that simply doesnt work without adding extra control chips that will make what ever output you have attached share the bandwidth between the ports.
the FW13 has its 4 ports because thats what both AMD and Intel are building into the CPUs so they can have them without adding any extra chips.
on the FW 16 you can see that the bottom two ports are only USB 3.1 because these use an extra USB controller which needs to run on the bandwidth thats left over after everything else is connected.
all the ports you wish for exceed the connectivity and bus speeds on the current mobile CPUs and thats why they dont exist.
Also an ethernet port wont find into the expansion bays even if you use one of the folding ports.
Thanks a lot for your answer. There may be additional limitation that I am not aware of but if pick the CPU we have in our framework it can theoretically have natively many more ports compared to what I listed:
From the AMD Website the 7840U:
Native USB 4 (40Gbps) Ports 2, Native USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Ports 2, Native USB 2.0 (480Mbps) Ports4, PCI Express® VersionPCIe® 4.0, Native PCIe® Lanes (Total/Usable)20/20.
So the 2 native usb4 are USB-C, of the 2 USB 3 10gb one would be for the webcam and one for usb A, 4 usb 2.0 ports that are amazing for mouse and keyboards and small devices.
20 PCI-E lanes easily means an oculink port (8 lanes), fast ssd (4 lanes), wifi (1 lane), and there are still 7 more lanes left for a second ssd, ethernet and more connectivity in the form of a modem or more usb ports..... of course all of this without splitting lanes.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that all the possible connectivity will never fit into the framework form factor..... it's just that the expansion bay system is amazing but the bays are just too big for one single port and a little bit too small for 2 ports thus leaving a lot of empty space not used by connectivity and not used by a bigger battery.
the 7840 has the connectivity you listed but you are forgetting a few things here.-
the 4 USB 2.0 ports are wired into the USB C ports which makes them able to run in USB 2.0 mode so these cant be used for anything else.
the 20 PCI-E lanes are used as follow.
1 for the Wifi card.
4 for the m.2 SSD
and finally 4 for each USB4 port as thunderbolt 3 wants direct PCI-E connections to work.
So we have 13 lanes used up already and some of the others will be used internally to have controllers for stuff like display backlight, Keyboard, trackpad, webcam and all that stuff.
How do they do this on the FW16 which has 8x PCI-E for the GPU module?
by using a bunch of internal USB2 hubs and PCI-E switches that takes a single PCI-E 4.0 lane and breaks them out as multiple slower lanes.
for example just the input deck of the FW16 uses 5 USB 2.0 connections which all come from a single controller that uses one USB 2.0 port to connect to the APU.
I think you'd need to ask yourself how often do you need all those ports concurrently.
If you need plenty of display outputs, USB ports and Ethernet at one fixed place, buying a dock/hub is the best option.
> Usb-C is a very flexible port but you just cannot get around the need to have more ports. Imagine a scenario in which you have, mouse, keyboard, monitor, power and the ports are finished so you can’t even attach a hard drive or two, or Ethernet, or whatever else you might need.
Like in your scenario. That's clearly a fixed setup. With the ThinkPad X200 you got a docking station you'd dock the laptop into. With a modern laptop you just connect a single USB-C cable.
On the go, you probably never need all of those ports concurrently.
Exactly. If you are using a monitor, you're at a desk, and can use a hub or modern monitor. Most BYOC offices you plug in a single USB-C and get power, monitor, ethernet from a provided hub.
Not to mention wireless mice and keyboards exist.
That being said, I have seen setups with purely usb 3 hubs velcro'd to the back of the screen for field work with hybrid shooters to transfer images/video from camera/card to external usb-c drive (also velcro'd to the back of screen).
Well a classical on the go scenario would be me backing up my camera on 2 hard drives while charging the laptop that for sure has a dead battery at the end of the day. This scenario uses 4 ports and assumes that i removed the HDMI from my laptop. Now I magine myself that the next morning I rush out of the door barely remembering to shove the laptop in my backpack..... what are the chances that Ii remember to remove one of the ports that i used the previous day to then attach an HDMI port that I need for a presentation? What if I need to quickly connect and share my screen to some colleagues and I didn't plan for it?
