Also generally speaking more efficient laptops are cooler which is generally a quality welcome in a device sometimes used in a person’s lap.
Sure, it's the bulk of a Macbook Air, but I often leave that open, with the screen on, running VMs for work all day without it being plugged in. I expect that any time I open it, I'll have at least 30-60 minutes of use before I need to plug it in. My Framework, more often than not, tells me it's about to emergency shut down as soon as I log in.
Did you report this issue to Framework? Do other users have similar issues?
This is just the same trade off. For a given level of efficiency you could have put in a smaller battery and offset the weight of a second battery / charging brick that you would then only need when you need many hours of battery life.
> Also generally speaking more efficient laptops are cooler which is generally a quality welcome in a device sometimes used in a person’s lap.
That isn't really part of the trade off either. The faster ones generally don't have worse performance per watt -- they're often better because they have more cores with lower clock speeds. You get 100% more cores with 75% more performance for 50% more power consumption. For the same load they generate less heat. See also "race to idle".
They only generate more heat in absolute terms if you put more load on them than the slower alternative would have been able to handle.
The weight isnt the problem. It's the poor optimisation of hardware and software.
It's also a trade off against competence, because you can kill the battery right quick if drivers don't idle things properly, but even after you address that you still have the other thing.
Which makes 16+ hour battery life an odd choice for most people. Who uses their laptop for 16 contiguous hours with no opportunity to charge? It could have been lighter or faster.
Naturally Framework has the potential to make it flexible: Have a dual-use bay where one of the options is a second battery, and then if you want it you take the weight/battery life trade off in favor of battery life, and if not the machine can be lighter.