I would like to use the power bank with a cable option but I’m walking around with the laptop I don’t like having a cable and power bank solution. I usually already have a Ethernet cable plugged in at different spots. I care less about the weight. I wonder if they would ever allow the battery pack solution to be a little thicker than the actual laptop and allow it have a slight incline toward the user.
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The expansion Bay connector is rated for 50 Cycles so is a PCI Express Port yet you have graphics card review YouTubers using it many many times more than 50 so I would take the concerns with a grain of salt until you have a bunch of users actually using it more than 50 times. Let’s be real though how many users are going to more or less completely disassemble the framework 16 to swap something in and out of the expansion Bay. That is going to get old real quick
Also the hardware is already set in stone and is currently being manufactured so requesting that they make changes at this point is a non-starter.
This has actually been addressed by framework:
There continues to be a lot of incorrect information echoing around the Expansion Bay connector.
We’re developing our own semi-custom connector with the supplier specifically to make it better for end-user handling. The datasheet that people are referencing that states 50 cycles is for an off the shelf connector that Framework Laptop 16 doesn’t ship with.
And they’ve also stated, that they will share cycle life of the actual connector before the laptop ships. (source → Expansion Bay connector durability - #4 by MJ1)
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The can make the internal connector for the battery expansion bay the same, but have a more robust male type C connector with a cavity where you can hot swap external batteries maybe? This request is not rocket science and having a swappable battery idea is probably older than some of the users of this laptop lol
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We could end up having Framework 16s that have very power efficient APUs with substantial 1440p gaming chops by the very end of 2024 or mid-2025 thus freeing up the expansion bay for a 65-70% battery extension (and in 5 years it would be even non-flammably flying friendly with solid-state cells), a coule 2230 SSDs, coprocessor/accelerator cards, SBCs, and anything else that can make use of power delivery and the data transfer bus via PCIe.
Just look up “Strix Halo APU” Wfcctech has an article on it and MLID has a video on it.
RDNA3 12CUs (780M) = RX 470
RDNA 3.5 16CUs = GTX 1660
RDNA 3.5 40CUs = 2080TI ~3X to 3.33X 780M performance.
90W in “performance mode” and 120W “Tubo Mode” should be possible for a 2080TI APU
Even at “Quiet” or “Balanced” Mode at 60-75W it could still scale to 3060-1080TI
The Framework 16 has a 85Wh battery by default so a 55-61Wh capacity upgrade in the expansion bay (140-146Wh) could get us…
• 1.5 hours @ 2080TI scaling - 90W
• 2 hours @ 3060 scaling - 65W
• 3 hours @ 1070 scaling - 45W
• 5 hours @ 1650 scaling - 27W
Wh = energy in wattage over an hour
Framework Laptop 16’s current CPU cooling system can only sustain 45 W according to the release blog post. I am unsure if this can be improved in the future with better die contact, higher static pressure fans, or a better fin stack in the heatsink.
I was hoping to scrape the aviation allowed limit of 100Wh battery with a 90+Wh combined capacity. Battery-life is everything to me. I am so mad in fact that my laptop graphics card has been disabled in BIOS for most its life, just so that I can get those extra 3 hours out of my 95Wh (designed capacity) battery. This laptop is a piece of crap (not ganna name it), but the battery would get me 12h when it was new.
I would be throwing my money at Framework already if there was a large battery that I can combine with power efficient ryzen CPU.
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Same here.
I’m with ya. dGPU is disabled, and I want that long long battery life. If they don’t make one, I might.
Isn’t that per battery/device? So if it’s a removable battery or something that plus in separately, that 2nd battery has it’s own <100Wh limit?
Seems likely, and doesn’t mentioned limit on the number you can carry on. As long as it looks like it’s a production device, especially if it has a UL label on it, should be fine.
From Lithium batteries with 100 watt hours or less in a device | Transportation Security Administration
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I’m tempted to take a flight with 1 kW of li-ion! 
I’d love a battery option in the expansion bay. Nesting the battery as proposed would make the most sense. I miss the days of hotswappable batteries in laptops.
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I recently picked up an old Thinkpad T470. With the expanded + internal battery (96Wh capacity) and my battery optimized install of Arch, I can get a theoretical 34hrs of battery life (assuming 2.8W power draw, which I’ve seen the T470 pull). This is insanely long, and I’m not optimistic about Framework being able to come close, but I hope that whatever they do manage isn’t disappointing.