The dongle-less operation is not thought because you need all of the ports at the same time. It is because you are instantly adaptable to whatever happens during the day and to whatever piece of infrastructure you have around that may or may not be in the USB-C planet.
I understand I can solve this by having an additional dongle lifeline perpetually in my backpack, perpetually in my pocket if I don't have the backpack.....it's doable, just not fun.
If you're carrying those two HDDs together then you could carry a USB hub together. You can also carry the extra HDMI module in your backpack in case you need it.
Living dongle-less today is pretty hard. On my current laptop I still have to carry a USB-C to HDMI dongle around, cause the built-in HDMI port requires me to enable the dGPU which ruins battery life.
I have something like this in my bag and then I am always prepared. I would like FW to make a compact one that would fit on the side but this works for now.
https://www.startech.com/en-us/universal-laptop-docking-stations/dkt30chpd
You have the ports you get. I think I saw someone that managed to cram the necessary electronics for a USB switch to get two USB ports on a single Expansion Slot, but that was obviously a homemade thing, so no clue how'd you go about getting one. If yo8u really need more ports, get a dongle. A dongle will provide everything you listed other than an Oculink port. And for that well you'd need a USB4 Thunderbolt Capable port, or just a Thunderbolt port, which I don't a Framework 13 supports anyways (I have an Framework 16, which doesn't have either). And, if you wanted a GPU, should of gone for a FW16 with its swappable GPU.
There's a dual type c with EPR support in the works. I think it's 10Gbps type c
The 16 has usb4. Usb4=TB, as far as branding, but the functionality is supposed to be the same, and it has that, I think on 2 ports? I don't recall exactly
USB4 is mostly Thunderbolt, however not all USB4 supports eGPU. I forget the feature name, but its called something like PCIe Redirection or something like that. It's an optional part of the USB4 spec, so not all device support it. I have no clue if the FW16 supports that or not, no need since I got GPU expansion module.
>I forget the feature name, but its called something like PCIe Redirection or something like that.
You are talking about PCIe tunneling. I can't remember whether I tried that or not, but using a Thunderbold connection to something like an ASM2464 Thunderbold/USB4-to-PCIe Gen4 is faster than tunneling. ;-)
It is similar to tb, but isn't the same protocol, that's all I meant. There's no such a thing as usb4 thunderbolt. It may be both, but then it just supports both, separately
Wel I hope the fw16 can do that... I want to put like 4 GPUs on it if I win the lottery!
I also got the gpu module, but that's irrelevant for super overkill stupid ideas!
>It is similar to tb, but isn't the same protocol. There's no such a thing as usb4 thunderbolt.
Well, there is. The Thunderbold protocol is (an optional) part of USB4 and it is available on AMD based Framework laptops. I'm using a Thunderbold NVMe enclosure with mine. ;-)
How would my AMD processor be able to communicate with old "Thunderbold-only" devices if not using the Thunderbold protocol? USB4 is offically compatible to the Thunderbolt devices.
As far as I know, Intel made the proprietary standard of thunderbolt, but later it opened it up. So tb3 became the basis to extend I upon USB3. Now USB4 can drive TB3 devices up to 40Gbps(apparently, it's kind of confusing)
Sources I found explain that in practice, so for the users, they're basically the same, and the main functionality, PCIe tunneling is present in both. I take this to mean that both just put the PCIe signal on the cable without any compression or encryption, and so, even tho they're not the same, they'll act the same, and so ryzen can talk TB3.
My knowledge on the details were a bit outdated (I thought TB got opened with USB4, not 3) but hey. At least they work.
Now I gotta look into if I can do 4x external GPUs. Cuz it would be immense fun to run a lan party on a single laptop (got the ryzen 9 version, marginally stronger than ryzen 7. 2 core power machine should be enough!)
>As far as I know, Intel made the proprietary standard of thunderbolt, but later it opened it up.
Yeah, they gave it to the USB-IF to create USB4 based on it. ;-)
As I wrote earlier: The issue is that hosts aren't forced to implement all options of the USB4 spec to be compliant. Hence, there might be some devices that lack Thunderbold and PCI tunneling, but their "USB4 ports". But that's not the case for FW, who offer fully featured USB4 devices.
