What your dream-spec'ed FL16 would be like?

Framework Laptop 16
21

  • 256GB DDR5-5600 ECC SODIMM

  • 4TB SN850X + 2TB SN740 + 3*250GB expansion card

  • 240W USB-C charging

  • Intel AX410 WiFi card

  • Some clean Linux installation(Arch/Gentoo/Debian)

22

I’ll wait for someone to make a 1080ti module (/s (kinda))

23
  1. Mini/Micro LED 4k Screen with ~1000 nits & hdr. Optional: touchscreen.
  2. 99.9 Whr battery
  3. RTX 4080
  4. 240W Charging
  5. Removable Extra Battery
  6. EGPU port

Some of this is fairly unrealistic, but I think a lot of this is might be possible in the future.

1 Like
24

He’s not asking my friends, it will have a minigun

6 Likes
25

The main things I really like are:

Mic and camera kill switches

Expansion cards

second hard drive, one mlc for reliable data storage and one tlc or mechanical drive for larger lower cost storage

Repair ability

Would like:

  • Ethernet port that doesn’t stick out

  • Switch to switch off one of the RAM chips to save energy, though I guess that’s really more of a desktop RAM kind of concern

  • Lockable case to avoid theft of expansion slot SSDs or expansion bay SSDs

  • As a blind person I use the noise of the mechanical hard drive or the eject button on the CD drive to check that the laptop has successfully powered down. These days… I’d love a button that just beeps when you press it if the machine is still powered on. Trying to guess if it’s shutdown or stalled isn’t fun.

  • Quickly removable SSD for security when leaving the house: much easier to hide than a laptop. I understand the expansion slot drive can be removed but I can’t picture how quick this is. Alternative is cryption and mirroring to a secure network drive or internet in case the machine is stolen.

  • Quiet fan

  • More expansion slots

  • Others have talked about wanting a thicker body to the laptop that might accommodate faster processors or reduce fan activity by providing for easier heat dissipation. Given that I don’t really need a super thin laptop, I’ll put my hand up on that one as well.

The mini-PC case is interesting as well. I’m still weighing up the pros/cons of desktop/mini/laptops.

1 Like
26

I would repurpose the F12 key (it sends XF86AudioMedia) for this!

27

Realistic wishes:

  • 1000 - 1500 nits screen (optional, I would pay any price for this, if it had MacBook Pro quality and brightness or was even better)
  • try to make this super silent under load
    • bigger heatsink that reaches into the expansion bay
    • bigger and more silent fans, for example in collaboration with Noctua, to
  • bigger trackpad (optional)
  • 99 Wh battery
  • ECC memory

Fancy stuff, not mandatory for buying:

  • keyboard with e-ink or OLED displays on each keycap to be able to switch layouts on the fly, or having specific custom layouts for specific tasks
  • force feedback touchpad
  • even more battery in the expansion bay
  • eSIM
28

Mine is fairly simple and hopefully in the road map…I realize a 99Wh battery likely wont fit but here is hoping.

  • A larger battery close to 99Wh
  • Next gen having 2x 80mm ssd
  • Touch screen at current resolution or 4k.
  • Nvidia GPU

Either way i have the 16 on order.

1 Like
29

Framework hasn’t announced anything officially, however it might already be possible to buy a display like that that might be compatible with the Framework 16.

Framework uses a customized variant of the BOE NE160QDM display.

The BOE NE160QDM-NM4 (240 Hz) and BOE NE160QDM-NM1 (165 Hz) are also variants of the BOE NE160QDM, but those are Mini LED which allows them to reach 1250 nits. Both of those have potential to be compatible, although nobody has tried yet (nobody has a FW16 yet) so try at your own risk.

5 Likes
30

Wow, nice, thanks for the hint, also to Framework: if you sell and/or advertise this, that might bring you quite some more buyers.

I personally can’t buy without knowing.

But I checked the sizes and connectors of the two mini LED versions

and compared them to the other 500 nits versions of the BOE NE160QDM. They are linked further down in above links.

Width/height dimensions and connectors are all the same. The only minimal difference is the depth, as started above. And the other non mini LED versions also have 4.6mm depth. So at least one of the two mini LEDs might work.

But the open question would be if Framework did some further customizations for the repairability.

1 Like
31

It’s possible.

With the Framework 13 they used standard BOE NE135GXM-N61 and BOE NE135FBM-N41 panels, however those do not have mounting holes (they are designed to be glued in place like most laptop panels). Framework created a mounting bracket that the panels glue to in order to improve repairability. It is possible to remove and transfer the brackets, but Framework recommends buying replacements from the Framework website (because those have the bracket pre-installed by a machine).

So it is possible that the Framework 16’s panel has been customized to have mounting holes instead of requiring glue or a bracket, in which case installing a different panel would be a bit more complicated. Currently only Framework and BOE would know that.

3 Likes
32

This initial offering is pretty close to perfect for my needs. The only things I’d add–in order of importance–would be:

  1. More powerful GPU or polished oculunk expansion bay.
  2. 2 M.2 2280 slots (bundled with the oculunk bay would be ideal!)
  3. A bigger battery
2 Likes
33

For me, the upper end AMD CPU is nice. An Nvidia 4070 dGPU would be sweet, but most importantly for me would be a way to integrate EMR tech for the screen to have that 8192 level pressure sensitivity for drawing styluses. I was very tempted on a Wacom Mobilestudio way back, but heat issues and the fact that it was using an older model Intel GPU with no real upgrade path forward soured me on that idea.

34

Dream SPEC for an Framework 16 would be an Ryzen 3D-Vcash CPU 6 or 8 cores.

An 7800m GPU or newer.

An WQHD 160Hz+ Display with Mini LED or OLED Panel.

A bigger Battery cus more = better.

35

Absolute dream? An expansion bay with an oculink port, and one extra ssd.

And if I want a dedicated graphics card in the laptop, well then a RTX 4090 module that takes into account the high price of the laptop at the start, and includes - in collaboration with the company XMG - an adapter to connect to the XMG Oasis for a watercooled loop included in the bay. Final request on dedicated graphics would be: please 16gb of VRam in all future GPUs.

Then yes, battery could be better of course, although I assume they ran out of space.

I would also like spacer options with a small screen, and with speakers for better audio. The latter may well not be possible unfortunately of course.