It started with notebooks, but that wasn’t the master plan.
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Before they do that, I kind of wish that they’d be a laptop company that makes laptops that have 100 Wh batteries.
It occurs to me: might Framework’s team need to focus on a few lingering laptop issues before moving on to new territory?
Yeah. Like, if you have only 60 employees, you should have a lot of room for growth in the laptop market. Does it make sense to start spreading out resources? I’d rather see them become successful in the laptop market than become a flash in the pan.
I don’t understand why companies keep putting such small batteries in laptops. Especially in the 16" laptop, anything less than 90 is just not acceptable in something that actually costs real money and isn’t an ultra thin device. Cheap garbage? Fine. You get what you pay for. Starting at $1700 pre built? No.
Anything with over 100WH batteries would need airline approval before you can fly with it. This is why laptop makers rarely exceed this limit.
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devices-with-batteries
Yeah, but that’s not what I’m talking about. It’s really hard to find laptops today that get up to 100 Wh. And the guy you were talking to wanted at least 90 Wh.
It ain’t the FAA making laptops have 50 Wh or less batteries.
A current Thinkpad T14 with the largest battery option is 52 Wh.
The few laptops that you can get in 2024 with a 100 Wh battery are generally very-high-power gaming laptops with a relatively short usable battery life off one charge.
Tuxedo Computers out in Germany makes a non-gaming 14-inch InfinityBook with a 100 Wh battery.
There are some very expensive “ruggedized” laptops with large batteries intended for use away from civilization, like the Panasonic Toughbook (can take two batteries and do 136 Wh total).
It’s really uncommon today.
MacBook Pros are 100Wh as well. Battery life is incredible.
Ah so just the 16” is 100Wh then. Makes sense, more room.
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It’s tougher to fit a reasonably sized battery to a laptop where you can replace everything. And it’s 85 which is not so far from 90.
It does add something by way of weight, but I just can’t believe that the entire market out there honestly wants to have shorter laptop battery life over a slightly-heavier laptop. I mean, sure, all else held equal, I’d take a lighter laptop. And there’s some size where I don’t want a larger battery – like, I don’t want a Tesla Powerwall glued to the underside of my laptop. But at 100Wh, the current airline limit? Hell, yes, I sure as heck would rather have the longer battery lifetime.
And let’s even say that someone is completely fine with their existing laptop battery lifetime – like, they usually use their laptop plugged in, only have short stints away from a plug, like a conference room. Then you still can trade battery capacity for other desirable things. Stick a brighter screen on. Have a higher refresh rate. Have a more-powerful CPU or GPU and the fans to cool it. Have the capacity to drive external USB devices that may slurp power off the laptop’s battery. Restrict the maximum-charge level so that the battery’s lifetime is extended – batteries degrade rather more quickly if fully charged, and a number of devices have settings to permit them to be only partially-charged – without needing to cut into the capacity for a single charge.
I absolutely understand small-battery, budget laptops existing for people who strongly want the price to be at a minimum. Cut RAM down to a bare minimum, put in as little storage as possible, slash the battery to what’s tolerable.
I also understand that there are people who are hell-bent on ultra-light laptops, want everything at all possible stripped out. That’s fine too.
But surely there are people who don’t fall into one of those two camps.
I just can’t believe how hard it is to find 100Wh laptops in 2024. And traditionally, that wasn’t the case. You could find plenty of laptops with 100Wh batteries. In the past, some laptop vendors let you choose the size of battery you wanted, and some even had dual batteries, one internal and a hot-swappable battery.
I get that USB PD powerbanks can help alleviate some of the problem, and I’m sure that that has to have been the factor causing laptop vendors to start slashing internal battery sizes, but they also aren’t the same thing as an actual internal battery. There’s no protocol for them to report their charge, so a laptop can’t report life remaining. Theoretically, one could have one pretend to be a UPS rather than a battery, and there are various protocols for those, though OSes don’t – well, Linux doesn’t, don’t know about other OSes – treat UPSes as another battery, so you’re not gonna get software packages incorporating it into their “time remaining” estimate in the dock, and I’m not aware of any USB powerbanks that actually try to use this route. It’s another box and cable to lug around, and another port on the laptop tied up.
It’s not wanted by the market obviously. Most only need their laptop to last from the office on the commute
That’s just not true. My laptop (MacBook Pro Intel) has atrocious battery life, and Apple made a big deal about battery life improvement with the M-series chips. It’s a very valid complaint at my office, and we routinely have people running back to their desks to grab a charger or someone when meetings go long.
There’s obviously a trade-off there, but I’ve heard complaints about battery life for years now, but the market just hasn’t filled that need. I guess it’s kinda filled by massive external battery banks and plug-ins everywhere?
But having a larger battery as an option would be welcome. Make a thicc chassy as an option at checkout on the 16" laptop.
Here’s the internals of the 13 with a 61Wh battery:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_0054.jpeg
And here’s the 16 with an 85Wh battery:
Where would a larger battery fit?
The real answer to your question is to wait 3-4 years for battery technology to get about 20% better (given historical trends of 5-8% improvements per year).
You’d obviously have to design the laptop around the battery and not just retrofit it in. Make it a bit thicker, make it a bit longer? The 16" already isn’t a small, thin, or light laptop so the little extra room needed wouldn’t make that much of a difference.
Longer doesn’t work because it has to fit in existing bags people have. Thickening it won’t work because reviewers will then complain it’s too thick.
