I find it funny how people seem to fixate so much on the fact that the author upgraded various components to say the title is misleading.
As someone with apparently similar requirements, the take-away from this should be this:
Even though significant work is required to keep these old machines working, some people prefer to do so. Crucially, they prefer it not because they love tinkering, but simply because the value propositions of 2021/2022 hardware doesn't look better.
As someone running a non-upgradeable Dell nightmare XPS13 2in1 with a nice display, but horrible everything-else, I can relate. I've been looking at recent models lately and find it pretty bleak.
I run two Thinkpad T420s and one T420 at home, for myself and family.
The T420s in particular are as small as I need a laptop to be (T420, no 's', is a bit bulky and old school); and yet they are fully modular - you can swap out battery, or Ultrabay (DVD to HDD to extra battery) with a quick pull of lever; it takes one well-marked screw to access primary hard drive or RAM. They're reliable, sturdy, good looking in a timeless way; AND, they don't try to re-invent the keyboard. This is a massive, massive reason I stick with the *20 series of Thinkpads - all modern laptops feel the need to reinvent the layout, which means I can NEVER use my muscle memory to do Ctrl-Home, Ctrl-End, PgUp, PgDwn, which I use constantly. They get relegated to some tiny buttons in non-sensical random places that differ between manufacturers and models. I had to use HpElitebook and Dell something or the other for work, which were fine laptops in their own way, but try to emulate Apple in size and format, and the keyboards were maddeningly awful in their layout.
Less of a Rant, more to the point - the T420s is perfectly usable today without any crazy "mods" - a $40 SSD which literally slots in is pretty much the only thing it needs. We do browsing, movies, light photo browsing/editing, email, MS Office, Schoolwork, etc all on them a full decade after their release :)
> the value propositions of 2021/2022 hardware doesn't look better
I'm glad you managed to distill my feelings so clearly.
Most new things are just gimmicks, it's pretty rare that good innovations come into the laptop area.
Think of stuff like non-16:9 displays: older thinkpads had beautiful displays that were amazing for doing actual work. Now we're seeing 16:10 displays coming back, and it's awesome.
The ThinkPad T42 I had in high school had a 14" 1400x1050 display and writing documents was very comfortable. Then a dark age came, and all laptops had 16:9 displays... Editing a document in Word/Writer was a pain in the ass. Between the title bar, the windows icon bar (start menu and iconized applications) and the various office toolbars (and the f-ing ribbon toolbar) you could barely see the text you're writing. It was really moronic.
Getting off-topic, but you know that ribbon bar is collapsible, right? Also Windows up until 10 supported slim task bar, 11 unfortunately doesn't, probably as a compensation for the better displays available :(.
> Getting off-topic, but you know that ribbon bar is collapsible, right?
Yes but it was really meant as an example. Take for example another program like a web browser: between the title bar, the menu bar, the tab bar and the bookmark bar and you're losing a lot of vertical screen real estate.
Yeah the bookmark bar is collapsible and nowadays firefox and other browsers hide the menu bar, but those are useful features (particularly the bookmark bar) and I just want them around.
The problem is not that I should be hiding useful stuff like the ribbon bar or the bookmarks bar, the problem is that 16:9 displays are moronic and should not have been pushed onto everybody forcefully.
They might be okay for content-consumption-oriented laptops, but they're awful for real-work-oriented laptops (readl work raning from editing a spreadsheet, editing a document in word and even editing code of course).
--
No wonder that high-end external display vendors like Dell/HP (and others) kept selling 16:10 external displays for professional use.
And newer laptops are all so damned huge, and they have terrible keyboards and trackpads with no buttons that are offset to one side.
My favorite laptop currently is an HP EliteBook 2760p that I got for free from a friend who works at a company that was throwing it away. Aside from the battery being dead, it's the best laptop I've ever used.
The upgrades aren’t even substantial. The CPU, RAM, and fan are all original parts. You could’ve ordered this exact configuration from Lenovo. The only deviation from stock is the AC WiFi upgrade.
I daily drive a T530, it was max spec already so I haven’t changed anything. It has more than enough power to do software dev.
I see you also follow my rule: When buying a laptop, always buy top spec.
My laptop is an OG X1 Carbon i7/8/256. I can't upgrade it easily, but I'm actually happy with it for my purposes. My main driver is a Ryzen desktop though, that's a proper beast.
