Making the 4.0kg standard essentially acknowledges the 3.3kg were not suitable and would make them liable to everyone asking for the replacement at FW’s cost.
The 3.3kg hinges when in the top end of spec. (closer to 3.8kg) are suitable, makes sense to me given the 4.0kg are 3.5-4.5kg and there have not been complaints about those.
The stronger hinges put additional stress on the lid and might be considered a potential risk of lid damage.
I feel the “best fix” would be to tighten the accepted spec range for the hinges and/or redesign the hinges. A closed knuckle or open knuckle which is fastened to the main body of the hinge giving user adjustment as a side benefit, even a small jubilee style clip could help.
@GhostLegion Long may your honeymoon continue, mine lasted a few days
While I think that refunding or replacing every board with 12th gen that fell prey to the RTC bug absurd, the cost of some hinges really shouldn’t break FW, especially if it is done over the course of years. Bad PR can break companies at this scale and while this forum isn’t swamped with stories of shoddy craftmanship/QC, some of the stories are really quite bad. Which just shows that there are factory QC escapes. Besides, FW changing their stance would not be any kind of legal admission. It wouldn’t legally put them on the hook for anything. They’d reap the good PR with minimal cost. This is a (relatively) minor pain point that already has an available solution, this “problem” shouldn’t exist.
Perhaps a poor choice of words, I meant liable in the non legal sense, meaning it would make customers more likely/encouraged to ask for replacements.
Agreed the financial cost to FW should be minimal especially as you say done over time as problems arise, the cost of negative PR is likely greater. I stopped even talking about the FW laptop to friends and family let alone recommending it and as I’m sure like many here I am “tech support” for my circle.
Yeah my original hinges had the screen fall over each time I picked up the laptop unless I did it a certain way and the screen was open no greater than 90°, replacements are heading that way…
I wonder was nrp referring to the 2.8kg or the 3.8kg end of the spectrum, far too wide a tolerance range… One hand opening has been done without a floppy screen so this is a terrible compromise IMO.
Exactly tighter tolerances would certainly be beneficial.
Ah yes old ground indeed, this is maybe the third time I repeat myself, I am getting aged!
Agreed swapping the hinges out while easier than most laptops is still a bit of pain and requires re-routing wifi, microphone and display cables, not something I would want to do with any regularity.
I don’t think tolerances are the issue here. When I received my replacement hinges they were good. And I have friends who have recently purchased Frameworks and their hinges are good.
I do think I’d be happier with the 4kg hinge over even an in-spec 3.3kg hinge, since I like to move around with my laptop. But I never would have complained if my original hinges stayed in spec.
This seems to be a design flaw which causes the hinges to wear down prematurely.
Time will tell if this is a rare and isolated problem that I was unlucky enough to encounter twice, or if it’s a wider issue that we’ll see more of as Frameworks age.
If Framework truly believed their hinges were well designed, and that my experience is such a huge outlier, it would have been simple for them to send a new hinge, and maintain a happy customer.
The fact that they’re avoiding that indicates to me that they’re expecting more hinge failures and are afraid of setting a precedent.
I think the benefit of tighter tolerance would at least mean we have a better understanding of the starting point from factory, there has been no word on how we are to measure the actual force for hinges we own just to show support the lid behaviours if we feel there is an issue and they will decide if it is in spec or not.
I agree the design seems destined to fail in the long run and keeping your initial customer base happy seems like a smart move even if the fault wasn’t with the product but the cost to the business was low. That is FW’s business though.
@Daniel_Power, it sucks that you seem to be getting the short end of the stick. It’s hard for me to believe that the quality control is unacceptable though. Unless there is more posts like this in the future. In my case, I purchased a Batch 1, Gen 1 from the start… Besides a shipping delay I have not had to replace or swap a single component… The OG hinges and lid are still solid even if the monitor is leaning back a bit on my lap (it doesn’t fall). I have done a few upgrades to internal components like memory and speakers but the rest I have kept as original as possible and have been happy.
I just received word from Framework support that they’ll make an exception and send me another replacement 3.3kg hinge kit. They’ll also be sending me a shipping label so I can return my defective hinges to them for review.