I have a Toshiba laptop from around 2012 which has a slide-out optical drive. To me, it’s thick but not too thick; it’s just right. If we could return to that size, I think we’d be good. It’d also support better cooling (my Framework 13 with an i7-1280P gets hot, and there just isn’t enough space for a bigger cooler). Reviewers over the past 10 years have pushed for thinner and thinner, and we gave up too much in the meantime.
Same goes for screen bezels and built in webcams. All else being equal, a cam with a bigger sensor is better because it can capture more light. Thin screen bezels force a small webcam, and thus your laptop has a shittier camera than a 10 year old smartphone.
In both cases, I don’t think actual customers care all that much past a certain point. Reviewers have been deducting stars for a slightly thicker case or a slightly thicker bezel than other models on the market, and customers just go along with it.
Thickening it won’t work because reviewers will then complain it’s too thick.
I’ve used thicker laptops for years and had no problem whatsoever with them in that time.
I suppose that there’s some theoretical thickness where a laptop becomes unergonomic, but my desktop’s keyboard is far thicker than my laptop’s, and it’s got no constraints other than being ergonomic.
Is someone using some kind of incredibly-thin carrying case? I haven’t seen that. I throw my laptop in a laptop backpack. It could be probably at least three times thicker and still fit in that.
Thick isn’t a problem for bags (up to a point). It’s reviewers complaining about it and deducting stars that’s the problem.
I don’t think people looking at Framework care too much about reviewers. They’re targeting DIY enthusiasts, which are also the type that’ll probably be reading the measurements and whatnot themselves.
The do have to source the same parts as the rest of the industry. This is why, for example, they can’t have a socketable laptop CPU. Those don’t exist anymore, and Framework is too small to afford a custom part from Intel or AMD.
Same with batteries. A thicker laptop battery may not even exist.
Yup, but maybe they’ll get there. Valve was able to get a “custom” chip for their Steam Deck, so it’s possible Framework could get big enough to get socketable CPUs. But yeah, the priority there should be incredibly low, since replacing the entire motherboard is acceptable (at least to me).
I’m guessing batteries are a bit less expensive to order custom since there are so many slightly different form factors among various devices. If it was prohibitively expensive, I’d expect to see more standardization.
Put a couple 18650 cells under the hingle like it’s 2008
The next product should be a sustainable, not publicly traded company. If investors take majority ownership and IPO, Framework’s perceived mission will evaporate quickly in the inevitable search for ever growing profits. I sincerely hope Nirav and Co actually give a shit about the repairable product and retain majority shares. If not 👉👌…
I’d love to see them make other devices. But I want the company to actually be viable and entrenched before they spread themselves even more thinly.
They’re already having trouble releasing firmware and driver updates in a timely manner, especially for Windows users who can’t rely on driver updates packaged in the kernel.
But man I can think of a few cool Framework devices that I’d be into buying…
i see it as giving their industrial engineers something to do.
when you have to design a chasis for reusability and backwards/fowards compatibility, you dont really have the flexibility to make that many changes. instead of just letting them sit there, its better for them to start designing other things in the meantime.
Cool. How about a repairable phone with a headphone jack? I’ll be a day one buyer.
How about a repairable phone with a headphone jack?
The Framework 16 notebook doesn’t even have a headphone jack, only a USB-C to jack adapter.
It’s one of the slot in ones though right? so it doesn’t really count - it effectively integrated.
It counts because the adapter slot cannot be used for something else. It is different with the smaller 13 inch model.
It counts because the adapter slot cannot be used for something else.
I don’t understand this objection. I mean, sure, if you put an audio block in a slot for the headphone jack, it can’t be used for something else, but let’s say they omitted a slot and just put a fixed-into-the-case headphone jack there. I assume that you wouldn’t be happier with that.
I could maybe understand it if normally a headphone jack on a laptop went somewhere other than where the slots would be, but on my Thinkpad, it’s where the slots are on a Framework laptop.
They just give you the option to have or not have a headphones jack.
let’s say they omitted a slot and just put a fixed-into-the-case headphone jack there.
Or let’s not because that isn’t what happened in the 13 inch model.
Point is: Placing hope into a Framework phone with a headphone jack is IMO misplaced based on Framework’s most recent track record. Not even Apple got rid of headphone jacks in MacBook Air.
As someone with the 13, I would prefer the 6 slots on the 16 to the 4+headphone jack on the 13.
The best part of the modular slots is you can swap the side the jack is on for whatever works best or have it on both. (Through the magic of buying two of them.) Also if something goes wrong with the jack it’s significantly easier to replace.
As someone with the 13, I would prefer the 6 slots on the 16 to the 4+headphone jack on the 13.
If you think that getting rid of the headphone jack would result in more slots, you’re out of touch with reality. There would be an additional slot on the other side of the chassis where there is no headphone jack, so 5 overall. But there aren’t. The headphone jack has absolutely nothing to do with the number of slots. Audio output is a tiny component.
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I don’t even use built-in headphone jacks anymore. I use external DACs with 2.5, 4.4 and quarter inch. Good thing for me that I can get an extra port while others can use a headphone jack still.
Modular ports would be great. I’d love to have two USB ports on a phone rather than a USB and headphone jack.
two USB ports
I don’t know if both could provide the same amount of power, and I’d bet – given that laptops don’t – that the phone would only be able to charge off one.
