Pretty much all laptop manufacturer’s I see offer two sizes of laptop. The big one (~16in) and the small one (~13in). Ever since laptop screen bevels shrunk (making 13in laptops physical dimensions get smaller), the small laptop has been too small for me, but the big laptop is still too heavy and bulky. Personally I would absolutely love to have a 14.5in or 15in laptop.
Has framework considered offering a larger form factor as an option for their 13in laptop? This wouldn’t be economical for most laptop manufacturers, but since the body of a framework can last much longer than the internal hardware, it seems like they are uniquely positioned to provide such an option.
Offering a bigger laptop that uses the same internals as the Framework 13 would provide significantly more choice than a typical laptop manufacturer can offer, while allowing cross compatibility between the two form factors and (I think) minimizing the overhead of maintaining the additional option.
I’m sure traditional 13” models are too small for you, but are you certain that a framework 13 would be? The higher vertical screen real estate meant that for my use case, it could replace my old 16:10 15” just fine. And it was easier to lug around.
This. The Framework 13 is one of the largest 13" laptops I have used. It feels like a 14 out of the box. Because of this I don’t think it really makes sense for Framework to have an in-between for the 13 and 16. Rather, I think the hole right now, is in fact, something smaller. An 11" laptop would be truly excellent.
The Reform is beautifully design, but NOT in the same class of computing as the Framework 13. If you need x86_64 and umpf to do professional tasks, then Framework is a great solution.
I also think that Apple’s silicon has finally gotten Intel doing something significant, and the new chips coming out from them outperforming Apple silicon on both performance and power efficiency is truly impressive. I love x86 so I am glad to see it still bringing something to the table.
I’m sure traditional 13” models are too small for you, but are you certain that a framework 13 would be? The higher vertical screen real estate meant that for my use case, it could replace my old 16:10 15” just fine.
Yeah, I actually tried using a friend’s framework for a while. The extra height on the screen did make the display feel spacious, but my problem is actually with the outer width of the device. It is narrow enough that it falls between my legs when I try to sit with it. An extra inch of width (or even closer to half an inch in my case), makes this problem go away.
The other big hangup that I have with the 13 is the downward facing speakers, which seems to be a common complaint. We did a lot of troubleshooting with the speakers and that helped, but they still sounded odd to me facing the wrong direction compared to when we flipped the laptop over. I would think a bit of extra width would allow the speakers to go on top as well, which doesn’t seem possible with any iteration of the 13’s current form factor.
If the width and speakers are the only issues commission someone make a custom 3D printed case that is wider and flip the speakers around and leave some slots in the “wider” part of the laptop for sound to come through. This could use all the internals of a Framework Laptop 13.