this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2024
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I don't understand why companies keep putting such small batteries in laptops. Especially in the 16" laptop, anything less than 90 is just not acceptable in something that actually costs real money and isn't an ultra thin device. Cheap garbage? Fine. You get what you pay for. Starting at $1700 pre built? No.
Anything with over 100WH batteries would need airline approval before you can fly with it. This is why laptop makers rarely exceed this limit.
https://www.faa.gov/hazmat/packsafe/portable-electronic-devices-with-batteries
MacBook Pros are 100Wh as well. Battery life is incredible.
Hmm?
https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/
M3 pros are 72.4Wh.
Ah so just the 16” is 100Wh then. Makes sense, more room.
It’s tougher to fit a reasonably sized battery to a laptop where you can replace everything. And it’s 85 which is not so far from 90.
It's not wanted by the market obviously. Most only need their laptop to last from the office on the commute
That's just not true. My laptop (MacBook Pro Intel) has atrocious battery life, and Apple made a big deal about battery life improvement with the M-series chips. It's a very valid complaint at my office, and we routinely have people running back to their desks to grab a charger or someone when meetings go long.
There's obviously a trade-off there, but I've heard complaints about battery life for years now, but the market just hasn't filled that need. I guess it's kinda filled by massive external battery banks and plug-ins everywhere?
But having a larger battery as an option would be welcome. Make a thicc chassy as an option at checkout on the 16" laptop.
Here's the internals of the 13 with a 61Wh battery:
https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_0054.jpeg
And here's the 16 with an 85Wh battery:
https://images.prismic.io/frameworkmarketplace/0b001897-9e05-406e-8f50-af54ba76a723_Load+up+on+memory+and+storage.jpg?auto=compress,format
Where would a larger battery fit?
The real answer to your question is to wait 3-4 years for battery technology to get about 20% better (given historical trends of 5-8% improvements per year).
You'd obviously have to design the laptop around the battery and not just retrofit it in. Make it a bit thicker, make it a bit longer? The 16" already isn't a small, thin, or light laptop so the little extra room needed wouldn't make that much of a difference.
Longer doesn't work because it has to fit in existing bags people have. Thickening it won't work because reviewers will then complain it's too thick.
I have a Toshiba laptop from around 2012 which has a slide-out optical drive. To me, it's thick but not too thick; it's just right. If we could return to that size, I think we'd be good. It'd also support better cooling (my Framework 13 with an i7-1280P gets hot, and there just isn't enough space for a bigger cooler). Reviewers over the past 10 years have pushed for thinner and thinner, and we gave up too much in the meantime.
Same goes for screen bezels and built in webcams. All else being equal, a cam with a bigger sensor is better because it can capture more light. Thin screen bezels force a small webcam, and thus your laptop has a shittier camera than a 10 year old smartphone.
In both cases, I don't think actual customers care all that much past a certain point. Reviewers have been deducting stars for a slightly thicker case or a slightly thicker bezel than other models on the market, and customers just go along with it.
Thick isn't a problem for bags (up to a point). It's reviewers complaining about it and deducting stars that's the problem.
I don't think people looking at Framework care too much about reviewers. They're targeting DIY enthusiasts, which are also the type that'll probably be reading the measurements and whatnot themselves.
The do have to source the same parts as the rest of the industry. This is why, for example, they can't have a socketable laptop CPU. Those don't exist anymore, and Framework is too small to afford a custom part from Intel or AMD.
Same with batteries. A thicker laptop battery may not even exist.
Yup, but maybe they'll get there. Valve was able to get a "custom" chip for their Steam Deck, so it's possible Framework could get big enough to get socketable CPUs. But yeah, the priority there should be incredibly low, since replacing the entire motherboard is acceptable (at least to me).
I'm guessing batteries are a bit less expensive to order custom since there are so many slightly different form factors among various devices. If it was prohibitively expensive, I'd expect to see more standardization.