I seem to be the only person without a Franework laptop

@merlin they seem fun. Are they in your opinion worth it?

@tufo their users seem happy from what I’ve heard, but I can’t comment any further on that sadly

@merlin @tufo i've now had three friends report spontaneous issues ranging from "turned off, had trouble starting it again, it's weird" to "it never turbos properly and it's an ACPI/firmware issue". The tech support seems dogshit, marketing to hackers while not being able to ingest/relay anything but the most basic troubleshooting info. I don't have one, but so far my feeling is DO NOT BUY.

@domi @tufo @merlin some of us hoped for the next ibm thinkpads, but we got the next late-stage lenovo thinkpads instead

@merlin @tufo oh, right. @TadeusTaD is on his 3rd replacement motherboard and it's still fucked

@jn @tufo @merlin correction, 4 friends of my friends had framework problems https://is.badat.dev/objects/46c97993-e98c-4b82-9443-e8fafbf7f17b

@jn @domi @tufo @merlin this is a way too accurate description. Although they are even less durable, you buy a Framework because you WANT to repair it

@famfo @jn @domi @tufo @merlin at least you can replace stuff like the wifi card (unlike in a thinkpad)

i'm reasonably happy with mine but it has not been without issues

the durability is okay

@famfo @jn @tufo @merlin you underestimate the availability (and price) of regular laptop parts. IMHO framework is made for an idealized archetype of “lowly end user that doesn’t want to think too much but wants to fix stuff themselves”. HOWEVER:

• most end users don’t want to do repairs themselves because “they’d break it”, even if stuff is simple
• even if they do want to repair it themselves, aftermarket parts for most laptops are available if you look online, and offline you’re screwed either way
• frameworks and replacement parts are NOT cheap. you’re paying out of your pocket for being marginally less wasteful (which is cool, but even their refurbished laptops cost an arm and a leg compared to buying two used laptops on fleebay and using one for parts)

IMHO that archetype does not exist in practice. if frameworks were made for hackers, they wouldn’t ship with locked BootGuard, for instance

they did some things right, but i’d expect better quality or better hackability for this price

@domi @jn @famfo @tufo @merlin I always thought it to be not as durable as those really old rugged laptops from 2011... it's quite thin, seems fragile, and I did see people having issues with it now.

My 2011 HP is still rock solid even after all these years, while being extremely repairable. I won't switch away from it, you can't change my mind :p

@domi @famfo @jn @merlin @tufo I think they promised coreboot support for a number of years now but still didn't do it?

@q66 I have a recent thinkpad with a replaces WiFi card, huh?

@famfo i had a p14s gen4 amd and it was definitely soldered on

@q66 funny, mine is just a M.2 module like you'd expect

@famfo @q66 i have a t14 g4 genuineintel, but never checked. now im tempted to open it aaa

@domi @jn @famfo @tufo @merlin In practice I feel like Framework is basically just a business laptop (hence the prices), and somewhat more repairable than thinkpads if you're always in the right parts of the world.

And rather funny to have them seen as pro-linux when they just allow to not choose windows, to me pro-linux is when I actively see a vendor participating in development/support and/or make sure to have the least amount of NDAs/firmware-locks.

@domi @famfo @jn @merlin @tufo And personally I'm not huge on "repairability" being pretty much just parts-swapping, specially proprietary parts as that ties you to the manufacturer and their whims.

@lanodan @jn @domi @famfo @tufo @merlin

fwiw i thing rossman did get framework to release schematics in the end, so it's somewhat *actually* repairable from that end, but that's not of a sell to end consumers as i don't think anyone but repair technicians will attempt board-level repairs anyway

regardless tho, i agree with this thread pretty much -- i got a framework myself to avoid dealing with bs from most other laptops, aka, not because frameworks are good, but because everyone else is so awful in the matter of modern laptops (i wanted a modern amd cpu, and not-soldered in memory/storage), a lot of people recommend older laptops to avoid the bs but i need to frequently compile wine and other packages

@navi @jn @domi @famfo @tufo @merlin Boards schematics are cool but I feel like those are only useful when you want skilled repair-shop work done and still rely on things like firmware and related tools not being behind locked doors (Apple being an horrible example of that).
Plus I don't really see this kind of thing happening much given the expensive tools needed (like for example I don't see most hackerspaces having them, at least outside of the ones that are run like a business), so I think most people would just… parts-swap or get a whole new machine.

Meanwhile as far as I can tell parts that are either consumable like the battery or easily breakable under use/accident like the fan, keyboard, or touchpad are proprietary.
So they keep a lot of the status quo made by modern laptops.

@lanodan @jn @famfo @tufo @navi @merlin you’re not wrong with this, but consider: having full board design springs innovation. Even without PCB schematics I’ve been doing lots of hacking and modding on laptops myself; all of this would be so much nicer if I didn’t have to reverse-engineer my own device.

I wouldn’t even bring this up as an argument when discussing repairability, but framework advertises heavily to hackers, the one group which WOULD appreciate this

@q66 @famfo @jn @domi @tufo @merlin I don't know about others but the wifi card is replaceable in every thinkpad supported by coreboot/libreboot, although all of them except T480/T480s have a wifi card whitelist in the proprietary boot firmware.