> I see you also follow my rule: When buying a laptop, always buy top spec.
ive become a believer for both desktops and laptops.
the ratio of hardware performance to software performance requirements increases over time, but its linear and the slope is small. knowing that, you can buy cheap machines frequently or expensive machines infrequently and hit a similar $/time expenditure - but one way you get fast puterz and the other way you dont.
the details matter of course. $/performance hits a sharp breakpoint and turns exponential around the 80th percentile. for my money - and everyone i know uninterested in the bleeding edge - a couple notches below the best is an incomparable deal that also saves the time of frequent research/upgrades/purchasing.
It really depends on what you’re doing. When the cheap machine still lasts 5+ years the value proposition of going expensive just isn’t there.
IMO, the reason to buy a more expensive machine is simply the benefit of using a faster machine for several years. If you’re spending 20 hours a week on a PC then it’s worth stretching the budget a little. However, that generally only applies to one or two form factors not everything phone, tablet, desktop, and laptop. If the only thing you use the tablet for is Netflix in bed then a cheap one is probably fine.
There's also the fact that on the pricier machine you'll get better hardware, as in "nicer to use".
For example at work, we use HP Pro and Elite books. Just got a brand new one the other day, and while the screen is incredible compared to the 2013 models, it still looks like absolute crap compared to my 2013 MBP. And I'm not talking resolution, I'm talking washed out colors and ridiculous viewing angles.
All along these years, they also had shitty touchpads, shoddy body assembly that would dig into your wrists while typing, atrocious coil whine, loud fan spinning for no reason, power light that would blind you at night, etc.
So even if the total price paid was lower than my MBP (which I doubt, since I'm on my fourth HP in 6 years), it basically means that during these 8 years I would never have used a nice computer. And only this last one (with a zen 3) is actually faster than my old Mac.
Displays are hardest to upgrade and provide one of the most critical aspects of usability. Maximise display capabilities if possible.
RAM is easily replaced and only gets cheaper with time. Buy with sufficient RAM, and max that out a few years in.
CPU overall tends to have fairly minimal impacts on overall performance within the range offered in a given set of options, and there's often a sharp uptick in price for a small performance boost at the higher end. I'll usually downgrade slightly for savings.
Storage can be replace readily over system life and often should be. Get what you need initially but plan on an update later. SSD or fusion drives are optimal.
Depending on your OS, WiFi reliability often precludes raw performance. For Linux, go with well-supported options. (I don't drive Windows.)
I've never put a premium on graphics performance. If it plays videos and displays xterms, it's good enough for me. YMMV. I prefer open source drivers.
Overall power draw and batterylife are also considerations, and again dropping from peak specs may actually deliver advantages here. Alternatively, you'll find yourself buying capabilities that neither your battery nor thermal management can deliver consistently.
Maxxing out spec is going to cost quite a bit. Buying last season's maxxed-out spec will often provide significan savings, as may buying this season's somewhat-below-peak specs per my guidelines above.
This is based on a few decades of not chasing performance extremes and with a fair tolerance of sufficient performance. Ironically it's raw Web browser performance that seems to be the most critical element of desktop satisfaction these days.
Same. I used a maxxed out Vaio for about 8 years and really the only reason I got a new x1 carbon in 2017 was because the lack of usb 3 (let alone c) was becoming a problem.
I still love that machine. One thing I dearly miss is the real docking station, no usbc cable.
That was under $3k that lasted for 8 years.
I don't know how much I'd pay for lesser machines or how often, but I can't believe this math doesn't work out.
Subsequently, the x1 carbon is still perfect but I just had to get a Framework when they came out just on principle, even though that 2017 x1c is still a pleasure to use and I'd happily use it for several more years.
Get the good one, max it out, use it for at least 5 years, enjoy life all day every day instead of being perpetually annoyed.
That's awesome!
My battery life is not good at all. I had it replaced after 3 years - bought it ahead as part of "warranty", but it's likely due for another replacement now.
Other than that it's only recently started to show some scuff marks on the corners. Everything else is still holding up great, especially the keyboard.
