I appreciate the authors thoughtful review here, but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
People (not necessarily the author, but likely many commentators that make similar complains about the frameworks price) will lament how manufacturers don’t have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price.
I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Rergardless, what I feel like we see here (along with a lack of scale from a small company) is the core tradeoffs that we’d have to make to get back repairability, etc. framework certainly isn’t above criticism, but if you don’t care about these things then why look at this machine? A large established brand is always going to offer a a better value on the things you care about.
The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody. Reliable machines rarely need repairs outside of owner mistreatment, and most people I know who are technically capable enough to care about upgrading generally do it maybe once every 4-6 years, by which point hardware has usually advanced far enough that buying a new laptop is easy to justify.
So while upgradability and repairability are great to have, their material impact on day to day user experience is minimal, except maybe for people who have a tendency to severely underspec their initial hardware purchases. On the other hand, things like chassis rigidity, cooling performance, fan noise, and battery life being subpar are constant reminders that you spent a pretty penny on a laptop that's not meeting your needs.
The reality may be that wanting a laptop that's well rounded and competent across the board AND repairable+upgradable is akin to having your cake and eating it too, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it anyway.
As an aside, I believe that Framework could probably get closer to that ideal if they unchained themselves from the port module idea. Yes it's cool, but it forces all sorts of design compromises that otherwise wouldn't be necessary, and I'd bet that something like 80-90% of Framework buyers would be just as happy if changing ports required opening up the chassis, swapping out side plates, and doing a little bit of internal wiring.
> The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody.
Judging reparability and serviceability the same way as you do with other features is absurd, to put it charitably! It is one feature that you rarely use, but brings you huge value when you do use it. You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time. This dismissal of the feature is bizarrely shortsighted.
> The reality may be that wanting a laptop that's well rounded and competent across the board AND repairable+upgradable is akin to having your cake and eating it too, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it anyway.
I talked about this just two days ago. Unlike how you project it, that ideal is entirely feasible if there was enough investment and a large enough market. Instead, OEMs inflict the opposite on the consumers who take it all in without pushing back. These companies choose and spread suboptimal designs that suit their interests and then insist that it is the only viable way forward. It's absurd that consumers also repeat that falsehood.
> You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time. This dismissal of the feature is bizarrely shortsighted.
The main things I keep long term are the drives and power supply, and those can be kept on most laptops too.
In the medium term I get a lot of use out of separately upgrading CPU and GPU, but most frameworks can't do that. The 16 gets half a point in that category because the options are still very limited.
A Framework lets me keep the same screen which is cool. And it lets me keep the same chassis which is not as beneficial if it's not a particularly good chassis.
If I'm generous, the extra flexibility in a Framework would save me $200 every 5-8 years. Which leaves me in the hole, further if I'm less generous.
I hope they reach a scale where they can price things better, and I'm willing to pay some extra for what they do, but not as much as they currently charge. Looking at Framework's site I can get the same specs as the author for $1800. Lenovo offers a model with a worse screen but otherwise the same specs for $600. Gigabyte has a fully matching model plus bonus GPU for $1150, and for half of November it was on sale for $1000. And if you want an RTX 5070 then Framework is $2500 and Gigabyte is $1350.
> If I'm generous, the extra flexibility in a Framework would save me $200 every 5-8 years. Which leaves me in the hole, further if I'm less generous.
I think this statement is heavily underestimating the value of a repairable /user serviceable computer.
The value proposition of user serviceable equipment is the same as the value proposition for open source for software. It gives you the FREEDOM and the ABILITY to make the changes you want to make IF you want to make them.
But as it is with open source software, most users are never going to be directly editing the code for postgres, Linux, or any of the other 1000s of open source software that they use on a daily basis - but IF they choose to do so, they can.
> The value proposition of user serviceable equipment is the same as the value proposition for open source for software. It gives you the FREEDOM and the ABILITY to make the changes you want to make IF you want to make them.
This is true to an extent, but I think that's greatly overselling it when phrased that way.
90% of my customization is either during the initial purchase, or it's a RAM/drive upgrade, and I don't need Framework for that. It's only a small portion of customization I lose out on. And in some ways I actually have more ability to customize outside of Framework, for example they only offer two GPU models.
That is my point. Most users - such as yourself, will not make use of the freedom a Framework device provides but there are others who will directly benefit from it. And that freedom is essential.
To use a vehicle analogy - it is the same as getting a car which has parts you can opt to change/replace. Most people may not even be able to do an oil change but this "feature" is nonetheless a VERY important one to have.
My point was that even for people that benefit, the benefit is greatly reduced.
Let's dig in to why it's useful to be able to replace parts on a car. If we analogize the extra flexibility of the Framework to being able to replace all these parts in the engine bay, that sounds really cool, until you realize there are no third party options for the core components and Framework only makes a couple versions. It's still useful in a few circumstances, but it's not this massive unlock of freedom. You can't have a fully customized engine, and the best way to get an engine tailored to your tastes is to abandon the weak after-the-fact customization and go find something that you like from the start.
Even to a user that really values freedom, Framework doesn't properly deliver at this point in time. The Framework freedom is so restricted that in most ways you get more freedom by considering all the non-soldered-RAM laptops from other brands as valid options too.
Edit: And I don't mean this as an indictment of their small company, they're trying, but right now the impact is limited in many ways.
> A Framework lets me keep the same screen which is cool
Probably the last thing I'd want to keep. Screen technology still moves forward at a decent pace. Screens are disposable, backlights fade over time, pixels get stuck, screen burn-in.
The only universal thing I can think of about machines I've upgraded over the years (not laptops, of course) are cases, power supplies, CPU coolers, and as long as the form factor hasn't changed/there hasn't been significant progress, HDD.
Everything else goes with the system. New CPU meant new socket, which also meant new RAM. Need to get rid of that old video card, of course.
I think a major clarification is in order here. I'm not talking about just the framework here. If anything, the problems with framework is the direct result of the absolutely stupid industry-wide product design culture and market tastes. You can see all the major open-ish hardware designers grappling with similar issues - pinephone, System76, Librem... I will explain later why it is so. But here is the point - we need a major shift in both the product design culture and the (non-existent) consumer culture.
Back in the days of modular desktop PCs (which is still alive, but barely holding on and slowly fading away) about a couple of decades ago, there would have been immediate and sharp backlash if any hardware manufacturer pulled the tricks that they do today - soldered-on RAM modules, thermoplastic glue instead of screws, riveted keyboards, irreplaceable ICs that are paired using crypto, permanently locked firmware, etc. That would have shook their sales enough for them to care. Right now, these 'features' lead to short-life hardware (because any broken parts mean everything has to be thrown out), landfills full of e-waste, frequent new purchases, etc. It does nothing good for anyone or the ecosystem, except filling the pockets of trillion dollar MNCs.
The advantage of such consumer pressure is that you'd have a vibrant spare parts market with much more choices. Many people here are complaining about how poor the spare parts market is. Had the consumer choice been more on the side of modularity and reusability, that problem wouldn't have even arisen. It wouldn't be just framework who manufactures such things. In fact, you wouldn't even be able to decide the brand name of the laptop as a whole. Another point is that you're still thinking about laptops as a unit, instead of as a collection of parts. And that would be the case if the industry spent more resources and effort into it. It doesn't have to be bulky as you imagine either. Hardware interfaces, housing and fasteners would have evolved to a more compact, universal and standard form, much like how a dozen different ports were replaced by USB. Right now, you're thinking about how you can transplant parts from your old laptop to the new one. Instead, you could swap parts of a laptop one at a time. Currently, the CPU and GPU cannot be swapped like in a desktop PC. You have to make do with replacing the whole motherboard now. But has anybody demanded replaceable CPUs and GPUs for these? Why are those precluded?
Now about why framework, System76, Librem, Pinephone, etc have problems making such devices. The choices they get is abysmally small. The OEMs and component manufacturers (mostly from China) have created this supply-chain system where they involve in huge-scale exclusive contracts. It's simply too hard to get a fully compatible chipset without signing an NDA that effectively ruins your chances at making open or modular hardware. Those companies are doing an impressive job at making these hardware with what they have.
You may want to dismiss me as too idealistic and dreaming about what could be, instead of dealing with what it is now. But let me point out why we never catch a break. The tech community takes an obstinate and imprudent 'all or nothing' approach to everything. 'Framework is not good because it's too costly, modules are not good enough, GPU cannot be replaced, yada, yada'. Nobody is willing to settle for anything less than perfect. But you need to realize that you are not in the bargaining position here - you don't hold the cards. Your choices are dictated by someone else who is more resourceful and patient in making short-term compromises and playing the long game of shaping the market and making insane profits at the end. The only way to get your way is for everyone to unite and show even more resolve and patience in demanding what you want. That means putting up with some inconveniences for now. But everyone will be rewarded at the end with the perfection you demand.
>about a couple of decades ago, there would have been immediate and sharp backlash if any hardware manufacturer pulled the tricks that they do today - soldered-on RAM modules, thermoplastic glue instead of screws, riveted keyboards, irreplaceable ICs...
That's when this trend started, with Apple's Macbook Pro leading the way, winding up one of the best-selling consumer laptop brands by targeting incoming college freshmen and their grandparents, focusing on cosmetic appeal over dollar cost for performance.
Most buyers don't even know what CPU model their laptop contains, let alone understand the difference between faster or slower processors from different generations. It will always be a tiny segment of the market that appreciates the value of Framework's features.
PCs are the odd ones, all other 8 and 16 bit home computers were vertically integrated, most expansions were done via external buses connected into one of the sides, usually the back or right side.
With the race for thin margins at any cost, if anything thanks to Apple, is that OEMs realised going back to Spectrum, C64, Amiga, Atari ST kind of hardware designs payed off in their bank accounts.
My point was that soldered RAM and lack of upgradeable components didn't inspire much of a backlash back then. It led to Apple dominating the higher end of the consumer laptop market.
Oh yeah I didn't know that one. I do know Logitech has some ultra-thin ones too though. Very good keyboards too. They'd do nice in a laptop as well.
I'd very gladly sacrifice thinness for a decent keyboard. The Thinkpads had an OK compromise for a while but since the Thinkpad T14s gen2 or so they have been horrible as well. My old T490s was still serviceable.
One space that I don't think I've seen explored is building a laptop around a tiny, ultra-low-power passively cooled SoC board that can easily fit beside the keyboard instead of under it in a 12"-16" chassis and saves space that'd otherwise need to be dedicated to cooling. That'd buy a substantial amount of Z-budget for a quality keyboard without blowing up chassis thickness.
Naturally this laptop wouldn't be suited for some types of work due to lack of horsepower, but there's always tradeoffs somewhere.
We're kinda there already. Most recent laptops I've seen have a tiny motherboard not even taking up the whole width of the device. Under the keyboard there's usually the battery.
Don't forget a significant part of the weight has to be towards the front edge so you can tilt the screen back without flipping the whole laptop. Some of my cheaper atom based laptops (with tiny motherboard and batteries) even have a metal bar in there for that purpose.
Right, but my idea was to do something like shove the mainboard up into the bezel above the keyboard and battery into the palm rest, with nothing sitting under the keyboard except maybe ribbon cables. That’d get you a laptop with a thickness of under an inch that still has a keyboard that’s not compromised and keeps weight shifted to the front. It’d simplify repairs to some degree too since there’d be very little stacking.
You are just repeating the same unpopular debunked arguments that the industry makes out of vacuum. Why does anybody have to know the internals of any system to get the advantages of reparability and serviceability? What were independent service personnel for? Did everyone know how to open and repair watches, cars, refrigerators, etc? Did that stop them from getting the benefit?
I always enjoy how Thinkpad bros have been badmouthing MacBooks for two decades, when those have had the best battery life, screen, hinge, case, bluetooth, fan noise and other amenities during all of that time. They were the first to have WiFi.
Apple figured out pretty soon that a laptop doesn't need to be a dragster or M1 Abrams, it needs to be a Volvo.
If you're gaining advantage by changing RAM from sockets to soldered joints, it's probably time to change the system design altogether. It's better to put the DRAM on the same IC/SoC as the processor - on a dedicated die if necessary. Any additional memory requirement can be added as socket based RAM modules. They sure will be slower. But they can be treated as another memory layer, kind of like the optane memory (without persistence) or NUMA. You'd still get significant speed up because a portion of the DRAM is colocated with the CPU now.
This also adds to the core philosophy that I'm trying to push. Modularity and serviceability doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing performance, compactness or security. That's a myth that's too prevalent in the industry.
