Power supply: 3 ports (at least more than one) as standard

Framework Laptop 13
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Today everything uses standard USB or USB-PD to charge. If it does not you can add PD modules to it. Having a 65 W PSU with only one port is very unfortunate as it limits it to a single device.

Imagine plugging in your laptop, phone and a charging case for your wireless ear phones into a single charger. This is already pretty common for such chargers and it gives the user the flexibility to bring only one charger on the go rather than multiple of them.

The nice thing about this is that it will have a minimal effect on cost but improve the practicality considerably. The size will also be pretty much the same.

For a 65 W PSU, it would be able to charge both the laptop and additional low-powered devices like a phone, smartwatch, TWS charging case, battery bank, headlamp or even a game controller or any other USB-based battery device. If the power supply is rated at a higher power output, the laptop can charge at the full 65 W power while also charging two other devices. A higher power design as an option, say 95 W, will also make it more future-proof. It will then be ready for any future device that can charge at 95 W, no need to buy a new charger and waste unecessary resources and money.

I find single-port chargers to be such a bad utilization of resources in 2022 as adding additional ports is a small part of the total part cost. It also lead you to take up multiple power outlets just to charge additional devices. It is such a trivial technical thing to achieve and has obvious environmental benefits.

So my suggestion is to revisit the design and at at least one additional port, preferably 3. The wattage can stay the same, but an optional higher power PSU would be great as well.

To address some points below:
If this is already readily available, why not just buy from someone else?
This is an easy and cheap design revision to considerably improve the product so it´s already not a big deal to achieve. As to why Framework should do it is because they do make a point about environmental impact and ethical sourcing. And I would rather want to support Framework, a company with great values and openness, than some Chinese company which doesn´t make these promises.

And I want Framework to succeed and make the best products they can.

What is the problem with single-port chargers exist, is it hardly a big deal?
If you care about reducing resource usage and not having to buy several chargers, yes. It´s better for the environment, you only need to pack one charger and it will only take up one power outlet. Looking for additional sockets and chargers should be unecessary in 2022 considering how little impact this additional practicality actually cost to produce.

So it´s about practicality and flexibility but also for the environment (which, to be fair, is something we don´t really have the luxury of ignoring anymore).

It´s considerably better features for about the same price. It´s a no-brainer to me. :slight_smile:

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Framework’s own charger provides enough power for their own laptop to charge quickly and perform at it’s best, lower than 60W to the laptop will lower the CPU’s boost range while still charging. There’s a very large market of multiport GaN type-C chargers out there that can that meet your specifications, and you can order the Framework without the AC adapter if you’re going to use an aftermarket one.

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That is not the point. The point is that the charger that is included is impractical and unecessarily limited and could be much better with small and cheap modifications to the design.

Of course you can buy a different charger, different SSD, different RAM or even a different laptop alltogether. The point here is to make Framework as good as it can get, right? :slight_smile: And to make environmentally sensible products to minimize resource usage?

So why limit the charger to only serve the laptop and requiring you to have additional chargers for additional devices?

You are not forced to use more than one port outlet if it does have more than one port, but it is nice to have the choice at least and not having to bring more than one charger. In 2022 that should be unecessary.

Like I said, ideally, the power supply should be 90 W or something so that it could charge the laptop at 65 W and also provide additional devices with power. It is very straight forward to configure the ports such that the high power USB-C port will always provide 65 W regardless of other devices being plugged in.

But if they do not want to increase the cost of the charger, even if it is not by much, then a 3-port 65 W PSU is still much better than the 1-port PSU of today.

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The utility of extra ports on a charger when a laptop is involved is actually a little lower: the Framework will happily pass on power to USB devices plugged in to other ports. I haven’t tested at what voltage/power level it is prepared to do so, but it’s certainly enough to charge a phone.

