The framework laptop promises to be an upgradeable and repairable laptop, not quite the same philosophy that makes thinkpads great, but I wonder if newer thinkpads are good enough to prefer over a framework.
framework said they’re not working on a trackpoint so I feel like my hands are tied, Virgo sounds intriguing but isn’t available
I bought a W500 in 2008 and it was/is the best laptop I have ever owned. I bought a P15 Gen2 in 2022 and it’s been good. Performance and features are 10/10 but hardware support was a little wonky for Debain. No support on 10 and 11, 12 has some bugs. That’s not a fault of the ThinkPad but this is the first time in years that I have had to work so hard to get basic features going.
Also there was that time it shot sparks out of the charge port but they upgraded me from an i5 to an i7 so I’d call that neutral.
Does the W500 still alive kicking for daily driver?
With an upgrade to 8GB of ram it works pretty good. Well enough that it could run multiple virtual machines or do some light gaming (HL2/Portal/TF2).
Lenovo has shot itself on the head since 2018. Take a look at System76 Virgo laptop as well. It will have these features:
- trackpoint mouse
- Open source Coreboot bios
- Hot swappable mechanical keyboard keys
- Fully open source (including motherboard)
- All the schematics in Github
- Up and down arrows not splitted in half
Louis Rossmann made a video about Virgo project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4KoUAW3kyI&pp=ygUYTG91aXMgcm9zc21hbm4gc3lzdGVtIDc2
Imo they probably are due to Lenovo client support and warranty. Note this is taken from the experience of a pal of mine who actually owns a Framework laptop. His laptop has problems with the wi-fi and Framework pretty much didn’t try to help him find the cause, so just because you can repair it doesn’t mean it has better QC or support. (Also that pal of mine is a accomplished dev, so not your run of the mill normie, before someone says he doesn’t know about the hardware).
Take this with a grain of salt after all I’m just another anon, but before you buy a Framework be sure to search their official community on the main problems people face.
System76 should be a better option, they had stellar support, but no idea about it right now.
Also I love the concept behind framework I really do. I’m all for right to repair, but client support is part of it, so yeah I can’t recommend a company my pal had problems with. 🎩
No, the new thinkpads are trash. My company switched from lenovo to Dell because the thinkpads have a tendency for very weird issues and often just die out of nowhere.
