten to death but I think its unironically really important.
a. For the FW16, an HDMI/AUX combination card should be doable in the space given (I think?, I’m no expert).
b. Additionally, it would be pretty awesome if the SD card expansion card had a microsd slot on the bottom so that I don’t have to carry around an adapter to use both form factors. I recognize this could be really difficult and I don’t expect it but also it would be kinda cool.
c. A storage expansion card with USB A pass through. The DongleHider+ has shown that its possible and it could be really helpful for an extra 0.125 - 0.5tb of storage while not losing functionality. It wouldn’t need to be fast as that would most likely be used for backup storage anyways and would be a good compromise between the storage expansion module and a USB A expansion card.
At some point it would be cool to find a way to give the FW13 extra expansion card ports without compromising internal space. This is kinda sorta reeeallly hard so I don’t think it’ll happen.
A second M.2 slot. I think this can work with LPCAMM2 (definitely not strix halo though), even if it is 2230, would be so helpful.
A low power (15-20w) dgpu for the FW13, integrated onto the board. I’m talking something like the Geforce MX 570, maybe with a little more VRAM.
Please make the framework logo light up, like the old Macbooks. You know the ones.
Keep in mind this is what I want, especially items 1,2,3,5. Items 4 and 6 are slightly more legitimate suggestions.
Tricky if you want to isolate the audio stuff from the noisy hdmi stuff bit potentially doable.
That may be really hard space wise, they could provide a microsd adapter that sits flush in the sd holder as a compromise though right?
Dongle hider is amazing but it isn’t a good analog for what youa re asking here, once you have the usb-a and usb3 hub circuitry there is going to be very little space left for the actual storage bit. If you just need a little bit of low speed storage you can just stick a low profile usb-stick into a dongle hider I guess. While I myself would love that too there just isn’t enough space in an expansion card to do that well.
That is literally a paradox, you can’t add more expansion card slots without reducing internal space. On the 13 I don’t think it is worth it. Would be neat to have a few extra ports though like a few usb-c if any potential new chips had more of them available.
If they can make lpcamm and a second m.2 slot (preferably 2280 but I’ll take shorter ones too) working I may consider upgrading early, those are major wish-list items for me too.
That really doesn’t sound worth the board space and segmentation, not to mention that nvidia working with framework is extremely unlikely.
That would be pretty doable but would require a lid with a transparent logo and slightly modified screens. If they can’t justify the lower yields for the transparent bezels I doubt they’ll go for that.
Yeah, I was more talking about an amd/intel low power equivalent, and could be doable with the extra board space afforded by lpcamm2
If i recall correctly, framework struggled with the transparent bezels because they were injection molded and couldn’t hit tolerances. The mac ones were made out of a different kind of clear plastic that wasn’t injection molded (i forgor what kind), so I don’t think it would necessarily be yield lowering. I would pay the extra $10-20 for that to be a thing.
I think you’re right about a lot of the other statements though! (I am so down bad for an extra m.2 slot as well as lpcamm2 for video editing performance)
But you would need different displays without the opaque back layer which is a different sku and would need a change in manufacturing for no practical gain.
I would like to see an option for an Intel Core Ultra Series 2 9 288v or an AMD Ryzen AI 9 375HX in both the 13 inch and 16 inch models. I would like to see an option for Samsung 990 Pro or Evo SSDs in addition to Western Digital SSDs.
Mentioned elsewhere, but a BIOS update that introduces a “display preference” option, where AMD Framework laptops can direct display output to an external display (not the internal one, as they do now) from power on. I use my FW13 AMD 7840U most of the time in clamshell mode, and being able to restart without having to open it up to enter the LUKS password would be really nice. After six weeks of ownership, that is pretty much the only thing I wish were different.
It would be cool to have the ability to set a customisable message that appears during bootup e.g. “Property of Framework Computer. If found, please contact etc…”
could you clarify what this feature would be?
if you’re talking about shipping, that would probably be a thing for a general framework feedback thread.