Getting ready to ship 13th Gen and announcing power saving Expansion Cards (opens in new tab)

I just placed a preorder for one of the upcoming AMD laptops because the timing is good relative to my needs and I like their corporate ethos.

While I won't need to execute this rework, it doesn't deserve the "very difficult" rating. The biggest hurdle for most people will be the equipment. A microscope makes all the difference in the world for stuff like this, but few folks have them or know where to go to borrow time on one.

By contrast, I just replaced the screen and battery on a Surface Pro. That was definitely very difficult. Mostly because of glue.

This really impressed me. Can you imagine Dell or Apple doing this?

It's funny, I actually have a Thinkpad (my work machine), and never use that thing. Just never got into it. I like the positioning in theory I suppose, just haven't accustomed to its location or acceleration, and the trackpad isn't so far away as to make me.

But what do you do at regular desktops/with a docked laptop? Mice bother me more, I've been looking into getting an Apple trackpad (to use with Linux) so it's a pad not a mouse but also so that I can put it in laptop-esque positioning, which seems more ergonomic to me, from primarily using the keyboard. (Not as much as a ThinkPad nipple of course, but as above I've never grown used to it, and I don't think any such keyboards exist anyway.)

As a fellow thinkpad user, i feel you.

However, given the sad state of modern thinkpads (soldered ram, nothing’s upgradeable etc etc) i think you (we?) should really reconsider if the trackpoint is worth the hassle.

I’m certainly reconsidering… I’m waiting for amd and 16” version reviews.

I'm in the same boat. I was considering just buying a standalone Lenovo Thinkpad keyboard and using it with the Framework laptop, but kind of defeats the purpose of a laptop.

Sadly, I estimate we're in such a tiny minority it simply makes no market sense for anyone to cater to us.

It might be possible to use an OG Thinkpad keyboard. Assuming it physically fits in the machine, the electronics are quite straightforward. People have already adapted old Thinkpad keyboards to work over USB. I am pretty sure they'll be too thick, but I will take some measurements anyway.

It is even conceivable someone is still manufacturing these keyboards. I see several companies listing Thinkpad keyboards on AliBaba, but I don't know AliBaba well enough to tell if they are manufacturing new keyboards or just selling old ones.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Genuine-New-Laptop-Ke...

I loved the old keyboards with concave keys. The new era of flat keyboards is disheartening. Short throw is ok, but the flat keys don't have the wonderful feel of keys that match the curvature of your finger pads. The curvature also helps your fingers self-center on the keys for precision.

The framework does 2256 x 1504, the 13,3 inch macbook pro does 2560 x 1600. Doesn't seem like that large of a difference, especially at that screen size.

same here, I can't justify upgrading for a few more years, but definitely planning on framework for my next laptop, what they're doing is really cool

I've personally never had one of those hinged ethernet jacks reliably work. Or, they do, but the link is incredibly unstable. I just settled on having a thick enough laptop to support a 'native' full-size jack in my last purchase cycle, but I could see the Framework style being very nice for how little I find myself using it: that way when you _need_ a full size jack, you have one that's stable.

I suspect most people these days have hardwired networking to a laptop dock, and then thunderbolt from there to the laptop anyway.

I wonder if regulation is partly to blame:

"Due to 27 different regulations in the EU alone (and more in other non-EU-countries), the administrative burden for international e-commerce is huge. Other than packaging regulations in many countries, WEEE regulations do typically not have any minimum thresholds or exceptions for SMEs. Therefore, WEEE registration and recycling fees are required in every country (separately – even within the EU) when shipping internationally. This also goes for startups and small stores which have just started selling electronics in Europe. (The laws even apply before the first sale is made.)"

https://www.ecosistant.eu/en/weee-directive/

I was waiting over one year for shipping to Czech Republic. Finally I solved it by buying over Germany with service that created virtual address there and reshipped to Czech Republic.

Edit: I understand that for business especially non-european EU rules must be complicated. But seems to me that for the EU customer it works great.

Iirc they’re supposed to start shipping to italy and spain this summer.

Some crazy person modified their Framework to use the Acer Spin 713 OLED display[0], but I really hope down the road there's an OLED option to purchase directly from their Marketplace. I'm betting the Framework 16 will have it, but there still hasn't been too much revealed about it.

The speakers are also disappointing; you'll definitely want to experiment with different sound equalizers. On Fedora, I'm using this Advanced Auto Gain preset[1] with PipeWire/EasyEffects.

[0] https://community.frame.work/t/framework-laptop-alternative-...

[1] https://github.com/JackHack96/EasyEffects-Presets