USB ports aren’t perfectly interchangeable today. If they can’t be made to be, I kind of wish that at least USB would have a set of standards for indicating power-in capable ports and ports by wattage capability. Like, reserve one color or symbol or something for one, one for another. Right now, device manufacturers just do whatever and sometimes don’t indicate what is what. I mean, yeah, it’s great that they’re backwards compatible, but when you have ports that don’t all behave the same, it’d be nice for it to be immediately-obvious what they do.
Also, while I’m dreaming, I’d like power-pack and battery capacity to be listed in watt-hours rather than amp-hours, given (a) that voltage isn’t universally the same and (b) that what people care about is about how long something can be run (“I have an N watt device and an M watt-hour battery…”).
given that laptops don’t – that the phone would only be able to charge off one.
My personal Framework 13 can charge from either the left or right side USB-C ports, and my work Lenovo Thinkpad can charge from either the dedicated USB-C slot, or the USB-C dock port. Point is, as USB-C gains more widespread adoption, limiting a device to only using one port for charging is becoming much less common.
That said, Framework does point out that not all the expansion bays can deliver/receive the same amount of power and they recommend (at least for the 13) to only use the rear ports for charging.
I’m pretty sure that a USB hub would work at least on Android, giving you as many ports as you want.
Repairable, open phone, you can load whatever OS you want. A phone that is more akin to a computer than a smartphone. A pinephone, but better.
If you don’t care about 3.5mm a FairPhone comes pretty close to that description.
A Framework phone with 2 modular Framework sockets would be amazing. I don’t care if it’s thick. Make it repairable and support Linux Phone OSes like postmarketOS and I would absolutely buy it.
I kind of wonder how viable it’d be to make a product that consists of:
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A strong smartphone case, with structurally-strong “dock” connector at the bottom.
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A “dock” – maybe in a couple different sizes – that links to this, has a pass-through USB-C hub, and adds stuff like a headphones jack. Maybe stick an integrated powerbank into any free space.
Smartphones don’t have standard dimensions at all, resulting in a zillion cases out there, but having the case with a standard “dock” attachment as a separate part would mean that you don’t have to build a million variations on the dock.
There are existing “put the smartphone in a dock” products, but they’re aimed at putting the phone on a desk, using it like a laptop. I dunno if there’s something comparable for just holding it. I haven’t seen anything like that.
From a purely-electrical standpoint, USB-C permits for a lot of devices to be added. But physically, on a smartphone, that means carrying other boxes. A “dock” that just extends the height of the phone would avoid that.
If the only thing you want is a headphones jack on a smartphone, I’d probably just get a small USB-C-to-1/8"-TRS adapter and leave it attached to the headphones; they can be pretty small.
I would like a phone that has a removable battery, user replaceable screen, and expandable storage. I think Framework would do well to add one or two of their modular slots on the phone since phones already have USB-C support. I would also love to see a phone keyboard similar to the PinePhone keyboard case but using USB-C instead of I2C. Such a case could also incorporate a USB-C dock, providing more Framework module slots or at least additional USB ports, video outputs, an extended capacity battery (using USB-PD to charge itself as well as the phone), and of course also being a tiny keyboard clamshell that fits in your pocket. It could also be nice if the phone could easily detach from said case for taking calls, as the PinePhone keyboard replaces the back cover and does not separate easily when needed.
phone keyboard similar to the PinePhone keyboard case
This doesn’t buy you a single device with a physical keyboard, but if you’re willing to tolerate a separate keyboard device, you can get those in smartphone form factor.
There are full-size keyboards that fold down to the size of a cell phone and fit in your pocket:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=folding+keyboard
That won’t solve your issue if what you want to do is to be walking down the street and tapping away, but if the concern is intensive text-typing sessions when you’re sitting down, that can work.
There are also tiny keyboards that you can hold in your hand that’ll talk to the phone via Bluetooth:
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=handheld+keyboard
You can get phone cases that hold both such a keyboard and the phone:
I have some of those tiny keyboards, but the PinePhone keyboard case is far more convenient to use as a mini on the go PC than a separate keyboard. If such an all in one option existed for more powerful hardware it would be amazing. I love the idea of a phone that doubles as a true pocket laptop including connectivity options.
I love the idea of a phone that doubles as a true pocket laptop including connectivity options.
I haven’t looked recently, but you might try looking at Japan. They were way ahead of the US in the palmtop form factor. I remember boggling at what they had on the market – albeit expensive – about twenty years ago.
Japan has also been well below the US in personal computer ownership. My guess as to explaining those two facts – lack of personal computers, but availability of palmtops – is that a big part of available computer use time in Japan might be when someone is on mass transit. They’re willing to pay a premium for something usable there.
googles
I’m not seeing anything likely in a quick search, but there are some more-recent “UMPC” form factor devices from various companies that look kinda similar. Larger than the palmtops, so might be what you’re thinking of.
I have seen the GPD devices before and if they were a bit smaller (phone sized) and had cell capability maybe that would be a good option. As is, they are not small enough to be in a separate category than the Steam Deck IMO, and I already have a Steam Deck. I also like the idea of the keyboard being detachable as sometimes the phone form factor is desirable, like when holding it up to your ear.
I would pay a stupid amount of money for one that sits on the back and slides out the side in landscape.
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Why not just use type c headphones?
The 3.5mm thing has always baffled me, it feels like complaining your pc doesn’t have a VGA port, except the thing you connect costs like a fiver
Why not just use type c headphones?
