We are not sustainable. And neither is any other device maker. This industry is full of “feel good” messaging, but generates 50 million metric tons of e-waste each year. We believe there's a better way.
We are not sustainable
And neither is any other device maker. This industry is full of "feel good" messaging, but generates 50 million metric tons of e-waste each year. We believe the best way to reduce environmental impact is to create products that last longer, meaning fewer new ones need to be made. Instead of operating on feels, we operate on data and actions. With funding from Intel, we commissioned Fraunhofer IZM to do a detailed life cycle analysis (LCA) on Framework Laptop 13 to help us understand where we are today and where we can continue to improve. Check out our thoughts on reducing environmental impact and download the LCA report here...
To be fair, all these ports put together can't match a single USB-4 in bandwidth. And I get they are pretty useful to avoid dongles, but I bet your ThinkPad (with that many ports I'm guessing a W or T, maybe 30 series?) weights more than a framework and a competent USB-C hub.
(But I love the ergonomics of old ThinkPads, that's why my x201 gets almost as much use as my T480)
I feel like the modem held on in laptops far too long. By the Windows 95 era, most modems were just weird sound cards that put most of the work onto the CPU to convert the data into sounds. They were dirt cheap, so laptop manufacturers could keep them there for the hell of it.
Oh god I forgot those existed. They were always terrible, even for modem technology. I remember having to help my mom's friend with her Emachine with one of those and the drivers were a trainwreck.
Or they were making a joke about ridiculous things that engineers were putting in all kinds of random devices for a while there and you got huffy about it.
We don't know your life or what you know. And not all of us are memorizing old laptop models or care enough to look them up.
Conversation can be light and fun and not all pedantic technical documents like we've all been replaced by machines already
I'm not asking anyone to memorize what specs does a random computer line have. I only know what my own computer has.
I'm just asking that if they have no idea about the device they are talking about, not to make ironic comments about it. It's okay for them not to know that Thinkpads used to come with modems. It's not okay to make ironic comments damaging my post's credibility.
It's not useful for most, but for some it's irreplaceable. Just like the old serial port. For most people it feels archaic, but for industrial use it's as present as USB is. ThinkPads cater to a huge audience, consisting mostly of technical people.
It's unfortunate that the Framework modules aren't quite big enough. They can't put two USB-A ports side by side on one module, and there apparently isn't enough room for the USB hub electronics, anyway. Just a bit wider and they'd make it.