I specced my T420 freshman year of college but had a budget from my parents so I skipped out on getting the upgraded LCD panel in exchange for the i7 CPU. That laptop lasted me a couple years until I grabbed a tablet X61 and then a X200 for taking notes towards the end of college. I'm now back to my T420 and have spent a little but of time upgrading things the drives, ram, wlan card, downgrading to a smaller 6 cell battery, and doing the ivyrain bios. I really regret going for the cheaper panel as upgrading to a 1600x900 is not a simple process and the cost is halfway to just buying something modern. My girlfriend was going to give me her old Lenovo Flex 14 when she got MacBook but she loves it more than the MacBook and I'm not really a fan of either laptops. I love my old T420 but I'm stuck between spending money on sentimental hardware or just buying something newer.
Those upgrades are "period correct" parts though. The part about value propositions are right but it's not that he installed modern components like latest 12th-Gen CPU or NVMe SSD.
I personally find the value prop of my 2020 and 2021 model laptops, and my 2022 model desktop, to be rather good.
2020: Razer Book 13: 4 core, 8 threads, AVX-512, Thunderbolt 4. Weird gaming company, yes, but also competent thermal design and the machine works perfectly. This CPU when cooled properly is going to be at least 200% faster than that old Sandy Bridge CPU in the article, and that CPU has a much higher TDP so cooling an 11th gen properly is a piece of cake comparatively.
2021: MacBook Pro 14, M1 Pro CPU. The CPU that scared the pants off Intel. Say no more.
2022: 12th gen Intel Core. The empire strikes back. More than doubles the single-threaded performance of 11th gen Core in many cases.
And these machines are cheaper than ever. Competition works.
The problem with these projects is that they are all the hype for a while and after the hype dies down you are left with laptop that is only in theory upgradable.
Why not instead someone just market a replacement keyboard for one of the more popular laptops? It sounds as though modern keyboards are the primary pain point for newer laptops.
(Or if a 3rd party had marketed an inexpensive replacement power-brick for the author's 2001 Apple iBook perhaps he would still be using it.)
I love frame.work as a concept, but it's definitely not a "proven" concept at the moment. The company could very well go under or choose not to support upgrading the laptop.
Even assuming Framework shuts down tomorrow and destroys their existing stock of replacement parts and the specs for making new ones, I would argue that you can at the very least assume permanent availability of RAM, SSD, Display (it uses a commodity panel), fan, and battery (there are knockoff batteries for much more obscure laptops).
I would assume that keyboards, trackpads, etc. will also be available as some laptops bite the dust and are scavenged for parts.
Whether the motherboard/CPU will actually be upgradeable obviously remains to be seen. The 11th Gen CPUs get a lot of flak, but they have good single-core performance which will make them suitable for general use for a long time.
It's at least equally upgradeable as the first ThinkPads with soldered on CPUs, which by today's standards is still pretty good - and if framework deliver on their promises, then it will be even better. But either way the baseline isn't bad.
> I would argue that you can at the very least assume permanent availability of RAM, SSD, Display (it uses a commodity panel), fan, and battery
I mean, you can buy a new-ish Thinkpad where you can replace/upgrade all of those things. You get great compatibility and most hw/sw compatibility bugs are already known and have workarounds. Framework has to have some other value propositions as well besides being able to replace things you mentioned.
As I said, that's the absolute worst-case scenario.
I don't own one personally, but reviews have been overwhelmingly positive so presumably it does have something to offer beyond replaceability. (disclaimer: some people on HN seem to have had some driver issues on Linux on theirs)
That's the thing, their USP is long-term maintainability and upgradeability, but if they call it quits in a year, you're stuck with a niche product that nobody else is willing to make parts for.
To be fair, once you hit 5 years (or if you’re unlucky 3 years) it becomes just about impossible to get OEM parts from Dell or Lenovo and you have to resort to cannibalizing broken ones off eBay or your parts bin if you’re in enterprise. So either way you could end up in the same boat, except if framework comes up with a gen 2 it’s possible with enough consumer pressure they’ll make the parts cross compatible.
> you have to resort to cannibalizing broken ones off eBay or your parts bin if you’re in enterprise
Except these graveyards are ENDLESS because of the amount they produced and companies threw away. My favorite is all the originally $150 docking stations that you can pick up for under $20 (or at least when I was in the lenovo t series game).
