Size matters! How high is your stack of cards so far? I'm at 20

So far I’ve got myself (16inch AMD) and two family members (13 inch gen 12 and 13 Intel) on Framework laptops, and my wife’s older laptop is acting up which is the perfect moment to buy her a 13 inch AMD.

Where are you guys at?

7 Likes

What a collection! I’m curious, are you using the expansion cards together, or does everyone have their own cards?

2 Likes

We all have our preferred cards in our laptops and share the remaining stack. Also, with the kids going to school the laptops suffer quite some impacts. Its great to know I can order replacement parts instead of having to replace the whole thing. It also made me wonder if it would make sense to have a recycling program where we can send defective parts.

2 Likes

Zero. You fill all the slots with usb type-c cards and then never modify it again. All the other ports are legacy, less powerful, less flexible, less reversible, and more bulky.

Don’t you ever need USB A, HDMI, or anything else?

Not if you’re willing to go all in on USBC, just get USBC to HDMI cables, get only USBC flash drives and use Bluetooth accessories. Not too hard these days to go all USBC except for SD cards, those are still needing an adapter

1 Like

I always assumed people had many, many peripherals and USB A devices they are actively using. Of course you can switch to a USB C environment but why would you buy new stuff and new cables when you have completely functional ones at home, y’know.

4 Likes

Oh I agree, I’ve got plenty of legacy stuff that is perfectly usable and no desire to replace. Just saying you can do it and not need anything except USBC.

2 Likes

That’s alotta USBc you got there. I only have the 16, and leave the 3xUSBC, 2xUSBA, 1x microsd 90% of the time. Usually swap out microsd for ethernet when at my desk. The three not installed go in that blue case.

3 Likes

The little blue card holder looks great. Is that the one that was being 3D printed?

Is there a Zen master that has perfected the use case of ZERO expansion cards or ALL Snack Cards? :wink:

(Ok ok just 1 USBC for charging…)

/sarcasm off

2 Likes

Of course most of us do. Not to speak of family and customer sites that are out of your control. Having only USB-C is simply not going to fly in the real world.

Yeah I went kinda overboard buying all kinds of cards on the first laptop and with the second and third mainly bought USB-C. Partly because those drain the least power in standby mode.

Nice collection and custom cases. Is that memory in the purple one?

Yeah

Those are the extra small keyboard modules, those color change ones.

Did you wait for your last CRT monitor to actually die before upgrading to LCD?

Not really a fair comparison. A flash drive with a USB-A vs USBC connector can have identical performance and identical size. Same goes for display connections. It’s just a connector. CRT vs LCD does however have different performance and size characteristics.

3 Likes

Ah but USB type c isn’t just a drop-in replacement for your display connections. It is replacing the rats nest of display cables, power cables, and additional usb cables, all simultaneously on a single universal cable. That is the generational shift that makes it comparable to the CRT → LCD shift. Both CRT and LCD serve the same functional purpose of displaying images but CRT is bulky, just like how plugging in 3+ cables to my laptop is bulky. I’d much rather have my sleek 1-cable/LCD.

As for flash drives, my USB-A flash drives continue to sit unused, like they have for many years. Its been 9 years since my first USB type c laptop, there has been ample time for transition, its time to stop letting legacy hold us back.

I disagree for multiple reasons but let’s just agree to disagree, ok? Since this is getting rather off-topic at this point and neither of us is likely to convince the other.

2 Likes

I actually regret letting go of my last CRT monitor, but that’s just me. Wish I still had it.

1 Like

A stack of twenty! My, oh, my. One could play domino with all those cards.

I’m ever so close to buying my first FW—as soon as shipping opens to the Nordic countries that is! I’ve been eagerly awaiting this for awhile now, since my current (almost ten year old) computer is slowly dying on me. And while I’m going to buy various cards for portability, I will do my utter best to limit myself to only buy the bare minimal amount…

Reason 1: the new EU law that demands USB-C connections on new equipment goes into effect December 2024 (for laptops it is 2026), and even now most new electronics have already switched to USB C.

Reason 2: I will get a dock. So the cards will mostly be used when I’m out and about.

2 Likes