I bought a 15.6 inch Uperfect portable touch screen monitor off of ebay that just plugs in and it works quite well but I have to plug in 2 cables every time I want to use it as a Laptop and it is just annoying sometimes, this is out of desperation due to me finding touchscreens on laptops absolutely useful and I cannot live without it.
One idea I have that could fix this problem is to take the touchscreen that will be on the 12-inch laptop that was announced recently and attatch it to my laptop and have it be slightly less janky.
@nrp did say something about the touch capability being technically supported here so could Nirav and the team consider making the internal display connector compatible with the existing 13-inch laptop? I know it could potentially be janky but this could provide an avenue for people like me who are desperate for a touchscreen even if slightly jank, this will also give the community room to innovate with custom brackets and/or other solutions.
We have the touchscreen being possible to exist on a framework device, just give us a firmware update and/or adapter to make it work and those people like me who want a powerful laptop that comes with a touchscreen will have the perfect laptop!
Edit: Just like with the desktop mainboard case maybe you could provide parts to convert the touchscreen into a portable touchscreen monitor for those who want a basic drawing tablet/2ndary monitor on the go?
I highly doubt they will make a 12" display possible on the Framework 13 BECAUSE they just announced the Framework 12 WITH touch and pen capabilities.
It would be cool if they one day could give us a touchscreen replacement on the 13, but I am guessing that width is the premium here for the design of the laptop.
Yeah, but what if they made a kit so that the 12" screen from the FL12 could be mounted in an FL13, use a new cable to connect it to the FL13 processor if need be, and a new bezel to fill the gap around the screen. I could see a market for such a kit, considering the number of requests we see for a touch screen on the FL13. It would be a minimum effort process to satisfy that market.
Anything is possible. I don’t work for Framework, so this is just my opinion, but I think making any such kit like what you are describing what bastardize their product line. They should either create a 13" touch display that doesn’t require a chassis change, or push their Framework 12.
I think it’s possible that the mainboard display port could be compatible. But unfortunately, it looks like they haven’t yet revealed the FWL12 screen resolution? I only see that it’s 12.2" with touch and stylus support.
Would need the resolution to guess if it has a chance, because below a certain resolution, 4-lane eDP like the FWL13 uses isn’t needed. If it’s 2-lane it likely won’t be compatible. If it’s 4-lane then maybe. They’d have to use the same mainboard display pinout as the FWL13, which they could.
But even if you can plug the display in, that doesn’t mean touch will work. If the digitizer is i2c, which I think is most common, then it won’t work unless Framework (or someone else) adds a driver to the FWL13 EC firmware.
Thinking about this made be wonder if FW has already made the effort to use the same mainboard eDP pinout when possible. Such as with the FWL16. The reason not to do so is that routing could be done easier if you just use whatever pinout happens to route the easiest.
I don’t recall reading anyone talking about looking at this, so I had to look. Yep! Looks compatible.
Though again, even if the FWL12 mainboard eDP display pinout is the same, don’t anyone hold their breath. Touch won’t work if it’s i2c, unless a driver is added to the FWL13 EC firmware.
