What did you get and for how much? To me it seems the framework (at least the 16) is only a bit (100-200 out of 1600) more expensive than laptops with similar specs.

Yeah the upfront cost is more, but personally I think it’s more than worth it since it will probably end up being cheaper in the long term, especially if you like to upgrade frequently. I’m personally thinking I’m going to try the framework 16 route once I decide to rid of my current laptop. I hope they take off too and I’m more than willing to show support for a company pushing right to repair.

Not that I’m advocating for Apple’s inexcusable behaviour, but as someone who’s worked in IT managing fleets of hundreds of Thinkpads (among others like Apple, Dell, Acer, HP), respectfully, they are far less reliable and durable than a MacBook. The only devices I had with higher failure rates than ThinkPads were Acer laptops.

They are certainly more repairable, but so are others like Dell and HP. Lenovo were one of the earlier manufacturers to pull some anti-repair moves such as soldering memory to the mainboard (on the Yoga models).

I think your statement is far more accurate in the days when IBM owned the ThinkPad brand, but unfortunately Lenovo have run it into the ground as far as quality goes.

All that said, I certainly hope we see more projects like Framework so that these big manufacturers can get some sort of reality check.

ThinkPads are far superior than MacBooks for longevity

Not sure that’s true. I have a pretty top-of-the-line ThinkPad (3 years old) and it started falling apart after like a year of regular use. Maybe years ago that was true but nowadays I feel like everybody except maybe Apple has crap build quality.

This is the opinion of someone who has not used a Thinkpad nor a MacBook built within the past three years.

Linux compatibility is highest

The L14 Gen1 I have must be an exception then. The fingerprint reader isn’t compatible at all (I feel kinda taken for a ride there since it’s seemingly the only Synaptics reader without Linux compatibility) and both Bluetooth and USB are very buggy. I haven’t used it with Windows, so the latter two may also be down to crappy firmware. Either way I’m rather disappointed for the price tag and probably not buying Lenovo again any time soon.

Agreed, a lot of people get into sustainability and rush out to buy sustainable stuff. Even with something like a plastic bag, it’s better to use it for as long as you reasonably can than to throw it away and rush out to buy an organic cotton one.

Hey there, fellow 2017er! Different worlds, I know, but I’m just finding out my specific model 2017 MacBook Pro–the 13" without a “touchbar”–was the last model with a replaceable SSD, so I’m about to upgrade it to 2TB. Eventually I’ll probably replace its battery, but, for now, I’m even pretty happy with the remaining battery capacity. I’m just hoping it keeps working long enough for the right-to-repair movement to force Apple back to replaceable wear-and-tear parts (particularly SSD and battery) before I have to decide whether to choose between a completely unserviceable replacement model or switching platforms again.

True, though Apple does contribute some things, like MagSafe for iPhones is becoming part of Qi 2. I think Apple get a bad rep just because they’re a large target sometimes, but I don’t recall other big platforms releasing a bunch of their work as FLOSS either.

I’m also on the fence about the repairability thing. It’s nice to be able to open up an old computer to add more RAM/Storage/etc., but I also get that making everything integrated and soldered improves durability and reliability. I do think they take that a little too far sometimes. While RAM/SSDs should typically last a long time, the battery life often becomes the limiting factor for usability so making that repair simpler would go a long way. Pricing can be hard to bite too, while I don’t mind the idea of soldered RAM, I don’t like that upgrades are pretty heavily marked up compared to most manufacturers.

Then again, I’m still in the ecosystem, so unless there’s some government oversight setting standards for Apple to follow they’ll continue doing what’s profitable and their sales keep steadily growing despite the occasional bad press.

+1 apple products are very much not shit. Otherwise people wouldnt buy and use them as prolifically as they do.

I started using Macbooks because the user experience on windows laptops sucks in comparison.

Agreed. I work in computer simulations and their great. CPU is crazy fast, stays cool and silent. Battery life is solid.

If I bought a framework laptop I would not physically be able to stop fiddling with it. I think I may end up spending more money in the long run. It’s too configurable for its own good.

I wonder if they’ll ever consider adding an e ink screen option, with a separate normal screen. There have been a few concept laptops like that, but I don’t think the demand is enough to actually make that profitable, but if it was just a configuration option of an otherwise more normal laptop, then I could see it being viable.

That’s sweet. Do you have one?

I’ve got a framework 13. It’s not better than a Macbook except in terms of user-serviceability.

• It’s hot and loud (hopefully the AMD upgrade will fix this)
• Battery life is atrocious (hoping AMD and battery upgrade will fix this)
• Trackpad isn’t as good (piano hinge, and the coating has more friction.)
• fewer ports(!) (limited to 4 expansion cards)
• sleep is broken (modern standby, ugh. S3 exists on the 11th gen model but it’s no better than s2idle. I’ll have to see if the AMD one is any better)
• Keyboard has bigger keys than I’d like, and while the key feel is pretty nice, it’s also heaver than any macbook I’ve used. Also, the layout is standard laptop garbage. The only reason the layout works on a macbook is because of macos’s shortcuts. On a PC I want a full PC keyboard like we had on 2011 ThinkPads.

