I think you should build Laptop V2 next. You just scratched the surface with a single laptop and there are so many things you could do better with V2. The first laptop seems like it’s pigeon holed into a small limited design and customer are suffering because of it. It was said further up by another user, start listening to your customers and doing what they want, so a real V2 laptop I can’t decide how much time I want to get up on my soap box and give you a run down of everything you did right, and everything you did wrong. You built a laptop for 10% of the public when you could have covered 70% with a little more effort. Let’s follow along with what your customers want and perfect it a bit more.
What you have started is a great idea, building a laptop that is easy to take apart and fix. Although you can fix any laptop, even the clipped and glued ones because I’ve done it for years. But we all like what you’ve done and that’s why we are all here. We want you to be successful. All of us want this to get bigger and better, but you should capitalize on what you have now rather than looking to other projects. First let me say your first design is unfortunately too Mac like. And it’s limiting you too much and that’s causing all sorts of issues. People choose laptops for certain features they like, but people also throw out laptops from their decision based on limitations they have… and that’s what you want to avoid. If you want to sell the most amount of laptops and make the biggest impact, you need to build laptops that fit more people. You want to take away objections for reasons why not to buy your laptop.
->Expansion Cards: just a novelty of an idea, meaning nice but not amazing. The fit is loose and lack good tolerances. Most importantly we are stuck with a laptop that can only have 3 ports 
given one is for charging. A separate charging port on the laptop so it doesn’t eat up one expansion port would have been better, even if it was just for charging. My current workhorse laptop for work has 6 ports, (RJ45, SD, USBx2, USB-Cx2). With the framework I have to swap cards and carry others, so it has limited improvements over dongles. I think it would have been better to make the left side full of all the needed ports, RJ45, SD, USB, USB-C, then on the right side have 2 expansion cards like what you have now. Best of both worlds without compromising. I’d love a laptop with both SD and mSD slots. The ability to have 2 RJ45, yeah the Panasonic Toughbook has that, it’s got a selectable port on the back. Maybe on the left side take one USB-C and have that for charging, then put in one mini expansion docking station card to provide all the ports.
->Screen Options - glossy, matte, touch, 13.5" then do a 15" then a 14" then a 16". This is easy, you simply make new cases and lids. Same mainboard, just a side width extension for the thunderbolt ports. You could even have started with the same battery if you had to then offer bigger ones later. Choose a 16:10 screen format so there are lots of choices out to choose from. The 3:2 format is limited in panel choices and resolutions. There’s no reason you couldn’t offer a matte, heck the screen you have now comes in both matte and glossy. Look for screens with a wider color gamut so you can get professionals who do editing pictures and videos. Adobe RGB or DCIP3 will blow your socks off seeing those side by side with sRGB what most people are used to. Oh and keep the screens 400 or better 500 nits of brightness.
->I think the laptop may simply be too thin. Sure it’s Mac like, but too much so. A thicker laptop and you could have a bigger battery. When you designed the 11th gen with a 50w battery it was just enough. Then you got screwed because the 12th gen requires a 70w. Look at all the other manufacturers who have increased their batteries from 50 to 60 to 70 now for the power hungry 12th gen. Because you built too small of a laptop, you don’t have the capability of changing it.
->I think the laptop may simply be too thin. Again this affects the loudness of your cooling fan. A little bigger fan and you could have kept it quiet. Something everyone wants is a quiet laptop. The thermal capacity of the 12th gen is a lot, and there are plenty of complaints of fan noise.
->why aren’t you offering U series chips? They are simply the best choice for laptops, especially thin ones. It shouldn’t be too hard to offer U series mainboards, much easier for you offering AMD chips. I’m sure people think they want a P series, but offer the U if it isn’t too much work because that would surprise you in what it’s actually capable of in real world use. Having a P series that’s thermally limited to a U doesn’t do much good, but eat up battery life.
->sure AMD chips would be ideal, but their slow implementation of USB4 is scary. Sadly the 6000 chips just recently got firmware to do it. I understand the choice you made for Intel, but you have a large number of customers asking for AMD… something to consider.
->Keyboard Choices, there’s no reason you can’t offer different keyboards with different travel and force. Your existing keyboard has good force but feels mushy because the force doesn’t go away as you press down so it’s not tactile like. You should make the ctrl and fn keys the same width, allow people to swap them physically and in the bios. Easy thing to do and opens more doors for people that want thinkpad/mac style. Easy to do.
->Color… oh the Mac silver, sure offer it as a choice, but you should have your own identity. I think a dark gray would be ideal for a laptop… seriously, dark gray would look awesome with a black keyboard
->ruggedized case option, oh lots of people would love that. Think half way between a normal laptop and a Toughbook. But it has to have a handle on it like the Toughbook, I’m jealous of my friends have have Toughbooks because the handle is so nice.
->m.2 slot for 4G that could be used for a 2nd hard drive… but if you’re limited by pci lanes I understand why it wasn’t implemented. Likely avoided in V1 because of size restrictions.
->magnesium instead of aluminum housing option?
->different hinge design that fixes the wobble - please? Perhaps a hack that puts something into the hinge as hysteresis would help?
->oh and the little booklet you send with the laptop, how can anyone read that small of print? Please make it bigger.
These are all doable things and repeated many times by others. Let’s focus on what your customers are asking for and your business will grow. Remember when Dell and Gateway started the revolution of configuring your own computer… that’s what we need here.
*edited on 11-19-22 to sound less rant like!
