It certainly feels like there exists a high(er) capacity battery that fits roughly the same physical space, but I checked Xps13, which only has <60Wh too.
But XPS15 has a 91Wh battery that doesn’t seem to have twice the volume (maybe it does?)
Putting the battery capacity aside for a moment…but still battery life related. (Afterall, it’s the battery life / runtime duration that really counts)
There seems to be something that Dell did with the XPS 15 firmware that allows it to have REALLY good runtime with Alder Lake.
Specifically, this chart from the 11:08 mark of the video:
Seems like Dell did some voodoo dark magic with the XPS 15 firmware.
I suspect the easiest path forward would be for Framework to release an updated bottom panel that does not feature a taper, which I assume would create enough space for a high capacity battery
I’ll also use this opportunity to advocate for a second PCIE slot, which would be enabled by an updated bottom panel.
Not that all design cues should come from Apple, but the new aesthetics of the MBAir should make such a design change by Framework easy to justify.
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I like this idea I think it could add about 10% capacity.
Personally I would like to see them redesign for a 14” additionally make it thicker especially if it means that can move/reduce the speakers footprint.
If speakers space was instead used by battery and taper removed and 14” (thickness unchanged) we should see at least 30% more capacity.
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The wind blows in news of “battery breakthroughs” daily but it’s not all bollox. Even setting aside the more promising new non-lithium battery technologies, Li-ion still has legs.
I’m pretty confident that within the 5-year lifetime of any regular laptop sold today we will see at least a doubling of energy density, a significant increase in recharge cycles and reduction of charging time.
That pretty much assures me that around the time when non-Framework laptop owners are feeling they need to trade in their worn-out machines, Framework owners will be able to dig out that little screwdriver/spudger and swap out their 55Wh battery for a 100Wh battery with the identical form factor.
If Framework stays in business, of course. But if they don’t, two things will happen: the laptops themselves will become sort-after collectors’ items, and third-party manufacturers will be only too happy to create new batteries (and other spares) for the millionaires who can afford those Framework collectors’ items.
And I’m only half-joking about that last bit.
–
Chris
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Maybe solve the module drain of 1,5 wh… draining 12 W in 8H doing nothing. It s a major design flow. 20W gone to prolongate a USB C to USB C or A 
Hmm!
The bottom panel doesn’t taper, there is just a cut away to allow the speaker output. ??
It is tapered at the front and the sides where the speakers are. Looking at the profile of the laptop, the front facing portion is not squared right?
Did you hear about the lithium-sulphur based battery? Focus was on EVs when I read about it but looks to be an interesting new development!
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Yes apart from the sides which I wouldn’t call a taper as it’s just a speaker grill, so to speak, yes there is a ‘bevel’ at the front of about 1cm is that the ‘taper’ you are referring to ?
Yes this is the correct word to describe what has been referred to as a taper above.
It seems like commercial Li-S atm is a bust. Sion has pivoted to lithium-metal (no more mentions of lithium sulfur at all on their site) and OXIS, which was promising mass production instead went bankrupt last year. The “Commercialization” section of Li-S on Wikipedia: Lithium–sulfur battery - Wikipedia
Not all is doom on the battery front though. I saw that Amprius announced the first commercial shipments of their 450Wh/kg 1150Wh/L Si-nanowire batteries earlier this year https://amprius.com/corporate-announcements/amprius-technologies-ships-first-commercially-available-450-wh-kg-1150-wh-l-batteries and are going public this year.
I’m sure these batteries are insanely expensive atm, but I wonder if it’d even be possible to get some to test for small-scale R&D yet.
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Wouldn’t it be easier to come out with a U series Motherboard that increases battery life? AMD would be preferred but U series seems like an easy way to get better battery life.
Just use RAPL to limit your PL1 to 15W and you’ll have the equivalent of U-series battery life.
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I think it would be so cool if Framework wrote their own firmware from the ground up similar to what System76 is doing (it’s written in rust btw, makes the code more robust and trustworthy). The Lemur Pro laptop has 14hrs battery life which is awesome, and they have super fast boot times and let you change the keyboard layout in firmware. In some sense I wish that System76 and Framework would merge because Framework seem to do a really good job with hardware but System76 are doing an amazing job with software/firmware. Currently they don’t produce their own laptop designs, they use Clevo units.
Currently it seems that Framework are really lagging behind when it comes to firmware, stuff like power drain during sleep and expansion card power drawing. They should probably invest more in the firmware.
Before someone tells me to just get a Lemur Pro, my understanding is that they have quality control issues and I live in Europe so there isn’t first class support here.
Sorry, this is a bit of a stream of consciousness post.
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From what I remember System76 firmware is available on github here: GitHub - system76/firmware-open: System76 Open Firmware
Maybe perhaps Framework can take some cues from the software there?
That being said, Framework team is really small, so not sure if they can spare their own manpower to create or maintain the firmware at this level.
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Yeah you’re probably right, but I think firmware is super important. Especially given a lot of the problems the framework has with sleep state battery drain. I hope they’re making enough money so they justify expanding their operation to do this but I suppose it’s an easy cost saving to take something more off the shelf.
Me too, that’s why I hope they can kinda start with taking cues from System76 github and go from there.
I am a desktop user but from within desktops, Gigabyte BIOS vs ASUS BIOS is a huge difference there.
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Haha it’s more that they were looking for Firmware engineers and didn’t have any before- if the hiring page is any indication it seems as thought Frameworks now has 2 of their very own Firmware Engineers! 
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Hopefully, they can take cues from the System76 ones as a base to apply the tweaks.
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That’s exciting news!
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