Framework laptop, now with extra AMD

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serpretetsky

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I like the concept of Framework, and have considered buying in the past, but they are a bit pricy.

What kills it for me is that they only offer that one awful chiclet/island style keyboard.

I want a laptop with a real keyboard, and absolutely HATE those chiclet/island designs that absolutely everyone is using these days, which is why I am going to hold on to my old thick Dell Latitude 6540 until it is so obsolete it can no longer run anything at all.
 
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Zarathustra[H] said:
which is why I am going to hold on to my old thick Dell Latitude 6540 until it is so obsolete it can no longer run anything at all.
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Man... that takes me back. I always loved those old 6k series Dells. One of the best mobile keyboards I've typed on.

Agreed on the chicklet keys as well, screw those. I find them very untactile and can't stand the feedback.
 
AlphaQup said:
Man... that takes me back. I always loved those old 6k series Dells. One of the best mobile keyboards I've typed on.

Agreed on the chicklet keys as well, screw those. I find them very untactile and can't stand the feedback.
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617399_laptops.png


15" Latitude E6540 on the left with a Haswell era 4C/8T i7-4810MQ and a Radeon HD 8790M
14" Latitude E6430s on the right with an Ivy Bridge era 2C/4T i5-3320m.

Both are still surprisingly good CPU wise (probably because they have a larger power envelope than modern laptops. Modern laptops seem to have used all the benefits of modern architectures and small node sizes to reduce power use instead of increase performance, so they still feel as responsive as the newer ones)

The smaller 6430s is somewhat difficult to use these days though, primarily because of screen resolution. 1366x768 just isn't as much as it used to be :p
 
Saw this yesterday. Think I might order at least one 13 for the wife and 16 for me.
 
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Yeah this might be my next laptop. I expect it to game pretty well.

(Shh don't worry Skyrim, I'll never stop playing you.)
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
View attachment 559193

15" Latitude E6540 on the left with a Haswell era 4C/8T i7-4810MQ and a Radeon HD 8790M
14" Latitude E6430s on the right with an Ivy Bridge era 2C/4T i5-3320m.
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Heck yes, those are them! We've been recycling them at work for maybe 3-4 years now. We had very few 40's with the 10-key too.

Appreciate the flashback man. Between those and the Precision m6800's, Dell was kicking ass back then.
 
AlphaQup said:
Heck yes, those are them! We've been recycling them at work for maybe 3-4 years now. We had very few 40's with the 10-key too.

Appreciate the flashback man. Between those and the Precision m6800's, Dell was kicking ass back then.
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From when I graduated until now I've worked at maybe 10 or so different companies, all except one have been Dell shops. (that once used HP laptops and I hated them., luckily I didn't stay there long) For 20+ years at work I've been using Dell Latitudes, starting with the venerable Dell Latitude D600. The last one I liked I was issued in 2014, and that was one of these thick Latitude E6000 series. I can't remember the exact model now.

Everything since then has been getting thinner, sleeker looking and lighter, but ultimately worse. I kind of hate how laptops have become so shitty in modern times.

If you want one that doesn't suck today, you have to buy one with rainbow-colored lights for "gaming", and I don't want that.

I just want a solid business oriented laptop that prioritizes good typing and user serviceability and upgradeability over being thin and light. That doesn't feel like it should be too much to ask.
 
Zarathustra[H] all in the name of shaving fractions of a mm between gens of laptops....

I'm with ya, I want a fatty 6430 new age equivalent!

I just settled on a new Lattitude 5330 MONDAY and had to work a P1/Sev1 (Whatever you want to equatie it to, site down) outage yesterday away from my desktop and fuck that thing. Garbage keyboard!

To try and not bogard this thread, even BOXX and the others seems to be going that slim AF route when it comes to their offerings, and forgoing the ruggedness and brute force approach.

We have a handful of those BOXX VR orientated laptops (desktop procs in mobile offerings) we're looking at replacing for our HandyScanners (real time 3D mapping of parts through what looks like a serial number scanner) and eh... not impressed.