A change that probably more directly improves user experience is if Framework would change their supplied cables to ones that don’t fray as easily: I think the currently supplied cable has a mean time to failure of well under a year (based on a sample of 2 as well as anecdotal reports on the forum).

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passthrough is enough to charge any small PD device, which is more than enough unless one needs to charge another laptop. any other usage is niche, but luckily framework doesn’t force one to get the default charger – which is tuned to “typical” use.

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I strongly disagree. It is not lower at all. It does not take away anything, it only adds functionality and flexibility. You can still charge it in the same manner as before if you so choose to.

If you rely on the laptop to pass on power to other devices you take up one port, which there are too few of already. And the power has to come from somewhere and will only contribute negatively to thermals in the laptop (although this is really not the biggest issue).

I know not everyone needs more ports (but why limit it to the minimal use-case?).

What you are essentially suggesting is reducing the functionality of the laptop by sacrificing one available port to achieve what I proposed but without sacrificing any ports. The thing is, your proposed solution is already possible on all laptops.

Personally, I am using a ThinkPad now with 6 ports. 7 if you count SD card reader which would take up one module on Framework. I do get into situations where I need more ports, so 4 ports is just very limiting for me. Reducing that to 3 is even worse. Essentially 2 because one of them has to be dedicated to charging…

The power supply could be much better at a similar price point. Adding 2 ports will have a minimal impact to the price. And you do not sacrifice a port on the laptop.

We should not isolate every product to a very narrow view use-case. We should be able to see benefits beyond just “this purchase should benefit my laptop only”. To think bigger picture, especially when the cost-impact is minimal, is how you make superior and well-designed products.

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This was always possible and you will lose a port on the laptop. It does not solve the impractical and functionality-limited charger and only contributes to limiting the functionality rather than expanding it.

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there is no limited functionality to the vast majority of laptop users these days. i am right now in the same room with two people using laptops. i have my phone plugged and the other two have nothing plugged. pretty much everyone i’ve seen in the past 10 years with a laptop that isn’t hooked to a screen has at most one busy port at a time most of the time.

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If it were trivial for Framework to engineer an adapter with the necessary PD switching logic, so trivial that it makes a single port charger obsolete, why didn’t they, or any other manufacturer do it? If you have a specific use case where you need to charge 2-3 devices at max speed at once, and also use 3 other ports on the laptop, aftermarket chargers or type-c hubs are freely available and compatible.

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Objectively speaking there is no getting around the fact that your suggestion does reduce the functionality. You take away one port.

And just because you do not currently use more ports does not mean everyone else have the same use-case as you. You should not argue against other use-cases just because it does not match yours. It seems like we use computers in a different way. I won´t force you to adopt my way of doing things, so why do you insist on limiting others to yours?

What you are describing is just an anecdote and my experience is not the same. Everyone I know use external displays, wireless mouse receiver, occational USB drive and SD card at the same time. Personally I have up to 3 devices storage devices connected at once (one which is a camera).

Please do not argue against advantages that does not inhibit your use-case just because you specifically don´t care about it. It makes no sense.

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It´s easy to make assumptions. There are a million questions like these. There are technologies that are cheaper and better that are not used. Why? To assume Framework has optimized every single aspect of every single hardware and software corner of this product is narrow-minded and assumptious. Why are there software updates to programmes, firmwares, kernels? Why are there hardware revisions? Why are new products coming out?

The prices of USB PSUs on the market is proof enough that this is trivial. Framework doesn´t have to design their own internal charging chips. There´s a pile of them already and they are mass-produced at large. They don´t even need to design a new power supply, thousands of them already exist from suppliers. Although, I do appreciate the fact that they seem to design a lot themselves instead of just outsourcing.

Why do you propose to buy additional hubs and docks when you don´t need additional physical volume and barey any cost-increase to have all of this functionality in the charger itself? Then it´s easier to just bring an extra charger in the first place. Your suggestion doesn´t solve anything, just makes it worse. What if I populate my expansion modules with different things? Should I unplug things and affect or worst-case stop my workflow to charge additional devices?