I can think of several good reasons to use 1/8" TRS headphones (though as I point out in a lower comment, specifically for smartphones, space is at an extreme premium and I think that the majority of people probably don’t want to spend the space on an integrated headphones jack; it’d be better to use a small external adapter there):
But for the general case, not on smartphones, places where I have the space to stick a 1/8" TRS port, I am not very enthusiastic about using USB as an audio port.
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1/8" TRS is a well-established standard. I mean, pretty much every device can handle it. USB for audio is in a number of places, but not even close to the level of 1/8" TRS.
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1/8" TRS has been around forever. It’s electrically-compatible with 1/4" TRS, which has been around even longer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phone_connector_(audio)
The original 1⁄4 inch (6.35 mm) version descends from as early as 1877 in Boston when the first telephone switchboard was installed[9] or 1878, when an early switchboard was used for the first commercial manual telephone exchange[10][11] in New Haven created by George W. Coy.
USB is a young pup and already, physical USB-A ports are being phased out in favor of USB-C ports. I very much doubt that USB-C is going to be around ~150 years down the road the way that TRS has been. I can use a pair of headphones from the 1970s just fine with the latest device, and I can use an elderly radio from the 1970s with a new pair of headphones.
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USB is a lot more complicated than 1/8" TRS. It’s got sleep states, trees, power consumption negotiation. That’s all room for things to break in interesting ways. I have, for example, a USB hygrometer/thermometer that sporadically triggers kernel errors on my computer when plugged in. I have a mouse that, for some reason, when plugged into a USB hub, uses a lower polling rate if plugged in when the system boots up (albeit not if unplugged and replugged). I have a USB audio DAC/ADC that decided to cut out the other day, for God knows what reason, until it was restarted. My last computer’s motherboard had a USB controller that supported a more-limited-than-required-by-protocol-USB tree size and had random devices not work if a sufficient number of devices were plugged in. None of this exists with 1/8" TRS.
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Security. Same idea. I’ve got enough attack vectors into my devices as-is. People have definitely attacked bugs in USB stacks before; IIRC, that’s historically been part of how they attacked DRM on some consoles. 1/8" TRS is a dumb protocol, but that makes it safe. Same issue with USB for charging, though at least there you can get a “power-only” cable. You can’t have an “audio-only” cable.
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USB sticks the DAC on the headphones. Why? Headphones don’t last that long; they’re disposable items. Put the non-disposable bits where they won’t die. A DAC can last pretty much forever. I have gone through many headphones over the years. I have never had a sound card or on-motherboard DAC or dedicated DAC die. The closest I came was once ripping the 1/8" TRS output on a DAC loose, which I could solder back into place. I have two USB-to-1/8"-TRS DAC/ADCs sitting on the shelf by my desk. They’ll probably be perfectly good twenty years from now.
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Sampling rate issues. Can’t come up on TRS, because the DAC/ADC is on the device side. One of my USB DACs (this intended for professional audio) only supports a fixed sampling rate, the one at which it does internal processing; that makes sense, as a pro doesn’t want to have some device introducing resampling into their audio chain. Another, consumer one, can’t support a sampling rate as high as the professional one; it relies on the computer to figure out and do resampling if resampling has to happen above that rate. You can have software that doesn’t work with a given pair of USB headphones because it doesn’t like the headphone DAC’s supported sampling rates; I’ve seen that before. If I have a pair of 1/8" TRS headphones, they work everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether whether they’re new or old or intended for the professional market or consumer market. Plug 'em in, they work.
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I have one wired audio-emitting device – a pair of elderly Logitech USB speakers, not headphones – that has an integrated DAC. For some reason, the engineers who did that appear to have decided to make the volume control on that linear in electrical power rather than in perceptual loudness, which means that the vast majority of the volume scale does very little and there’s a tiny range that has a large impact. I don’t want to deal with that kind of craziness on some cheap pair of headphones.
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Latency. 1/8" TRS devices normally – unless you’re intentionally building something into the system – have zero latency, because the DAC on the device is directly electrically driving the membrane on the speaker. Every time one sticks higher-level protocols in, it’s an opportunity for some bright-eyed, bushy-tailed engineer to start cramming more shit into the pipeline that adds latency. TVs are a great example of this – they used to have no latency, and then someone figured out that they could show ads and do other processing on the feed and that that’d be easier if they had a buffer of some video frames, and so they started inducing latency, unlike a computer monitor. Now you have “gaming modes” on TVs that try to mitigate the problem which had never originally been an actual issue with dumb TVs.
There’s an entirely-separate world of audio software and hardware for professionals who want to do real-time audio processing (on Linux, JACK; I have a USB ADC and some audio cards that permit direct passthrough of input audio to output) to try to avoid all the points in the pipeline that various consumer audio devices and software have inserted latency.
That doesn’t matter for some uses, like an MP3 player. It’s not the end of the world for a phone call. But it’s really obnoxious for some uses. With 1/8" TRS, I have no latency. With USB, I have God-knows-what latency.
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Durability. 1/8" TRS is more-rugged than USB-C. I’ve damaged both before by pulling on cables at right angles, but micro-USB, mini-USB, and USB-C are more-fragile. That being said, I will give USB this: the damage tends to be worse on the cable side, as the plug is flimsy and will tend to give out before the socket on the device, whereas with TRS you can more-readily mess up the device. I would be open to the idea that having a standard magnetic breakaway connector would be more sane than either 1/8" TRS or any existing USB standard.