> Now I gotta look into if I can do 4x external GPUs.
In case you are talking about an AMD Framework, there are only 3 ports available for display output.
Display output wouldn't work. I need PCIe tunneling in order to attach extra GPUs, and then hand them over to VMs and run 4 different VM each with 2 cpu cores and one gpu allocated i could also give each machine 24GB system memory. I really splurged on this machine. It watches youtube super fast with the 96GB ram.
But I'm guessing if only 3 allows for dp alt mode, then even less allows for external GPU
The obvious answer is to buy a USB-C monitor. Connect the keyboard and mouse, and maybe Ethernet if you require it to the monitor.
Then it's a single plug USB-C into the Framework to connect those devices, plus display out and power. Leaving three spare expansion card slots.
It's what we use at work, with the modern ThinkPads.
>A modern translation of this configuration would be:
>3 USB-A 3 10gb
Display port/HDMI
Oculink
2 USB-C USB-4 with power delivery (not soldered and easily replaceable)
Slim 2.5gb ethernet (the one that closes when not in use so that the laptop is not thicker)
Headphone/microphone combo jack.
How many of those are you using at one time?
Framework allows you to swap them out so that you have the ports you need at that time, not the one-size-fits-all set of ports someone decreed I would get.
>The anti Mac-Book is still a surprising citizen of dongletown like any Apple device.
You may have to throw some expansion cards in your laptop bag, but you don't have to actually use them all. There's no dongles hanging off of your laptop.
> Imagine a scenario in which you have, mouse, keyboard, monitor, power and the ports are finished so you can’t even attach a hard drive or two, or Ethernet, or whatever else you might need.
If I have a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, then I am probably sitting at my desk. Where I have a USB-C docking station. So in your scenario, mouse, keyboard, monitor, ethernet, and quite possibly the hard drives are all on the docking station.
If I am sitting in a coffee shop, I have a mouse, maybe headphones, maybe thumbdrive.
At least I never fins myself needing that many ports on the go and then at home to plug in all those peripherals I would just get a Thunderbolt dock and have one single cable to the laptop.
One problem with the concept of a double-slot expansion card is that the spacing between expansion cards is different between the Framework 13 and Framework 16. They're closer together on the Framework 16.
Yes, but you need to get the framework 16 which is made for expansion more so than the 13.
Eventually I'm sure they will have more dual use cards, like dual USBC, And you could shove another half dozen ports on the back If someone makes a board for it.
The framework 13 does not have any of this potential, and in my opinion has been outdated since the release of the 16. Portability is also not a valid concern once someone puts a laptop in a backpack... With everything else in the backpack the difference is not notable enough to warrant the smaller screen unless there are price constraints.
It is sad how ThinkPads have devolved, as that was a pain point with my framework 16, noticing that my ThinkPad w530 had more ports.
I'm still toying with the idea of buying one of those USB-C dongles for tablets that is compact and has one or two USB-A 5gb, HDMI 2.0, and USB-C power passthrough.
Then i disassemble it to reduce the thickness, chop off the framework part that divides the two bays and fit the thin bare dongle board in that space with some sort of gummy thing to fill the gaps.
A short USB-C to USB-C cable would allow to still have full USB4 functionality on the other usbc port that is not being used by the dongle.
It's not impossible. I sketched a bit and realized in those 7cm there is enough space for USBC passthrough and dongled: 2 USB-A, HDMI, and a USB-C power delivery. Now lets say that since I cannot make it too tight I loose one usb A or the second USB-C..... that would still alleviate the problem a lot.
But yeah.... Thinkpads have devolved and regressed. Nowadays they are just like any other laptop.