There is a new system design, it's called LPCAMM. And framework would have used it in the desktop but those CPUs have some flaw that make them not compatible with full speed LPCAMM.
Moving the memory even closer doesn't have all that much advantage. And having super close RAM and sockets is a waste of die space on all those I/O channels. One or other can fit all the needs of any particular CPU.
Framework has stated that it asked AMD if there were any way to make the RAM on Ryzen AI Max APUs (like used in the Framework Desktop) socketed, and AMD said no due to the stability hit that’d entail — the physical distance from the CPU that’d be required with RAM sockets reduces signal integrity too much for it to function.
Which is weird. The entire point of [LP]CAMM[2] is to be able to make that work.
The Framework desktop clocks the memory at 8000MHz. That's well within the limits of the interface. Something is flawed or omitted in those CPUs if they can't handle it.
Lamenting market taste and the resulting mass market designs is basically yelling at clouds.
Simple fact is that most people have different priorities than the “make everything upgradable” crowd would like. That’s not going to change. Why would 90% of the market “unite” with 10% who want a totally different set of tradeoffs?
It’s like asking that all car buyers unite and demand manual transmissions in every car. I love manual cars, but I recognize most people do not want that for most of their driving. So why would the majority demand this feature that they don’t actually want, and which would not be a better experience for most?
I was expecting this reply here. But it's still the same old excuse to do nothing. It's as if we deserve nothing better than what the companies impose upon us. That's such a defeatist stance.
> Different companies "impose" different tradeoffs upon us.
The "different tradeoffs" those companies offer us are a lie. There are other tradeoffs they won't ever explore. But I won't explain it anymore because I did that practically in every single comment of mine in this thread. Just ignoring it and repeating this trope is hardly a counterargument.
> Pick what you like, but expect to pay a premium for a less popular choice.
The argument about choices is also a lie. They don't exist because the market is a heavily captured and manipulated one. You might as well wait for Santa Claus to deliver it instead. This is again something that's repeatedly ignored. We're just arguing in cycles here.
There are a lot of missing choices in modular, serviceable and repairable market - which is why you see so many little complaints in this thread about a company that's sincerely attempting to offer and improve modular options. It's not that there's no demand for it. But the majority consumers just de-incentivices such products out of the market by following the hype and choosing the harmful options.
At least, the majority of the consumers can be forgiven for their ignorance about those tradeoffs. But that's something that the knowledgeable and expert population can solve. The others respect their opinion. But instead of pushing for the common good, they consistently show apathy. It really isn't that big of a deal. The experts have to be more honest and vocal about their own specialities, and the situation will gradually improve. People have rallied and achieved much harder goals.
But the really frustrating aspect is that some people actively sabotage the commons. At this point, I don't believe that the tech influencers are being honest about the interests they serve. And equally bad are the misguided defeatist arguments raised against advocacy for the commons. I really don't understand the motivation behind such excessively cynical takes.
And yet, you completely ignore the possibility that someone could value portability, lightness or even looks of the device far above any points you hold very dear.
I get it, all that you say I would agree on regarding my stationary hardware.
On the go, I have very different demands. And the hardware sellers are not stupid, they know what sells.
> It’s like asking that all car buyers unite and demand manual transmissions in every car. I love manual cars, but I recognize most people do not want that for most of their driving. So why would the majority demand this feature that they don’t actually want, and which would not be a better experience for most?
Um that's like the status quo in Europe lol. We all drive manual here. it's not that unlikely. Automatics are the exception here (and you must learn to drive manual otherwise you get a restricted license)
> I talked about this just two days ago. Unlike how you project it, that ideal is entirely feasible if there was enough investment and a large enough market. Instead, OEMs inflict the opposite on the consumers who take it all in without pushing back. These companies choose and spread suboptimal designs that suit their interests and then insist that it is the only viable way forward. It's absurd that consumers also repeat that falsehood.
Talk is cheap. Reality is a better indicator of what is and isn’t feasible, and it’s not like there haven’t been many attempts towards that ideal, but for whatever reason, Apple’s model is the desirable one, for most.
I've seen it from Netflix, Steam, and several others. People simply love having all their eggs in one basket, and will stubbornly support it long past the state it starts to exploit them. They support security over freedom every time, consistently.
It's a bit crude, but it's also why I'm not surprised AI is catching on so quickly. People will happily outsource their ability to "think" if the product is convincing enough to them. We already spent the last decade or 2 trying to maximize the dopamine hits from social media. Now there's a tech that can (pretend to) understand your individualized needs? Ready to answer to your Beck and call and never makes you feel bad?
Not as cool as thr VR pod dystopia, but I guess I overestimated how much stimulation humanity needed to reject itself.
> People simply love having all their eggs in one basket
It's more accurate to say that people don't like having twelve different interfaces that all do the same thing.
The proper way to do this is, of course, to have a single interface (i.e. a user agent) that interfaces with multiple services using a standard protocol. But every proprietary service wants you to use their app, and that's the thing people hate.
But the services are being dumb, because everyone except for the largest incumbent is better off to give the people what they want. The one that wins is the one with the largest network effect, which means you're either the biggest already or you're better off to implement a standard along with everyone else who isn't the biggest so that in combination you have the biggest network, since otherwise you won't and then you lose.
Yeah, thars a more generous way to put it. People are fine with the illusion of one basket. Thars pretty much how any large website works.
The ideal would be for users to choose their front end and have backends hook into it via protocols. Aka RSS feeds or Email (to some extent). But the allure of being vertically integrated is too great, and users will rarely question it.
>But the services are being dumb, because everyone except for the largest incumbent is better off to give the people what they want.
Yup, agreed. At this point, it's really an issue regulation can fix. Before it's too late.
Even more unimaginative dismissals are not what I wish to debate. I have already explained why this argument is disingenuous at best. Apple's model isn't the best. It just appears so because these companies never put significant effort into better alternatives and the consumers never demanded it. I keep trying to point this out - this is a repeated misdirection tactic employed by these companies and their fans.
I don't think this was understood charitably. The point of the parent is that in practice, when it comes time to update one part, you'll also want to update all or most of the others. So, in practice, you will not see any of these savings.
The potential savings may be significant, but for most people, it may be the case that the actual savings are unlikely. A modular, upgradable laptop may be a niche product for people who want to upgrade each part more frequently, not less.
> I don't think this was understood charitably. The point of the parent is that in practice, when it comes time to update one part, you'll also want to update all or most of the others. So, in practice, you will not see any of these savings.
It's frustrating to have to repeat the same point again and again. That is not correct at all. I have exercised it in practice. What you refer to as in practice are the deliberately crippled and limited options that are available in the market today.
> The potential savings may be significant, but for most people, it may be the case that the actual savings are unlikely. A modular, upgradable laptop may be a niche product for people who want to upgrade each part more frequently, not less.
Completely disagree. That's not what's seen in practice.
> You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time
Do you actually realise any savings doing that? Pretty sure I never have.
Typically by the time I get around to upgrading, they've changed both the CPU socket and the RAM, so I need a whole new motherboard. And I certainly don't trust a 5-year-old PSU to run a higher-watt load at that point. So most of the time all I'm reusing is the case and maybe a couple of auxiliary SSDs (which aren't a major part of the cost)...
Aren't part of the cost Yet :) actually upgradeable components were priority when motherboards and CPUs were too expensive to upgrade, it was ram ssds and memory that were changed out...
Soon, now actually, it is the inverse. Ram, ssds, high speed network, consumer GPUs, and anything else that needs a modest amount of DRAM.
AMD sockets last nearly a decade, and power supplies come with up to 13-year (or longer) warranties. It's just that it can be difficult to stay the course for the sheer amount of time it would take for you to realize those savings.
> power supplies come with up to 13-year (or longer) warranties
Unfortunately, those warranties don't tend to cover the rest of your components, if the PSU happens to take out a motherboard or GPU as it dies, you are up the proverbial creek.
Having had a couple of older PSUs die spectacularly, I'm not risking re-using a ~$100 component, on the off-chance it fries ~$500 of brand new motherboard/GPU/etc post-upgrade.
Why do people think newer components are more reliable? Is it the same thinking that says newer cars are more reliable? Newer computers? (The answer to all is no.)
Clean the dust out of your PC once a year. It'll last longer than it has any right to.
> Why do people think newer components are more reliable? Is it the same thinking that says newer cars are more reliable?
I'm not making any statement about newer models being more reliable, I'm saying that electronic components age, and hence the risk of failure goes up over time.
If you buy the exact same model of power supply, but one that is manufactured 5 years later, it will (statistically) be more reliable than the unit that's already been in use for 5 years.
Isn’t “reuse the PSU” kind of a tempting trap? I though it was—a cheap part that can take down the rest of your expensive system. I though the advice was to get a new one with each build…
I've been on the same PSU for I think 13 years now, its currently running my Ryzen 7 3700x and RTX4070 desktop. I suppose if its not a great quality PSU or its already suspected of causing issues then replacing is a good idea.
A quality PSU can often last 10 years and multiple builds. Quality in this case just means "has things like over voltage protection, proper wiring included, decent caps, and decent voltage regulation" not "was really expensive". E.g. that $140 85 W Seasonic Focus tier is quality in this regard, the $80 no-name 850 W PSU is what people warn about, and the $400 Seasonic Prime titanium rated PSU is mostly for those scrutinizing VRM designs or wattage limits on the cables to the GPU for their overclock goals.
It's common to upgrade your PSU anyways though as it seems like parts wattages only go up over the years (particularly for the +12v rails) or one may want to cycle out the old system completely for reuse/resale. Generic advice (since most people buy cheapo no name PSUs and upgrade rarely) might be to say to replace just to be on the good side of every situation... but if you're one that knows you got a quality PSU or likes to upgrade your build every other CPU generation, then swapping out the PSU every time is likely a waste.
If the PSU is that crappy, then yes. But these things are supposed to come with over voltage protection, current limiters, resettable fuses etc at the output. Even bad ones are not supposed to cascade their failure to the rest of the system.
But let's think of a better option. What if all spare parts came with an expiry date and a service schedule? On top of giving us a baseline to retire the part, the manufacturer will also be forced to divulge an indirect quality score (useful lifetime) and compete with others on it. If this sounds too fantastic, we sort of had this in operation half a century ago. I don't think a lot of people remember that era.
Oh neat, I was not aware. In the 70’s then, computer parts came with an expiration date? I wonder why they stopped, was it a tradition inherited from car, radio, or appliance parts, or something, where the idea of a wear-part is (or at least was) somewhat more developed?
Screens have seen improvements, but not in a significant way within these 4-6 years. Keyboards haven't improved leaps and bounds. Track pads either. Laptop casings haven't seen innovation either.
The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
> port module idea.
That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
I wish I could do that right now. The only reason I haven't one of their laptop is their stubborn refusal to ship outside a dozen or so countries.
I’ll contest that on the screens. Mini-LED backlighting is a substantial step up for contrast, backlights in general have gotten brighter, IPS panels have gained notability better color gamuts and contrast, and OLED panels are now widely available even in budget machines. The screens on the M1-M4 MBPs look quite visibly nicer than those MBPs used up until 2019.
Those painfully awful 1366x768 TN panels that used to be commonplace have finally mostly been ousted, too. As a result, chances are that the laptop you buy at nearly any price bracket in 2026 has a screen that’s moderately to dramatically better than was found in laptops in the same bracket up until 2020-2022.
The problems with the port modules are that due to their dimensions, the number of ports you can have on the laptop at once is small and the big voids in the chassis required for them to be able to slot in greatly weakens it and makes it more prone to flexing.
With an alternative design that uses internal port boards (still hooked up via USB-C) with matching exterior side plates, you could easily do something like 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A on the left and 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x SD/microSD on the right in the same space as would’ve been taken by the modules for half as many ports. This would suit most users perfectly out of the box, precluding the need for swapping for many, but for those who need one side to be full USB-C or multiple NICs or a cell modem or something that’s still possible.
Point taken, I totally see how brighter screens must be a boon for people who actually bring their laptop outdoors.
My personal needs are way smaller so I missed that part completely (on contrast IDK, I recently had a Surface Pro 8 next to a MBP 4 and it didn't strike me, but I might not be sensible enough to that)
> 1366x768
We've had HDPI for a decade now, that's truly awful.
> ports
Agreed, people needing more than 4 ports or caring a lot more about size are kinda SOL with the current modular setup.
Brighter screens is a boon for anyone using a laptop, full stop. If it’s too bright, you can turn the brightness down, obviously doesn’t work this way in the opposite direction.