There are only three decent reasons that I can see to use USB headphones for the general case (like, not the extreme-space-constraint situation that smartphones see):
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It provides power. Some people want active noise cancellation on their headsets. If you want to do ANC, you’re gonna need power one way or another. 1/8" TRS doesn’t have a standard for that (with XLR, for condenser mics, there’s a 48 volt phantom power convention that was added, but TRS doesn’t have it). AFAICT, devices that do this with a 1/8" TRS interface either rely on a second USB wire for power or use batteries.
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When initially plugging in a 1/8" TRS plug, one shorts connectors and it can make a loud noise on the speaker membrane. Not an issue with USB, because the speaker membrane isn’t in that pipeline.
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1/8" TRS doesn’t specify a single impedance everywhere. You can get very-high-impedance headphones that a DAC with limited output power can’t drive at a reasonable volume, even with the volume all the way up. That isn’t usually an issue for most people, but USB avoids the issue.
EDIT: Apparently I lied on the phantom power argument for using USB; according to WP, there are 1/8" TRS devices that do take phantom power (or something comparable; sounds like it’s not, strictly-speaking, “phantom power”):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_power
Plug-in-power (PiP) is the low-current 3–5 V supply provided at the microphone jack of some consumer equipment, such as portable recorders and computer sound cards. It is also defined in IEC 61938.[16] It is unlike phantom power since it is an unbalanced interface with a low voltage (around +5 volts) connected to the signal conductor with return through the sleeve; the DC power is in common with the audio signal from the microphone. A capacitor is used to block the DC from subsequent audio frequency circuits. It is often used for powering electret microphones, which will not function without power. It is suitable only for powering microphones specifically designed for use with this type of power supply. Damage may result if these microphones are connected to true (48 V) phantom power through a 3.5 mm to XLR adapter that connects the XLR shield to the 3.5 mm sleeve.[17] Plug-in-power is covered by Japanese standard CP-1203A:2007.[18]
Also, regarding the power argument – USB power can be a source of noise leaking into what you hear.
USB power can be incredibly, mind-bogglingly dirty. I couldn’t believe it the first time I watched some video of some guy with an oscilloscope showing it. I guess it makes sense – I mean, keeps USB controllers and hub prices cheap – but there’s all kinds of electrical devices that have to deal with it. Anyway, point is, it’s the responsibility of the USB device containing the DAC to have a power supply that cleans that up sufficiently before feeding the DAC. It turns out that…they don’t necessarily do that. I have one USB-powered (not using a USB audio interface, or switching away from my computer’s USB bus wouldn’t be an option) mixer with 1/4" TRS output where using the USB power bus off my computer for power resulted in perceptible audio artifacts, humming and such.
This appears to be something of a not-uncommon problem, as I see various references to it online for other devices:
Some of you guys may be aware of my posts and other’s in the Topping D10 review thread. It seems that this DAC, like many audio devices that get their [power from the USB Bus, suffer from some noise coming from the USB port itself.
From my own experience, plugging the DAC into a Raspberry Pi 3B (+5v PSU and Ethernet connected) dropped the noise considerably compared to any port on the PC.
And if I can hear it, then I guarantee that there are USB audio devices that are inserting all kinds of garbage into the signal going out the output that are maybe less-egregious.
I wound up avoiding the problem with my mixer (well, at least to the point where I couldn’t hear it) by sticking the mixer onto an isolated USB charger, not on my PC’s USB tree. Now, yes, you can make a fancy power supply that avoids that, and it’s fair to say that the guys that engineered the mixer should have used a better power supply if they were gonna use USB power. But if you’ve got some guys engineering headphones and are under pressure to try to make the things as cheap as possible, because headphones are a disposable item, not to mention as light as possible because they’re gonna sit on your head, I’m not sure I’d bet on how much expense and weight they’re gonna put into the power supply feeding the DAC.
I haven’t tried quantifying how the power supplies on various USB DACs perform, though I would suggest that in a world where people are using USB audio rather than 1/8" TRS, given that you have headphone reviewers that cover things like frequency response, it’d be interesting to have a device that intentionally screws with the USB input power voltage and then have an oscilloscope or something attached to the leads coming off the magnet driving the speaker’s membrane and see just exactly how much glop from USB power is leaking through to the membrane at various dick-with-the-voltage patterns.
EDIT: Oh, and I forgot one other point. Cable length. 1/8" TRS cares very little about cable length. If you want a 200 foot cable, sure, go for it. USB, especially newer and faster forms, is pretty restrictive on cable length. I decided, a few years back, to move my PC to the other side of the room to reduce noise at my chair and had fun discovering that a number of current PC cable standards are not incredibly friendly to long runs. USB couldn’t communicate without repeaters or an optical bridge, DisplayPort had visible artifacts and occasionally saw the screen go black and need to re-handshake, etc.
https://www.cablematters.com/Blog/USB-C/usb-cable-max-length
How long can a USB 2.0 Cable be?
The maximum recommended cable length for USB 2.0, is five meters, or around 16 feet. That’s actually the longest maximum length of any standard, passive USB cable specification, with USB 1.0 cables restricted to just three meters.
You may find some USB 2.0 cables that run longer than 5m, but they’ll need to be made with a thick wire gauge to ward off signal loss and interference at anything much past that maximum. Alternatively, you can run longer USB 2.0 connections by bridging two USB 2.0 cables with a powered USB hub.
How long can a USB 3.0/3.1 Cable be?
USB 3.0 and 3.1 Gen 1 cables don’t have an official maximum length, but their recommended maximum is around 2-3 meters in length or around nine feet. Like USB 2.0, you can extend this with a powered USB hub, potentially linking a few together to extend your run, but there are far better solutions for longer USB 3.0 cable runs.