That said, I do really like the laptop. I just find myself reaching for my macbook especially due to the issue with battery life.

I don’t like Apple very much but it would be stupid to not admit that their new M1 and M2 SOCs aren’t great. Their battery efficiency far surpasses any from Intel or AMD and the performance is great.

I think MacOS looks stupid though, I mean, it looks like fucking Gnome.

I assume most people that buy Macs and iphones do it for their software and hardware, not because they want to appear wealthy. Like you said OS is a personal preference and some prefer MacOS and iOS.

…lock-in tactics should put any person who cares about those things off.

Unfortunately most people don’t care.

Nobody is stopping you from buying a laptop with user replaceable storage and RAM. Why do you need the EU to get involved? That’s ridiculous.

Upgradable RAM isn’t as fast as non-upgradable RAM and that this is especially true for the way Apple Silicon is designed. So no we shouldn’t be mandating something that reduces computer performance for the sake of an upgrade most people would never care to perform.

We should however force them to produce laptops with a certain minimum RAM and to reduce their ridiculous upgrade pricing.

Edit: also I don’t own a single Apple product. I aren’t a fan boy at all and I know they do a whole bunch of anti-consumer bs. I also know that modular RAM for Apple Silicon would be a terrible idea for that specific design. Modular SSDs on the other hand would be very doable.

iPhones tend to be more affordable in the US than in other places in the world. An iPhone SE is only $400, and used iPhones aren’t that expensive.

You, correct, if you need to develop for iOS or something Apple related you’ll need the appropriate hardware and software.

Which brings us back to my original point don’t buy Apple products.

Except that they are. There is absolutely no value to anything they make. It’s all over priced proprietary crap.

Apple products right now are almost entirely home use there’s almost no commercial industry anymore.

Developers graphic design artists music producers most technology firms most offices like doctors and lawyers whatever don’t use Apple products. They’re almost exclusively windows.

Literally the only thing keeping them in business right now is the iPhone. They don’t sell enough of any other product.

Sad to say it but yeah. I’ve never really used MacBooks, but I had an ipad pro 10.5 for years, and it finally died on me a few months ago. I recently replaced it with a 2 in 1 thinkpad, but the level of usability is just not the same. Tried windows (kinda half thought out) and currently going through Linux distros (mostly buggy when in purely touchscreen only mode) but it is a far cry ipad os, even if I have issues with it.

Not being forced to use Windows or having to hope that Ubuntu works, battery life, raw SoC performance, good keyboards (after they fixed the duds from 2016-2020), best trackpads in town, good quality apps, native Unix shell?

I was really looking into buying the Framework laptop but apart from that, everything seemed to be more or less crap (for my use cases) if you don’t want to deal with Thinkpads.

Windows has pretty great high dpi, Apple privacy is pretty awful and they hide everything they are doing, security is definitely getting worse on MacOS while the opposite is the case on Windows. And Apple still doesn’t super touchscreen which is an immediate deal breaker

It sucks completely if you try to use it in different way so if you don’t like magic mouse (which sucks) and don’t like using their laptop keyboard (which sucks) and touchpad you will not enjoy it.

This isn’t true for me. I use the same (cheap Logitech) mouse with Win11, Linux, and my MBPs. What’s meant to be the issue? It’s just like every other setup I’ve used in the last 30 years.

deleted by creator

I own recent OLED Zenbook and it’s super creaky squeaky, plus, the screen unglued itself from the frame. The build quality isn’t very good I’d say.

I’ve used Macs for a while, but I’d take Frameworks over Macs now. The fun at the start of having a mac is not worth all the hassles that come down the line when things start failing and can’t be fixed.

No, you’re getting downvoted because you can buy non-apple laptops with quality screens. Also, you could just plug in a cheap monitor that is properly calibrated, or buy a nicer color correct monitor. Apple doesn’t have monopoly on color.

Is this what you are talking about?
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/auto-color-management/

OS level colour calibration and management, regardless of the app?
New feature in Windows 11 2022.

Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/clip/UgkxhgZEK-CfdGLZ0YVIfnrhyb-A0A9EULvV

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.

Unpopular opinion: I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model.

Either you’re a shill, or you have zero clue what you’re talking about. It’s one of the two.

I take issue with some of the statements here. First of all:

I find this whole “right to repair” really pointless endeavour pushed by repair shops wanting to retain their outdated business model.

Right to repair is definitely not just being pushed by repair shops. If you take a good look at the rate Framework is selling devices at (batches instantly sold out until Q1 2024), you’ll see that consumers want this more than any other group. We, as the consumers will ultimately benefit the most from having repair options available. Right to repair is not meant to halt innovation, it is not about forcing manufacturers to design products in ways detrimental to the functioning of said products. It is about making sure they don’t lock third parties out of the supply chain. If you replace a traditional capacitor with a SMD variant, someone is going to learn to micro solder. If you convert a chip from socketed to BGA mount, someone is going to learn how to use a heat plate and hot air gun to solder it back in to place.

The main problem is manufacturers demonstrably going out of their way to prevent the feasable.

