Ports are secondary to my display requirements. But I think the port selection on the Acer Aspire 5 is to something so aspire to:
RJ-45, USB-A x 2, USB-C, HDMI, and a spare internal 2.5" SATA port. They’re only missing the SD card slot, which is not a deal breaker.
But the Aspire’s screen has bad sRGB coverage.
Laptop designers have to think about real-world use cases. Users have mechanical keyboards, a mouse, so that’s two USB-A; they may have a USB-C dock or power brick, so gotta have one of those, their monitor is likely still HDMI which is most common, and if they’re in an apartment or office they may have Ethernet.
I could do without an abundance of ports and just accept two USB-C’s, but only if:
A) the screen is right i.e. sRGB 100%, no PWM, matte/antiglare, and big like 16".
B) there is no coil whine anywhere.
C) & it runs a decent Linux without crazy stuff happening (like I saw with Debian).
Most users don’t have mechanical keyboards or external mice to use with laptops (okay, maybe a larger percentage have external mice, but designing around mechanical keyboards almost always being present is just dumb, statistically speaking). As for USB-C docks or power bricks, sure, but again I’d wager most people don’t use those regularly. Same with monitors. I’d further argue that most people who want a ‘thin-and-light’ laptop are even less likely than the average laptop user to want or need all of those things (maybe with the exception of an external mouse).
You have to remember that 4 expansion cards is the max not because of framework but because of the chipset cpu combo. It can only support 20 PCIE lanes, 4 for the 4 expansion cards ( which makes 16) and 4 for the NVMe. You would need a higher end chipset/processor to get there. The PCIe to thunderbolt chip costs around 30 - 50 dollars for 4 thunderbolt 4 ports so it would be an extra 50 bucks.
That’s just an opinion though. Do you have any facts to back it up?
From an ergonomic perspective, using a laptop keyboard is just dumb.
A real innovation would be to copy what MNT-Reform did and add a low profile mechanical keyboard.
Fewer people care about having an “ultralight” laptop anymore, thanks to some virus.
I don’t have statistics, but I do know how I and everyone around me uses thin-and-light laptops (or even just regular laptops). I’m one of the only people I know who has a mechanical keyboard of any kind (forget portable mechanical keyboard for use with a laptop).
All I’m saying is that you can’t extrapolate from your personal requirements and assume that those are common requirements.
You can already do those things, there isn’t a expansion card for that yet but anyone could make one. I really do not understand what you are getting at. 2 out of those ports you want are not available yet but probably will in the next year. You can’t always criticise a company just because they do not include the ports you want. This laptop doesn’t suit everyone.
Yes, I agree with you there. But at the same time, the person who needs 3 USB-A cartridges is rare, as is the person who needs two HDMI cartridges. The cartridge model adds some useful flexibility as far as choosing Thunderbolt versus HDMI and USB-A versus USB-C, but fewer cartridge slots might also be a good idea.
e.g.
One slot for the video output option
One slot for the other features e.g. storage or USB-C or 2nd monitor
But two slots could be set to fixed purposes:
The USB-C power or dock port
A USB-A hub driving two USB-A ports and one RJ-45 internal adapter
I’m hoping that in the future we could see a 1st or 3rd party alternate bottom case that swaps out one or two expansion slots for an integrated “hub” of sorts. that way you could cater to users who need more ports, but still have some flexibility. It might need to be a little thicker than the current casing (and maybe a little wider too cough cough 15" model) but those would be reasonable tradeoffs for some people.
I agree, but I also hope that even on the current model/mainboard we could see the idea in action. With the fact that you can buy a hub for a Macbook that plugs into two thunderbolt 3 ports at once and adds a bunch of other ports, integrating this into a bottom case would allow someone to use their original mainboard and upgrade to a better shell for their use case! I’ve had plans that if I ever get free time for side projects I’d look into making something like that for myself, but seeing as I haven’t had a lot of that recently, I’ll keep hoping that someone else does it first!
Yes you can!
Just feature a slightly wider fpc cable/connector for the numpad version and have less traces on the numpad-less version.
However, PLEASE include a Numlock indicator. Not having one is absolutely dum-dum.
More hassle for framework, but both sides can finally stop protesting.
This is absolute brilliance. Although, it will be much more difficult on a traditional layout machine (where all components are secured to the palmrest) rather than Framework’s “reverse-layout p” of securing everything to the bottom cover.
if they make the computer 3mm more thick, they can squeeze in a LGA without retention mechanism (like in the Macs) and use the cooler to hold it down.
Which is not a problem. I can comfortably accept a laptop that is 0.8 inch (2cm) thick.
As of the keyboard, someone realized that you don’t need a standard because how easy it is to swap out palmrests (and keyboards), and thus the entire keyboard/trackpoint debate can be flung outside of the window. I would assume it will be defaulted to this “6 row without numpad” KB, and if demand is high other options (e.g. with numpad/trackpoint/7th row) can be made.
And if they indeed go with a large 15 inch mainboard with discrete graphics, they can also easily not-populate that slot (whether it is soldered or some form of MXM) and sell those at budget. My $300 hp netbook have a Pentium and no dGPU, one SATA and one “Optane” slot with some VRM missing but the board can easily fit in a i7 with a GTX MX200, a 2.5 inch SSD and a Optane SSD to the boot.
So the argument of whether a dGPU would be nice can also be flung outside of the window, which is a “yes” since the board must be designed to accommodate that, but can later be left unpopulated for budget models.
I haven’t jumped into the Framework laptop system yet, but I’ve been reading about it a while, and am so excited for the 16” version! And I REALLY hope you have a WWAN option. I’ve had it in my Lenovo laptops for years, and don’t know that I can do without it. I travel a lot for world, and having WWAN built-in is just so darn convenient. And doesn’t kill my phones battery. I would even pay more for 5G hardware.
I wonder if this thread just happens to align with frameworks other market research, but i’m amazed at how closely the 16" follows the results of this questionare
almost even split between numpad/no numpad
options for (in the future) professional or consumer GPU
6 expansion cards
bigger speakers
bigger battery (with potential for a huge one as expansion module, if I remeber correctly)
two ssds (with options for even more with expansion module)
full sized arrow keys and a touchpad might still be in the future.
only thing missing is the RJ45 integrated …
.