The maximum length for USB 3.0 and 3.1 was maintained into the final USB 3.0 Type-A specification, known as USB 3.2 Gen 2. It was also mirrored in the higher-performing USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C connections, which also had a nine-foot maximum cable length.
However, USB4 cables, which leverage the USB Type-C connector but can transmit data at up to 40 Gbps, only have a maximum recommended cable length of 0.8 meters or around 2.6 feet. That goes for both the existing 40 Gbps cables and the USB4 80Gbps spec cables which will see greater use in the coming years.
These cables can transmit data at a much greater bandwidth than their USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, or earlier counterparts, which means the cables need to be made of a higher quality to ensure the data is fully transmitted. Unfortunately, that also means signal attenuation is a bigger problem, hence the shorter maximum cable runs for USB4 cables.
Alas I have but one upvote to give.
You forgot that 3.5mm is a stupid connector that makes you pass charged metal pieces over the connector to plug it in. You can’t power an anc chip or a dsp with it because it can’t do power delivery. That’s how you get headphones sounding different based on whether they are turned on
You forgot
I have two sections in my above comment talking about power delivery over 1/8" TRS.
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Just replace my perfectly good $200 headphones that work in my (old) phone, my Switch, my 3DS, my laptop, my iPod, and my work phone.
It’s so simple!
Seriously, even if you don’t use it, why are you so against others having the choice? The headphone *jack was the standard for decades for a reason. If my phone is low on power, I’d like to be able to charge it without disconnecting my music/podcasts…
But like, 3.5 to usbc is a 10 buck conversion. Tbh i see merit in double usb c over usbc and headphone jack, might be more doable too, the DAC prolly takes more space than an additional usbc
A dongle is a workaround. The headphone jack just works.
I hear you, but a usb-c has more uses than one, the only real problem with a dongle is now is that occasionally you need to charge.
A dongle is a workaround. The headphone jack just works.
Framework also uses a USB-C adapter. It costs 20 Euro: https://frame.work/products/audio-expansion-card
That’s great! But Framework also includes an audio jack built-in. As should everyone.
But Framework also includes an audio jack built-in.
Nope, the new 16 inch does not. The older 13 does.
A dongle is a solution to the problem “I want to use my headphones with a device with only a USB-C port.”
It’s not a work-around, a headphone requires a DAC and an amp. In fact, my phone has a crap DAC causing artifacts in the sound. It’s actually not to my benefit to have the jack because I’d get better sound with the external DAC which is transparent.
So the jack works, but the DAC you get can be whatever the manufacturer considers good enough.
DACs I can hear issues in:
My phone, my tablet, my desktop PC
DACs that are transparent to me:
My laptop, my $12 external DAC
At the time, there weren’t really many good options for replacement devices.
Using the charging port means listening to music and charging at the same time wasn’t possible.
Now we have split-cable dongles for power banks, and we have wireless charging when possible. It’s better but it’s not great; both have downsides, and accessories are more $.
Do they make type C headphones with a powerbank in them? Do I want a lithium battery that large on my head?
There aren’t many upsides for the consumer or the environment. Still seems to me like this isn’t even a lateral move. Internal components have gotten smaller and more efficient since, so that space could be reclaimed. I really don’t need my phone to be that thin, a phono jack next to the charging port would be just fine. The only real downside might be waterproofing but if you can make it work for the type C port…
The only real downside might be waterproofing but if you can make it work for the type C port…
I’ve heard that argument against having a 1/8" TRS port on smartphones before, and I don’t buy it. Yes, there are lots of devices where there’s just air between the connector and the rest of the electronic device, so water entering through the port can flow into the rest of the device…but there is no fundamental requirement imposed that requires devices to be designed like that. It’d be entirely-reasonable to seal it off, have the port external to the rest of the phone, have no way for water to pass from one area to the other.
There are some types of data or electrical connections for which you cannot do that, where the problem is that water’s conductivity causes problems for a port itself, and the interface isn’t designed to handle things being shorted, but that shouldn’t be an issue for 1/8" TRS. Hell, you short its contacts just plugging the device in.
While I personally like having a headphones jack and would be quite happy with a larger smartphone with a larger battery and headphones jack, a lot of people do care a lot about size. I’ve seen women in particular complaining about the fact that their clothing often has limited or small pockets, and large smartphones don’t play well with that.
The headphones jack was never designed to be incredibly space efficient.
That means smartphones have extremely limited space. Plus, if you want it to be modular – which is how Framework permits for the option to have a headphones jack on their laptops – you need even more space if you want to maintain structural strength of the phone.
I think that the best bet, if you carry headphones with 1/8" TRS plug, is to just leave a USB-C adapter plugged into the end, as that places the space on the headphones end, where there isn’t a space constraint:
This is minimalist, optimizes for size:
https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Headphone-Adapter-Converter-Samsung/dp/B07KJ87HYJ/
This has a passthrough port, so that it doesn’t tie up your USB-C port:
https://www.amazon.com/Headphone-Charger-Adapter-Splitter-Charging/dp/B0CSKF9XSF/
This has both a headphones and microphone port:
https://www.amazon.com/ZOOAUX-Microphone-Adapter-Splitter-Compatible/dp/B0CDX38TRN/
This has a headset jack, if you use a headset with integrated microphone:
https://www.amazon.com/Vcddom-Premium-Adapter-Headphone-Compatible/dp/B087CS4T4G/
Surely they are aiming for a repairable and modular smartphone eventually. That’s going to be super hard to do. My guess is their next form factor will be a tablet.
