I think you misunderstood this topic. Framework isn’t creating this RISC-V mainboard, DeepComputing is. So Framework isn’t wasting any development resources (maybe apart from giving them some internal documents and stuff and writing that blogpost), and it’s exactly like the community is developing their own mainboards and CPUs (the community being another smaller company in this case).
I’m sure we will see more GPUs in the Future and Framework has recently published a screen upgrade for the Framework 13 (no OLED though ).
I’m just afraid that those CPUs and mainboards will be useful primarily for developers. Hopefully, company didn’t had to do much engineering work to adopt those standards for their laptop.
For me, Framework is lacking as an end consumer product. I still cannot purchase it. Even if I could, it still needs a long way to go. It lacks any upgrade options to replace traditional laptops. It will probably never be able to be an alternative to ultra thin, touch screen laptops, but it isn’t really a competitor to gaming laptops either. Sure, it is fine as a general purpose laptop, but oh boy, its price bites for something which you could just replace with 3 regular laptops and sold it for pocket money at the end of their useful life.
Well that is exactly what they are for, developers. They are not meant for end-consumer products generally at this point.
Im not sure how is this any way true? The point is that they can be upgraded by switching the motherboard (and ram and ssd and wifi card). Even the webcam module can be upgraded.
Yes you can buy three cheap ass 500euro laptops with price of one, but those are not quality ones either. Depends of course what you want from the laptop.
“ultra thin” laptops comes with a cost, there is usually no way to upgrade even the ram, ssd might be upgradably but nowadays they tend to be soldered. So each to their own needs of course.
They are spent incrementally improving the device and providing avenues for new architectures in order to incrementally improve the platform. Nothing about appeasing anyone going on here. Just because you can’t see where the market is headed long term does not mean no one else does.
The rest of your post boils down to a tantrum because they don’t make the product you want…so what. Go buy the product you do want.
Seems you are just not the customer base for a Framework.
Yes, they don’t have “gaming laptop” but the 16" can still run games. Who knows what the extension bay can accommodate in the future.
If you want a gaming laptop, then you buy a gaming laptop. Nobody is saying that these should be gaming laptops. Nobody should think these are for “serious gaming”, well who would even buy a laptop for “serious gaming”.
I think FW currently provides a decent middle spot. They can be used for “casual” gaming and even more for production/productive work.
Seems like they are improving project for 3 years and it is still not out of testing phase. Still can’t buy it, mind you. It is the issue with all open source projects. They lack direction and prefer to do stuff like this in hopes that one day it will be really good. However, I rarely see such projects ever becoming good to anyone besides developers.
As for rest of my point, you just couldn’t be bothered to understand it.
Edit: Made a mistake. It has been 3 years instead of 4.
So why did you called it a tantrum if you understand what I’m saying?
It is also not my niche. That is expanding to Framework from being basically developer’s kit to a niche market product. I’m dramatically expanding its customer base by presenting needs and requirements which this community simply doesn’t understand due to them being developers. What Framework is doing now is appealing solely to developers. They make smallest fraction of their audience. After developers come tech enthusiasts who want to try out new stuff. This is the group I belong and what Framework does now doesn’t at all satisfy those needs.
This is really interesting to me, even though I’m not the target audience. I am looking forward to the future when a much more performant and supported RISC-V machine becomes available. Glad to see DeepComputing has selected the Framework platform for this product, and hope to see more from them in the future.
Framework made a 25-minute video a few days ago covering the development and some more details of the RISC-V mainboard.
One thing in particular that caught my attention is the only m.2 slot is dedicated to wifi and they’re using a microSD slot and a sort of defacto-standard eMMC socket for storage (and, of course, many Linux distros can be installed onto USB as well).
This begs the question though—is the wifi’s m.2 slot an E+M key (rather than the E-key only seen on the current Intel/AMD mainboards) so that an NVMe SSD can be used instead of wifi if so desired, like if using the 2.5Gb ethernet module? (the video even specifically mentioned the Cooler Master case which is a perfect use-case for not needing wifi and/or preferring ethernet—though, at that rate, why not have E+M key for the wifi slot on all Framework mainboards?)
I guess it is pretty clear that for laptops like FW, one will need risc-v chips with far more pcie and usb4 interfaces and inter-cpu links, so one can put more cpu chips on the mainboard to get more processing power.
The pinouts of e and m-key are not really compatible, the keys are there for a reason. M.2 is a connector with multiple different pinouts, the keys are both to tell you what kind it is and prevent you from plugging the wrong thing into the wrong port.
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