Besides, the point isn’t even absolute max brightness, but the contrast ratio. OLEDs aren’t the brightest displays, but their contrast ratio blows pretty much everything else out of the water and that’s what makes you go wow when looking at an oled in a dark room. (At least it does for me, still, and I’ve got an oled tv in 2018.)
To me, OLED being self-emissive is a far bigger deal than the contrast ratio. With LCDs, even the laminated ones in MacBooks, you get backlight shimmering, bleed, halos (especially with Mini-LED), and general inconsistency. With OLED, the pixels are a single, nano-thin layer, the display looks directly printed onto the surface (because it is), there are no backlight issues because there's no backlight, and there's no polarization or enclosure to create viewing angle artifacts. (Note: QD-OLED is inferior in this regard, especially with ambient light, but that doesn't bother me that much; WOLED however is trash.)
The OLED iPad Pro is one of the best screens I've ever seen, besides the awful pixel density. Even if deactivated pixels weren't fully dark, it'd still be far superior to any LCD.
OLEDs have a lot of great properties, but I’m still on the fence when it comes to building them into laptops. On phones and tablets where usage is intermittent, usually shortish, and content is constantly moving they’re well suited, but with a laptop screen that in some cases can be turn on for 12+ hours and is displaying the same static content for large chunks of that, I’d be worried about burn in.
Maybe it’s not an issue with tandem OLED and strict binning though.
I have a non-tandem QD-OLED I used as a desktop monitor for some months and it's totally fine. If you're part of the Apple hype cycle and you replace your $7,000+ laptop every year, you'll never see burn-in.
Including indoors in rooms with large windows that face east, south, or west! This describes a lot of office buildings, as well as my bedroom in a circa-2005 cheaply built mass development home too. On sunny days, it’s brightly naturally lit for basically half the day, and dim displays can struggle in that environment.
I have a 6 year old high end laptop that I keep as a backup and I disagree about no progress being made on screens. The current screens are very good, especially in high brightness environments.
> The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
Laptop motherboards aren’t like desktop motherboards where you can define a big outline and fit standard parts within it. The laptop design leverages tight co-design with the enclosure for thermal performance. If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for. However the optimal solution will always be to co-design the chassis, thermal solution, and motherboard together.
> If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for.
The mobile Ryzen 3/5/7/9 processors from the current year have a configurable TDP up to the same max (54W) as the earliest Ryzen "H" processors from 2017. The first generation mobile Core i7 from 2009 had a TDP up to 55W. The mobile Pentium 4 from 2003 had a TDP up to 76W (which appears to be the high water mark). In any given generation there were also lower end models using less power across a power range that seems to be fairly consistent over time.
Why does the thermal solution need to be redesigned if the heat output hasn't materially changed in decades?
Screens are dramatically better than a few years ago and have been advancing if you care about and shop for the feature. Trackpads are slowly sucking less.
Most people only see this in MacBook Pros, but the other manufacturers have excellent screens that are often hidden behind customization options and complex models/branding.
I have a framework and love it, but it’s a computer made for a specific purpose that doesn’t align with most people. That’s ok - Dell makes like 500 different let laptops and Framework has a totally different proposition.
I have to disagree on trackpads sucking less. This year I walked into a big box electronics store and tried the screen, keyboard and trackpad on every laptop they had on display.
Trackpads were universally abysmal, with the sole exception of the macbooks. They all had the frustrating diveboard design, every single one at every price point from every manufacturer. I’m sure you can buy laptops with decent trackpads online, but they had none in the store, macbooks excepted.
Keyboards were all over the place, but I notice that even some premium models are now carrying generic low end keyboard parts with weak travel, lack of key separation, num lock mashed into the backspace, and awkward arrow key layout. If anything I think keyboards are getting worse.
Screens are the one place where I’ll say things have improved noticeably, especially colors and black levels, although getting over 200 ppi and 500 nits is still a rare treat, and that is my bar for a compromiseless display.
You're comparing Apple to unnamed computers brands you touched at a random place, I'm not sure what to make of it.
For instance how does the Macbook Air compare to the current 13" Surface Laptop ? Is that what you call diveboard design and awkward arrow key layout ?
Given the primary selling point of laptops is their portability (often at the cost of other things), they should be optimized to be highly usable wherever they might end up getting used.
This is an oddity of the PC laptop market I have never understood - Mac trackpads from a decade ago are still better than a top-of-the-line PC trackpad from the current year.
The only thing Apple has done in that decade is make their trackpads slightly bigger (and made the click haptic rather than physical), so it feels like the PC folks should have caught up by now...
Part of it is software (drivers), and that’s something that hardware vendors have traditionally been poor at writing. The bar for a driver is “it technically works and doesn’t bluescreen” rather than “it works well”. It’s just more evident in this case because the continuous-input nature of a trackpad makes the poor functionality much more apparent.
The other is that I don’t think most laptop vendors spend nearly as much on their trackpads. MacBook trackpads have for a long time shared their touch sensitivity hardware with iPhones, which makes them extremely responsive and precise, and this is paired with a high end haptic motor to produce click sensations. Finally, their surface is oleophobic glass which reduces friction. This all combines to produce a great experience, but I’m positive that they cost notably more than the typical plastic diving board fare, and most laptop manufacturers are squeezing out margin with cheaper parts wherever they can.
Apple pours all they have into making their trackpad the best it can be, including working from the OS to the UX to the SDKs.
It's sailant when using the Magic Trackpad on Windows: the acceleration curves don't match, the keyboard combinations are less natural, the gestures clunkier and the overall advantage of the trackpad is I think lesser. Mouses are a better fit on windows in every respects IMHO.
Handy that you can have them fully encased but there’s nothing really limiting any other laptop on this front. You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility.
Maybe some people really want the enclosed module so they have fewer things to carry, but that’s a pretty small advantage that I’m not sure many people will value.
>but there’s nothing really limiting any other laptop on this front. You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility.
Yeah, but thars another part to lose. I have tons of dongles and expansion bays, and have lost half a ton of them to the tides of school, work, travel, and carelessness. Most lost, some break because it's a huge portrusion out of your core machine. A few borrowed and never returned. One of them stuck at an office I got laid off from but never returned to post pandemic (but the severance hush money was worth more than me raising a fuss as opposed to replacing the $30 bay).
I don't need it to literally be plug and play, but I appreciate a more modular setup that is flush and stuck to the machine.
In wish I could have lived for a month or two with the Framework system to get a better feeling of it.
I'm usually either docked at my primary desk and only need a single USB-C, or moving from place to place and need 2 USB-A and a full size SD reader. I imagine the nice part with the insets is they're flushed so they'less surface to hit when moving the machine around.
I'd actually love to make my own insets that bakes the wireless dongles in them, that sounds doable.
> You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility
And with thunderbolt, you get to have one dongle-sized dock, that connects with one cable, and gives you the full gamut of ports. I really love being able to connect 1 cable when I get to my desk, and have multiple monitors, all peripherals, plus power cable instantly.
> That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
With all due respect -- meh.
I have a fairly old-ish laptop that I am not bothered to upgrade because a Ryzen 5500U is super capable to this day (and I don't do local LLMs) and it has a 10Gbps USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 Type-A port. And an SD card reader.
I bought a hub. I put the laptop on a stand and plug its Type-C 10Gbps slot in the hub. Job done.
All this clamoring about being able to replace ports surely resonates with many people but to this day I don't view it as a true advantage. If you have to carry your laptop to a dedicated office, a stand and a hub are table stakes anyway. And that's not even touching a proper big display, keyboard and a mouse.
And furthermore, if making the ports flexible leads to too many design compromises then to me that means that I am making a bad deal.
I am periodically inspecting Framework laptops and I still find them lacking. Their appeal to tinkerers has IMO peaked and they should pivot to another pitch or they might not survive. Though I really, really hope they do. We need the competition.
I’d be better off for my work laptop with an even smaller cube that was built expecting a hub to be plugged in. No monitor, keyboard or mouse. I don’t think the keyboard and monitor on it have ever been used outside of diagnosing why the hub isn’t working.
Yeah, that too. And AFAIK many devs do that, they buy mini PCs that are very generously specced and just carry them between home and office, usually plugging every periphery needed (display, keyboard, mouse, Ethernet) by just plugging one high-speed port from the box PC to the hub.
I have two dongles for the wireless connectivity of both, and the choice is between sticking both in a dock and bring the same huge dock every single place I go, or move them from dock to dock as needed.
Having two USB-A would mean I stick them on the machine itself and never think about it anymore. Then if they could completely disappear inside the port extensions it would be a dream.
TBH I wouldn't be using the Framework as my primary work laptop either way, use cases are very limited and I already have the power and modularity needed with the Z13, but as a personal laptop for way wider use cases it ticks all the right boxes. If only it shipped outside of US and EU.
I understand. I have a mini hub, something like 10x4x1 cm. Works fine for me and it even also has Ethernet.
As mentioned, I'm sure Ftamework has valid usages. To me they command a much higher price premium than I'm comfortable with paying for those valid usages however.
I do love and want a libre booting stack. To me _that_ is the really good stuff. But they need to chill on prices.
This. My idea of a repairable laptop is the Thinkpads up until around 2015. And I absolutely agree that the port modules forces Framework to limit the number of ports to the point that I'd hesitate to purchase one because I'd be swapping ports all the time.
The replacement parts aren't cheap either as Framework has very little used parts market.
I can rehouse a Thinkpad or most other high volume laptops for a quarter or less the cost of a Framework, making the total lifetime cost much lower. Framework will sell you a new housing with screen for $399, but at that point I can buy an 11th gen Thinkpad for half the cost.
I want the economics to work, but even with free labor it makes no sense.
As the owner of a Framework 13, you're exactly right. It only has 4 ports, at least one of which is pretty much always for charging, and let's face it you will always want a USB-A, so that leaves two. If you want to be ready for HDMI output or SD cards, that occupies them both, better hope you didn't want another USB-A or whatever.
Oh, and there's a permanent headphone jack, for some reason.
Compare to my last Thinkpad (a T460), which had a charger jack, three USB-A, HDMI, RJ45, MiniDP, a headphone jack, and an SD slot. I didn't need to swap adapters because everything was just already there. (I never used the MiniDP or the headphone jack, but everything else, yeah.)
If the Framework had 2 or 3 permanent USB-C's in addition to the 4 swappable ports, or just had 6 or 7 swappable ports, I'd be much happier. But as it sits, carrying a baggie of modules in my backpack is just silly.
That said, it can do something super cool: Charge from either side. Because there are USB-C ports on both the left and right, and any of them can be a power inlet, I'm presently laying on my side in bed, with the charger plugged into the "top" side, i.e. the one that's not leaning into the mattress. When I roll over, I'll just move the cord.
When I was shopping for my "next" (present) machine, I was able to find one Ideapad that claimed it had USB-C ports on both sides, but it was eye-wateringly expensive. I couldn't get Lenovo's site to tell me which cheaper models had this, and their support people couldn't produce such a list either. Finally in frustration, I decided to give my money to Framework instead, and the either-side charging is a trick I rely on frequently.
My current load-out is two USB-C and two USB-A, one of each on each side.
I feel like folk in this thread haven't used a Macbook Pro from the past ten years or so — which is fine, I don't expect everyone to want to use MacOS (I prefer Linux) but the hardware is genuinely nice.
On my personal 2019 MBP I have four USB C ports, and can charge via any of them. My work M3 MBP only has three, but has a full-size HDMI port too (and a magnetic charging port I've never used). I carry a cheap USB C dongle that works with pretty much anything and gives me a couple of USB A ports, HDMI, a USB C with pass-through charging, and Ethernet. It's great, and it's DP alt mode rather than TB so it works with anything (including Android phones with the right hardware).
Apple definitely aren't perfect (although I do actually like my touch bar) but when they make hardware that works, it really does work well. I wish it were possible for other companies to make things as nicely.
My wife has a recent MBP (a compromise to get away from Windows) and it's slick, fast, and super reliable. But you hit the nail on the head: Linux. There is no substitute. That's one reason why I swear by my Framework 13.
While they aren't the only manufacturer guaranteeing excellent Linux support, that and the upgradeability seal the deal.
Speaking of the MBP, the fixed disk size is really frustrating. Historically this is the one part that was upgradeable on all laptops.
Right, but there's no way to search for them, that I've found. Even if a machine has multiple USB-C ports, the only way to ascertain that they're on both sides is to find photos of both sides. It's not like a specific amount of RAM that you can just click a checkbox to filter by.
And then you have to assume that the photos depict the actual model and variant you're getting, which is not always the case. It'd be a hard row to hoe, to return a machine based on "it had all the same ports it claimed, but in different places"...
I first saw that feature on a cheap Chromebook and was a bit surprised. But I suppose the more expensive machines have great battery life (for the first year or so) and the people who own them are too cool to use a cable.
- my first hp laptop had to be sent in twice in 2 years. Then by year 3 I just gave up the ghost (having side income helped)
- 2nd Asus laptop was used and a decent discount, so I didn't complain too much. But it hit screen issues in 2 years.
- then I got a razer blade. Honestly not bad (just really expensive), I simply had the lack of hindsight to realize 3 years later that it wouldn't be compatible with Windows 11. For what reason I will never know. Not too long after the battery simply refused to hold charge as well. I could have spent to repair that, but I was already looking at an upgrade funded by my work perks anyway.
My current Asus has been relatively problem free, but there were still minor things I opened it up for. Typical ram and storage upgrades at first. Spotty wifi chip early on, but I upgraded it to an Intel one for AC support a few months in regardless. Also hate how I discovered that the computer has vents on the front and will freak out if you close the display for secondary monitors no matter how well you cool the rear vents, but I guess that one's on me for not more carefully considering.
So yeah, I'd rather just have something repairable.
On the other hand, we hand down our MacBooks in the family and our old 2018 MacBook Airs are still in daily use without any reliability issues AFAIK. Zero user repairability.
I had an old MacBook Air that I ran until it eventually lost battery function and new software just wouldn’t run well on such old hardware, and I stopped getting updates for the OS which meant apps slowly became incompatible.
Loved that machine. 10+ years of use from the best laptop I ever had.
I would’ve bought a new one when I eventually gave up on it, but the Apple of 2025 is worlds apart from the Apple of 2012.
Experiments with Touch Bars and software escape keys, butterfly keyboards that frankly just suck, thin glass screens that crack, USB-C ports requiring dongles everywhere…
I didn’t buy a new MacBook and migrated away from Apple instead.
Ah sorry, I must be thinking of the Apple of 2025 that still hasn’t added USB-A to their laptops (even though my Framework has 2) and expects me to carry a dongle everywhere, because after all, it’s my fault for not completely rearranging my world to do what Apple wants.
Or I must be thinking about the Apple of 2025 that rolled out Liquid Glass, an OS so disastrously bad I have to toggle accessibility settings just to make it usable.
I’m pretty comfortable saying modern Apple has had a sad and shitty fall from its peak.
China and EU have mandated usb-c for all rechargeable devices, for many years. Usb-a is legacy, together with vga, parallel printer ports and other old and bulky connectors, such connectors should require adapters. This is a good thing.
Such a ridiculous sentiment. You can justify all you want, but I still have USB-A on my Framework :) It is not legacy because 1) I am not in China and 2) I want it.
And I noticed you didn’t touch on Liquid Glass… guessing that one is much tougher to explain away…
Additionally, most MacBook USB-C ports are also Thunderbolt 3/4/5 ports which can do a number of things that USB-A ports can't. A laptop with 3x TB ports is substantially more expandable than a laptop with 1x USB-C and 3x USB-A.
Are Frameworks even upgradeable enough to enable the same kind of upgrading in the typical upgrade window as one would get buying a new machine?
This means replacing nearly everything except the chassis, keyboard, and screen.
It’s frustrating. A small manufacturer can’t hope to beat out a large one on price. And that’s before we consider that the maintainability that Framework offers means you can’t cut the corners the regular manufacturers do. But even I find things like the weight an unappealing proposition even though I have no idea how you’d build a laptop like Framework’s that appreciably lighter.
I think that what it means one needs to pick their battles, at least early on. Trying to achieve repairable + upgradable + novel expandability all in one go might be somewhat overambitious for a brand new company. Do one thing really, really well instead of five things mediocrely. Once you've got one mastered, move on to the next thing.
But then again, I've never run a hardware company, so maybe I'm wrong.
Also the fact that hardware is pretty stagnant and upgrades aren’t that important anymore for most stuff. I bought an Acer in 2012 and over the next 5 years I upgraded the RAM from 4 gb to 8gb and swapped the hdd for an ssd. Those were enormous upgrades! Then I bought a MacBook Pro with 16gb and an ssd and didn’t need another computer until this year (still didn’t NEED one but I found a good deal on a 4 year old MBP).
Exactly this. Everyone says they want upgradable (stated preference), but when making personal purchasing decisions, a “premium experience” is valued more highly (revealed preference).
“Upgradable hardware on a laptop” is a loud minority.
I want open hardware. I want to know what’s running on my machine. I don’t really give two shits if the RAM is soldered because I will probably upgrade when (if) it becomes a problem.
"The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody."
That is entirely irrelevant.
The product does what it says on the tin. If you don't value that because "repairability isn't a frequent need" then you don't value that (and the reason doesn't matter).
If you* don't value that, then why did you read the tin, buy the thing, and then complain that it is what it said it was going to be?
That is what's annoying to witness.
I can do all that same math about price and features, yet why don't I have any buyers remourse? Do I not know about Dell and Lenovo and Apple? If the value proposition is innately bad, then why aren't I complaining too? Have I been hypnotized into acting against my own priorities and intentions?
The problem is not with the product or it's price.
As others have pointed out, a lot of us would very much like to buy a Framework laptop but as it is we can’t make it make sense. We’ll be customers if Framework can figure out how to patch up their shortcomings, and by expressing that sentiment hopefully they’re encouraged to try to do that.
We value reparability and upgradability and are willing to pay for it all else being roughly equal.
It’s like for the same price, being given a choice between a hybrid car that’s quiet on the road and gets 45 MPG fuel economy with great torque and responsiveness but needs to be taken to the dealer to service and a car that’s easy to self service but has an annoying rattle at highway speeds, gets 15 MPG, and has a 4-speed automatic transmission. Both technically do the job, but you’d be hard pressed to find people who’d choose the latter over the former.
No major manufacturer is even approaching what Framework is trying to do, so I'm happy to cut them some slack in order to support a product philosophy that I believe in. My 12th Gen Framework 13 is certainly good enough in this respect.
People have bought not so well made electric cars for the same reason (e.g.: Tesla).
Your car analogy does not really hold up though, considering that anything but an absolutely awful car is quite repairable and (in the right hands) upgradable.
If all the laptop components break at the same time, there's no need for repairability. Then it’s just a somewhat disposable computer by design. For a car analogy, this is how many americans could afford their first car.
The truly bad designs are when one broken component is preventing repairability. Hello apple!
But how common of a problem is this, now that Apple is well clear of the butterfly keyboard mess? I haven’t had to get my MacBooks repaired even once in the past decade and change, and that’s despite two of the machines I’d used during that time being the butterfly/touch bar models!
That being said, yes it’d be better if such a repair were quick and easy, but I’m not sure that it’s so valuable as to justify battery life being around a third what my MacBooks get or wrestling a buggy, immature BIOS and all the issues that come with that. A laptop that’s bad at being a laptop isn’t worth a whole lot…
> I’m not sure that it’s so valuable as to justify battery life being around a third what my MacBooks get or wrestling a buggy, immature BIOS and all the issues that come with that.
It is to me, given my 15 odd years of using Windows and Linux instead of Mac. I'm not even liking windows much these days, but I've never had a situation where I was forced to use a Mac.
That was due to a defective keyboard design that the company denied, failed to fix after several revisions, and was ultimately sued for.
I was stuck with one of these at work. I’ve owned or had in my custody probably 30 laptops since 1995. It’s the only one that required keyboard replacement, and ended up needing 3.
As opposed to taking the part out of a Framework laptop, shipping it back to the repair center for weeks, and then reinstalling it when it comes back?
Or if time is of the essence, ordering the brand new part to skip the repair process and then installing it yourself when it arrives later?
Contrast this with the amount of time my coworker spent hauling his laptop charger everywhere and obsessively topping up his laptop battery while traveling because the battery drain during sleep was a problem at that time. This added extra wear and tear on the battery, of course, but I guess he could replace it himself?
You just order a new key, and install it. And not have the downtime. (You can remap key or use an external keyboard.)
And yeah, replacing the battery is easy. Not a Framework, but I replaced a laptop battery some years ago, was glad I had that option, because lithium battery lifetime always decreases eventually.
I’m old enough to remember when many phones and some laptops had removable batteries. Switch to a spare, and boom instantly full, you didn’t need to tether it to a wall.
The thing I don't get about the framework upgradability is that, what are you honestly going to do with the old system board or graphics card? I guess you could sell it. Who's going to really buy it?
I tend to upgrade my laptop every 6-8 years and by then there is nothing to upgrade well, frankly the technology has moved on, new PCIe standards DDR screen tech etc. One of the reasons I did not buy a framework (was very close to it) is the screen. I value having a decent screen attached to my laptop. I think some of these newer laptops with Tandem OLEDs will be a real improvement over what was out there previously.
I thought about the port configuration as well, and that's all cool you can have 6 ports that can be anything you like, but really they are just two USB controllers controlling all that. One on either side. What would be my ultimate port configuration? Well probably like some USB-C and an audio port and a HDMI port. The network adapter sticks out so that's going to be super annoying. The newer Lenovo and Dell laptops have replaceable USB ports, which means if I wear one out I can replace it easily.
What I also realized is you can do some really cool things like PCIe passthrough with Thunderbolt that of course you don't get on a Framework. Want to have an awesome GPU? Well you can use an eGPU or perhaps an flash a firmware to your NVMe (you can't do that over USB), but you can over PCIe passthrough where the device shows up as /dev/nvme0. I've always had problems with disks over USB, sometimes they'll drop from the system, and things like eSATAp were always more reliable for 3.5" disks, but that's only available on desktop with a special bracket.
In the end I'm just going to spend a little on a T1g Gen8 probably. I can upgrade the RAM in that because it's CAMM2. It may cost a little more than the framework but on special I should be able to get it for a nice price.
If I had less money I'd probably just go for previous gen.
I already have a server at home server. I used a MZ32 motherboard with a bunch of disks 3.5" in it as it's mostly a storage server.
My HTPC is an old ATX desktop computer on its side in a Phanteks P400A case. On it's side it just looks like a black speaker grill front to back cooling it has three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans that are barely even visible.
The good thing about using standard parts is if the GPU died I could buy another cheap one to replace it.
But I guess that case is a cool idea if you didn't have those things.
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Buying one of the original Frameworks and a Macbook Air at roughly the same time made me realize how little I actually care about upgradeability and repairability. This feeling took me by surprise. Modern Macbooks are just so much better in terms of feel it's like comparing tech from a different decade.
(it also turns out that having a defect that the manufacturer doesn't make right can cause a person to feel a few different things, but gratitude for the product's repairability isn't at the top of the list)
Agree. I want rock solid Linux compatibility with mac like hardware quality / battery life and a Thinkpad like toughness and keyboard. I don't really need it to be upgradable as long as it lasts 8 years.
IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer.
I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.
We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just tossing it into a black hole.
Maybe in the late 90s and early 2000s. These days hardware from over a decade ago works fine. I am typing this comment on a 2011 Dell E6410. Install Debian / Arch Linux and the machine is surprisingly capable. Just running HTOP I am using 2.5G of ram (out of 8GB) and the CPU is at 2%.
TBH, I have a Ryzen 5950X based tower and while it is faster than my previous desktop which was a i7 4970K (or whatever it is), the previous machine would be fine tbh. I am not even sure why I upgraded tbh.
I guess its a byproduct of a faster moving curve with improved technology. 20 years ago you didn't need to replace the entire platform for at least 10 years.
20 years ago I was hopping from Intel to AMD and then back to Intel. After that practically every decent jump in CPU performance on the Intel side of things meant a new socket (LGA775, 1156, 1155, 1150, 1151...). AMD typically kept sockets for a bit longer but wasn't as competitive until Ryzen which had a few jumps in chipset compatibility in there.
In the last 20 or so years if I wanted a few years newer CPU for whatever reason it usually meant I needed a whole new motherboard, and that often (but not always) also meant new RAM.
Is it artificial though, really? You buy whatever is available now and it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to buy a new one. Maybe there is some kind of multi vendor collusion going on but it doesn't seem that likely.
Where I think repairability really makes sense is in things that don't materially improve and should last 30 years (e.g. appliances).
If there's an ability to upgrade my GPU 3 years in but I can't, then yes. It's artificial. We just got way too comfortable with the mentality of throwing out everything and getting new cheap tech overtime.
