Frustrating website

General Topics
1

I wanted to buy a Frame.Work laptop last month. Wanted because I still haven’t. The website is outright making me annoyed and I doubt the Frame.Work team has ever tried ordering on themselves to test it out.

Sorry if I sound angry, but I think I’m going to just buy something else instead of a Frame.Work, because of a website. This shouldn’t be like this.

Let’s start here. I go to this link:

I can now choose between two processors:

German Intel® Core™ i7-1185G7
British English Intel® Core™ i7-1185G7

This is the first time I’ve ever heard about Intel making specific processors for England and Germany but maybe this is a new thing? Oh no wait, those aren’t processors, that’s a combination of a processor and a keyboard layout! So if I order either of them, I get a laptop with a weird keyboard layout. And there’s no option underneath to select a keyboard layout! Who thinks this is a great idea??? If I bought either of them, I would have had to send the laptop back, costing Frame.Work money and me frustration.

Ok Let’s check the other factory seconds version.

Oh now I can choose 4 different processors! Great! Except two are German, two are English. Yeah that’s not making any of it better. Still no normal keyboard layout so I’d over to order a spare keyboard just to make it a functional laptop.

Ok well, I guess I there’s no point in buying those. Ok let’s check with new laptops then. Surely that works!

Ok great now I can actually select a keyboard layout. Except it makes zero sense.

  • International English
  • International English - Linux
  • US English
  • Blank ANSI+€10
  • Blank ISO+€10
  • Clear ANSI+€10
  • Clear ISO+€10
  • British English
  • Belgian
  • Danish
  • French
  • French Canadian
  • German
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Spanish (Latin American)
  • Spanish (Spain)
  • Swedish/Finnish
  • Traditional Chinese (Cangjie & Zhuyin)

Well at least I can select something. When I remove the languages I don’t need I end up with:

  • International English
  • International English - Linux
  • US English
  • Blank ANSI+€10
  • Blank ISO+€10
  • Clear ANSI+€10
  • Clear ISO+€10

Only the bottom 4 make sense. Two normal keyboards, two English keyboards. But what is International English? Is that a modified English keyboard or a normal keyboard? What is US English?

There are no pictures, the FAQ doesn’t help me at all. There’s zero information. Keyboard layouts have naming conventions for a reason, to avoid this frustration. Why can’t the site just mention which one is the normal US-ANSI keyboard layout? Why doesn’t the FAQ explain this with pictures and names?

If I wasn’t bald I’d be pulling my hairs out by now.

2 Likes
2

Just to clarify, I’m not specifically looking for help. I want the website fixed. If Frame.Work wants to sell laptops, these are not the problems anyone should encounter. If I can’t even find a way to order a laptop with the correct keyboard layout, then I’m probably customer one thousand who has the same issue, except I decided to take the time to make a post about it, instead of just directly going to another manufacturer.

1 Like
3

Demanding change on a user forum is unlikely to achieve the result that you wish.

Your points are reasonable. Your tone is a bit much, but somewhat understandable.

Rather than venting to a bunch of people who largely won’t care, why not reach out to Support with your suggestions? They are good ones, just misdirected.

In the mean time, you can take a look at the keyboards in the marketplace to see if that helps you to determine which option might work for you.

Have a good day.

3 Likes
4

Factory seconds units are pre-built, not DIY. That’s why we don’t have every single keyboard layout possible.

For the “regular” laptops, I believe you can use the marketplace listing, those have pictures you can zoom in and see the exact layout.

Where would you like to see more information about the keyboard layouts? just descriptions? FAQ? pictures you can zoom easily?

5

I already reached out but got vague responses. I was hoping this would make the team understand. It’s not a demand, I just hope it can be changed as it’s frustrating. I’m fully aware my tone is a bit much but it’s really frustrating.

1 Like
6

Well, you got Destroya’s attention, so if you explain what you find confusing and how it could be better, in bullet points, you may get the results you desire. And which would help everyone out, to be fair.

Best of luck with it, thank you for holding a high bar.

7

I personally don’t care if it’s pre-built or not. I prefer a cheaper version and I don’t mind putting it together but pre-built is easier. My problem isn’t with not having every layout available, it’s with the website not explaining what it is. When the keyboard layout isn’t specified but the processor is labeled as “German Intel”, it just looks like gibberish. When layouts aren’t labelled in a way that I can’t easily see what the layout is, it’s frustrating. Same thing with another brand. At work we have thrown away over 500 keyboards because this other brand decided to change ANSI to ISO, but kept selling it under the same EAN number, same boxes, and kept calling it “US International”.

