ARM CPUs please

Rhodesian:

Also, if the price of Win10(or 11) bloatware could be removed … frame.work, maybe partnering with a linux distro of their choice - imagine the possibilities !!

Well there’s already great news on this front. The Framework DIY edition is already $139-$199 less expensive if you don’t get the Windows 10 License and want to run Linux instead. No distros preinstalled yet but they have announced that they are sending laptops to distro maintainers to improve support and that may lead to partnering officially with distros in the future. I personally went for the DIY edition for exactly this reason since I don’t intend on running Windows 10 or 11 on it ever. Windows on ARM support is a whole separate set of issues. When ARM is eventually supported officially by Framework I imagine it will be Linux first.

Rhodesian:

(with sacrificing a bit of performance)

This part is really the sticking point in our conversation (which I’ve quite enjoyed by the way). I cannot speak for Framework since I am not employed by them but it seems to me they are unwilling to sacrifice performance, it seems as important to the overall design of the laptop as the repair-ability and the Expansion Card system. Which makes a lot of sense, if people want a budget ARM laptop with decent repair-ability and reasonable performance there are already great options out there in the Pinebook Pro. Pine64 is great at providing parts for repairs and even upgrades for some of their products like the PinePhone. It’s not as modular and repairable as the Framework but it comes close enough to illustrate a point. Framework could probably release an ARM board that is equal to the performance of the Pinebook Pro but it would be a very different product to the high performance Framework Laptop for the end user. I think Framework is interested in offering users choice but not if it means altering the design of the product.

If I allow myself to dream of a bright future where lots of people adopt the Framework then this is what I envision as the future of ARM on the platform: First community members release an ARM PCB probably a Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4 based board that Framework owners who are interested can buy on the Marketplace and run in their Framework laptops with no official support from the Framework team. Then hopefully just a few years down the line the ARM ecosystem has changed and Framework can design a mainboard that runs on ARM without sacrificing the overall design of the laptop which they will officially support.