The second part I take issue with is this:

It is probably better use of our collective resources to focus on researching technologies that will help us deconstruct these tiny components into their constituent matters

From my 12 years of experience in design of consumer goods and engineering for manufacturing I can tell you this is not happening because no one is going to pay for it. The more tightly you bond these “constituent matters” together, the more time, energy, reasearch and money it will require to convert them back into useful resources.

There is only one proper way to solve this problem and it is to include reclamation of resources into the product lifecycle design. Which is currently not widely done because companies put profits before sustainability. And this model will be upheld until legislation puts a halt to it or until earth’s resources run out.

In terms of sustainability the desireable order of action is as follows:

• reduce: make it so you need less resources overall
• prolong: make it so you can make do as long as possible with your resources. this part includes repair when needed
• reuse: make it so that a product can be used for the same purpose again. this part includes repair when needed
• repurpose: make it so that a product can be used for a secondary purpose
• recycle: turn a product into resources to be used for making new products
• burn: turn the product into usable energy (by burning trash in power stations for example)
• dispose: usually landfill

This sounds like it’s better to wait for imaginary benefits than do the things we really can do. Anyway, there is absolutely no reason not to repair things even if you want your scifi disassembler. Our collective resources are not strained in the slightest by repairs.

In the very long term you are right. The thing is we aren’t there yet. Lots of companies are making things unrepairable for no reason right now. This is at a time when we need to produce less stuff to help the environment.

I mean, you were never blocked from replacing ICs. Most people just didn’t have the capability to solder. Today, IC replacement is blocked by hardware DRM.

I can see an eventual future when the cores, RAM and storage are all on one IC or something which would also be great for performance (I just bought a desktop processor that does some clever stacking of extra L3 cache on top of the cores). As others said though we’re not quite there yet.

Ever since Steve Jobs (I think perhaps as a way of coping with illness making him thinner himself) Apple has done this thing of telling consumers that they want thinner, thinner, thinner at all costs (and other manufacturers following Apple because of course they do) but I’ve seen no real evidence of consumers actually wanting this. I for one (and I know I’m far from the only one) don’t actually mind a bit more thickness if it means a bigger battery, using an M.2 slot (oh no a few mm difference) etc.

I might agree with you if the boards themselves were disposable. If a high end macbook were $300 then sure, just get a new one. But they’re $2000 or more just for an “ok” model. At that price they should be repairable.

I think people’s anger stems from the fact that it wouldn’t be hard for laptops to be repairable and in fact Apple’s putting in additional roadblocks over time to make repairing harder. At the very least, having broken components be removable would do a lot for hardware lifespan.

It’s nothing new. Have you ever opened up a laser disc player or discman from 1989? Extremely intracate parts Ave mechanisms that are nearly impossible to work with.

Even a basic VCR or DVD drive has a ton of small moving parts which are difficult or impossible to fix and designed to break early and often.

Technology doesn’t proliferate as quickly as you’d expect. Most people aren’t on the cusp of the latest and greatest. I worked for a fucking multibilliondollar international company 2 years ago, and they still pick product, and communicate inventory adjustments with pen and paper.

People rely on the previous shit they’ve bought.

My 2008 MBP is still running with a Linux distro. It was more for the fun than the usability with the Core2duo and 2go of ram.

I had that. I must say I loved that thing. I used it to death, although that said I only really got around 5-6 years out of it. Replaced the battery once the motherboard once, the fan once, the charger twice. Hmmmm.

It performed absolutely admirably throughout its lifetime though and it had a nice big screen even if it made it quite a chonker. I really appreciate the expansion slot because I was able to give it USB3.0 slots even though it didn’t have any when it came out.

“last forever” is an overstatement, the lastest macOS only supports device until 2017: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213264 ; That is only 6 years old, that is around the phone support period around a later pixel phone, which is not even a company that focus on sustainability.

Although you can probably throw linux on it to extend its life, but I dont know if it is as easy as install it on a normal laptop.

The raw performance isn’t everything for me. I already have a gaming laptop that pumps out heat like a 1500W space heater even when it’s not doing anything. I really didn’t want that in a second laptop, especially with how bad my experience has been with Windows’ Connected Standby, where the laptop will just sometimes decide to fully wake up in a bag and overheat and drain the battery.

There were a lot of reasons I went with a Mac for this, but one of the biggest ones was how efficient Apple Silicon is. The M2 Max may take an extra minute or two to compile a large project vs an i9-13900HX, but it also manages to not give me first degree burns if I want to use it on my lap.

I have a lot of problems with Apple and their decisions around macOS and hardware pricing, but for me, that efficiency ratio was really important. I’m not trying to say everyone should buy a Mac, but if we’re “saying it like it is”, Apple Silicon is years ahead of Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm for high performance portability. That trade-off might not be worth it to you, and that’s fine, but there’s literally no competition for what I needed.

The fact of the matter is that the M2 Max rarely goes above 70C under load, even with Apple’s ridiculously conservative fan curve, while pretty much every x86 laptop I’ve owned idles right around there.

Every other post is about how shitty of a company HP is, I’m not sure you’d be winning any integrity points.