It never came up to me to check the marketplace listings, but I shouldn’t have to do that. It should be clear on the page where you buy the laptop.

What I would like to see is:

  • International English - ANSI
  • International English - ISO
  • International English - Linux - ANSI
  • International English - Linux - ISO
  • US English - ANSI
  • US English - ISO

(all should have either the ANSI or the ISO version, but added both to make it easier)

Pictures in the FAQ would be even better if the back-end allows it.

Now that I looked at the marketplace, it does appear that International English is ANSI. If that tiny bit of information was included in the normal ordering part on the website, I would have ordered a laptop a month ago. And again, I’m far from the only one running into this. Most people walk way instead of complaining about it. It’s that I adore the idea of how FW works, or I wouldn’t have made this post.

1 Like
8

I was just sharing context, they are pre-built and we store the units with the keyboards/input cover kits installed, that saves us (and the customers) money and time, we don’t have to have a big number of SKUs etc… Factory seconds initially became available for NA with only one keyboard layout and it was launched in EU this year with British English and German keyboard options. “German” alone might be confusing but it makes sense when you see it together with British English. Also, if you scroll all the way down, you can see this:

Factory Seconds Components

B-stock

  • Hinge Kit - 3.3kg
  • Display Kit - Original - B-stock
  • Battery - 55Wh
  • Speaker Kit - Original
  • Input Cover Kit - British English, German, or US English
  • Wi-Fi - Intel’s AX210 No VPro (British English and German systems only)

I don’t think it’s that confusing.

That being said, I agree with you for the second part, it should be easier to understand what these keyboard layouts look like in the configurator. I had to double check today to answer a Twitter DM (I’m assuming it was yours?) and I had to check a few different sources.

Can you please check the configurator for the Framework Laptop 16, the keyboard section? Is it more understandable? Framework | Fix Consumer Electronics

1 Like
9

Just want to add that you can check what the keyboard layouts look like by the images on the Keyboards marketplace page. I agree this should really be in the FAQ or configurator.

For the ones you think you’re interested in:

  • “US English” is the US-ANSI layout you’ve likely used on every American laptop.
  • “International English” is US ANSI but with an alt-gr key instead of right alt, and some altered/European symbols on the number row.
  • “International English - Linux” is international English, but instead of the Windows key, it just has the word “super”. I own one of these, and I can tell you that unless you change software to tell your OS that the layout is international ansi, it behaves just like “US English” (I actually took some keycaps off of my old US English board to make the lettering match the function).
  • Blank have no letter legend and the input cover’s backlight LEDs won’t shine through, they’ll only shine around the keys in the tiny gaps between the cover and the keycap.
  • Clear have no letter legend but are clear plastic, so you can see the PCB through the keycaps and the backlight LEDs will shine through.

The one keyboard oddity on Framework 13 compared to other laptops is the enter key: to save cost and only need one metal pattern for the input cover, on ANSI models the enter key has a recessed plastic bit to cover the empty space that the ISO enter key would normally take up. That’s present on all models, I hardly notice it now.

10

It appears indeed on one at the bottom, not when I use the other link. I haven’t seen it before. I was focused on the configurator.

The configurator of the 16" model is amazing. I wished the 13" was looked like that. That’s removing every confusion. I never looked at the 16" as those are huge laptops and I wish to be able to take the laptop with me. My old 13.3" laptop was already too bulky to carry around in a reasonable way and taking it with me to the park or something to write books was a bit much.

11

This makes sense. Especially combined with the FW 16 link that Destroya gave me.

I’m in the Netherlands and every laptop we order for work purposes has a standard US-ANSI layout. Every keyboard we order has a standard US-ANSI layout. I’m one of the only people that has the euro key on a keyboard as I’m using a more vintage one that I brought in as I don’t want to type on a bad feeling keyboard. I don’t even know how to get the euro logo to appear in normal software. The only method I’ve ever used was \euro in LaTeX using the eurosym package.

The key looks identical to some other ANSI keyboards so that’s not a problem. At least it’s not ISO.

Is the top plate different between models of keyboards? Can the US English ANSI keyboard fit inside the top plate of the English ISO?

12

I believe it can fit. ANSI & ISO were made to both use the same plate / input cover.
But, you don’t really want to swap them unless you have no choice. There is a reason Framework sells the whole input cover assembly for every keyboard. The keyboard is attached to the plate / input cover with a lot of tiny PH0 screws. Presumably the construction was necessary to keep the FWL13 as slim as it is.

13

Thank you all for the feedback, I’ll share these with the marketplace team!