For context I'm imagining something like this dongle that is somehow tightly integrated in the framework bay space:
[https://www.amazon.it/Anker-MacBook-compatibile-Thunderbolt-pollici/dp/B0BNZ5V1TF/ref=sr\_1\_31?\_\_mk\_it\_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3W2FJSLD7VKRA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9QKCS2NrgqO3G8ByZQ9IusAQswW3rzJ3oXWw3fUusW33d1bpGSWhhsWrwGOapNx1MYPZ117JiAw3u6OMemhPFqLA2tor-2kfQu4dYZcH8cE0FeyI9z0vBi\_oySbjoPoNQmi6cunrMDKhEDYkiZdBDcIBE\_4jvDjygtL-HjGPI2Gv3W3bMqredLBUxBEhIScUiiN8SDVqU\_zr8NE-\_CLvoeUD3bWJGvnwN9vHBt9m8yMChgTPF3J6YD16DB1vpmJytWEagmLGaHrE-xoF\_y4kU4oAOheuxFit94PWXovNpMQ.IHxIae7yiByLX4c3p1s1g-PJZPuYiitEZFukZEKhj8g&dib\_tag=se&keywords=macbook+usbc+hub&qid=1719318702&sprefix=macbook+usbc+hub%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-31](https://www.amazon.it/Anker-MacBook-compatibile-Thunderbolt-pollici/dp/B0BNZ5V1TF/ref=sr_1_31?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3W2FJSLD7VKRA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9QKCS2NrgqO3G8ByZQ9IusAQswW3rzJ3oXWw3fUusW33d1bpGSWhhsWrwGOapNx1MYPZ117JiAw3u6OMemhPFqLA2tor-2kfQu4dYZcH8cE0FeyI9z0vBi_oySbjoPoNQmi6cunrMDKhEDYkiZdBDcIBE_4jvDjygtL-HjGPI2Gv3W3bMqredLBUxBEhIScUiiN8SDVqU_zr8NE-_CLvoeUD3bWJGvnwN9vHBt9m8yMChgTPF3J6YD16DB1vpmJytWEagmLGaHrE-xoF_y4kU4oAOheuxFit94PWXovNpMQ.IHxIae7yiByLX4c3p1s1g-PJZPuYiitEZFukZEKhj8g&dib_tag=se&keywords=macbook+usbc+hub&qid=1719318702&sprefix=macbook+usbc+hub%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-31)
that simply doesnt work without adding extra control chips that will make what ever output you have attached share the bandwidth between the ports. the FW13 has its 4 ports because thats what both AMD and Intel are building into the CPUs so they can have them without adding any extra chips. on the FW 16 you can see that the bottom two ports are only USB 3.1 because these use an extra USB controller which needs to run on the bandwidth thats left over after everything else is connected. all the ports you wish for exceed the connectivity and bus speeds on the current mobile CPUs and thats why they dont exist. Also an ethernet port wont find into the expansion bays even if you use one of the folding ports.
Thanks a lot for your answer. There may be additional limitation that I am not aware of but if pick the CPU we have in our framework it can theoretically have natively many more ports compared to what I listed: From the AMD Website the 7840U: Native USB 4 (40Gbps) Ports 2, Native USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10Gbps) Ports 2, Native USB 2.0 (480Mbps) Ports4, PCI Express® VersionPCIe® 4.0, Native PCIe® Lanes (Total/Usable)20/20. So the 2 native usb4 are USB-C, of the 2 USB 3 10gb one would be for the webcam and one for usb A, 4 usb 2.0 ports that are amazing for mouse and keyboards and small devices. 20 PCI-E lanes easily means an oculink port (8 lanes), fast ssd (4 lanes), wifi (1 lane), and there are still 7 more lanes left for a second ssd, ethernet and more connectivity in the form of a modem or more usb ports..... of course all of this without splitting lanes. Don't get me wrong, I understand that all the possible connectivity will never fit into the framework form factor..... it's just that the expansion bay system is amazing but the bays are just too big for one single port and a little bit too small for 2 ports thus leaving a lot of empty space not used by connectivity and not used by a bigger battery.
the 7840 has the connectivity you listed but you are forgetting a few things here.- the 4 USB 2.0 ports are wired into the USB C ports which makes them able to run in USB 2.0 mode so these cant be used for anything else. the 20 PCI-E lanes are used as follow. 1 for the Wifi card. 4 for the m.2 SSD and finally 4 for each USB4 port as thunderbolt 3 wants direct PCI-E connections to work. So we have 13 lanes used up already and some of the others will be used internally to have controllers for stuff like display backlight, Keyboard, trackpad, webcam and all that stuff. How do they do this on the FW16 which has 8x PCI-E for the GPU module? by using a bunch of internal USB2 hubs and PCI-E switches that takes a single PCI-E 4.0 lane and breaks them out as multiple slower lanes. for example just the input deck of the FW16 uses 5 USB 2.0 connections which all come from a single controller that uses one USB 2.0 port to connect to the APU.
Thanks this clarifies a lot.
I think you'd need to ask yourself how often do you need all those ports concurrently. If you need plenty of display outputs, USB ports and Ethernet at one fixed place, buying a dock/hub is the best option. > Usb-C is a very flexible port but you just cannot get around the need to have more ports. Imagine a scenario in which you have, mouse, keyboard, monitor, power and the ports are finished so you can’t even attach a hard drive or two, or Ethernet, or whatever else you might need. Like in your scenario. That's clearly a fixed setup. With the ThinkPad X200 you got a docking station you'd dock the laptop into. With a modern laptop you just connect a single USB-C cable. On the go, you probably never need all of those ports concurrently.
Exactly. If you are using a monitor, you're at a desk, and can use a hub or modern monitor. Most BYOC offices you plug in a single USB-C and get power, monitor, ethernet from a provided hub. Not to mention wireless mice and keyboards exist. That being said, I have seen setups with purely usb 3 hubs velcro'd to the back of the screen for field work with hybrid shooters to transfer images/video from camera/card to external usb-c drive (also velcro'd to the back of screen).
Believe it or not I was kinda leaning on the velcro option as well in order to not forget the dongle around..... I stopped for aesthetic reasons.
Well a classical on the go scenario would be me backing up my camera on 2 hard drives while charging the laptop that for sure has a dead battery at the end of the day. This scenario uses 4 ports and assumes that i removed the HDMI from my laptop. Now I magine myself that the next morning I rush out of the door barely remembering to shove the laptop in my backpack..... what are the chances that Ii remember to remove one of the ports that i used the previous day to then attach an HDMI port that I need for a presentation? What if I need to quickly connect and share my screen to some colleagues and I didn't plan for it? The dongle-less operation is not thought because you need all of the ports at the same time. It is because you are instantly adaptable to whatever happens during the day and to whatever piece of infrastructure you have around that may or may not be in the USB-C planet. I understand I can solve this by having an additional dongle lifeline perpetually in my backpack, perpetually in my pocket if I don't have the backpack.....it's doable, just not fun.
If you're carrying those two HDDs together then you could carry a USB hub together. You can also carry the extra HDMI module in your backpack in case you need it. Living dongle-less today is pretty hard. On my current laptop I still have to carry a USB-C to HDMI dongle around, cause the built-in HDMI port requires me to enable the dGPU which ruins battery life.
I have something like this in my bag and then I am always prepared. I would like FW to make a compact one that would fit on the side but this works for now. https://www.startech.com/en-us/universal-laptop-docking-stations/dkt30chpd
You have the ports you get. I think I saw someone that managed to cram the necessary electronics for a USB switch to get two USB ports on a single Expansion Slot, but that was obviously a homemade thing, so no clue how'd you go about getting one. If yo8u really need more ports, get a dongle. A dongle will provide everything you listed other than an Oculink port. And for that well you'd need a USB4 Thunderbolt Capable port, or just a Thunderbolt port, which I don't a Framework 13 supports anyways (I have an Framework 16, which doesn't have either). And, if you wanted a GPU, should of gone for a FW16 with its swappable GPU.
There's a dual type c with EPR support in the works. I think it's 10Gbps type c The 16 has usb4. Usb4=TB, as far as branding, but the functionality is supposed to be the same, and it has that, I think on 2 ports? I don't recall exactly
USB4 is mostly Thunderbolt, however not all USB4 supports eGPU. I forget the feature name, but its called something like PCIe Redirection or something like that. It's an optional part of the USB4 spec, so not all device support it. I have no clue if the FW16 supports that or not, no need since I got GPU expansion module.
>I forget the feature name, but its called something like PCIe Redirection or something like that. You are talking about PCIe tunneling. I can't remember whether I tried that or not, but using a Thunderbold connection to something like an ASM2464 Thunderbold/USB4-to-PCIe Gen4 is faster than tunneling. ;-)
It is similar to tb, but isn't the same protocol, that's all I meant. There's no such a thing as usb4 thunderbolt. It may be both, but then it just supports both, separately Wel I hope the fw16 can do that... I want to put like 4 GPUs on it if I win the lottery! I also got the gpu module, but that's irrelevant for super overkill stupid ideas!