Fresh (or at least gently used) batteries are the reason I had to stop using my X220 though, as I bought like three different batteries (one OEM that was old stock, and two third-party) and none could keep it up for more than an hour. That's tough without OEM support.
What conclusion, I'm not asserting they are going to fail. Startup failure rates are close to 90%, being concerned that this startup might also fail isn't unreasonable.
The Framework seems to be a modern Thinkpad with a similar USP of how they were built in 2012 before manufacturers tried to introduce and convince consumers of disposable laptops for the past 10 years.
The reason I suggested handling one is the build quality for a first gen device is hard to believe until you hold one and use it for a few days or weeks. The framework is well beyond the quality of first gen devices and feels like the smart people at Apple, Lenovo, etc got together to build a laptop and delivered.
Let’s look at it from where you’re presenting it:
Customers exist in multiple segments: Pioneers, Early Adopters, Early Conservatives, Late Conservatives and Laggards.. distributed on a bell curve.
It’s true startups largely fail because most fail to find a product people want, or deliver on finding a market and distribution for it. They seem to have resonated.
Successful startups often need to appeal to a large enough Pioneer and Early Adopter market to sustain crossing that little chasm to sustainability. Seems like a premium priced product is selling out in batches and getting decent reviews.
Laptops are not a small market. Likely enough pioneers and early adopters exist, unlike the conservatives and laggards that delay adopting technology until validated by others. Someone can run Windows or Linux.
Maybe you’re not an early adopter or pioneer.. but many entrepreneurs and creators could be. Innovators usually exist in a mindset of possibility leveraged with unfair advantages and Framework seems to have a few.
While I don’t work for Framework, I’ve sadly owned 10-15 laptops. With each new laptop I also buy the death of that device. The framework has as many if not more replaceable components from third parties.
On being reasonable, I think it’s fair to say that not everything is for everyone. You or I are not everyone or everyone’s needs.
All it has to do is last 2-3 years without much ado, which it probably will, while being produced in small batches that are hopefully profitable.
I bought and returned my framework and outlined why in another comment, mostly I learned I didn’t have the time to tinker, but I don’t think there’s an option like it on the market.
My guess? Framework will be around, and might even build up like Razer, System76, etc and be acquired by a large manufacturer.
Edit: Forgot to add the initial link between a 2012 Thinkpad and Framework.
> “The reason I suggested handling one is the build quality for a first gen device is hard to believe until you hold one and use it for a few days or weeks.”
“one of the worst purchases I've ever made. [...] This last point is pretty minor, but the hinges are floppy. The whole screen shakes around when I type on it.“
“Build quality. I'm convinced if I drop this thing it's all over.
All in all I'm mad at myself for spending over $3k on a productivity configuration centered around what is pretty much beta hardware. I should have known better.”
“Re build quality: yes, it is a bit flimsier than I would like (though have definitely used laptops that are way worse)”
> “All it has to do is last 2-3 years without much ado, which it probably will”
If that’s all you need why wouldn’t you buy a non-upgradeable one? It’ll be thinner, lighter and less fuss. The framework seems to be targeted at people who want a decade of use with upgrades.
I really hope you are correct! I would love to see a less consumer hostile (and more environmentally friendly) business model succeed and start to gain traction.
I love the idea of framework! But I also live in France and I can't get myself to do another preorder adventure right now.
When they start actually shipping I might go for that, although frankly I still might wait for a Ryzen model.
If they had the foresight to spend the money on the bigger display, they are probably just fine. It's not Rentina quality but it's good enough for something to use at home for non-work.
Pro Tip: get Dells business models like the latitude series
The business Dell laptops blow anything lenovo has ever made out of the water in terms of specs, build quality, and serviceability. Also Dell’s bios is way better and easier to do stuff in. I’ve had a t420 and I thought it was crap compared to the Dell business laptops. The cooling, plastic casing material, and serviceability just isn’t there. On the T420 my palm rest cracked and to replace it you pretty much had to fully take apart the laptop to get it off. ifixit rated that particular repair at a pretty high difficulty, so instead I took the reusable components out, binned it, and used a Dell latitude.
Currently I don't own a Dell business laptop however. Right now I'm using an Intel NUC Laptop and it does pretty good.