Any Linux phone is DOA for the foreseeable future because of the cellular radios.
You can get laptops that have 5G radios that you can use for data with Linux.
As I understand it, there’s no support for voice/SMSes at the radio level, but in theory, if you were willing to tolerate it and your cell service provider offers support, you could do WiFi calling.
Could also get service from a random other VoIP provider, use that over the data connection.
Probably not as battery-efficient, requires more of the stack to be awake to be listening for incoming calls.
I think that a larger downside is that Android software is designed for a touch screen and low power usage and low data usage across the board, and GNU/Linux software generally isn’t.
I imagine the lack of voice support presents some compliance issues with emergency calls.
Mmmm. I dunno. You’re talking about location availability off the hardware?
Last month, I had to call 911 when some random druggie lit what I thought was a building on fire across the street from my car (it turned out to just be a bonfire in the parking lot; figured that out while running over). I didn’t know the cross-street for my location, and asked the dispatcher if she could just send the fire department to the location she got from my cell phone via E911. She had no idea what I was talking about, needed me to manually provide location.
So I’m not totally sure, at least in the US, what the compliance requirements are for availability of location information.
If you’re talking about 911 usability without logging into a phone from a lock screen, I don’t think that that’d create any issues – that’s all software, can do whatever if you’re doing the OS.
More referring to selling a device classified as a mobile phone that might not be able to connect to emergency services without any tinkering. My google-fu is failing me now, but I’m trying to see what the actual requirements are, if they exist at all, to sell a mobile phone. All I’m seeing is that the radio shall connect to any available base stations during an emergency call regardless of subscriber status.
I don’t know how the linux phone OS’s are handling these kind of interactions with their baseband processing, if at all.
This is handled in the modem Firmware. Linux just has to supply “User has dialed number x, go into emergency mode” and then route the audio.
This is solved for all Linux phones as far as I know. From Openmoko over N900 till Librem 5.
E911 is a thing in some places and not in others depending on what each county dispatch wants to do and pay for. It does require some call center upgrades as I recall when I was working EMS and fire. It was kind of sketchy when I was working. But, everything is a bit sketchy when working in a very rural area in public safety.
We can say that for any kind of drivers needed to run a mobile phone.\ Manufacturers of components are less and less providing any documentation, just throw a binary blob and say “put it in your Android build”.
They didn’t say Linux phone though, it could still be android with a custom ROM.
Eh, Pinephone and Librem 5 made it work, but there’s still a fair amount of software limitations here, and I didn’t think Framework should be a software company. But the radios themselves probably aren’t the blocker you make them out to be.
They absolutely did not make it work. Go read any of the reviews and the complete unreliability of the cellular functions of both devices are chief among the criticisms.
My understanding is that those issues are due to suspend to save battery life, which isn’t directly related to the radios. A more appropriate SOC (i.e. one designed for mobile use) would probably be more reliable with the same radios they selected when going on standby.
Tablet is almost free, just don’t have a hinge and have a touchscreen. Release as Chromebook, it will run Android applications
Why Chromebook?
To run Android stuff on x86
Linux can run Android apps since we have Waydroid too and it’s universal, no need for single device - single OS nonsense.
You can install Linux on their Chromebooks, so it would be good to have the choice. Some people will prefer a slightly more seamless Android experience and some people will prefer Waydroid
Chromebook makes sense. They could also do full on Linux. Star labs has a tablet coming out, so they don’t have to reinvent the wheel for software (I assume, I haven’t tried touchscreen Linux).
A reminder that if something can run Android or ChromeOS doesn’t mean drivers would be available for Linux. And usually they aren’t.
You can order that tablet with Ubuntu, mint, Manjaro, zorin, elementary, etc. There’s gotta be some kind of driver support to build on, no?
Arm machines that are repairable to compete with Apple would be very cool in my opinion. Maybe team up with an integrator like sys76. Could be very cool. I’d personally line up to buy.
Would love it if they just had a shell that takes single board PCs
You can run the mainboard outside of the chais in an external enclosure.
Pine64 has a laptop that’s essentially that. The SBC inside could pretty easily be swapped.
I was thinking about ARM at one point, but you’ve got a couple of major drawbacks.
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Most ARM devices are SoC, and where they get some of their cost and power savings. That’s kinda the opposite of modular.
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ARM running ARM binaries can be more-power-efficient than x86 running x86 binaries. An ARM platform can run x86 binaries via x86 emulation, but then your power benefits go away (probably get worse power efficiency). For Windows, I assume that there’s some form of OS-level emulation, but you’ve got a lot of binary software out there. For Linux, if you’re using all open-source software that can be rebuilt for ARM, and assuming that you have ARM driver support, then you could maybe run only ARM binaries. But if you want to, for example, use Steam, then you are going to be using binary-only x86 software. Now, okay, that depends a lot on your use case, but that may be a real drawback if you play games on the thing.
googles
That also sounds kind of like compatibility is still limited – they’re saying that some ARM platforms can’t do 32-bit x86 binaries, at least two years ago. Dunno if that’s still an issue.
