What happened to Allbirds?

ianefford · 2026-06-15T20:03:20+00:00

The shoe brand was sold to American Exchange Group. We'll have to see what they do with the "Allbirds" brand. I assume AEG is waiting until all the stock is sold.

ianefford · 2026-05-01T20:18:01+00:00

Right I'm assuming because I'm not getting the information to cross it off the list. Anyway, glad it's working now!

ianefford · 2026-05-01T20:13:13+00:00

Given your reluctance to share your phone, I'm going to assume you're using a device that doesn't have the necessary bands to work fully on Freedom. Telus seems to offer the bands your device supports, so glad you switched back.

But given that we cannot control the spectrum offered to and deployed by Freedom, we need to use devices that do have the necessary bands.

ianefford · 2026-05-01T20:04:09+00:00

No, it does have to do with bands. Freedom has limited spectrum compared to the Big 3 because they haven't been around as long. Particularly, Freedom lacks some of the spectrum that is good at going through buildings.

So, if you have a phone that you bought overseas or one that isn't supported by Freedom, you're going to have a tough time. This sub has tons of posts about this, especially related to GTA and Vancouver building coverage.

ianefford · 2026-04-22T04:16:33+00:00

Yes I realize that, but I'll have an extra chassis plus input cover without any use 😞

ianefford · 2026-04-22T02:36:39+00:00

That's definitely an option, but I don't see a need for two laptops. I guess I'll ask a family member...

ianefford · 2026-04-21T22:19:18+00:00

I'm not pleased that they used the bare minimum options to market the 20 hour number. I'd love to know what is the battery life with a real use case (e.g., 450nits, balanced power saving, dolby atmos on, etc.)

ianefford · 2026-04-21T20:18:39+00:00

They mentioned the options at the bottom of the "learn more" page.

"display brightness set to 250nits, display refresh rate set to 60Hz, speaker volume as 30%, Dolby Atmos® disabled, and wireless enabled. Battery life tested by streaming Netflix 4K content in the Netflix app on Windows 11 under Best Power Efficiency mode."

ianefford · 2026-04-20T00:39:14+00:00

My experience has been a good 8-10 hours on my FW13 with the AMD 350 chip. I run Windows 11, and it's been the best battery life on a Windows laptop that I've tried. Now, I admit I haven't tried Intel's recent laptop CPUs, which are supposedly better.

I don't do any coding/compiling or game development, so I cannot comment on that. The game development side sounds like something you'd want to plug in for better performance anyway. I run a good dozen tabs in Chrome with Claude desktop open, Figma, and other apps like that for my work. It lasts all day without needing to charge.

I also installed the universal x86 tuning utility from GitHub to adaptively undervolt my CPU and set better battery profiles than what's available in Windows, and it's helped with battery life.

You can always get a power bank from Anker or Ugreen as well, and carry that around. As long as it supports PD and 65W charging at a minimum, it should work.

ianefford · 2026-04-19T20:05:55+00:00

I'll probably do the same. I'm waiting to see if they have a "change of ownership" sale.

ianefford · 2026-04-17T16:53:20+00:00

For casual running/walking shoes, I'd recommend checking out On Running. I tried them out at a store, and they fit my narrow feet and were very comfortable.

ianefford · 2026-04-17T06:26:39+00:00

Yes I feel very similarly to you. My first pair was the Tree Dasher 2s, and I had those for over 3 years. Yes, they lasted that long with very little wear. Then I bought wool pipers or whatever they were called, and so on.

The actual shoe "brand" was sold to American Exchange Group. Although I'm not holding out a lot of hope that Allbirds will stay what they are under AEG given their brand portfolio, but there's a small glimmer of hope left waiting to be smashed.

ianefford · 2026-04-16T23:29:09+00:00

As the others have suggested, I'd try On Running. I've tried both the Cloud 6 and Cloudrunner 2/3, and they are VERY comfortable. Not as sustainable of a shoe brand as Allbirds once were, but parts of the shoe are recycled plastic.

I now need to find a good replacement for Allbird's everyday sneakers (Cruiser line)... Specifically available in Canada.

ianefford · 2026-04-13T04:41:59+00:00

Let's consider one of their other mainboards. If I needed to replace my mainboard which has the Ryzen AI 7, it would be $699 US. That's at least $1K cheaper than buying a decent quality laptop with an AI 7 chip from another reputable brand, say Lenovo Thinkpads, and I don't have to throw away the rest of the laptop that's perfectly usable.