The tip on purchasing business grade laptops applicable to several companies as well. I have the P series and it's going strong for 5 years after all the abuse of grad school and internships and now another degree. Apart from the wear on the rubber coating on the lid, the plastic is still robust. If you want upgradability from Lenovo, I think P series tick most boxes. The form factor is different here.
I have a Carbon X1 running Windows through work and Latitude running Linux at home. It's not fair to compare the two because they are different weight classes and running different OSes, but the X1 battery life and performance have really put me off the smaller form factor. It's puny and it regularly gets ~2 hours off a charge versus 4-8x that on the Dell, all just to save a kilo.
I've used several Dell business laptops, most from the Latitude Exxx series, and they are great machines.
From what I can tell, they were made to compete directly with the IBM/Lenovo T-series Thinkpads. Similar form factor, ability to use docking stations, good keyboards, even the Trackpoint-like pointing device in addition to a traditional trackpad.
Although I haven't used a recent Lenovo T-series for any length of time, the Dells appear to compare very favorably. More metal construction, so they dent rather than cracking. Docking stations seem to be less expensive. Displays are on par. Similar battery life.
I wouldn't turn down a T-series if somebody handed me one, but many of the points the author makes in TFA about his T-series are true of the E-series Dells also.
I haven’t worked with anything newer, but the late 2000s Dell Precision laptops are a true pleasure to work on — a great deal more pleasant than any Thinkpad I’ve cracked open. With just four screws I’m inside of my old M4400 and can pop off its heat sink, change thermal paste, swap CPUs, change wifi/Bluetooth/cell cards, etc.
Yep - Latitudes are always cheaper than their Thinkpad equivalents (example, my e6220 was about 2/3rds the cost of an x220 (this was about 5 years ago).
Agreed. Their BIOS is full of bugs. I've investigated a few on the 7275 (business grade): I believe it's technically impossible for it to really sleep on Windows, regardless of how you look at it. It just saves a little bit of power while it looks like it's sleeping, then Windows realize it's an unacceptable power draw and pulls the plug (power off) then transparently resumes from a S4 hibernate to disk.
My T440p started life in 2013 as a work PC in an engineering firm. Was then retired and sold for scraps to an employee, a friend of mine who later passed it on to me. I splashed out and bought a brand new, higher res display on eBay, less than USD 100 and the quality keeps blowing me backwards. Plus 8GB more RAM for a total of 12, and a new 1TB Samsung SSD, and soon perhaps a battery replacement. And they can damned well pry the thing from my cold, dead hands. It's just a superbly well designed and satisfying piece of machinery to handle.
Meanwhile, a much newer Lenovo is sitting largely unused except for the occasional batch job and some audio processing.
I've done something similar with my machines, because it was so much cheaper than getting something new.
You can get a quad core CPU for about $10, 16GB of DDR3 for about $100 and an SSD for $50.
Even if you add a better heatsink and GPU, it's still cheaper than the cheapest machine you can get new (and they come with 4GB, which isn't enough nowadays).
My 2012 Dell XPS14 is still my preferred laptop even without any upgrades or tinkering. I have a somehwat newer XPS13 for work that is also decent (but not as good as the '12), and according to the calendar I'm due for a refresh but like you when I look at what's available I don't see any reason to go through the hassle of an upgrade, never mind the cost.
> Crucially, they prefer it not because they love tinkering,
I’m not sure what part of this article gave you this idea? It’s clear to me the author is gravitating towards a solution that allows him to tinker to his heart’s content. I mean did you not see the pile of wires connected to the eGPU — on a laptop?
The entire point of the "my grandfather's axe" or "my grandmother's broom" story -- of which Theseus' ship is the original -- is that there's nothing of the original left, but replacement was gradual so there's a feeling of continuity.
Whereas this is the original laptop with some upgrades. Same chassis, same motherboard, same screen, same (IMHO, bad) keyboard, but more RAM, more & faster disks, and a new CPU.
This is not Theseus' ship, where nothing was left.
The point of this story is that an end-user with normal tools can, at home, repair and upgrade a decade-old Thinkpad, but you can't do that with the new ones.
The subtext is that in fact CPU performance isn't increasing much any more, and hasn't in a decade and a half. GPU performance is a bit but most of us don't need it, same as most of us don't need lots of CPU cores in a laptop. SSD performance is improving, somewhat, yes. Size, a lot.
