IMHO, the best they can do is being honest about what they can't say due to an NDA. For example, if they can't say that they don't own the design, they might say "due to an NDA we cannot say who owns the design". This goes a long way to earn trust.

They already claim to fully own the design.

>Our main manufacturing partner is Compal, who makes laptops for many other large US notebook makers.

>Apart from off the shelf modules like the SSD, RAM, WiFi, and LCD, the Framework Laptop is entirely custom to us, and we own all of the design and tooling.

If you locate Acer Swift 3 SF313-53 diagram it will be 90% same thing, just shuffled around with different mechanical design.

They might be owning the design itself, but I can easily imagine that the NDAs required to get access to specifications and design guidelines for parts like the CPU, GPU and other chipsets include a provision that no material must be released that allows others to clean-room reverse-engineer the protected material.

I don't know about these things a great deal, but it would seem reasonable to me that an NDA might include limiting what you can say about the NDA?

It depends if the NDA allows them to discuss it at all!

These has to be a limit to this madness, can I get an NDA that does not let you state your name to anyone

There are limits to contracts in the law. There would have to be some form of consideration to that contract. If you gave me a million dollars a year but I just can't use my current legal name in casual conversation, I'd take that contract. If you just wrote a contract that said "you can't use your name, you get nothing" its an unenforceable contract under US (and most of the developed world's) contract laws under the principle of consideration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consideration

I wish "innovative, actually interesting parts" would include delivering an actually repair-friendly laptop - that is - one with full schematics; only ICs that are normally in-stock on digi-key/mouser; no soldered-down components made of melty plastic, especially not next to places that are likely to be reworked; soldermask that doesn't obscure traces; all important signals brought to accessible probe points; mechanical design/connectors/cabling allowing for easy power-on outside of chassis, etc...

Sure, QR stickers and a bunch of new/incompatible iteration of good old ExpressCard are nice to have, thank you, but that doesn't make all that big of a difference to repairability.

This sounds like a great set of constraints for an industrial controller, or a custom Cyberdeck-type portable.

I’m confident any device following these guidelines would be DOA in the larger market, though. Even _if_ you could source things like LCD assemblies that fit your criteria, the expected density (high) and labor costs (low) people have for modern electronics don’t leave a lot of room for this kind of bespoke design.

I’m extremely impressed with how far Framework got on the path to “full repairability” using off-the-shelf parts without producing something that looks like a late-90s Thinkpad.

Don’t get me wrong: I love the old IBM, Tadpole, Toshiba, et. al. designs, but I don’t think that many people outside this community would be willing to pay 2-3x as much for something 2-3x larger and heavier and several generation behind in terms of performance. (Not to mention wildly incompatible with any non-hobbyist OS.)

OTOH, what you’re describing does sound a lot like why custom, hand-wired audio amplifier builders do. They manage to make a business out of it, mainly by appealing to folks willing to spend effectively unlimited money to get that “special something”.

Not sure what you meant by "full repairability", but for component-level system board repair, framework laptop is not far at all from current-gen lenovo or macbook. That's the whole point of OP's video.

User-replaceable RAM, SSD and keyboard are all steps in the right direction, of course. But it would be quite a stretch to give product full marks on repairability based on that alone.

And no SMD mounted connectors, only hole through connectors. The problem with that is that it will preclude the use of certain kinds of cables because the whole industry has now pretty much moved to SMD where possible to shave off the last couple of percent cost.

External connectors are pretty much the only kind of component that is still routinely being used in (full or partial) through-hole form-factor.

Laptop in question does use partial through-hole connectors for all 4 USB-C ports - notice 6 shiny slots around each such port around 0:25 mark in video. Such connectors are actually harder to rework/replace, but also tougher and less likely to require repair in the first place. So overall, well-done here to framework, even if most everybody else is doing that too.

honestly with how much heat the ground plane can soak up on modern electronics, desoldering a beefy through hole ground connector is such a pain in the ass I might rather they be SMD if I have to do something with them in general.

Yes, but there are plenty of internal connectors as well.