I guess the one thing AI is doing that's good for this scene will be to make people value what they have more.
I'm pretty sure part of the reason of integrating everything on the board has some nefarious reasons, at least on Laptop's. Louis Rossman talked about a design flaw in Apple Macbooks where if the SSD fails, in my cases, your system will fail to power up because the mainboard is designed to fail when the SSD fails.(If I am interpreting that correctly)[0]. Remember this flaw is in the Macbooks where the SSD's are soldiered into the board. IMHO there are ways to design integrated hardware in such a way where failures minimize damage and I think many companies decide its not in there best interest to design hardware to prevent that. IMHO this is done in bad faith.
My partner with a Macbook works on AI and has told me how great Apple silicon is, and their Macbook would run so many things so well.. except they don't have enough RAM and there's no way to upgrade it..
I’m in the same boat as your partner except that I generally max the RAM in my laptop when buying it.
The thing is it would probably be the same issue with a Framework or any other brand of laptop as they all have some final limit on RAM or GPU RAM.
If you upgrade the GPU or motherboard you have to ask what will happen to the old one. You can reuse some of them but most probably will just be e-waste.
There’s a chance when upgrading a whole laptop that the old one will a new use somewhere.
I'm a hoarder so I'd just keep it around. I still have my Playstation 2 after all.
Every laptop except my first college one is also somewhere around my house. Even my $300 high school laptop that could really only run Microsoft Word (I remember running Fallout 3 on it at lowest settings at a brisk 10 fps). Even for that college laptop I salvaged the storage, ram, and disk drive.
Some people around me prolesytize these modern Macbooks endlessly but I don't quite get it. I've tried them but I still love my Framework 16 to bits and I'd take it any day of the week. The Macbooks are great machines, and one thing I can say in their favor is the battery life is phenomenal, but I prefer my Framework's aesthetics and feel - it feels more like I'm holding something I've worked on and made my own vs just bought, I prefer the shiny metal over the dull gray of the Macbooks, the keyboard and trackpad are just as good (and I love the rgb pad I have in place of a numpad), and taking it apart/replacing modules just feels so cool. I've also saved those friends various times by lending an expansion card, usually usb-A.
The keyboard on my framework 13 is fine but it’s got a very sketchy touchpad and that classic symptom of a modern, shitty laptop: the whole thing flexes if I pick it up by the corner, and oftentimes actuates the trackpad button. Other times if I’m sitting in an unfavorable position the machine flexes and the trackpad button no longer works. Compare that with the rigidity of a modern Macbook.
Framework 14 is the original (and best tbh). The 13 and 16 unfortunately don't hit the balance of feeling premium like the 14 does.
This thread has me wondering if they really diluted their reputation with these new devices...
I meant 14, then. I bought my framework from the third or fourth batch that was available (going from memory), in November 2021 (going from email).
Nothing premium about it at all. That’s ridiculous in my opinion, the quality is cringe in comparison to an Apple. On the other hand, I’ve got four years of use out of it, so… whatever.
I wanted to love it very badly, and they did the right thing with the camera and audio cutoff switches and their location. But that wasn’t enough to make it a great laptop.
As a daily user of both a first gen framework 13 and a M1 MacBook Pro, the MacBook touchpad is like 5-10% better. And I suspect that's all software because I did something recently that absolutely fucked the response and feel of my framework touchpad that I haven't figured out how to undo so there's clearly a lot of room for manoeuvre in software.
Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it. Framework offers repairable laptops at a fixed price. To some the repairability adds enough value to warrant the higher prices, to some it doesn't. (As well as customizability and mainline Linux kernel support).
I've found that if you're in the habit of repairing laptops, Frameworks may come cheap to you as you might have spare storage and ram around. Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
What is the implication of this? You're not allowed to criticize a product unless you're being forced to buy it? What is the list of companies you're allowed to levy any critiques of, then? Your electricity provider? You could always move, right?
Is this the mentality that leads people to only ever criticize government power and let all others off the hook?
I sometimes feel like people criticize products as if they were offered to them personally. The pricing of a product may be absurd to them but if it were absurd to everyone there wouldn't be a market for it.
You can objectively compare the features between two products and criticize them that way. But to criticize the price you need to attach a monetary value to those features. With a framework one of those features is repairability, which to some is worth nothing, and to others it's worth a whole lot.
So is the frameworks pricing absurd? That depends on the person buying.
> Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
To be fair at least Lenovo and to some extent dell also offer this for individual customers.
It usually is not an option on the latest processors for premium models though as soldered RAM becomes more prevalent there. A minor problem of the author might be that they are looking at the relatively high tier models, which ime have less options for "saving" money, while something like a thinkpad e14 might also have been a good candidate instead.
I think the people criticizing would be potential customers who are voicing the issues that are preventing them from purchacing one. For example, I would criticize the lack of a trackpoint equivalent. And in fact, I'm not purchasing one because it doesn't have a trackpoint. If they listened to my complaint, I'd be much more inclined to buy one. (Not right away — I'm not on the market for a laptop right now — maybe 3 years down the line.)
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
This happens all the time, especially with Apple. Complaints about the inability to side load or use alternative stores for example. Nobody forced you to buy it. It's stupid when people do it for Apple and it's stupid when they do it for Framework.
I'd say comparing hardware vs software is very different. If there were 5+ competing OS's with decent market share, maybe you'd have a point there. But the reality is that mobile software is controlled by 2 trillionaire tech companies that made use of anti-competitive measures to prevent consumer alternatives.
Heck maybe even 3. The desktop scene doesn't feel that much better, but them all allowing "sideloading" as we call it today alleviates full control of the OS.
> In contrast, Framework laptops has many supposed benefits: they're upgradable, repairable
Why would you propose that the author does not care about these things? They clearly do, they are simply not a single issue voter – and who is, when buying something as complex as a laptop? There is a trade-off and the one that Framework made here is not hitting the mark for the author, and they go into some detail to explain as to why.
I am super excited about Framework stuff: They are clearly getting somewhere with this; it's nicer than anything that came before with comparable repairability. I think it's super plausible that we don't exhaust the physical limitations that arise through repairability before it's so nice, that the trade-off will be negligible for most folks.
IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability. If you are doing this I think you are missing the point. This isn't a apples to apples comparison.
I also feel the frustration of the parent, and I also see that many people don't want to pay or consider the ramifications of where we we are at right now in this given time. Most devices are designed to be throwaway, manufactures cut corners, operate at a loss. These are byproducts from our badly designed technology from a suitability perspective that have driven prices down in a unhealthy way IMHO.
Its like trying to compare prices between now and fifty years ago. If you want the world to be more sustainable, you need to consider that its going to cost more, its not going to be comparable to whats out there right now, and you are going to need to deal with the growing pains.
Comparing Framework laptop to whats out there today in terms of features is a losing proposition. The market is built around a lack of sustainability.
> IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability.
But is it really more sustainable to have a poor quality but easily repairable/swappable laptop where you had to exchange multiple parts over e.g. 10 years, compared to a high quality laptop that lasted the full 10 years and didn't need any repairs? And that is not unusual, my 10 year old X1 carbon is still going strong, I just had to take change the battery at some point, but that was not very difficult.
If you have this mythical laptop that lasts 10 years, let me know. Meanwhile, I don't think the GT 1050m from my 2015 laptop would truly have been that competitive today. And it sure did need several repairs to last the 4-ish years it did get.
I'll admit my bias as a gamer and game dev, though. My industry more or less requires a stronger machine by default and the line shifts quickly. Even my decent GTX 3080m is starting to fall behind a bit. But not as drastically as the Moore's law era.
I am puzzled by the "GT 1050M is not competitive today"? What does that even mean?
You are moving goal posts. Your parent clearly specified long-term stability and lack of repairs. Granted not all laptops are that durable. But many are. I have a pile of old laptops, one I clearly remember using it as a daily driver for development in the interval of 12 to 10 years ago. Just ran it yesterday, wanted to see if I can put it in a homemade computing cluster. Worked fine after being battered with Fold@Home for 12 hours.
You did admit your bias, for which I am grateful. But admitting it or not, let's recognize it's still making people prone to judging from a filter bubble perspective. Barely any dev cares about GPU performance being competitive today. I am a fairly average dev and I and my kind care that the laptop can drive one 4K screen at 60Hz and that's it.
Sure , "sustain" is subjective. If you're sticking to Arch Linux, programming VIM, and browsing docs for 20 years, you'd get more value out of one good base over any potential upgrades. But that doesn't seem to be the world we live in, hardware or software wise. We don't really build laptops like we would fridges, and the former has a lot more moving parts regardless.
>But admitting it or not, let's recognize it's still making people prone to judging from a filter bubble perspective.
Sure. My other opinion to emphasize is that I don't think Framework is trying to aim for the average user. Nor even average dev. If you're questioning why you not buy some $600-1000 range laptop,or why you need a 5090 at all, you 99% don't really need the flexibility of a modular laptop.
On top of that, the average dev could (or at least, used to until recently) also afford a brand new replacement laptop, so they probably aren't as cost conscious nor as specs demanding as a game Dev like me living in a boom bust cycle (and it's pretty bust right). I'm around that time considering an upgrade and I'd much rather throw down $600 to just slap in a new GPU like I would in a desktop, instead of another $2000+.
I would say durability. HN is obsessed by e-waste so pointing out that something can last 7+ years wins some over. Not being sarcastic, nor am I mocking anyone, I am stating an observation.
I don't know if I consider Framework laptops poor quality. I wonder if you are considering the impact to the planet though. We have tons of waste everyday from devices that are not built with sustainability in mind. Yes Framework has a ways to go with that, but its the only company that I know thats really doing something about it. We have all these devices that if they are not built around sustainability in contributes to a worse climate and I worry what kind of world we are leaving behind for our children.
This is unfortunately a pure “feels over logic” comment that doesn’t engage with the parent poster’s argument at all. The point is impact, not what anyone has “in mind”.
I want Framework to succeed, but the author's objection isn't unreasonable:
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a €1200-€1500 laptop at best... two thousand Euros for this kind of laptop is just absurd
For most people the long-term total cost of ownership is going to be a major factor when they consider a more repairable laptop. Sure, generating less e-waste is nice, but saving money is probably the main point. What the author is asserting here is that to get the repairable laptop you need to spend 50% more for the same specs! As well as accept that the form factor is bulkier etc. At a 50% premium you do have to question whether you're going to save a meaningful amount of money in the long run.
For me I probably would - I find uses for machines that are a decade old and the repurposability of Framework components is pretty interesting. But interest in this level of reusability is a pretty niche market.
I think the Framework 16 is too expensive. They can access a niche market at these price points but to get bigger they will need to find a way to deal with the cost issue. PC World's review of the Framework 13 this year was: "A steep price for a compelling upgrade."
>But interest in this level of reusability is a pretty niche market.
We're getting to a point where some people don't even have a laoptop in their household. I think "serving a niche", especially one willing to pay 1000+ for tech, isn't a bad thing here. The tech required for browsing internet and streaming videos doesn't need to spend more than $500, or even get a windows/mac.Chromebooks will happily cut into that entry level market.
This is all before mentioning how memory prices will only make the problem worse for all consumer electronics.
If you want user serviceable equipment - example: phones, computers, cars, bikes, washing machines etc, you will have to deal with the issues that come with it - the same as the inconveniences that come with user serviceable software AKA open source software.
The reason being that a device which has been tested to work with only a fixed set of parts will likely have more of the issues ironed out in comparison to a device which has to work with a much wider range of devices.
You may not get the same form factors because user serviceable equipment will tend to be bulkier - for instance, you may not be able to get ultra thin laptops, phones etc.
However, these inconveniences are worth it because the alternative is that we will find ourselves in a place where the equipment becomes more and more adversarial to consumers.
> but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
On the contrary, I think a lot of people completely understand the value proposition. It’s just that once you evaluate it against all of the tradeoffs and other priorities, it reveals that upgradeability is not as valuable as the other priorities. Most consumers aren’t single-issue voters who purchases hardware based on a single axis of features.
With Framework laptops specifically I’ve started to feel like “but it’s upgradable!” is becoming a tired rebuttal to any discussion of the tradeoffs you take one when you buy one of these machines.
In theory I enjoy an upgradeable machine, too. But in practice I’m not willing to give up much now in exchange for the possibility of maybe upgrading part of it later.
