[humanistbot]

> If you just want a relatively fixable standard laptop that's what ThinkPads are for.

Stop misrepresenting my position. I want repairability and more than four ports. Every other manufacturer (including Lenovo) just gives me more than four ports but no repairability. Framework gives me repairability but only four ports.

I'm a Thinkpad fanboy and have owned literally dozens of Thinkpads. I've enjoyed the ability to swap out parts for the same model. But Lenovo has steadily been going down the Mac route of sacrificing repairability for design and thinness. They are even exclusively soldering RAM and wifi for a lot of their current gen top of the line laptops. And when they update the CPUs for a new generation, they also change a lot of things in the case and peripherals, so it is almost impossible to put a 12th gen Intel motherboard in a laptop of the same model with a 11th or 10th gen Intel motherboard. Hats off to framework for following through with their motherboard/CPU upgrade.

It was never easy to replace ports on a Thinkpad motherboard. I tried and failed to replace the barrel power socket of my X220 Thinkpad because I was clumsy with the soldering iron and had to just get another motherboard. I get the benefits that if your port on the outside of the expansion slot breaks due to cable stress, etc., you can easily swap it out. But imagine something like a pogo pin solution, where you have a standard set of ports on one side (2x USB-A, 2x USB-C, HDMI, SD card, ethernet), but if the port connector breaks, you can unseat the connector from the motherboard and replace it without soldering. Then on the other side, you have to TB4 expansion slots with all the benefits that I recognize come from that approach. Best of both worlds! Why not?