While I’m fairly disappointed with the experience so far, I want Framework to succeed, and I want Framework to continue to put pressure on other companies to do better in terms of repairability. So if this third set lasts, I’ll be more than happy to start recommending Framework again.
I’m not really concerned about the 3.3kg vs 4.0kg difference anymore. My friend’s Framework doesn’t have any issues with screen movement on stock hinges. So unless they prematurely wear out again, I’m fine with 3.3kg. I do agree with @Usernames, it feels unnecessary that they wouldn’t offer the 4.0kg as a gesture of good will since the cost to Framework is the same. But all I really want are hinges that will keep the screen in place while stationary and typing.
@Jason_Dagless are you referring to the battery drain while powered off issue? Because in my experience it takes a whole lot less than a couple of weeks for the battery to drain while sitting idle.
I didn’t include that in my post because it’s not a quality control issue. Though I would love for it to be addressed at some point if possible through a firmware update. It’s quite disappointing pulling my Framework out of my bag and finding it to be dead.
I’m completely amazed with all the new stuff that got announced today. So I’m pretty happy I didn’t go ahead with ordering a Thinkpad.
Framework just announced a 2nd generation 3.5kg hinge. The timing is a little unfortunate with Framework having just shipped me a replacement 3.3kg hinge. If I’d known they’d be releasing a new hinge, I probably wouldn’t have even bothered going through support, because I’ll definitely be ordering the improved hinge once the Ryzen boards and new batteries are released.
I see the battery issue was brought up here a few times. I think it would be really good if battery life was increased, I think it’s directly linked to the speakers as well, as their position right now is bad to listen to and also restricts the battery. If the speakers were put up next to the keyboard we could have a bigger battery with a nicer battery life and at least more hearable speakers. That and I wonder what Framework thinks about using CAMM as well.
They are referring to the issue with the 11th gen where the system will not power on due to a depleted RTC battery. Strangely a charged RTC battery is required to power on the machine and said battery will only charge (very slowly) when connected to mains power. Officially this is weeks to months of being unplugged however deep discharges and or bad battery connects have cause some to experience it after a few days. Viability of an ML 1220 rechargable battery for RTC | CMOS (11th gen) - #43 by nrp
Looks to me like the exact same design but the spec is upped from 3.3 to 3.5 kg but time will tell.
Very happy to see FW are addressing the complaints/desires users have expressed, the live event was genuinely so exciting I literally was saying “well done Framework”. That said I still hope we see improved durability of design in general.
I received the new replacement hinges yeterday, and just installed them. With the new hinges, the screen does once again hold itself in place at any angle, as expected.
I still think it’s a little looser than I would hope as you approach 180, but should pose no usability issues during light usage. I would consider this to be within spec given Framework has prioritized one-handed opening over stability for their out of the box experience.
As for the defective hinges that I removed.
The right hinge feels perfectly sturdy. It is pretty difficult to turn by hand, and has uniform stiffness. Feels perfect.
The left hinge however provides almost no resistance. Also, looking closely, it looks like there’s a lot of goop seeping out of the sides of the hinge, which I suspect is lubricant leakage? I’m guessing these hinges are supposed to be sealed with lubricant to prevent metal on metal wear. And with that lubricant leaked out, the hinge pre-maturely failed.
I’ll be sending the hinges back to Framework for review, but I’ll also post this photo here. It would be interesting to know if other users with bad hinges also found this lubricant leakage.
Interestingly I noticed that my left hinge was noticeably “lighter” than the right hinge, didn’t have a the lubricant leakage you described though. Might be that there were some bad LHS hinges in the mix. I noted FW rate the hinges for 20,000 cycles so unless you are opening and closing the lid every 20 minutes for 16 hrs a day they should last more than a year!
It was similar with my first defective set. One hinge felt good and the other one was very weak. But unfortunately I threw out that set after installing the first replacement set. So I can’t confirm if it was the left hinge in that case as well.
Third set of hinges is starting to have the same problem. It’s still stable at most angles, and isn’t much of a hinderance. But the screen will fall under its own weight if you put it past around a 150 degree angle.
My laptop is well out of warranty now. And when I received my second replacement set, I was refused the 4kg hinge. So I really don’t see any point even trying to reach out to support again. The 3.3kg hinge is defective by design.