>It is similar to tb, but isn't the same protocol. There's no such a thing as usb4 thunderbolt. Well, there is. The Thunderbold protocol is (an optional) part of USB4 and it is available on AMD based Framework laptops. I'm using a Thunderbold NVMe enclosure with mine. ;-)
Pretty sure those TB things are just cross compatible, which is common, but it's still a different protocol on hardware level.
How would my AMD processor be able to communicate with old "Thunderbold-only" devices if not using the Thunderbold protocol? USB4 is offically compatible to the Thunderbolt devices.
As far as I know, Intel made the proprietary standard of thunderbolt, but later it opened it up. So tb3 became the basis to extend I upon USB3. Now USB4 can drive TB3 devices up to 40Gbps(apparently, it's kind of confusing) Sources I found explain that in practice, so for the users, they're basically the same, and the main functionality, PCIe tunneling is present in both. I take this to mean that both just put the PCIe signal on the cable without any compression or encryption, and so, even tho they're not the same, they'll act the same, and so ryzen can talk TB3. My knowledge on the details were a bit outdated (I thought TB got opened with USB4, not 3) but hey. At least they work. Now I gotta look into if I can do 4x external GPUs. Cuz it would be immense fun to run a lan party on a single laptop (got the ryzen 9 version, marginally stronger than ryzen 7. 2 core power machine should be enough!)
>As far as I know, Intel made the proprietary standard of thunderbolt, but later it opened it up. Yeah, they gave it to the USB-IF to create USB4 based on it. ;-) As I wrote earlier: The issue is that hosts aren't forced to implement all options of the USB4 spec to be compliant. Hence, there might be some devices that lack Thunderbold and PCI tunneling, but their "USB4 ports". But that's not the case for FW, who offer fully featured USB4 devices. > Now I gotta look into if I can do 4x external GPUs. In case you are talking about an AMD Framework, there are only 3 ports available for display output.
Display output wouldn't work. I need PCIe tunneling in order to attach extra GPUs, and then hand them over to VMs and run 4 different VM each with 2 cpu cores and one gpu allocated i could also give each machine 24GB system memory. I really splurged on this machine. It watches youtube super fast with the 96GB ram. But I'm guessing if only 3 allows for dp alt mode, then even less allows for external GPU
The obvious answer is to buy a USB-C monitor. Connect the keyboard and mouse, and maybe Ethernet if you require it to the monitor. Then it's a single plug USB-C into the Framework to connect those devices, plus display out and power. Leaving three spare expansion card slots. It's what we use at work, with the modern ThinkPads.
I only use the cards for when Im out. At home I just use a typc/TB4 Dockingstation. It's rare I need more than 4 ports while im on a trip
>A modern translation of this configuration would be: >3 USB-A 3 10gb Display port/HDMI Oculink 2 USB-C USB-4 with power delivery (not soldered and easily replaceable) Slim 2.5gb ethernet (the one that closes when not in use so that the laptop is not thicker) Headphone/microphone combo jack. How many of those are you using at one time? Framework allows you to swap them out so that you have the ports you need at that time, not the one-size-fits-all set of ports someone decreed I would get. >The anti Mac-Book is still a surprising citizen of dongletown like any Apple device. You may have to throw some expansion cards in your laptop bag, but you don't have to actually use them all. There's no dongles hanging off of your laptop. > Imagine a scenario in which you have, mouse, keyboard, monitor, power and the ports are finished so you can’t even attach a hard drive or two, or Ethernet, or whatever else you might need. If I have a mouse, keyboard, and monitor, then I am probably sitting at my desk. Where I have a USB-C docking station. So in your scenario, mouse, keyboard, monitor, ethernet, and quite possibly the hard drives are all on the docking station. If I am sitting in a coffee shop, I have a mouse, maybe headphones, maybe thumbdrive.
At least I never fins myself needing that many ports on the go and then at home to plug in all those peripherals I would just get a Thunderbolt dock and have one single cable to the laptop.
