In the demo’s we’ve seen the palmrest / trackpad area consist of 3 parts on the 16" laptop.
Will there be an option to choose for 1 single solid part instead? Possibly at a tradeoff of making it (slightly) more difficult to swap / remove?
Personally I don’t really like how you can visibly see that it consists of 3 separate parts.
I’m afraid how the three panels would interact with hand that is placed on top. I hope they can’t hurt the user.
I couldn’t find a good word for it. I was thinking whether the three-part touchpad panel would have sharp edge which would rip clothes or skin. I’d prefer it to not have that edge.
You’ve never received the unit and you didn’t clear up the concerns.
Ultimately we don’t know enough yet, and the Framework team likely will not discuss anything outside the Deep Dives.
True. Somebody asked the question and I decided to mention it.
I felt the same way. I’m not really fond of those unsightly gaps. Hopefully they’ll be tighter in production, but if not, I hope they will eventually give us the option to get one solid piece (at least centered trackpad).
Well I checked as soon as the preorders went live, but doesn’t seem to have an option unfortunately.
For me enough reason to wait until they hopefully do decide to offer this option.
At least it’d be nice to have these spacers of a different color (eg. black for contrast), so it would look better or make them more functional - RGB LED.
The bottom spacers / tackpad spacers have been shown to have no connection to power or data. They are just spacers meant to allow the trackpad to be positioned left, right or middle.
I’d really like a non-trackpad palm rest. I prefer using a mouse and am constantly palming my trackpad on the 13"
I am also eagerly waiting for an option to buy trackpad module on the left, without a cutout for the spacers/fillers. In all the videos I have seen, there is a clear and quite big gap between those parts and it will definitely annoy and irritate the hand, and also just looks bad and flimsy.
On short term, I am hoping dbrand makes a cover for trackpad to solve the issue temporarily.
I’m sure they will not irritate one’s hand, Framework is not going to release something like that.
Be aware that the videos thus far have only been prototypes, and most other companies don’t even let reviewers handle such prototypes. Other companies definitely go through stages where things don’t work and fit as well as they will in production, but we just don’t get to see that.
You want a solid left sided trackpad module? I wouldn’t expect them to ever create left, right, and center full width / no-spacer trackpad modules. A big point of their design is not to need that. And there are inherent costs in just stocking and processing additional items, overhead in keeping stock at all fulfillment centers. It’s not a good choice to stock additional items when there really is no need. 3rd parties might create 3d-printed left, right, and center no-spacer trackpad modules. Maybe where you’d transfer over your touchpad electronics. But if you’re obsessive enough that you can’t live with seeing a couple lines on the side, you’re not going to want most 3d prints.
I would definitely welcome a single bottom plate option. The most obvious reason being the look and feel of that option. When you are buying a device for more than 2k euros, you want it to feel nice. Framework 13 has a more regular keyboard design and it feel better when the palmrest is solid.
In addition, you could make 3 types of the bottom panel (one touchpad on left side, one for the middle and one for the right side, although idk who would use it) and people would just pick. See, I understand that framework wants to make sure everyone is happy and I welcome that. However, I doubt that someone has a need to change touchpad positioning once they have their favourite option. Hence why I believe a sleeker option would be nice.