I think is a must to have some basic io, and the audio is one of them, also one usb c for charging sounds reasonable
Also taking one connector out and adding 2 more expansions means adding one expansion
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I think the big issue is having ports part of the chassis means theyāre much more difficult to repair. Having all the ports be modular makes them easily repairable, since the wear and tear of connecting and disconnecting will do them in over time.
Look at how shoddy my 1-year-old phoneās USB-C charging port is now, where it wonāt charge unless itās at just the right angle. Having the port be modular ensures an easy fix.
Edit: Granted, I think the port might be repairable as it stands, been a while since I opened up the machineā¦ but having it all be part of the same expansion card system makes more sense to me.
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The advantage with the audio jack in the expansion port is that itās easily replaceable when either broken or when you want to upgrade. The Framework 13 inch version has relatively bad audio, but youāll be able to upgrade it through the expansion port. Or if you get the 16 inch version, itās possible that at some point Framework or someone else will release additional audio modules, maybe a super expensive one with very high quality, or a very cheap one, or one with a separate mic and stereo port.
I only use bluetooth headphones, so I donāt really care about the headphone jack.
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I disagree, the usb/jack doesnāt need to be soldered to the motherboard, that is bad, and largely demonstrated, it ever has to be a little board with a connector so in case it brakes it will be easy to change with no soldering needed
I think the exclusion of an analog, wired, error-free device in exchange for a Bluetooth, battery-powered, low quality, that fails just when you really need it, is a step back
Is like getting rid of physical inputs on cars and making it all digital, with a dependency on it, there is energy, if the computer doesnāt crash, and saying is the future, because is digital, is not, having a solid reliable input will ever be better
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Must say i donāt like bluetooh or any wireless, donāt like to have to deal with its out of battery, low quality or lag
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This isnāt an iPhone, you can keep that functionality if you want. You define basic I/O as the audio jack and a charging port. Others might say that an HDMI out is essential. Still others would say RJ45/Ethernet. Eventually if we add in all the ābasicā I/O ports we have a laptop like any other. FW decided to leave it all up to the users.
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As someone who hates that other companies have moved to remove headphone jacks from phones and laptops I actually like the way Framework is going about this. While I love having the audio jack on my laptop I must admit that 90% of the time, I donāt even use it. Having the ability to swap it for a different port unless I need it is great, and I would say that if you NEED a headphone jack all the time, then it should just be an expansion card that you always have installed, just like weāve already needed to have USB-C installed to charge the 13" laptops. If you need more than 5 other ports besides the headphone jack, then there are always dongles or other laptops on the market that have those, so maybe the Framework Laptop 16 just isnāt the right one for you, and thatās okay.
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Youāre in luck. You can now have 6 jacks on the new Framework 16 
.
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And the possibility, in the future, to use upgraded/3rd-party higher-end 3.5 jack cards with different DACs, and/or combined optical output!
So I like this greater modularity.
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This is the same conversation as the numpad. There are strong opinions, and you get to choose.
I hope Framework tracks and tells us how many people choose 3.5mm out, and I hope the data favors telling smartphone makers and Apple they are arrogantly wrong. If itās a combo mic jack as well, Iām probably getting two.
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5 ports of anything you want is still more than most 16-inch laptops out there.
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FTFY. What other laptop lets you customize ports? (for real tho, Iām just having fun, not trying to be mean).
but what if you do not have to? it is small enough to fit anywhere, is also in part a gaming device-oriented, I have seen most gamers use wired headsets, and now days home office is getting popular, so using a headset is something that is needed therefor. The office gave me a wireless headset but I myself use wired on my pc and earbuds when I am on the way. Maybe framework should put a vote for that instead of removing it, like Azure already sed, there are too many people to hate that smartphone remove the audio jack, it was so useful
if the usb is that important, why not having at least one build-in?
Donāt get me wrong, I donāt hate the framework, I was waiting for the ryzen one because is the one that makes sense to me, I just donāt want it to go the wrong way. Is so nice when a company listen what customers want, and I was so sad when I read about the fairphone getting rid of the audio jack, and it was so disappointing hearing they excuses
But yes, the company is new and for sure there will grow and will have the ability to offer more options or make even better what they already have. And maybe make a survey before making some changes
But Framework isnāt going to remove the option for one. It allowed us to have 6 of them!
In all seriousness, this is a non-issue beause it both allows users which need one to have it and those who donāt to have a spare slot. But it also allows those who need it to upgrade in the future. Or remove it when not needed (on the go?).
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Is removed from the laptop and now is an expansion option, so the 16" has just 1 expansion more than the 13" if you need the jack, what I can imagine will be most of the cases. I get the beauty of upgrading the sound, but I donāt believe that for the people that want better audio than what is onboard, that will fit in the card size
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If you could just plug an expansion card into the fair-phone it would not be a problem but you canāt so thatās not really comparable.
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Same I was all set to replace my 2015 iphone 6s with a Fairphone until thatā¦ Still getting regular security updates so at least one more yearā¦ Again!
This is true, for those interested in a headphone jack you only get one additional port but hey now it can go whichever side you want and like others said it is way easier to repair.
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Really? Took a look at a few on notebookcheck and Iām seeing the norm as 7-8 ports, not counting any dedicated mic and headphone jacks as 2 and NOT counting the power delivery.
Edit: I guess the point was 5 ports you want rather than how many portsā¦
I searched the most recently released 16.x" seems to be as before Framework has the trade-off of fewer ports but with customisation and easy replacements.
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I hope there will be a default expansion card that will have two or more modules and a battery 
Iāll take that one. And the GPU one will have to provide display ports as wellā¦ They didnāt have that in the demos but who knows what will actually see the light of day.
Iād actually take 8 expansion cards and Iād prefer a less curved bottom of the laptop at the sides in the front.
Also as a saving grace it could be that somebody will have usbc splitters. I donāt really need all connections to be USB3, usb2 is fine for mouses and other slow stuff.
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Anyone who cares more about audio quality is happy. A dedicated dac separated from the high noise mainboard is very nice! Also, I wouldnāt want history to repeat itself with the 13" dac quality on the 16" xD
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