I’d love to see an expanded battery for the bay that adds another 85Wh.
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IMO the fact that Asus was able to cram a 100-125W vapor chamber cooling system inside a pretty slim ROG Zephrus G14 for a CPU and GPU independent of one another seems like it would be very possible to fit a similar cooling solution within 2/3rds the space of a 16-inch chassis that is almost 60% longer, 10% wider, and 15% thicker.
And recent Nvidia cards can maintain 90% performance at 65-70% the stock TDP – for the 4060TI that means 3060TI performance at 122 watts.
Also mobile CPUs like the Core i9-13980HX (55W TDP, 8 “P-cores” + 16 “E-cores”) and the Ryzen 9 7945HX3D (45-75W configurable TDP, 16 “P-cores”) exist that boost up to 155 watts of power draw and can maintain around half that wattage in games.
So given 25% less CPU cores and at least 20% IPC efficiency boost on 4nm (30% less power draw compared to 16 Zen4 cores) as well as another 30% boost in GPU efficiency from 5nm to 4nm (RX 6750XT grunt @ ~90W) AMD could manage a 55W TDP APU with a 12-core/24-thread Zen5 CPU + 40CU RDNA 3.5 integrated GPU that peaks at 110 watts with 20-80 (50W average) dynamically allocated to the CPU and the other 30-90 (60W average) dynamically allocated to the iGPU when gaming.
So assuming iGPU performance scales somewhat linearly it could match the RX 6750XT at 90W, the RX 5700 at 60W, and the RX 470 at 30W while accessing up to 48GB of DDR5-6400/7200 – half of 96GB max system RAM – as VRAM.
I’m trying to be moderately conservative with these power efficiency and performance estimates but I honestly believe we could see this amount of processing power packed into a moderately large modular laptop like a Generation 2 Framework 16.
Well I bet there’s a 50-50 chance we could get a 10% bump up in the standard battery capacity from 85Wh to 93.5Wh or at least an option to configure a larger main battery for Generation 2 kinda like what we saw happen for the Framework 13.
And a 45Wh battery could definitely fill the volume where the RX 7700S is crammed into right now inside the current “thicker” expansion bay and probably a 61Wh one too with the expansion bay fans removed.
Here’s hoping for larger capacity main battery, but a 45-61Wh expansion bay battery for a potential grand total of 130-154.5Wh would be sick AF.
Would totally have to pack the expansion bay battery in a convenient corner inside a carry-on luggage to pass airport security though before slotting it into the laptop mid-flight…at least until non-flammable solid state batteries arrive in 5 years.
I think I can settle for reducing battery drain on an international flight with a super compact 90W+ PD charger and serviceable StarLink inflight Wi-Fi internet though 
The expansion bay fans are the only cooling fans in the chassis, so they are required.
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I see that now. Thanks for pointing that out!
A vapor chamber over the CPU/APU would be very cool. I do wonder how feasible ot would be to remove and replace compared to just removing the heatpipes and repasting the processor.
So yeah a 42-46Wh battery should do it. Maybe even 55Wh if you really want the rear to be off the table for an angled keyboard, extra airflow, and whatnot.
None of those things he is listing are CPU’s, so their CPU cooling system hardly seems relevant.
The way heat pipes work is as a vapour chamber, and the vapour goes to the other end of the heat pipe to be condensed.
He is listing APUs, which are a category of CPU, so the CPU cooling is very relevant.
An APU is just a CPU with a good GPU built in. An APU with a really really good GPU could potentially eliminate the need for the expansion bay to be used for a dedicated GPU even for GPU heavy tasks, which would free up the expansion bay for other things.
Leaks indicate that AMD has some upcoming super high end APUs with more than triple the GPU performance of current APUs (almost as good as the GPU module Framework currently offers). But those are expected to have power draws around 120w, or about 2.7x what the Framework 16 is designed for.
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@Kyle_Reis Would 120W of power draw not already be feasible in the Framework 16? The power brick already accommodates up to 180W considering the 75-100W + 45-90W dynamic power draw between the current 7700S + 7940HS configuration.
Also 120W max power draw from a desktop 4060 class APU would be advantageous considering a 60W headroom for expansion bay components and custom I/O on the keyboard/trackpad deck.
And some of us are speculating 240W charging support to be present in a future revision of the FW16 in coming years: