I wonder if there is a market for a framework gaming laptop. Really hope there is.
Also, on another note, I've read this engadget article about how other companies tried to build an upgradeable laptop and failed but I see Framework as a different kind of beast for one simple reason. This is their only value proposition, they don't have an alternative.
In a very "Innovator's Dilemma" kind of. way, Dell and other big manufacturers have their main lines with higher margins and/or volume that really drives their attention and money, so any new innovation that takes more than 1 to 3 years to mature gets cut pretty fast. For Framework is kind a kind of "burn the ships" moment, they don't have anything else to turn to, so they have to keep pushing. I really hope they shine (and don't get acquired)!
We’ve been very deliberate about making this not a traditional gaming laptop, but a laptop that can be configured with enough performance to play intense games. You can configure it without the Graphics Module and have a high-performance 16” notebook with reconfigurable input and easy repairability and upgradeabilty.
If you could make it so you can completely turn off the dGPU through software (boot menu?), pulling no power, it would be insane. I would love the power of a dGPU to play casually on trips but turn it off for normal use when I'm just working. Also, I LOVE that it wouldn't look like a gaming laptop. I'm tired of the gamer-esque design cues, even when they're subtle (RGB keyboards are okay if configurable).
As someone who's blind and wants a lot of CPU performance but doesn't care about the GPU I appreciate this. I'm torn between a desktop and a laptop when replacing my current 8 year old desktop. I'm hoping that I will be able to configure this laptop with something more powerful then the current Framework CPU's. Given the fact that I only travel two or three weeks a year it would be nice to have this act as a desktop but be able to take it with me if I wanted to.
Will the graphics module be hotplugable (or at least, able to survive surprise removal or insertion without damaging the laptop and/or the card), or will it require that the laptop be fully turned off (perhaps even requiring to unplug the battery first) before exchanging it?
(My initial guess would be that it will require at least that the laptop be powered off, or will force it to power off when removed, because from what I understood the cooling fans are in that module).
I wonder if your offering would address a corner case: I have a Dell XPS 15 with a dedicated GPU. It's really obnoxious to allocate the dgpu to a vm and still use the igpu for video output, because the video output gets muxed through the igpu. Would the Framework let me use maybe a dummy plug on the dgpu and avoid muxing to make it easier to give the dgpu to a vm?
I’d be surprised if there was a market for a Framework laptop dedicated to gaming but I am really intrigued by a Framework laptop that can game.
I use my laptop for my work software engineering but since the pandemic have gotten back into gaming a little. I’m on an old Xbox and it’s showing its age but I don’t game enough to justify buying a whole gaming PC. If I can plug a GPU into my work machine and play some games? Now that’s compelling. The fact that it wouldn’t have all the cringey “gamer” decorations you see on the average gaming laptop would be a bonus too.
(all that said a Steam Deck is probably still the more compelling purchase for me in that regard, I’ve been eyeing one for a while)
Definitely go with the Steam Deck. It’s literally a portable pc which you can turn adhoc into a workstation, plug into a TV for sofa gaming and it’s really really bang for buck. The performance is amazing, the community caring and it runs on Linux.
I game on a framework laptop with an eGPU. I have a Razor Core Chroma with a Radeon 2060. There’s plenty of guides out there to get it up and running [^1]. I did try to get it working under Linux but wayland support for Nvidia is still a mess. For now, I’ve been dual-booting Windows to play my games on. It works really well.
Isn't one of the advantages of Framework that you can swap out parts, so it would be much easier for them (theoretically) to build a gaming version of the laptop.
I have the Steam Deck, I mean, I had it, because I'm waiting for the RMA because mine had a nasty bug which capped either CPU or GPU at a low level.
And this is my message to you: Beware it is pretty much a beta product, so buy it with this in mind. You will experience lot of bugs and troubleshooting, specially if you want to use it outside Steam's box (custom mods, emulator's etc).
Upgradeability is a huge plus for gaming laptops, and they're likely to get very favourable reviews from PC gaming reviewers, so I think they'll probably be successful!
That's a great point. While laptop makers who are used to the status quo probably aren't going to like this, the competitive gaming scene might like it a lot. A laptop where you can always have the latest greatest graphics card without replacing the whole laptop? You could charge a lot of money for that and it would still make financial sense for a certain type of person. I mean someone out there is buying the latest top of the line Razer Blade every year for like $4K right?
Anecdotally, it’s one of the main reasons I got one. Aside from work things that require Windows, it can run plenty of PC games. Especially when combined with an external GPU via Thunderbolt.
The market for gaming laptops is tiny, but long term upgradability is a big barrier there. It's possible that being able to upgrade the battery, GPU, CPU, even thermals, could be super enticing to the PC builder community.
>> I wonder if there is a market for a framework gaming laptop.
Yes, there is. We have four in our family, since ~2018, and three of them continue to run without issue. The main weak point for the 4th one has been the hinges and case. It happens to be a later model so I think the company 'value-engineered' it to have a shorter lifespan.
I wont discount that as a possibility, but it kind of goes against the company's mission, so I think thats kind of unlikely.
A more likely explanation (in my mind) is that being a small company, there's a lot more variability of quality in each unit's parts than you would see from a larger company with more mature factories etc.
My partner and I both have frameworks, but mine has had a lot of issues with the track pad and theyve never experienced any.
"Gaming" is a wider demographic to target and makes sense from a marketing standpoint. However, the people that benefit from the same level of hardware and would be interested in the mission and aesthetics of framework are creators. Video content, indie/hobby game dev, light modeling, design work etc. This is really the group that's going to get excited about a 16" laptop with more graphics horsepower. I know I am.
I predict that these are going to be a hit with CS students. Performance, customization, repairability, "geek cool" factor; it's exactly what I would have bought.
I’m happy to answer questions that folks have on this. There was also an earlier HN thread on our full launch event where we announced 13th Gen Intel Core and AMD Ryzen 7040 Series versions of the Framework Laptop 13, along with a bunch of other stuff: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35277660
I don't have a question, but I am a Framework 12th gen board owner and I just want to say what a cool company Framework is. For those who haven't seen a framework in real life before, I cannot emphasize enough how easy this thing is to put together or fix. Opening my computer up to replace my hard drive would take maybe 5 minutes at a relaxed pace. I bet it can be done in 60 seconds by someone who is fast at it. That's because of very thoughtful design and really thinking through the ergonomics of opening the computer up. There are little design choices like using case screws that don't come out all the way, so you don't end up spending 5 minutes replacing the SSD and 10 minutes looking for a 2mm screw that dropped on the floor near your desk. The layout of components on the inside is also very elegant. And then when you close the computer back up, it aligns itself with magnets, which just feels great; it's very satisfying, kind of like the magsafe charger design on a macbook. I really appreciate the design of this machine. You've gotten this to a point where anyone who can assemble a piece of Ikea furniture can probably replace their laptop speakers or trackpad. This is no small feat.
And more importantly, I love what you are doing for the industry overall. The idea that I can swap out my display from glossy to matte on a laptop that I've already owned for a while for less than $200 is pretty amazing. I wish you a lot of success.
What's going on w/ sleep/wake and suspend, particularly on Linux? From what I understand, the previous problems were due to Intel's bizarre behavior around s3 sleep. Has AMD introduced Apple-like sleep/wake/suspend behavior?
S3 is unfortunately pretty much dead all-around, but S0ix continues to improve. We have firmware optimizations going in on both the system side and the Expansion Card side to help reduce bad retimer behavior around suspend though which improves power draw.
It's a complete bloody mystery and I thought the same thing when I saw their other laptops. I'm sure their target audience uses the cursor keys more than almost every other key, and they've made them those horrible tiny nubs. You could literally fit all four of them into the footprint of that right shift key, the right shift key thatIhaveneverevenoncepressed in 30 years of computing.
No matter what else they do, the arrow keys tell me they are fools who should not be trusted! (Hyperbole, sure, but only a little.)
Indeed, all the space could be used to fit a keyboard in this manner very nicely https://imgur.com/a/V0Ykw1D and make this and any laptop immensely more usable.
I imagine that the numberpad thing in the 16s could address this problem. If not outright, then perhaps through the interfaces that enable it. But I agree, as a 13 owner I want a better answer than that.
I’ve loved my Framework so far and the excellent customer service. Is there still enough attention put into ensuring Linux compat? I’m especially interested in providing NixOS support as the Framework has been popular in that community.
Definitely. We have a dedicated member of the CX team focused on Linux support, along with a support agent who is also dedicated to it. Most of our lead engineers also use/dogfood Linux on their Framework Laptops daily. Mostly Ubuntu, but I believe one of our team members does use NixOS as their default.
Can you share the screen resolution? I own the 13 but the PPI on that screen makes fractional scaling necessary for me (which doesn't always behave well on Linux/Wayland). I'm wondering if I'll be able to comfortably use integer scaling with the 16. And if you can answer... are any screen replacements with different resolutions in play for the 13 chassis?
We'll be sharing full specifications on the Framework Laptop 16 later this Spring when we open pre-orders. What we have today is an early developer preview around the new module systems.
Would you consider releasing a graphics module “riser”? Since PCIe-is-PCIe, I would love the option to just connect a desktop GPU directly (no eGPU TB chip involved), even though I have to bring my own PSU.
I currently use a TB3 eGPU case and the massive overhead and OEM bugs are slowly making that real PCIe link worth it.
How crumb tight are the lines on the deck with the different panels on the 16? Are they held only by magnets, such that lateral pressure could cause them to move?
We have alignment pins and notches for stability in addition to magnets for holding force on the top row. The bottom row actually latches into place on rails.
I have to say that improving the battery by 11% is not nearly enough. I have a Framework Intel 12th Gen running Mint and I can't use it for more than 3h without having to plug it in. I've followed all instructions on your forums but it's just horrible! Don't get me wrong, I love my laptop, but I hate the battery performance. My wife has a MacBook Air which only requires charging every 3-4 says.
I wish you spent more effort in fixing it at the software level, whatever it takes.
One of my favorite things for keyboards is the ThinkPad feature where the Page Up and Page Down is above the Left and Right key. I don't understand why others don't do this, its so practical.
Specially in cases like this, there is just an empty space there. Why not put 2 more keys?
ThinkPad also makes them full sized keys, that would be even better. But just having empty space? Why?
Because it's easier to touch empty space and adjust fingers. Back when I worked on Thinkpad, I really hated these keys, whenever I accidentally pressed them. I don't say you're wrong, just it's a matter of taste.
It's the same with mechanical keyboards - I can't use these compact 75% keyboards where arrows/Pg Up/Pg Down/Home/End are flush with other keys; but a bit "exploded" layout, with just a bit of space between arrows and the right column keys is perfectly ok with me
What I really hate is that combination of full size/half size arrows on modern laptops, put there just because some designer hate empty space.
Spacing is heavily underrated in current laptop keyboard design. Consider another part of the keyboard: the function key row. On traditional keyboards, it was grouped with gaps between the groups: Esc, F1–F4, F5–F8, F9–F12. (Laptop keyboards will commonly have an extra key or two at the right end, such as Delete and Insert, which historically were part of other clusters.) This grouping is excellent for spatial memory, whether visual or blind. If anything, it’s more valuable than it used to be, with the other functionality of the keys (e.g. brightness and volume adjustments). But somewhere along the way, this gap has been removed from most laptops, in favour of an unproductive uniformity.
(I have an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15, 2021 model, GA503QM. It has a larger-than-necessary gap between Esc and F1, slightly-smaller-than-ideal gaps between F4 and F5 and F8 and F9, and sadly no gap between F12 and Delete. It also has another row of four keys higher still: XF86AudioRaiseVolume, XF86AudioLowerVolume, XF86AudioMicMute and XF86Launch1. Kinda funny how XF86AudioMute is relegated to Fn+F1. I’m really not looking forward to whenever I switch to a laptop without a dedicated mic mute button, it’s wonderful. I honestly wish they’d added another couple of buttons on this top row.)
IIRC on ThinkPad keyboards, the 6-key navigation block (arrow keys + pgup & pgdn) has a lower baseline -- the bottom of the block is lower than the bottom of the rest of the keys on the keyboard. So it is still easy to find the arrow keys by touch, even without blank space above the left and the right arrow keys.
Absolutely agree. I have those keys remapped to an additional left and right arrow on my T480 because I was constantly pressing them while navigating on the command line and it would erase my entire command.
The thing is, in every application, if you touch one of them by accidents, you can instantly hit the other one and you are right back where you were. On ThinkPad the page key have a different shape then the arrow key, its easy to feel what key your finger is on.
ThinkPads has slightly enlarged arrow and page keys that I think are perfectly usable.
Ha, that's an interesting take. My Dell work laptop has these (not full-sized) and I don't like them at all. There's nothing fun about trying to use the arrows and accidentally slipping onto a key that isn't usually there, which might scroll my cursor/window by a huge amount. My fingers expect no space there, so it makes the whole area less distinct to touch to have the spaces filled.
On my OS you can use CTRL+PgUp/PgDown to cycle through tabs, which makes the dedicated keys by the arrows really useful for single-handed tab cycling. Most other ways require a chord with both hands, so it’s just a lot slower.
> One of my favorite things for keyboards is the ThinkPad feature where the Page Up and Page Down is above the Left and Right key. I don't understand why others don't do this, its so practical.
Same. After falling in love with this layout, I just refuse to buy a keyboard that doesn't have them. These 2 keys alone are at least 50% of my decision to refuse to even bother with Apple hardware (the lack of OLED being another good 30%)
I fail to understand how people can accidentally hit a Page key instead of a arrow key, if they know touch typing and use the little bump on the Down key (like the F ahd J key) to reposition their finger.
In the worst case, they could disable these keys. Meanwhile, I have to suffer their non existance, or even worse: a ridiculously large left and right key, with a minuscule up and down key.
I find it far more frustrating the shift to half-sized arrow keys - when the space is also clearly already there. The r-shift key could be chopped up, or removed entirely, to accommodate a full-sized up-arrow.
For some (myself) the right shift key is the main shift key; so doing away with it would be terrible. Typically holding it down with the right pinky while typing full speed ahead, as well as single movement stroke patterns for <>{}?"+_ and so on, so heavy on all caps C snake case type use (if that makes sense.)
Hadn't really thought about it... kind of gotten used to Fn+up/down on most laptops. Though I rarely use a laptop except while traveling and that's usually on vacation, so limited use. At home, laptop for work is docked, and my personal doesn't get used much.
Vimium and vim (or even xmodmap if you like) are even more useful for this, since you don't have to have a special keyboard, and you can set it to whatever you like.
Framework have a very ... localization-interested website, that can be confusing some times in my opinion. The link here seems to go to the French (hence the /fr/fr/ in the URI) version of the blog post, but I still got to see it in English. Confusing. Here [1] is the non-localized version.
I guess its because they didn't translate the article into french. What I also find confusing is that when you change the language, the controls are still in the original language. I can guess what button is for changing the language but still not a great design.
Yeah... considering there are good browser APIs and most server platforms support language matching, that they could relatively easily deliver language content without specific language endpoints. Not that it's easy, just completely doable if it's a significant concern.
I hope it's possible to fit a pointing stick (TrackPoint) keyboard within that 3.7mm, and that someone first- or third-party makes one. I'm keen to try replacing my ThinkPad with a Framework as soon as that's available, but not before.
Sadly I feel like trackpoints are really end of life and I wouldn't be surprised if Lenovo ditched them entirely soon. It seems they keep it only to please the tiny but vocal minority of tinkerers that we are. But we mostly buy old, second hand thinkpads.
And as keyboards get thinner, trackpoints lose in quality. On linux it seems the software side is also not as good as before with libinput.
So I'd be really surprised if any one new on the market would go about making keyboards with trackpoints now.
There's a trope in car nerd circles of "We all know the best vehicle is a manual transmission brown diesel station wagon" and then of course these people only buy one that's 10 years old, so at this point no car company makes such a beast new.
Pre-covid I'd made do with whatever garbage keyboard and garbage monitor $job dumped in front of me, but almost by happenstance I ended up with a 16:10 monitor and an IBM M4-1 keyboard, and surprisingly it is an enormous improvement in work environment and I'm actually somewhat more effective at $job. (And I should have known this -- I "grew up" using IBM F / M or Focus fk-2002 keyboards that these days sell for actual money on the used market; spent a decade in front of enormous tubed workstations, etc, but normalization of deviance is a real thing)
Anyhow -- perhaps with framework's more modular approach they'd be able to make a form factor with more depth in the case to allow for a "real keyboard". Or more likely I'm just asking for a manual transmission station wagon. Safety Yellow please.
Sometimes it makes sense to stay in your niche. The Thinkpad is never going to be huge in the consumer market; being marginally thinner probably won't have a big impact in the institutional market; having the only decent pointing stick on the market is a deciding factor for a certain niche.
I'm trying to decide whether my next laptop will be a Framework or a Thinkpad. If the Framework was available with a pointing stick, the decision would be made. If the Thinkpad wasn't, the decision would be made. The other things that have attracted me to Thinkpads are repairability and Linux support, but Framework does those better.
I'm on my sixth Thinkpad, and there are definitely more out there with the same preferences.
They removed it from the ThinkPad X1 Fold and got enough negative feedback that it was reintroduced in the ThinkPad X1 Fold 16.
What wouldn't surprise me is that they fuck up the trackpoint (e.g. by making it thinner). The Z16 laptop has a newer TrackPoint without dedicated keys, for example, and the newer T14s have flat keys.
Maybe don't generalize your personal experience. Working with almost anything can give you carpal tunnel. Is there any evidence carpal tunnel is more likely then with any other input method?
How many years exactly? I am at almost 9 years of use and I have not felt the slightest hint of any problem (for reference I have in the past suffered from carpal tunnel related issues so I know what it feels like).
Yes, on this particular topic I don't use laptops because I find them painful (cramped keyboard and track pad). It looks there might be enough space here (and maybe custom modules) to remove the track pad completely, and have a more ergonomic keyboard.
One of my least favorite things about the Framework 13 was the low midrange feel of the system. The customization experience is top notch, but the computing itself was underwhelming. This new entry should fix that problem.
It's a pity the keyboard design never seriously improves even for the niche laptops.
Like, the space to the sides is useless here, but if you could split the keyboard and move that space to to the middle - well, know you've moved one step closer towards more ergonomic typing! Or better yet, you could move all those pinky keys there so that instead of moving your right pinky to hit backspace you'd just move your right index finger
I don't know if the standard keyboard they ship with will change, but the flexible layout here does open a lot of space for keyboard experimentation and alternative options in future. The Framework CEO says there are already prototypes of an alternative ortholinear keyboard option (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35280168) and split keyboard like you describe is totally possible here too (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35283252)
We see interesting use cases for the small modules on the left and right as well if you are not some who wants to slide the keyboard to the left and put a numpad on the right.
We’re showing a prototype of an LED Matrix that can be used for low res information display, but other things like a row of extra buttons, a narrow LCD, a capacitive slider, and others are possible too.
As a sibling comment noted, it is also possible for a module developer to create a full width keyboard with a different layout.
As I mentioned yesterday, I really hope that it becomes possible to DIY designs, whether with thin-enough modular scissor keys, or by opening the thickness requirements of the keyboard.
Perhaps there could be alternate tall hinges and a thicker bezel filling the gap to make room for discrete keyswitches without sacrificing thickness for normal users?
With a properly designed keyboard (ortho-staggered or ortho-linear without a huge spacebar) the numpad is not needed, you can have it right around your home row)
But am very glad to hear there is at least potential for innovation here!
Hmm Apple really put a ton of money into making their touch bar work and even they couldn't manage to make it actually useful. If they couldn't do it, framework has no chance.
I would have been a lot less critical about the touch bar if it hadn't replaced the function key row though. That one is mandatory for me, and there was more than plenty room on MacBooks to have both at the same time.
A lot of laptops need to reserve the space to the side of the keyboards, for their ports - in fact, whenever you see a laptop where the keyboard is kissing the edge of the laptop, it usually has a dire shortage of ports (typically 1 USB port, a charger, a headphone jack, and nothing else).
This makes sense if you realize that it's a choice between keyboard girth and thin-ness; you can either have the keyboard on top of the ports, or you can squish the keyboard to the side and be potentially ~4mm thinner. Or just don't have ports.
Not really, the bigger laptops don't need to preserve more space for the ports, right? Yet they all expand the space sideways instead of adding space between the keyboard halves
I mean, even with the same width, moving backspace between halves has no impact on the ports, where is that useful innovation for the few of us that make typos?
Or replacing the spacebar with a few thumb keys - that is also port-effect-free
Under X11 with KDE, or under Windows, that's no problem whatsoever. 144dpi isn't any more hacky than 96dpi or 192dpi.
It's only macOS, Gnome and Wayland that require 1x or 2x scaling (which is absolutely mind-bogglingly ridiculous, and anyone that contributed to that or encouraged that should be banned from ever touching UI code again).
Fractional scaling is just broken by design. If you have combined vector/bitmap graphics (like most web pages) designed for 'canonical' DPI, you can either break proportions between vectors and bitmaps (rendering vectors with proper DPI, while for bitmaps use nearest integer scale), or render everything with proper scale and introduce artifacts like blurring of sharp edges to bitmaps.
Fractional scaling on Linux is still hit or miss in my experience. I played with several permutations of Wayland/X11/GNOME (with fractional enabled)/KDE and none got it 100% right, and even under the setup that got closest some programs acted confused.
It’s certainly not as painless as fractional scaling on Windows, where only truly ancient/esoteric programs pose issues typically.
I'm not sure what issues in Wayland you're talking about. I've been using sway with fractional scaling for a few years now and never really had any problems.
Of course... that said, MANY software are dated and aren't or won't be implementing scaling any time soon. For those of us using Linux, it's even worse. This doesn't mean that the hardware shouldn't consider the existing software ecosystem. A 4k display with 2x scaling is often a good option for laptops.
My vision at computer distance isn't great in general, usually on a 32" 1440p display for desktop use. I generally can barely handle the micro size of higher res on laptops.
Readit News
Also, on another note, I've read this engadget article about how other companies tried to build an upgradeable laptop and failed but I see Framework as a different kind of beast for one simple reason. This is their only value proposition, they don't have an alternative. In a very "Innovator's Dilemma" kind of. way, Dell and other big manufacturers have their main lines with higher margins and/or volume that really drives their attention and money, so any new innovation that takes more than 1 to 3 years to mature gets cut pretty fast. For Framework is kind a kind of "burn the ships" moment, they don't have anything else to turn to, so they have to keep pushing. I really hope they shine (and don't get acquired)!
(My initial guess would be that it will require at least that the laptop be powered off, or will force it to power off when removed, because from what I understood the cooling fans are in that module).
https://www.reddit.com/r/ErgoMechKeyboards/comments/skf2sx/l...
I use my laptop for my work software engineering but since the pandemic have gotten back into gaming a little. I’m on an old Xbox and it’s showing its age but I don’t game enough to justify buying a whole gaming PC. If I can plug a GPU into my work machine and play some games? Now that’s compelling. The fact that it wouldn’t have all the cringey “gamer” decorations you see on the average gaming laptop would be a bonus too.