I mean, what is the difference between the current SoC and the soldered CPU? Sure you can save on upgrading RAM, but then what else? Especially if the SoC has PCIe. They can make a daughter board for the SoC to make it simpler to upgrade if they want, alà pi compute module.
its not that simple. high performamce parts are high performamce because the devices that need the fastest speeds have the shortest traces from CPU to said device. its for instance, why the ram slots, and the fastest m.2/slot as well as pci-e lanes are nearest to the cpu, else youd have to resort to adding a south bridge.
the pi compute module works that way because the ram is already on board making it not a problem, and latency to whatever it gets mounted on isnt of highest priority for performance.
its why sodimm for instance has hit a peak speed limit, while lpdde hasnt, and why dell pitched the camm form factor for ram. distance of components to the cpu and its stability is cruicial for performance.
What I am saying is that the current soldered CPU approach on laptop space is not that different from switching an ARM SoC on a daughter board. The only difference is that you cannot change RAM. Maybe that too will change as you said with CAMM standard. Next is that some SBC already supported PCIe for external M.2 storage, so you can theoretically hook up a removable GPU there.
Now, what to do with the old SoC daughter board? The same as with the old framework motherboard. You can repurpose it as another computer.
The point is, framework repairability comes not only from part swapping, but also the promise of providing schematic for board level repair. They can totally make ARM based laptops with SoC repairable if they wanted to. But I suspect they will not (at least in the near future) since there is a lot to do for them.
m.2 to gpu isn’t completely foreign nor new, but less practical than more recent standards like Occulink. the problem, specifically with the lower end model in particular, is using 4/8 pci-e lanes for a port that not everyone is going to use is a waste of the already limited amount of pci-e lanes available to the user because of the CPU choice. hence, it makes sense to keep 1 users with the side option to using usb4/thunderbolt gpu docks
I don’t see what’s non-modular about ARM. Most of the stuff that’s user-serviceable on a Framework laptop would be serviceable with ARM:
- ports are all USB-C
- drives are NVMe, SATA, or PCIe - Pine64 has boards with each (IIRC)
- GPU is PCIe - again, Pine64 has that on their RockPro64
The only difference is RAM, and theoretically they could design a socketable SOC to reuse existing boards (not sure what happened to Project Skybridge). The only difference is RAM, at least for the user, and I really don’t think that’ll be a deal-breaker. Modern x86 chips are already essentially SOCs anyway…
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I’d kill for a 2-in-1 framework with a detachable keep board and pen
Not quite the same thing, but you can get external touchscreens for laptops, which might fit the bill, depending upon what you want to do with it.
https://www.amazon.com/portable-touch-monitor/s?k=portable+touch+monitor
As long as the company itself doesn’t become greedy and doesn’t change it’s mission & vision i always support it
i just cant escape the headphone jack jihadists even in this thread
We won’t rest until every washing machine has 2.5, 3.5, 4.4 and 6.35 jack sockets by default.
I swear I’ll start a startup producing 32.35 fleshlights
If it doesn’t have both balanced and unbalanced jacks I swear there’s going to be blood.
Can we also get mini xlr?
It’s the reasonable thing to do.
Good.
I’m waiting for them to offer a chassis to convert their laptop parts into USFF PCs. Reusing old parts after an upgrade is pretty attractive. I think they mentioned this a while back, I’ve been waiting for it to happen.
I’d also like to see a thunderbolt or oculink GPU bay part that would enable eGPU use with their machines.
And if we’re wishlisting top facing speakers would be 🤌
Didn’t cooler master come out with one a little while ago?
Ah, I guess they did - thanks!
I thought they already offered 3d print models, you can just print out and presto?
Tomorrow, it wants to be a consumer electronics company, period.
Patel won’t say — I only get the barest hints, no matter how many different ways I ask.
I want one with an e-ink display. That way I can swap out the e-ink display when I need to for a proper display. That wouldn’t work on a normal laptop but should work for their uniquely modular design.
I don’t know if it will work for your use case, but you can attach an external eInk display to any laptop or desktop.
Stuff like:
https://www.amazon.com/Acogedor-10-3inch-Monitor-1872x1404p-Mountable/dp/B0BYDB8HTK
Or
https://www.amazon.com/DASUNG-Paper-Front-Light-Touch-Monitor/dp/B09VLDK58C
I don’t know how well eInk would work for most tasks, though. I mean, sure, it’s great for reading documents, and you can do so outside on a sunny day. But most PC software isn’t designed to work well with a slow refresh rate.
The battery life savings on an e-reader with an eInk display compared to an LED or LCD screen can be very large, but then the software is designed for it.
If I were only gonna read documents, I think I’d lean towards just loading them onto an eInk e-reader. That just takes, what, a fraction of a minute? Then all the software is designed around the screen’s characteristics.
I want to use it programming so I don’t get eye strain from staring at a screen all day, and the display is mostly white text on a black background anyway.
Obviously I invert that on an e-ink display. It’s white on black is to reduce the amount of white light that I get blasted with. When you’re programming most of the screen is blank because each individual line of code isn’t really that long in most cases it’ll be shorter than in English sentence.
Please let it be a smart TV.
I’m curious to see where they go next. A lot of modern consumer electronics have repairability and upgradeability problems, but I also wouldn’t expect they’d be able to crack into the phone market as easily as the laptop market, so presumably there’s some more niche target they have.
I’m sure a Framework phone is at least an idea for them to produce. Definitely an extremely difficult challenge. It would be nice if it allowed for removable RAM, but it could be hard due to SODIMM being relatively large or due to RAM being put on SOCs. I imagine it shouldn’t be too much to ask for removable storage at least, given how small NVME drives can get. Upgradable SOC/motherboard is a must.
