08-06-2021, 06:23 PM
imho it's not a good idea. what at first glance seems to be an expression of modularity actually goes to create a whole group of hardware that you can throw in the block as soon as the device on which everything depends is missing.
Let's try to analyze the concept even if it is very fine.
If I make the frame of a laptop that can both accommodate a replaceable motherboard (for example the boards of pine6) and at the same time function as a phone dock "overloading" its usb ports, at the end I have a modular thing that in the face of the same cost (space and resources consumed) adapts to more situations.
If instead I make a frame that for whatever reason adapts and works only in the presence of a specific device, I have created e-waste.
Ok, asus does this because it aims to sell more things that otherwise you wouldn't buy and moreover it makes them happy if you are forced to throw them away soon so you have to buy more, but we who are pine64 customers are lucky to receive truly modular devices, that is easily repairable without involving non-standard components in addiction that cannot be reused in other context and that are there only to make us believe that they are modular but instead that these are exclusive parts (did someone pronounce fairphone?).
Let's try to analyze the concept even if it is very fine.
If I make the frame of a laptop that can both accommodate a replaceable motherboard (for example the boards of pine6) and at the same time function as a phone dock "overloading" its usb ports, at the end I have a modular thing that in the face of the same cost (space and resources consumed) adapts to more situations.
If instead I make a frame that for whatever reason adapts and works only in the presence of a specific device, I have created e-waste.
Ok, asus does this because it aims to sell more things that otherwise you wouldn't buy and moreover it makes them happy if you are forced to throw them away soon so you have to buy more, but we who are pine64 customers are lucky to receive truly modular devices, that is easily repairable without involving non-standard components in addiction that cannot be reused in other context and that are there only to make us believe that they are modular but instead that these are exclusive parts (did someone pronounce fairphone?).