Comment by artisinal
19 hours ago
Arent the USB ports on the framework also soldered on? I’m looking at a picture of the motherboard right now. Unlike my MacBook it doesn’t use a daughter board for the ports. It’s straight on the main board. Seems less repairable than my MacBook.
The ports on the motherboard are soldered, but you don't use them directly. You attach "expansion cards" which slide into a slot on the laptop case which locks them in place. So those ports seldom see any forces applied to them. All your day-to-day wear (plugging/unplugging, twisting, yanking) is going to be on the port on the expansion card which you can replace for $10. It's basically like a daughter board that is trivially user-replaceable rather than a daughter board that you have to open up your laptop to replace.
It’s a €20 / 5 minute fix on the MacBook to swap out the USB daughterboard. The solution framework uses takes up a lot of space and doesn’t really help you if you short out the port or drop the laptop on its side.
As far as I can tell, Apple doesn't sell the daughterboards so you have to go spelunking for salvaged parts with your macbook. I can get all my first-party brand-new replacement parts at https://frame.work/marketplace .
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Everyone is familiar with Framework modules, Framework is a sacred cow on HN.
It is a non-feature that results in a net loss of physical space for ports owing to their gargantuan size.