This is a classic example of revealed preference in product design. When you ask people in a vacuum if they want features like upgradeability, swappable batteries, or tiny phones that fit in your pocket the answer is always “Yes, obviously!” Then when the product comes to market and people have to vote with their wallets they survey the options and pick the laptop that’s light and highly integrated, the phone with a built-in battery that’s compact and sturdy, and the phone with a screen big enough to not feel cramped. This leaves a vocal minority trying to tell everyone else that they’re making the wrong choice or they have their priorities wrong, but the simpler answer is that these products are best reserved for the minority of people who prize singular design goals like upgradeability options to such an extreme that they’re willing to compromise or ignore everything else.
Value wise when trying to spec out my personal Lenovo laptop on framework, it'd never get anywhere close to being worth it even if I completely made use of the hardware after a future upgrade.
Framework makes sense if you're going in on the sustainability idea, but other than that it's really just an expensive laptop that's not compelling against its competitors
The pricing when I looked was similar. I went with a Lenovo last time because the Framework 16 hadn't quite matured, but premium anything is never going to make financial sense.
Buying and repairing a framework is never going to be cheaper than going through consumable trash laptops, and buying top of the line laptops and trying to use them longer is never going to be cheaper or better than buying medium grade laptops and upgrading more often.
What you're paying for right now is the customization capabilities and the ideology. Upgrading and customizing a single platform with a community, vs. a fixed one-off design that'll be lost next time you upgrade.
If Framework isn't already compelling to you at this time, then you're not the target audience. They might drop in price, but they'll never win a race to the bottom.
> buying top of the line laptops and trying to use them longer is never going to be cheaper or better than buying medium grade laptops and upgrading more often.
I think this is much less general than you make it out to be and has an extremely strong dependency on how you use the thing and of your preference. It makes me think of the boot theory.
Personally, for the type of work I do, I rarely need the latest ludicrously fast CPU. But I use it a lot and love to do so comfortably. To me, that means a great screen, a quiet fan, and a nice keyboard and touchpad.
Buying a mediocre computer and changing it more often means you'll always have a mediocre experience. A case in point: at work we have HP Elitebooks. The brand-new 2025 models I see people receive have worse screens and trackpads than my 2013 MBP. Sure, that box was quite a bit pricier even in nominal terms, but it had the same amount of RAM (16 GB) and SSD (512 GB) as these new computers. I'll also grant that the new ones have a faster CPU but the SSDs are somehow absurdly slow. I haven't seen a single one of these machines last more than 10 years fully functional. My mom still uses that MBP.
But the experience is sub-par. In the period 2013-2015, we never got to experience a nice laptop. For the office work these people do, that 12-year-old Mac would be an all-around better experience.
The HP screens at the time were truly horrendous. They're leagues better now but still poor and clearly worse than the 2013 mac. They are relatively contrasty, but the colors are all weird.
The trackpads have also improved a lot, but there still is some kind of odd lag when you use them [0]. They're horrible enough that many people still prefer carrying a mouse when using them away from their desks, and the mice we're provided aren't some Rolls-Royce ultra-premium affair, just a crappy, laggy Bluetooth Dell.
They also degrade from daily use: the screen hinge loosens so it moves if you look at it wrong, barrel power connectors from older models somehow become unreliable, and USB ports start to get loose (although when new they tend to be extremely tight). USB-C ports tend to become mushy.
Newer models tend to be quieter, but up until a few models ago, the fan would go wild for no reason (I work with many "non tech" people, so they basically use Outlook and browse a few random websites).
Now, if you only ever use your laptop tethered to a big screen and whatnot, and it's basically a very compact and easy-to-cart-around desktop, then sure, I can understand not caring one bit about all this: you never go out in the rain, so you never get wet feet!
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[0] This is possibly a Windows driver issue, since on my lower-end Elitebook (840 vs 1040) from 2020 running Linux, this doesn't happen.
> I think this is much less general than you make it out to be and has an extremely strong dependency on how you use the thing and of your preference. It makes me think of the boot theory.
The boot theory is different: It is about buying something not crafted with proper materials which will quickly fall apart and cost more in the long run. However, unlike technology, there is no cowhide 2.0 coming out 6 months after, with all leather made the cowhide 1.0 way instantly dropping in value and fading into irrelevancy.
Low-end laptops tend to be build around older SKU's which are no longer of interest but function no worse than they did when launched, and mid-tier laptops tend to be made with current SKU's in the more reasonable binning categories.
At the same time, the replacement rate also means that whatever high-end laptop will soon have its rear handed to it by a mid-tier machine of the next chip generation. While it's outdated within a year or two you of course won't replace it that soon, but that upgrade might stretch your upgrade schedule 50% to justify it - from, say, 4 years to 6. More years of being generations behind.
Keeping a Framework around for longer also only makes sense when considering upgradability.
> A case in point: at work we have HP Elitebooks. The brand-new 2025 models I see people receive have worse screens and trackpads than my 2013 MBP
HP Elitebooks are expensive, high-end machines. The issues you see is because HP, Dell and Lenovo all cater to IT department buying strategies, and therefore all offer a bargain screen option as the machines are bought in bulk and mostly used docked. You'll find that they also have an mid-tier screen option (usually a color-accurate 1080p or 1440p panel), as well as a high-end option (say, 4k OLED touchscreen with wacom digitizer).
The trackpad is a different story entirely. If you're used to a Mac trackpad, things are a bit grim on the PC side. There's some nice ones coming out though.
> They also degrade from daily use: the screen hinge loosens so it moves if you look at it wrong
Everything degrades from daily use. My hinge loosened on my last Mac, the screen damaged itself because the 15" panel did not have the necessary rigidity to main the intended 0.5mm gap to the keyboard keys (confirmed as the second panel did the same), the shitty magsafe port overheated as using pogopins for high power transfer is a terrible idea, all I/O on one side died, and the battery had inflated at least once...
My Dell XPS 13 costing 1/3rd never had any problems, and when replaced it just felt a bit slow and had a somewhat aged battery.
Price is not an indicator of quality or expected reliability, nor is the brand itself a reliable indicator. Use common sense, take a look at the product and avoid the bottom of the bargain bin.
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Do get a good mouse and keyboard though, it has a much more direct impact on your user experience and a mouse that costs twice as much isn't as much of an issue as a laptop costing twice as much. The keyboard and mouse also lasts longer if kept well.
> I can swap out my mobo for a RISC-V mobo, or ARM.
You can't do that with the 16, only the 13 [0] and you can't upgrade ram on it. Which is kind of the problem in a nutshell. Over time fewer user modifications make sense due to the context of the whole computer as an integrated system.
Or you could just buy a MacBook Air for like $900 (or one of the windows snapdragon machines, but it you care about avoiding Intel I’m assuming you want Linux and doubt the support is as good as asahi on Macs)
I guess that's the issue? I spent nearly $2800 on my current laptop, top of the line specs at the time. I'm just not the kind of person trying to compare down to A $1000 mid-level Mac. I need to use this thing professionally.
In that lens, the config I played with (before ram prices surged) ended up around $2200 and it felt nice knowing I could upgrade the GPU down the line for $400 instead of pondering if I can last another year or 2 before things fall behind. As long as the chassis and screen is solid I can deal with some compromise for that value.
Sub a $2500 MacBook Pro in for air then for your needs. In several years if that new GPU is actually worth an upgrade it will almost certainly need more cooling or have higher power demands than current framework logic boards/chassis can handle.
Even on desktops where constraints are easier, piecemeal hardware upgrades of anything but storage and ram has never been worth it or done much to extend system lifespan.
Macbook air = small keyboard, small screen, limited battery, all parts expensive to service, etc. Try hacking a Mac Mini instead: https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini
A MacBook Air is just a Mac mini with a keyboard, screen, and battery. You can choose to attach the same peripherals to your MacBook, and have the flexibility of a laptop when you need it. Paying a couple hundred dollar premium for this is a good deal.
Snapdragon support is decent to great these days, and importantly it's all in the mainline kernel tree.
Edit: though it should be said that what I think is good might be a far cry from you think is good. I did use a Thinkpad X13s as my primary work machine for 6 months, though.
Literally just picked up a 13" M4 Air for $750 from Best Buy for my wife. It was spend $500 to replace her older MBA screen or a bit extra for a whole new device.
I mean, this could literally be the last laptop shell, screen, keyboard and power adapter you ever buy. That's a fantastic sustainability story. Not to mention that if it dies you are never at risk of having to replace the whole thing unless it melts in a fire.
It could be… but it won’t be. Internals will be outmoded quickly, and I would be shocked if logic boards from ~5 years from now will still be compatible just as needs evolve (especially around cooling and power delivery)… and this is all before physical wear and tear on screen/keyboard/ports.
I would be very surprised if many frameworks are upgraded ship of Theseus style for decades, or if the total cost of ownership (and even ecological impact, most of the nastiness is going to be the electronic internals, not the metal casing) is lower than for someone buying a more integrated laptop ever 5-6 years.
Hard to say. If people boast about a ThinkPad lasting a decade, I see no reason (post Moores law) that this can't last that long. The only think not obvious on how to replace is the screen and speakers.
But my nearly 10 year old ThinkPad hasn't needed upgrades to last that long, it just has decent build quality. Will the Frameworks last that long?
A good test would be to work out what's the oldest in-use Framework (which should be one of the first, if not there's an build quality issue) and see how many upgrades were needed to keep it functioning compared with similar era machines from other manufacturers.
In the context of the massive amount of throwaway packaging involved in the food supply chain, or every other part of the supply chain for every consumable we use, how big a deal is that? Are electronics uniquely impactful in terms of sustainability versus eg plastic clamshells to transport apples?
I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. While it can be compared to laptops without modular RAM, SSDs, or Wi-Fi cards, the real comparison is to laptops with modular ones of those for significantly less and suddenly the amount of upgradeability value drops significantly. Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well. The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability - especially with the breadth of selection so far. In the meantime, you're paying significantly more for less quality to have said ability.
To me, the core value proposition of the Framework is actually more in customization than about upgradeability. That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout, your order builds up without really assuming you want a charger, RAM, and SSD to be included. If you don't particularly care about those things or you can find a laptop which matches what you want up front then it just leaves you questioning the massive price increase to do it the Framework way instead.
I'd really like to enjoy the idea of fully upgradeable laptops, but I think trying out a Framework laptop just made me realize how much it doesn't work out like I'd hoped rather than making me more excited for it. I ended up returning it and, ironically, getting a 395 laptop with soldered RAM (in my defense, Framework sells a desktop with this as well).
I don't see why upgrading a motherboard to one with a newer generation CPU is not valuable. Or why going 16 to 32 GB RAM a few years after buying it first isn't.
Yes full upgradability of each component would be pretty nice but now we have a desktop and factors like compactness and "premium feel" would be even worse
I only said the value is not that high, not that it's not valuable at all. Paying a premium up front and on the upgrade to swap out the CPU + Motherboard (also forcing the GPU on certain Framework models) eats heavily into that limited value vs just buying lower cost laptops that aren't as modular.
Regarding the RAM, again, you don't need to pay for a Framework to do be able to do that. Same for the SSD. These are probably the two most reasonable components to upgrade, and it's not novel to have options to do so.
That full upgradeability actually doesn't make sense in the end is my exact point/realization I had trying it out. You can get somewhat upgradeable laptops where it makes sense already, and compromising every which way to be more upgradable is a hugely diminishing return.
In my experience, when there is a time to replace the CPU/board by a newer one, the case if a notebook also accumulated enough wear and tear damage that make sense to replace it.
And when not, replacing whole notebook means i still have the old one, which i could use as a backup or sell or give to someone.
> I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. [..,] Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well.
The Framework's screen is officially upgradeable, though, and I see that as a strength: while you or I might not blink at doing an unofficial screen replacement for some other laptop, I'm sure most people would be afraid to attempt something like that.
I've also (officially) replaced the webcam (new one is definitely better) and speakers (new ones are better but still meh). When my battery starts to go, I'll replace it with the higher-capacity battery that's available now.
So it's definitely quite a bit more than just RAM, SSD, Wi-Fi.
> The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability
I agree on the RAM: I have a Framework 13, and my next mainboard upgrade will require new RAM (which is of course crazy expensive right now), as my current board uses DDR4. But I view that as a forced upgrade; if I didn't have to go to DDR5, I'd probably stick with DDR4, and I'm sure it would be fine, even if not optimal.
But I really don't understand or agree with your comment about the SSD. I have a 2TB NVMe drive in my current laptop, and I expect I'll be using the same drive for years to come, certainly through my next mainboard upgrade, and probably even the following one.