Your response to “here´s an easy and cheap way to considerably improve the product” is to buy unecessary products at a much higher cost that take up more space, creates more mess on the desk and then continue to ignore the easily fixed product weakness. :stuck_out_tongue:

It´s not a solution, it´s avoidance and simply put a bad suggestion to the issue raised here. You don´t care about that feature, that´s fine, but other people will see the value in having one brick instead of 3…

Why tell a family they don´t need a station wagon to have room for the entire family just because you yourself only need a compact car because you do not have children? Different people have different needs. And combining different needs into the same package is a no-brainer. Especially when the cost-increase is minimal…

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no laptop is sold in the way you’re requesting in its default model. framework allows people to buy a third party charger like the one you want. this whole discussion makes zero sense.

you want a different charger? awesome. you can get one. should that be the default? no real reason for that.

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So new products can only do things that previous products have done?

Yes, Framework allows people to buy chargers themselves, that´s not the point. The point here is to make the product better. Not find non-Framework products that are better than Framework products themselves. :stuck_out_tongue:

There are good reasons for doing a slight modification of the original charger as described here. It´s more practical, similar price (assuming it would still be 65 W), buying fewer things that does the same consume less resources.

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those reasons are not universal truth. most people don’t charge 40W devices 99% of the time when their laptop is also plugged to a power source. it is possible to travel often and only bring a single charger with a few cables because PD passthrough (on any modern laptop) works fine if one needs both devices plugged.

i get why one would want such a charger in general especially since (in the EU) many future devices will be forced to use usb-c so one would want to also charge electric razors etc., but there isn’t much point asking framework for this as there are plenty of options on the market, and the charger itself that framework offers isn’t really a necessary purchase.

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They aren´t any less universal truths than the alternative you are arguing towards.

40 W? Where did you get that from? I´m talking an 10 - 15 W. Or even 5. Personally I have a smartwatch that charges via USB and my phone charges max 20 W I think. If it charges at 10 W, that´s totally fine as well.

And to counter your statement, basically every person has a phone and some people have a smart watch. There are also people who has wireless ear phones, the battery box charges via USB. Battery banks, action camera, there are many examples of additional devices that one would want to charge from time to time.

You definitely don´t need USB-C to charge from a PD charger. USB-A is totally fine. Most 3-port chargers have one USB-A port and two USB-C ports. It´s USB so even though the maximum capacity is 65 W (or whatever the engineers decides), it is able to supply 5, 9, 15 and 20 V and charges low-power devices perfectly.

This is not an EU thing. Virtually all day-to-day devices in the USB charges via USB as well.

I (obviously) think it is a point in asking for it. Like I said, it makes it so much more versitile and useful for almost the same price. So why limit it to be a one-trick pony?

At this point I think we both have made our argument for and against so I think it´s wise to agree to disagree. I don´t think we will come to an agreement. :smiley: That happens sometimes, no big deal really (even though it´s hard for me to understand why you wouldn´t opt for this).

Have a good day, I hope you have snow where you live. First day of snow here, love it. Pleasant surprise to wake up to.

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I forgot to address this earlier. I know you may not have anything more to add, I just wanted to add what I considered relevant points for the sake of the discussion.

60 W for the laptop stll leaves 5 W for something else. And the lowered boost range (not even disabling boost) is hardly an issue for many (most) situations. When it is, you simply make sure it gets 60 W or more, or opt for a higher power charger (which could be an option Framework could provide that I´m sure would sell enough to make it worth-while).

You simply end up with having more flexibility in how to use it. Completely optional, instead of being limited (for the sake of a minimal cost-saving which is not worth it considering the difference in features).

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Also for the sake of additional relevant info, I’ve measured the Framework’s charger topping out at 55.3W while charging my Framework, at slightly under 20V and about 2.8A.

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That´s interesting information, thanks.