At the end of the day, I know the answer... the market has unfortunately spoken...
 
AlphaQup said:
Zarathustra[H] all in the name of shaving fractions of a mm between gens of laptops....

I'm with ya, I want a fatty 6430 new age equivalent!

I just settled on a new Lattitude 5330 MONDAY and had to work a P1/Sev1 (Whatever you want to equatie it to, site down) outage yesterday away from my desktop and fuck that thing. Garbage keyboard!

To try and not bogard this thread, even BOXX and the others seems to be going that slim AF route when it comes to their offerings, and forgoing the ruggedness and brute force approach.

We have a handful of those BOXX VR orientated laptops (desktop procs in mobile offerings) we're looking at replacing for our HandyScanners (real time 3D mapping of parts through what looks like a serial number scanner) and eh... not impressed.

At the end of the day, I know the answer... the market has unfortunately spoken...
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When Ultrabooks first hit the market we made fun of them.

Now everything is an Ultrabook.
 
Framework is one of two companies making laptops (the other being System76) that have my attention because they're moving forward the free/libre open source software / hardware / firmware space while focusing on MODERN hardware, aesthetics and features people may actually wish to use. There are a few other entries but some are focused on either repurposing older hardware at a premium price, or selling antiquated and limited designs as the cost for compatibility with privacy, security, or openness again at a very high price . These aren't all bad, but they're very much for ultra-niche users who are willing to accept serious compromises in performance, features, and price ostensibly for privacy and security; many of these projects could also use some different approaches as well. S76 and Framework on the other hand can make some significant gains with making privacy, security, and openness seem desirable and capable, rather than an all or nothing affair. While System76 may be a little farther along on the open software/firmware/OS/util focus when it comes to laptops, Framework's reasonably moving that way but working on the modular, custom open spec and repair-friendly hardware side.

I am a bit disappointed at least last I checked, Coreboot didn't work on main Framework laptops (compared to System76 which has it working on their Intel based laptops so far, plus other elements like EC and other open controllers, firmware elements and more ), but they did open source their embedded controller firmware so that's at least something. The arrival of AMD for Framework is nice especially if the mobile Zen4 + RDNA3 is high performance, though I am curious about which models specifically will be offered ; I rather wish they would have a Ryzen 9 option but then again maybe that is being saved for the 16" model. This coming month there MAY be a step forward for open BIOS/UEFI , board firmware and microcode for AMD - https://www.phoronix.com/news/AMD-openSIL-Open-Source - lets hope it will be meaningful and useful across the range of consumer hardware and not only limited to EPYC or whatnot.

The annnouncement of a modular 16" GPU swappable Framework model is also nice to see; I wonder if there will be options for both AMD/Intel CPU and AMD/NVidia GPU. Likewise, the Coolermaster SFF case for repurposing old FW mainboards into a usable PC is neat; I'm glad they've done well enough to consider such things and most importantly, they've kept to their promises about users being able to upgrade not just in a single generation or with very minimal peripherals, but swapping displays, borders, mainboards into the same chassis, or adding a more powerful battery etc. In any case, I'll keep my eyes open - its been quite some time since I've had a laptop and if Framework continues to move forward they'll remain on the very short list of alternatives to "buy something conventional and hope most of it is/can be beaten into shape / support".
 
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vegeta535 said:
It is what people want. Want a good keyboard? Get a dock and connect one to it.
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That completely misses the point.

If I am not travelling, then I am going to be using my desktop, and don't need a dock, and I already have a keyboard.

A dock and a keyboard won't fit in my laptop bag.

The point of a laptop is for it to be usable on the go, not to hook it up to a dock and use it as a desktop. A real desktop is going to be better than this use case in every single way possible.

If adding 2-5mm of thickness saves you traveling with an external keyboard then it is completely and totally worth it.

Not having a decent usable keyboard makes a laptop completely pointless.
 
The interesting thing about the 16" modular bay for the GPU is that you can also get a module that adds another two M.2 SSD slots.

On a related note, I hope there is no Optimus like switching of GPUs in play when you use a GPU module.
 
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