(all that said a Steam Deck is probably still the more compelling purchase for me in that regard, I’ve been eyeing one for a while)
1. https://egpu.io/best-external-graphics-card-builds/
Isn't one of the advantages of Framework that you can swap out parts, so it would be much easier for them (theoretically) to build a gaming version of the laptop.
See this HN comment from the founder: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35289229
Yes, there is. We have four in our family, since ~2018, and three of them continue to run without issue. The main weak point for the 4th one has been the hinges and case. It happens to be a later model so I think the company 'value-engineered' it to have a shorter lifespan.
My partner and I both have frameworks, but mine has had a lot of issues with the track pad and theyve never experienced any.
Don’t like something? Fix it!
And more importantly, I love what you are doing for the industry overall. The idea that I can swap out my display from glossy to matte on a laptop that I've already owned for a while for less than $200 is pretty amazing. I wish you a lot of success.
You have been able to configure that behavior (sleep-then-hibernate) on any Linux system that supports S3 for a long time (years and years).
At the same time, Apple now uses a kind of sleep similar to 'Windows Modern Standby'/Intel S0ix: https://macreports.com/why-does-my-mac-get-notifications-whi...
No matter what else they do, the arrow keys tell me they are fools who should not be trusted! (Hyperbole, sure, but only a little.)
Otherwise, could flash programming be unlocked to facilitate flashing third-party firmware?
Is this how the GPU module cooling will work? (a poor mouse drawing of my best guess based on the pictures)
I currently use a TB3 eGPU case and the massive overhead and OEM bugs are slowly making that real PCIe link worth it.
I wish you spent more effort in fixing it at the software level, whatever it takes.
Deleted Comment
Specially in cases like this, there is just an empty space there. Why not put 2 more keys?
ThinkPad also makes them full sized keys, that would be even better. But just having empty space? Why?
It's the same with mechanical keyboards - I can't use these compact 75% keyboards where arrows/Pg Up/Pg Down/Home/End are flush with other keys; but a bit "exploded" layout, with just a bit of space between arrows and the right column keys is perfectly ok with me
What I really hate is that combination of full size/half size arrows on modern laptops, put there just because some designer hate empty space.
(I have an ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15, 2021 model, GA503QM. It has a larger-than-necessary gap between Esc and F1, slightly-smaller-than-ideal gaps between F4 and F5 and F8 and F9, and sadly no gap between F12 and Delete. It also has another row of four keys higher still: XF86AudioRaiseVolume, XF86AudioLowerVolume, XF86AudioMicMute and XF86Launch1. Kinda funny how XF86AudioMute is relegated to Fn+F1. I’m really not looking forward to whenever I switch to a laptop without a dedicated mic mute button, it’s wonderful. I honestly wish they’d added another couple of buttons on this top row.)
ThinkPads has slightly enlarged arrow and page keys that I think are perfectly usable.
A key can be disabled.
An empty space can't be filled with a key.
Same. After falling in love with this layout, I just refuse to buy a keyboard that doesn't have them. These 2 keys alone are at least 50% of my decision to refuse to even bother with Apple hardware (the lack of OLED being another good 30%)
I fail to understand how people can accidentally hit a Page key instead of a arrow key, if they know touch typing and use the little bump on the Down key (like the F ahd J key) to reposition their finger.
In the worst case, they could disable these keys. Meanwhile, I have to suffer their non existance, or even worse: a ridiculously large left and right key, with a minuscule up and down key.
Thinkpad-style? Sure! Ortholinear? Why not!
This makes it easier to make a "DIY hack on the side", not needing to manufacture a complete keyboard.
This means all of my laptops are usually Lenovos.
I should try the Page Up / Page Down config.
[1]: https://frame.work/blog/introducing-the-framework-laptop-16
And as keyboards get thinner, trackpoints lose in quality. On linux it seems the software side is also not as good as before with libinput.
