Framework discussion

[seggy]

The problem I see with core upgrades is that while they are attractive in theory

a) they're a not insignificant in terms of cost for something current, and
b) by the time you want to upgrade it is highly likely that many of the other components (HID's, screens, ports etc) may also be "well shagged, innit"

and when you add those up together, say 5 years down the line it's probably not going to be economical to upgrade everything to a fully functional state for a potentially obsolete form factor. Yes, you could probably bring it up to date by a few years using new old stock or used spares, but ultimately you still have an obsolete machine even after all that.

My guess is that these have every bit as much of a chance of ending up in the same e-waste state as a regular laptop, since by the time it's no longer usable it would probably have passed through a few hands, the last of those hands is probably not going to care about responsible disposal even if Framework has a specific takeback program (and as far as I know they dont).

 

[redheeler]

You can get the 16” without the graphics module. Still bulky but less so.

Ideally I wouldn't have a laptop that requires much more than 90W. My current 2019 MBP came with a 96W charger and having my DIY 5K display supply 90W max is perfectly alright to charge it.

 

[Pinterra]

[…]

My guess is that these have every bit as much of a chance of ending up in the same e-waste state as a regular laptop, since by the time it's no longer usable it would probably have passed through a few hands, the last of those hands is probably not going to care about responsible disposal even if Framework has a specific takeback program (and as far as I know they dont).

there is also the question of what happens to all those old mainboards and parts. I know they made that case with Cooler Master but there’s a limit to how many of those you need.

 

[seggy]

Yeah. Rather than make all the compromises for full modularity, what practically needs to happen - or more precisely, revert to - is really that machines be repairable by a third party without going through hoops, that machines not be made repair hostile (unlike what Apple is doing and its maliciously compliant attitude towards 3rd party repair, as Apple has a real toys out of the pram problem these days) and the obvious stuff that might need to be changed during the realistic lifecycle of the laptop be upgradable or swappable (mem, storage, battery pack) by users. It's not a lot to ask, and the tech is now definitely there to give us that while maintaining svelte profiles.

 

[maflynn]

and when you add those up together, say 5 years down the line it's probably not going to be economical to upgrade everything to a fully functional state for a potentially obsolete form factor.

No question, its like repairing, and improving your car. Some people do it, but most want that shiny new car on the lot. Likewise with an upgradeable laptop. Do you want to keep replacing components, or do you want that shiny new model that was just announced. I think in both cases, the cost of upgrading will be less then buying new, but man alive, we all love our shiny new things.

 

[redheeler]

Yeah. Rather than make all the compromises for full modularity, what practically needs to happen - or more precisely, revert to - is really that machines be repairable by a third party without going through hoops, that machines not be made repair hostile (unlike what Apple is doing and its maliciously compliant attitude towards 3rd party repair, as Apple has a real toys out of the pram problem these days) and the obvious stuff that might need to be changed during the realistic lifecycle of the laptop be upgradable or swappable (mem, storage, battery pack) by users. It's not a lot to ask, and the tech is now definitely there to give us that while maintaining svelte profiles.

Exactly. Memory, storage, battery is what you see commonly upgraded in older laptops. The other stuff is nice flavor, but of questionable usefulness.

As far as I can tell there is only one option for display, and it’s not one I particularly like. Being able to swap the panel does me no good if there isn’t a better one to swap to. Same with GPU, if I wanted to swap between AMD or Nvidia that would be a reason to have it be modular, but you can’t do that either. And now Framework has to commit to this bulky form factor for some years in order to supply future GPUs for it. You need to build a desktop if any of this with the GPU matters to you.

 

[haunt]

RAM/SSD slots are fine.

 

[seggy]

That status quo disappeared the moment other makers realised Apple's tactic will still sell machines.

I'm sure Apple and those others will rapidly adopt CAMM.
pfft

 

[maflynn]

Interesting article here: Framework’s software and firmware have been a mess, but it’s working on them

I can't say that I'm surprised, I think startups struggle when it comes to on going support and updates to existing products. They need money to keep coming in, to help fund and keep the manufacturing going, so all of their focus and attention is new models. Yet people won't buy the machines if they think that the company won't be providing updates to the drivers and bios.

In November 2022, Patel announced that this model, then the latest version, was getting a nice, free-of-charge spec bump
....
But the BIOS update never showed up. Nearly a year and a half later,

Evidently, they still haven't released the 12th gen bios update, and that's not a good look for them

 

[MiniApple]

I had no idea the security and bios/driver support was so bad/not existent.
Hopefully they can indeed turn that around.

Unfortunately that will rule them out from my upcoming portable device choice.

I want that their repairable/modular concept becomes successful, so OEMs have to follow suit.

 

[maflynn]

that will rule them out from my upcoming portable device choice.

The longer I wait to buy a laptop, the less I'm inclined to choose Framework.