> That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout,
Right, agreed: I have not changed the layout of my ports in more than a year at this point, and I never changed the keyboard style/layout. It was nice to be able to easily replace the keyboard when my original one developed issues a few months ago (not Framework's fault... it was my cat's fault), at least.
But I think all of this is a matter of taste. I expect there are some people who change out their expansion ports fairly often. It's fine that I don't value that feature as much as I expected I would.
My expectation is that I'll have this laptop chassis for another 10 or so years, probably with 2-3 mainboard upgrades in that time. My prior two (non-Framework) laptops were in the $1800-$2000 range, each of which lasted three years, and had significantly less RAM than my Framework does (those two laptops weren't even offered with 32GB, let alone the 64GB I have now).
My next mainboard upgrade will likely be the cost of that new laptop, given the crazy cost of DDR5 right now (though it looks like I'd be paying Dell around $2400 for a 13" laptop with 64GB; I could probably do the Framework mainboard upgrade plus RAM for $1800 or so). But maybe the next-next mainboard upgrade will still use DDR5, and I'll get a brand-new computer for around $1k. That's a really great value prop for me.
"Most people" don't upgrade individual components of their desktop or spend thousands on their computer either, especially beyond the storage and RAM, so I'm not sure who the average person it's supposed to comfort that it's official vs not to do things as small as upgrade the screen out of cycle from upgrading the rest of the machine. Framework is, unfortunately, positioned in every way for exactly the type of person who would do this (high end, willing to assemble, Linux compatibility, customization - it's all exactly that kind of power user target). I mean I'd like it to make sense, it just doesn't.
Same with replacing parts vs customizing them on equivalent "standard" laptops. I've had to replace the keyboard on my laptops due to failure/damage once in the last 10 years, each time it took less than 15 minutes. Would it be nice if it was 3 minutes? Sure, but how much is 12 minutes really worth paying for and what do I lose for it in terms of the sturdiness problems with Framework.
Barring the decision to go with something like the 395 where standard RAM wouldn't make sense for it anyways (which is why Framework didn't make the RAM modular in the desktop version) there is nothing special about Framework that lets you reuse RAM between upgrades giving Framework an advantage. Every other normal x86 laptop I've ever used has had swappable RAM I've taken advantage of without paying $1800 for even the entire laptop, let alone the upgrade board.
There is some subjective preference in it all of course, but it seems that is just for a lot fewer people than it might have seemed. I.e. I don't see average people buying $500 laptops ever going for this and it almost feels like it has already reached its peak interest in the tech crowd too.
This is the first time I've ever even heard of unofficial screen upgrades even being _possible_, and I'm at least two standard deviations from the mean on the "likes to tinker" scale.
I can't even begin to think about how a laptop screen upgrade would go. Who's manufacturing them? How do I get just one? How do I make sure I don't spend a month waiting for shipping and get a fake? How do I make sure the housing is going to fit right? How do I make sure the pin outs match?
... and etc etc. An official upgrade pathway eliminates all of that. Sure, it's not bringing you back to "average person", but Framework have been super clear that's not who they're after. They want people in my bracket. To be honest, as a cohort, we've proven we're willing to (over)pay for this kind of thing, too. It's why the PC Market still exists despite graphics cards being overpriced by about double.
I don't think it's particularly common for techies to upgrade the screen, just that they are the only ones who would because... well, upgrading a screen usually isn't ever needed. The only reason I did is work was offloading some good laptops for low cost but they had sub-1080p screens. I took one with a broken screen for free and when I did the replacement I used a higher end model's replacement part.
I.e. the only different part is finding a laptop of the same screen size and eDP (embedded Display Port) generation to select from. The rest is the same. If you've already got a good screen it's usually not possible though as you're limited by the eDP generation's speed instead of the panel.
Dave2D made the argument that you could buy another laptop for the same price as upgrading the Framework 16. This makes it hard to accept the quality tradeoffs.
I think what’s lost here is when the framework project was launched, all the companies were moving to SoC designs and reliability was unknown.
Replacing a stick of ram is still much cheaper than buying a whole new MacBook, but these systems seem to be reliable enough that ram failures aren’t front of mind. Same for SSDs.
The current benefit for a Framework is that you can swap out the entire inner/guts without being an expert and everything still works together. Most of the laptops I have provide 2 SO-DIMM slots and a slot for either NVME or SATA for storage.
So for me, there is little value in that in most scenarios. There are a few laptop chassis that I am very fond of and have wished I could "use that chassis with that hardware", but even then I haven't seen Framework chassis designs that give me that impression. I'm not saying they're crappy, but I'm thinking of different types of brushed metal, magnesium alloy stuff, etc.
It makes me wonder who their audience is if they are targeting users that will pay a premium for an upgradable system, but are afraid of modifying the guts of the computer.
Replaceable GPU and CPU is the big draw draw for me. Heck, the config nature of the shop also means I can chop off buying ram and memory instead of haggling with the store, since I have quite a few spare sticks lying around.
On my experience, every time I’ve been in the situation of looking for more capacity because the software requirements have gone up, I’m 1-2 generations of DDR behind and it doesn’t really make sense to do the upgrade anyway.
How often are you actually going to do that though? My desktop from 12 years ago has 16GB of RAM and Apple only just upgraded their base specs to 16GB.
Ok granted my new desktops have 128GB, but that's massive overkill so I can have like 12 VSCode's open. For normal people 16GB has been the sensible amount for at least a decade.
I tend to agree. But some people at least want the option. I would also say only in 2025 has that shifted for me as well. I've been perfectly fine with 16gb of ram for at least a decade, but local LLMs have me wanting for more.
I have a FW13, 3 yrs old, battery was getting weak, i just ordered one from FW and popped out the old one and put in a new one. Same for SSD and memory. This alone makes me stay with FW.
Not trying to change your mind but at least when it comes to exchanging the SSD and battery, you can do the same thing with practically all Thinkpads and Dells?
Just did it with my old Dell a couple days ago – I was done in 5 minutes.
Official battery replacements are impossible to find for older Lenovo models. I have a 4 year old X13 Yoga and can’t really get a new official battery for it in my country. So while replacement is easy, finding the parts is not.
Not too long ago, in a galaxy pretty close to here, there were laptops with removable batteries, and switching them required no tools and took all of about 10 seconds.
One of the issues with the 16 is it’s just a way worse value proposition than the 13.
The 13 is great. I’d even go as far as calling it a good deal, cheap even, especially if you DIY and bring your own memory and storage.
The 16 just gets badly outclassed by alternatives.
I think the problem is that once you get into that big laptop territory people start wanting more specific use cases like gaming or other performance metrics. There has to be a reason to want a big bulky laptop.
Plus, bigger laptops more frequently come with better repeatability.
I also find that there’s a lot more PC competition in the 15-16” screen sizes. The framework 13” is actually uniquely small/light. The Framework 16” is somewhat worse packaging than its competitors.
The 16” really needs to have an option for a 5070Ti and 5080.
If I wanted the innards of my laptop to be upgradable, I would want the only part of it that would stay with me for the next decade or two (the chassis) to be damn near perfect.
There's a reason why there are enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads. These things were built like a German executive sedan.
> enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads
This. It baffles me that companies like System76 and Framework refuse to borrow from an existing successful solution like ThinkPad. I remember asking System76 representative over the phone about trackpoint; from time to time I revisit that one thread on Framework forums about trackpoint keyboard... No progress there.
The only explanation I have is that they obviously can't copy, but designing something like an old ThinkPad is intrinsically hard and costs way too much for a small company.
It did annoy me slightly that they released higher quality more rigid upper parts of the chassis ('top cover', behind the screen) shortly after my launch order of the 13.
Sure I can upgrade, for £129, but my first upgrade as a result probably may as well be a whole new laptop: top cover, motherboard+CPU, RAM (necessitated by CPU advances), as well as perhaps screen (higher resolution and matte finish now available).
But I couldn't really expect that for free (I did get free stiffer hinges to resolve a problem) and I do want it to get better...
Upgradable to what? The ability to upgrade is well and good, but suppose the “endgame” configuration of an upgradable laptop was worse than the very base model of a non-upgradable. Why would you care about upgradability then?
Upgrading to a new processor, or in the case of Framework, perhaps better hinges or keyboards or the like is IMO much more important to the long term desirability of a laptop than a 5% better keyboard or trackpad or RGB LEDs on the chassis.
I feel like the term "endgame" has completely lost its meaning - an "endgame" laptop is likely to be wholly irrelevant in at most ten years, especially so if you buy a super high end machine and expect high end machine things from it long term.
Yeah, it’s a dumb term, sorry. Top spec? Whatever it is.
Certainly it’s fair to argue that the top spec will continue to grow year over year, like happens with long lived desktop CPU sockets. Framework is bearing this out! But that spec does have to actually be GOOD!
This is the hard part about what they are trying to do. Is a 12th gen in a Framework better than a 10th gen in an fully integrated laptop? If not, what does being able to upgrade to 12th gen mean?
The IBM PC platform worked so well because every annual component upgrade was an immense step forward. The macs, by contrast, began to dominate when the annual upgrades began to provide less benefit than seamless vertical integration did…
It’s an extreme framing for the sake of thought experiment. More specifically, I believe for “upgradable” to be a meaningful sellable feature you need something like this:
LaptopA costs more than low-spec LaptopB. But LaptopB can be user upgraded post-purchase to be strictly superior to LaptopA (even though this costs a bit more in the end)
Or
LaptopA costs more than LaptopB. But LaptopB can be upgraded and customized to be superior than LaptopA under certain parameters (say, a high quality display) for a lower total price than LaptopA.
> but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability
Back in the day we used to have upgradeable laptops that weren't rattling tin cans with uncomfortable displays. Making something worse than it was 20 years ago for more money isn't a value.
The idea of upgrading a laptop may sound great at first, but I don't think most people really want that.
After 2-3 years, my laptop is pretty beat up from carrying it around in a bag daily. I usually buy premium laptops, but still the hinges get loose, the corners bent, scratches everywhere, ports loose. Usually superficial issues like that make me buy a replacement before I really need upgraded chips.
One can move the word "almost" to make more sense: it's only almost a market even if everyone in it is rabid about those features.
It's not a substantial share of the overall laptop market because, quoting from above…
people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience ... will lament how manufacturers don’t have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop
The flip side is technorati gripe about Apple (lack of) repairability, but their revealed preference then shifts back to this: a claim to want reliability but actions of shoppings for premium performance and fit and finish in slim value-holding form factors. To achieve those, particularly with durable value (and resale value to prove it), there's a way to make things that "repairability" generally makes compromises from.
Research has suggested Apple's approach — laptops with 4x the usable and resalable life span — results in less e-waste per capita than both the disposable and repairable ecosystems.
I am not focused on doing it myself. The most that I care about doing myself is buying a new charging cable if somehow I damage the one the laptop comes with.
And I have this feeling most people are kind of the same page as me.
I guess repair-ability only matters if you expect the laptop to break. And there's no benchmarks for durability. But yeah I agree that upgrade-ability is of dubious value for most people.
Enterprises that buy ThinkPads do care about maintainability and Lenovo does provide parts and detailed instructions to repair almost every aspect of their machines.
Apple continues to be the elephant in the repairability room. You want something that likely won’t need repair ever for its useful lifetime, a current MacBook is worth looking at. Upgradeability, nope.
Yup, Apple user since 2001, desktop and laptop, 20ish years in an office environment used for 8+ hours a day, now 5 years retired. Total faults - zero. Desire to upgrade RAM before rest of machine needed updates (eg storage+CPU+screen) - zero. Dissatisfaction with "Apple model": zero.
But... lately I've felt a hankering to run Linux as a first-class citizen rather than a VM and that's definitely a gap in Mac functionality. I wouldn't sacrifice the five years I enjoy MacOS on my machines for the ability to then move them to Linux, but it would still be nice.
I think the farther allow non-free implementations of technology to go, the harder it will be to bring us back from the brink.
We sacrifice our freedom now, because of convenience and feature sets thinking everything is going to work out in the end. In 25 years I think we are all going to look back on this moment and wish we didn't make the choices we did, myself included.
Having managed fleets of Macs (along with Windows and Linux machines) at last three $worksplace, repair/replace is no more hassle with Apple than Lenovo.
Arguably less, as if you have the right relationship with Apple, you can let your employee walk into any Genius Bar™ for fix, or walk into Apple Store or visit your own smart hands crew (with inventory on hand), for an incredibly straightforward swap.