So I'd be really surprised if any one new on the market would go about making keyboards with trackpoints now.
Pre-covid I'd made do with whatever garbage keyboard and garbage monitor $job dumped in front of me, but almost by happenstance I ended up with a 16:10 monitor and an IBM M4-1 keyboard, and surprisingly it is an enormous improvement in work environment and I'm actually somewhat more effective at $job. (And I should have known this -- I "grew up" using IBM F / M or Focus fk-2002 keyboards that these days sell for actual money on the used market; spent a decade in front of enormous tubed workstations, etc, but normalization of deviance is a real thing)
Anyhow -- perhaps with framework's more modular approach they'd be able to make a form factor with more depth in the case to allow for a "real keyboard". Or more likely I'm just asking for a manual transmission station wagon. Safety Yellow please.
I'm trying to decide whether my next laptop will be a Framework or a Thinkpad. If the Framework was available with a pointing stick, the decision would be made. If the Thinkpad wasn't, the decision would be made. The other things that have attracted me to Thinkpads are repairability and Linux support, but Framework does those better.
I'm on my sixth Thinkpad, and there are definitely more out there with the same preferences.
https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-promises-TrackPoint-wil...
They removed it from the ThinkPad X1 Fold and got enough negative feedback that it was reintroduced in the ThinkPad X1 Fold 16.
What wouldn't surprise me is that they fuck up the trackpoint (e.g. by making it thinner). The Z16 laptop has a newer TrackPoint without dedicated keys, for example, and the newer T14s have flat keys.
I always use tables that my elbows rest on the table.
I'll probably pick one up.
Like, the space to the sides is useless here, but if you could split the keyboard and move that space to to the middle - well, know you've moved one step closer towards more ergonomic typing! Or better yet, you could move all those pinky keys there so that instead of moving your right pinky to hit backspace you'd just move your right index finger
The huge space is also a waste
etc., etc.
We’re showing a prototype of an LED Matrix that can be used for low res information display, but other things like a row of extra buttons, a narrow LCD, a capacitive slider, and others are possible too.
As a sibling comment noted, it is also possible for a module developer to create a full width keyboard with a different layout.
Perhaps there could be alternate tall hinges and a thicker bezel filling the gap to make room for discrete keyswitches without sacrificing thickness for normal users?
But am very glad to hear there is at least potential for innovation here!
I would have been a lot less critical about the touch bar if it hadn't replaced the function key row though. That one is mandatory for me, and there was more than plenty room on MacBooks to have both at the same time.
This makes sense if you realize that it's a choice between keyboard girth and thin-ness; you can either have the keyboard on top of the ports, or you can squish the keyboard to the side and be potentially ~4mm thinner. Or just don't have ports.
I'm starting to think that the future of laptop keyboards is the old thinkpad butterfly design: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRVJCtREW38
I mean, even with the same width, moving backspace between halves has no impact on the ports, where is that useful innovation for the few of us that make typos?
Or replacing the spacebar with a few thumb keys - that is also port-effect-free
- I would love an option to have upwards firing speakers where flex/numpad space goes instead (one on each side).
- please improve the bass in the speakers. according to notebookcheck's review, framework speakers have poor/near 0 bass output.
- please offer either a 1080p or 4k screen option on the 16". 1440p-ish screens with DPI scaling hackery is no fun and often leads to blurry UIs.
Under X11 with KDE, or under Windows, that's no problem whatsoever. 144dpi isn't any more hacky than 96dpi or 192dpi.
It's only macOS, Gnome and Wayland that require 1x or 2x scaling (which is absolutely mind-bogglingly ridiculous, and anyone that contributed to that or encouraged that should be banned from ever touching UI code again).
It’s certainly not as painless as fractional scaling on Windows, where only truly ancient/esoteric programs pose issues typically.
My vision at computer distance isn't great in general, usually on a 32" 1440p display for desktop use. I generally can barely handle the micro size of higher res on laptops.