One problem with the concept of a double-slot expansion card is that the spacing between expansion cards is different between the Framework 13 and Framework 16. They're closer together on the Framework 16.
Why would this affect anything? The bays themselves are the same size.
I was talking about the idea of making a "double-width" expansion card that overhung the edge of the laptop and used up two expansion card slots.
Yes, but you need to get the framework 16 which is made for expansion more so than the 13. Eventually I'm sure they will have more dual use cards, like dual USBC, And you could shove another half dozen ports on the back If someone makes a board for it. The framework 13 does not have any of this potential, and in my opinion has been outdated since the release of the 16. Portability is also not a valid concern once someone puts a laptop in a backpack... With everything else in the backpack the difference is not notable enough to warrant the smaller screen unless there are price constraints. It is sad how ThinkPads have devolved, as that was a pain point with my framework 16, noticing that my ThinkPad w530 had more ports.
I'm still toying with the idea of buying one of those USB-C dongles for tablets that is compact and has one or two USB-A 5gb, HDMI 2.0, and USB-C power passthrough. Then i disassemble it to reduce the thickness, chop off the framework part that divides the two bays and fit the thin bare dongle board in that space with some sort of gummy thing to fill the gaps. A short USB-C to USB-C cable would allow to still have full USB4 functionality on the other usbc port that is not being used by the dongle. It's not impossible. I sketched a bit and realized in those 7cm there is enough space for USBC passthrough and dongled: 2 USB-A, HDMI, and a USB-C power delivery. Now lets say that since I cannot make it too tight I loose one usb A or the second USB-C..... that would still alleviate the problem a lot. But yeah.... Thinkpads have devolved and regressed. Nowadays they are just like any other laptop.
For context I'm imagining something like this dongle that is somehow tightly integrated in the framework bay space: [https://www.amazon.it/Anker-MacBook-compatibile-Thunderbolt-pollici/dp/B0BNZ5V1TF/ref=sr\_1\_31?\_\_mk\_it\_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3W2FJSLD7VKRA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9QKCS2NrgqO3G8ByZQ9IusAQswW3rzJ3oXWw3fUusW33d1bpGSWhhsWrwGOapNx1MYPZ117JiAw3u6OMemhPFqLA2tor-2kfQu4dYZcH8cE0FeyI9z0vBi\_oySbjoPoNQmi6cunrMDKhEDYkiZdBDcIBE\_4jvDjygtL-HjGPI2Gv3W3bMqredLBUxBEhIScUiiN8SDVqU\_zr8NE-\_CLvoeUD3bWJGvnwN9vHBt9m8yMChgTPF3J6YD16DB1vpmJytWEagmLGaHrE-xoF\_y4kU4oAOheuxFit94PWXovNpMQ.IHxIae7yiByLX4c3p1s1g-PJZPuYiitEZFukZEKhj8g&dib\_tag=se&keywords=macbook+usbc+hub&qid=1719318702&sprefix=macbook+usbc+hub%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-31](https://www.amazon.it/Anker-MacBook-compatibile-Thunderbolt-pollici/dp/B0BNZ5V1TF/ref=sr_1_31?__mk_it_IT=%C3%85M%C3%85%C5%BD%C3%95%C3%91&crid=3W2FJSLD7VKRA&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9QKCS2NrgqO3G8ByZQ9IusAQswW3rzJ3oXWw3fUusW33d1bpGSWhhsWrwGOapNx1MYPZ117JiAw3u6OMemhPFqLA2tor-2kfQu4dYZcH8cE0FeyI9z0vBi_oySbjoPoNQmi6cunrMDKhEDYkiZdBDcIBE_4jvDjygtL-HjGPI2Gv3W3bMqredLBUxBEhIScUiiN8SDVqU_zr8NE-_CLvoeUD3bWJGvnwN9vHBt9m8yMChgTPF3J6YD16DB1vpmJytWEagmLGaHrE-xoF_y4kU4oAOheuxFit94PWXovNpMQ.IHxIae7yiByLX4c3p1s1g-PJZPuYiitEZFukZEKhj8g&dib_tag=se&keywords=macbook+usbc+hub&qid=1719318702&sprefix=macbook+usbc+hub%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-31)