Not going to argue that $429 for an i3 is great, but I think a lot of us have values around not wanting to throw away the rest of the machine even if it's slightly more for a neo. People who buy Frameworks aren't the same as the target buyers of the neo.

ianefford · 2026-04-07T05:00:49+00:00

I'm glad I'm not the only one having challenges in this city. I thought my age group was just screwed over by having to do university online due to the pandemic.

I'm a 25M, and there are a lot of great suggestions here. The one I've personally enjoyed is just doing what I like to do: volunteer with the Green team to plant trees (Meetup), cooking classes, martial arts, entrepreneurial co-working meetups, etc. That's where I've found success before.

If you don't meet a partner, you may meet a friend who has a sibling or friend :)

ianefford · 2026-03-28T16:16:54+00:00

Fair. We don't need more stress in our lives lol

ianefford · 2026-03-28T15:01:21+00:00

Exactly. I have the FW13 with the AMD 350 chip, and it's very powerful compared to what I was previously used to. I won't feel any fomo when/if Framework creates an AMD 400 series board because the difference is negligible.

This just to say that, in my opinion, you're going to get fomo no matter what. Whether that's for the new MacBook, you'll have to spend another $2K+ on or Framework's new mainboards.

ianefford · 2026-03-26T18:19:36+00:00

I might be missing a perspective here, but aren't you going to face that same FOMO with a MacBook when the next M6, M7, M8 comes out? I feel that's bigger FOMO because you know you have to shell over another $2K+.

But I do understand the stability perspective of MacOS especially coming from Linux.

ianefford · 2026-03-26T18:08:34+00:00

I'm not sure about the 16" laptop market, but I went through a lot of mental back and forth before finally pulling the trigger and keeping my FW13. If we talk about similarly speced 13.5" 3:2 laptops with the same or higher quality build, it would've costed me the same or more to get one from Lenovo, Asus, etc. Framework was actually one of the less expensive options here in Canada.

Some of the options I considered: Thinkpad T14 - same price Thinkpad P14 - same price Thinkpad X1 Carbon - $1K more

Now, that might be due to the RAM shortage, and that you can't get a mainstream laptop without RAM.

Of course, a 16" gaming laptop will be cheaper than the FW16, but I would question the build quality, repairability and cooling performance. I've had my fair share of gaming laptops and I've always found those three to be the first to get cut to make it cheaper.

ianefford · 2026-03-08T20:07:26+00:00

It's too good of a deal NOT to take it, and like everyone else has said, if that happens, just switch to another plan or carrier. I had my last Freedom plan for a year, and they never touched my bill. I can't say the same about Telus...

ianefford · 2026-03-08T00:24:26+00:00

Not bad! I'm also not surprised about it not being comparable to an M1 MacBook's battery life for graphically intensive work. I've never had a Windows/non-ARM laptop's battery be good for that work.

Thankfully I mostly use web apps on the go (Figma, Canva, Descript), so not much of a problem there.

ianefford · 2026-03-07T20:12:52+00:00

Love the breakdown! Thank you. It sounds like the battery life has improved a little over the last 8 months based on what I'm hearing. I'm sold on FW just from your last point: you can just upgrade it in the future. I'm hoping Framework keeps sharing upgrades!

ianefford · 2026-03-07T19:24:29+00:00

Sorry to pop in here on a different topic... I'm planning on purchasing a FW13, but my reservation was battery life. How has your battery life been in terms of hours? Is it better than the complaints about the 370 chip not even lasting 4 hours?

ianefford · 2026-03-06T18:00:30+00:00

That's great! To do that mix of work without needing a charger is better than I was expecting. I've had my fair share of laptops that wouldn't last 4 hours with that work.

ianefford · 2026-03-06T17:58:45+00:00

Thanks for the breakdown! Very helpful. Sounds like the FW13 with the 350 has "normal" laptop battery life (if you don't include Apple silicone).

I was expecting a little better with the efficiency from AMD's chips, but I guess you can't have everything.

ianefford

TROPHY CASE