My current thinking, is that, how much repairable/replaceable is too much? Given their reported woes on supporting existing products, they're expending a lot of energy, money, and time designing new products where the appeal is limited. How many people will buy that GPU upgrade component or the microSD component, yet most buyers of the 12th gen laptops would want a bios update to improve performance and what not.

Seems they're too focused on being on the cutting edge of replaceability/repairability at the expense of supporting existing customers.

 

[BeatCrazy]

Interesting article here: Framework’s software and firmware have been a mess, but it’s working on them

I can't say that I'm surprised, I think startups struggle when it comes to on going support and updates to existing products. They need money to keep coming in, to help fund and keep the manufacturing going, so all of their focus and attention is new models. Yet people won't buy the machines if they think that the company won't be providing updates to the drivers and bios.

Framework sent out an email yesterday to address this topic:

Enabling software longevity

 
When building products to last, it’s not enough to design the hardware to be repairable, upgradeable, and customizable. The overall longevity of devices as complex as modern notebooks also depends on how long the software and firmware continues to be useful. That includes compatibility updates to support newer generations hardware modules, fixes for bugs or compatibility issues found by end users, and especially patches for security vulnerabilities. We recognize that we have fallen short of where we need to be on software updates, and we are making the needed investments to resolve this.

We now have a dedicated team of engineers at our manufacturing partner and a set of internal stakeholders focused on ongoing software updates for all of our products, going back to our original Framework Laptop with 11th Gen Intel Core. In the past, we were reliant on ad-hoc availability of engineering time from our suppliers (basically borrowing staffing from whichever new product development we had ongoing). This was inconsistent and resulted in slow progress. With a dedicated team, there is no longer resource contention, and we are able deliver shorter turnaround times from discovering issues to resolving them.

We are rotating the team between each of our previously launched platforms based on the updates we need to make, like security fixes from upstream suppliers, community-reported bugs, and in some cases, new features and functionality. Our overall software release process for firmware and drivers is now as follows:

1. Identifying and prioritizing the issues and updates the sustaining engineering team will work on for a release for a specific platform.
2. A multi-week development and validation cycle.
3. Internal testing by additional Framework team members of a candidate release.
4. A Community Beta release, which we announce in the relevant sub-forum in the Community.
5. After a one to two week period of beta testing, if no substantial regressions are identified, public release onto our BIOS and Drivers download page.

We’d love to provide a specific length of time we can commit to for ongoing BIOS updates for each generation, but we’re dependent on the support lifetimes of our upstream silicon vendors who in some cases haven’t shared public end of support dates. Instead, we can state that our intent is to provide security updates for at least as long as our silicon vendors are able to. Note that this specifically applies to the UEFI firmware and drivers that are provided to us as binaries. For the embedded controllers in our laptops and for Framework Laptop 16 Input Modules, our firmware is fully open source. This means we have full access to make updates as needed, and the broader community can contribute as well. You can access the source for these on GitHub.

If you currently have a Framework Laptop, here’s the latest firmware you can pick up. We have updaters available for both Windows and Linux. We strongly recommend always running the latest released BIOS and drivers, as there are both security and bug fixes incorporated:

• Framework Laptop 13 (11th Gen Intel Core) - 3.19 is the latest release. We’ll be doing a further release with additional security updates.
• Framework Laptop 13 (12th Gen Intel Core) - 3.08 is the latest release. This incorporates fixes for all known UEFI security issues, including LogoFAIL, and adds support for the 61Wh Battery. This is released for Windows, and for Linux we’re developing a new updater to handle the specific firmware regions involved.
• Framework Laptop 13 (13th Gen Intel Core) - We’re currently in development on a release that incorporates both bug fixes and security fixes.
• Framework Laptop 13 (AMD Ryzen 7040 Series) - 3.05 is the latest release, which we published earlier this week. This includes fixes for LogoFAIL along with assorted bug fixes. You can also pick up our latest driver bundle from that page.
• Framework Laptop 16 (AMD Ryzen 7040 Series) - 3.03 is the latest release, which we also published earlier this week. You can pick up the driver bundle there too.

With each of these complete, we've resolved both infrastructure and process issues that now make it faster for us to iterate on BIOS and driver updates on each platform. Obviously, our words here are not enough. We need to and commit to demonstrating this by actually improving both our iteration speed on software updates and our communication processes around them. We’re also continuing to grow our team’s capabilities to support our products and customers. We currently have several team members we’re actively recruiting for who will join this effort:

• A Firmware/Software Engineer, bringing additional skills and adding bandwidth to the team.
• An Escalations Support Specialist, handling technical customer support escalations and bringing field issues to our engineering team.
• An Engineering Technician, adding validation and regression testing capabilities to the team.

Finally, we have one last, completely unrelated update to share today: our products are now available for shipment to Poland. We had originally planned to share this today as part of a different newsletter topic, but rather than making our Polish customers wait, we’re launching on schedule. We have a bigger update that we’re looking forward to sharing with all of you next week.