But in that situation, you know the damage _wont_ be to the USB ports on the motherboard. The motherboard is screwed to the case, and the expansion cards are locked to the case, so they won't move relative to each other. You expansion card might get damaged by the initial tripping over the cord, and some other parts might get damaged from the fall, but you can trivially buy first-party replacement parts for anything you broke. MagSafe would be nice, but the expansion cards are doing their job to protect the motherboard.

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artisinal 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

If you drop a framework on its side the impact on the dongles will push them onto the board. Plastic flexes. There isn’t any shock absorbing happening. I don’t see any strain relieve on those dongles.

Perhaps framework can learn from Apple here.

	▲	craftkiller 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Strain relief would be nice, but framework has been shipping laptops for 5 years. Has this hypothetical happened to anyone? It sounds unlikely to me.

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pudgywalsh 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Apple solved this with a $1 internal flex-circuit vs a fist-sized external module.

	▲	craftkiller 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That specific issue, but they didn't get the other benefit of expansion cards: being able to "change" the ports on your laptop without needing some external dongle. Also, your fists must be tiny.