New laptops aren't that much faster than old laptops. Unless you're very demanding, old ones are good enough.
So laptop makers, who need people to keep buying new laptops or they'll go out of business, are making laptops that you can't fix or upgrade any more.
Car industry is going in the direction of manufacturer rebuild (remanufacture), so laptop industry should do the same. Instead of making unupgradeable garbage, manufacturers should offer upgrades.
I am not sure of what you're saying, perhaps partly because I don't own a car, and never have since I got my driver's licence at age 38 or so.
I do recall a neighbour of mine saying "back when cars went rusty" to me a decade back, which surprised me. A lot. Apparently they don't now?
But modern cars, and many modern motorbikes, are sealed units which are not maintainable by the end-user. I dislike electronics like that.
For this reason, for years now, I have favoured very cheap smartphones. If I must have a sealed brick that I can't fix or upgrade, then I will have the cheapest one I can get that does what I need.
Luckily, there are very decent £/€ 125 smartphones now, from companies such as PPTV, iRulu and Umidigi, which are entirely usable and which I can replace every couple of years without pain.
For laptops, I just use decade+ old Thinkpads for now. They're fast enough for me and the keyboards are better than any modern thing.
Toyota announced last week it's going to offer a full overhaul of its BEVs in the UK every few years. So you can drive it back to the manufacturer and they will make it new, much like a major revision of an aeroplane.
This is what should be happening with laptops as well. Sealed devices are a thing of the moment and will not last imho.
Galvanized steel and clear-coat paint finish are a huge part of why cars don’t rust as much as they used to. (But salt will eventually take a toll if you are coastal or live where roads are regularly salted.) Alternative materials like stainless-steel coated aluminum, or plastic coatings also contribute.
I ask because I sort of went the opposite road, making sure I bought something that would last a long time.
Aside from screen resolution and the modern “anything” thinking we all have high resolution monitors my old 2015 MBP is still performing just fine despite its heavy usage.
In the same period I’ve gone through 5 or 6 work laptops that were certainly not top end.
I’m of course scared that the glory days of Apple died and my next mbp won’t live 10 years, but I hope so.
I follow more of this track as well...buy the highest end model and use it 2-3 times as long as you would a lower end model (but you're not paying 2-3 times the price).
My 2015 MBP made it to the end of 2021 for me - when the fans started to have to run constantly and even still caused thermal throttling - when I had 2 Thunderbolt external displays attached (thus running the discrete GPU). I think it was an OS bug introduced in Catalina or Big Sur.
I even tore down my hardware and re-applied thermal compound and clean dup the heatsinks...no joy.
Running "pmset -g thermlog" while using it sealed the deal for me. I was only getting a fraction of the CPU power when running on two displays (and this is when the ambient room temp was 68-70F). I had a day when my AC conked out for a day and the room temp jumped to 76-78F and it was unusable.
I am really enjoying my 16" 2021. Didn't realize how much of a slouch my 2015 had been by comparison.
That being said, I still rock a mid-2012 MBP for light tasks when I just need a laptop and not a desktop replacement laptop.
Laptop: rarely. My main travel one is a Thinkpad X220 I bought used for £150 in 2017. It replaced a Thinkpad X200 I bought used in 2013 for about the same price.
I recently (end of last year) bought i7 versions of the T420 and T520, because for me they are the last generation of Thinkpads with good keyboards, and I hope they will last me for a while.
My phone? It varies but typically every 18 months - 2 years. Phones lead hard lives and don't last very long.
Current: Umidigi F2. Before that: 2nd hand iPhone 6S+. Before that: PPTV King 7. Before that: Blackberry Passport (used). Before that: iRulu Victory V3. All those in the same time period that 2 old Thinkpads have covered, and all were relatively cheap.
I've been using a Dell XPS13 (not 2 in 1, but top of the line everything else) for dev work for a year now and I love it. It's small, light, and runs my virtual environment handily.
Even though significant work is required to keep these old machines working, some people prefer to do so. Crucially, they prefer it not because they love tinkering, but simply because the value propositions of 2021/2022 hardware doesn't look better.
As someone running a non-upgradeable Dell nightmare XPS13 2in1 with a nice display, but horrible everything-else, I can relate. I've been looking at recent models lately and find it pretty bleak.