I'm torn on your take, because on one hand I agree wholeheartedly (I own a Framework 13, and considered the repairability to be a part of the price, and a little added bulk to be a trade off I was comfortable with), but on the other, I think there's just some entirely-reasonable human psychology at work here that expects a €2k laptop to be premium in fit, finish, and polish.
But I do think Framework still has a ways to go when it comes to polish and build quality. I've had my 13 since August 2022, and had a ton of problems with it (thermal issues) that were only resolved nearly two years later, after lots of frustrating back-and-forth with support. I'm very happy with the laptop these days, but it shouldn't have taken that long to get there. I now have the 2023 Intel mainboard (the final resolution to my support case), and I'm looking forward to upgrading it to whatever the 2026 model turns out to be[0].
For me, Framework has been sort of a "stick with it for a while and it will get better" type of experience. And while it's worked out, that shouldn't be how it works. It should work well on day one. And frankly, based on the author's description of the Framework 16, it sounds like the 16 is not even up to the 13's level of polish.
[0] Well, we'll see what DRAM prices look like next year, as I have 64GB of DDR4 in my current laptop, and that same amount of DDR5 is not something I'd want to pay for right now.
High-end ThinkPads were always very repairable (even if not upgradable wrt. motherboard). The P50 I bought 10 years ago came with 4 RAM slots (and ECC capable), 3 disk slots, removable battery and way more ports than a Framework.
It really baffles me how people are willing to put up with the flimsiness of the Framework. Maybe they only move it from the desk to a sofa ? There are enough reports of Framework laptops dying after being carried too many times or being dropped. The lack of structural integrity is killing them, and this is all due to the approach to port flexibility.
> the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn
That value proposition isn't good enough for the machine you have to live with day after day. I think a lot of people get the value proposition, but Framework just isn't a good enough machine. Even if it might be an interesting platform.
And, the world still needs better Linux laptops. The value proposition in that demand apparently isn't resulting in them.
Thank you for this interesting perspective. I’ve moaned a little on HN previously about the relative value of the FW13 - IIRC it was roughly 60% more than an equivalently (or in some areas, better) specced ASUS.
Taking your position —that repairability is a premium feature to pay extra for— the question then becomes how much more is that feature worth? (After all, we’re well used to making value judgements regarding a better screen, more memory, etc.)
I guess what’s missing for me is a more thorough understanding of why the FW13 is so much more expensive than the competition? I can write off some of the difference down to lower production volumes, and some of it down to the direct costs of repairability (i.e. extra items that need to be made that just wouldn’t exist in a non-repairable laptop). But this feels a long way away from explaining the ~60% I think I’m looking for, when many of the major parts of the laptop (e.g. processor, RAM, SSD, screen, hinges, fans) are (or could be?) available ‘off the shelf’ at a similar cost to any other manufacturer?
As someone who has done more than one hardware project: most people generally have got no idea how pricing comes to be.
Usual points involve:
- not understanding that a manufacturer has to charge more than parts cost ("But the parts only cost X, why does the product costs 3 times X?")
- not understanding economies of scale ("Why does your product [selling a hundred pieces] not cost the same as the product by the market leader [selling hundred-thousand pieces]?")
- not understanding that certain things are genuinly complex and thus expensive ("Why does a mere fusion reactor cost X, when I can get a single bicycle dynamo for 5 bucks?")
- comparing apples and oranges ("Why does product A [rugged, incredibly tight tolerances, extended temperature range, waterproof, 10 years warranty, with support] cost 10 times more than product B [broken when you look at it wrong]")
With framework the scale is smaller than the likes of apple, also framework had signifikant R&D cost to make it repairable. And if a repairable laptop is what you want it is one of the only good choices out there.
Your comment is sensible, so long as repair parts aren't duds all the time, and repairs don't cost you the same as a purchase.
For most laptops, including macs, replacing things like batteries and screens is not what makes them irreparable, but it is things like the cpu, discrete gpu, etc.. I applaud framework on what they're doing, but it isn't there yet. If anything on the mothrerboard breaks, you're looking at a hefty repair bill to replace it. If they keep a decent stock of original,tested and quality parts long-term (10+ years) that would be one thing, but if "repair" means upgrading to the latest stuff, then it is just saving you on a replacement.
Ideally, I would purchase replacement components at the time of purchase, so if I have a loose $300 after the initial purchase, I might spend it on a spare ram, cpu, or gpu. Now, with that money, I can only buy cosmetic/casing parts, battery, connectors and such. Again, I appreciate their direction, and if we're spending to support them alone, that's great. But they have been around for a while, and some constructive criticism regarding value might be good.
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
I don't consider that so either, no. I think it should be a standard experience. Not something I have to pay extra for. And really, the bulkiness is something that shouldn't suffer too much from a 2mm memory module.
Is it fair to say that maybe the author doesn't value repairability? Maybe they just want a 'premium' laptop in the way the Apple laptops are premium, but want x86 and Linux/Windows? Surely for as large as a market there is for Apple laptops there is for a non-macOS equivalent.
The author begins by stating that "the absolute nightmare that is opening [the X1 Carbon] up to replace parts or clean them properly" rules it out.
He then eliminates the MacBook because if "something needs replacing I basically have an expensive paperweight, because everything is soldered together".
This would suggest that the author does, in theory at least, value repairability.
By all accounts the Framework 14 hits the balance well, feeling basically like any other premium metal laptop. Maybe based on that reputation alone, the author decided to buy the 16.
But the 16 is meant to be a chonky desktop replacement with a giant GPU enclosure on the back. Just by virtue of what it is, it's never going to feel very nice.
The author's other option to buy being a MacBook tells me they neglected to do their research on what they were buying.
What they really wanted was a Framework 14! It basically IS a MacBook with replaceable components and full repairability.
> but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
The thing is, it doesn’t _really_ excuse many of the issues they had. For a 2000 euro laptop, you should not be cheaping out on, say, speakers. Acceptable laptop speakers are not expensive. And coil whine, while a common problem with expensive laptops, is not IMO acceptable at this price point. Neither of these issues are even vaguely inherent to it being modular.
There are weirdos out there. I am looking for a bulkier and more hackable laptop! I bought a ThinkPad P14s Gen5 AMD which has turned out to be a flimsy, plastic (not magnesium like the Intel units), disappointing piece of shit with frequent (but known) GPU crash issues, which I bought because I had a certain moment when I needed a computer and the Framework 16 was still on last-gen hardware, which felt silly to buy so close to an inevitable upgrade. I wish I had, though. Not much difference between an 8840HS and a 7840HS, but a huge difference between even a fairly upgradable ThinkPad like the P14s and a Framework.
I just bought a car, and the same issue exists there. I can buy an expensive car that is also expensive to service, or a slightly cheaper car that is cheap to service, or a cheap car that is cheap to service.
That middle ground is much nicer than realising after the honeymoon period that it's costing you an arm to replace the control box for the left headlight. But TCO is really difficult to find numbers on, especially when you don't exactly know how you'll use the device as you buy it.
What value proposition exactly ? If you're comparing to similar build quality laptops you're looking at price for two devices vs one with HW upgrades. And you can't even compare it to a premium device.
And worst of all you can only upgrade to what they have available - you can't get a strix halo inside of that thing - this is the only scenario that would make sense for me - enthusiast level hardware support.
Yeah, I felt the same way. The upfront cost is larger, but the idea is that 2-3 years down the line you can upgrade (or simply replace) your GPU or even CPU it won't be another 2000 investment down the line.
But of course, weight is a personal thing with a laptop (my Asus is around 2kg and I never felt like I couldn't carry it one handed) and if core things like the screen or speakers really sucks, that's a deal breaker no matter what.
> "People (not necessarily the author, [...] will lament how manufacturers don’t have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price."
I desire sturdyness and repairability but anything larger than a 14-inch machine (and then only either as detachable or at least convertible) is completely inacceptable to me. And that 14-incher better be a dream. In other words: As small and light as possible, as big and heavy as neccessary.
Sorry I didn't buy framework laptop but did find their prices high. Regarding assigning premium to repairability, wonder what's really premium about that? I mean in terms of materials used. Ignoring premiums paid for branding, I would think it's fair to charge premium if offering such feature comes with higher cost.
It depends on what "premium"/"luxury" mean to you. For some, red leather that has been masterfully tanned and stitched lining the interior of their car is premium. For others, the ability to transport you hundreds of thousands of miles in any terrain and any conditions with equipment failures that are rare and easy to fix is "premium". Being swaddled in high cost materials while stuck on the side of the road in a snowstorm isn't exactly a "premium" experience.
Likewise, for some, there is nothing premium about a product that 1) becomes a paperweight when a single component fails or is no longer sufficient to satisfy the user's changing desires. 2) Hasn't had engineering time and BOM on high-cost materials devoted to making the device easy-to-repair, or has had engineering resources spent making the device hostile to repair.
Framework doesn't just give you permission to repair and modify their product, they have engineered and designed a product that is easy and intuitive to repair and modify, and made out of materials that are designed and selected to endure being touched and manipulated, one great example that probably comes to mind for many FW13 owners that have opened the device is the touchpad cable finger loop in the FW13.
As any technician or DIY enthusiast might tell you, the materials e.g. Apple uses that you interact with during disassembly aren't exactly robustly made, and there is no sign that care or good taste was used when designing the disassembly procedures. But again, it depends on what you want, for some fragility enhances their experience of an object as premium and they have no interesting in upgrading/repairing their own device so the quality of that experience is irrelevant.
I understand and agree with the logic of repairability and user servicability. No arguments there. Point is why should that be premium for non marketing reasons? For instance, is soldered RAM somehow cheaper than RAM slots? Same for SSD, WiFI card, battery, keyboard assembly etc. (all of which used to be perfectly replaceable not too long ago, in most laptops esp high end Elitebooks & Latitudes as well as mass market Acers)
The author seems to be very aware of the benefit of upgradability, but thats not an excuse for the shoddy experience. Some of the issues the author mentions are just absurd. Sharp edges, panels that creak? Come on.
The sharp edges are exclusively an issue with the Framework 16 due to the spacers that allow you to change the alignment of the trackpad. It's definitely been one of my main annoyances with my F16 that I didn't experience with my F13. I've been scratched by them and had my arm hair caught and pulled.
However, Framework has already indicated that they are looking into providing an input module that spans the entire width of the device to eliminate the need for the spacers.
I don't really know what the "creaking screen" is about though. IMO the F16 screen and hinges are a higher build quality than the F13. I had to upgrade my F13 hinges to the 4kg hinges to keep it from bouncing and moving.
> I don't really know what the "creaking screen" is about though. IMO the F16 screen and hinges are a higher build quality than the F13. I had to upgrade my F13 hinges to the 4kg hinges to keep it from bouncing and moving.
I think the comment was referring to the noise of the spacers, unless the author also thought it was in relation to the display. So to clarify, the display makes no noise whatsoever and neither do the hinges. The noise shown in the video is specifically about the trackpad and keyboard spacers.
I had a 12th-gen 13", and I had severe thermal throttling problems that took two years for Framework to resolve to my satisfaction (eventually they gave me a free 13th-gen upgrade that "solved" it).
I think the "I have X and don't see problems the author has" is a generally useless statement. Well, duh, sure, it's pretty rare that everyone will have the same problems. And some people will end up having no problems at all. But that doesn't invalidate the experiences of the people who do have problems.
>Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
I'm convinced that a lot of people have Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to niche products like Framework. The fact that Framework exists at all is amazing, and like you said, it's frustrating to see the lack of understanding of the core value proposition of Framework both in this post and HN.
i think the author is pretty clearly making the point the trade off is not worth it to him. which is not all that suprising given that seems to match the preferences of most people given the popularity of apple hardware which has for a very long time been on the far end of the irreparable, but smaller, quieter, etc, spectrum.
I think you’ve brought a really interesting point up. A lot of these laptops are the way they are because miniaturisation. Framework trades that off. But for some, this tradeoff isn’t in the right spot.
The challenge for framework is to build a modern laptop, that doesn’t have these tradeoffs. Which is an impossible challenge, hence why all of the other manufacturers ditched it. (That and repairability being bad for business)
So, a framework laptop, that’s as light, thin and fast as a mbp, while being a comparable price and being able to pull tabs to swap ram. The better their engineering, the closer they get to this and the more customers they can please.
I own a Framework 13. It is one of the worst machines I've ever owned. I am not misunderstanding the value proposition. For the amount of money I paid I expect a machine that sleeps when I close the lid, does not run out of battery when sleeping in a day and a half, has decent battery life with mixed use (with the upgraded battery), has speakers that aren't actual garbage (with the upgraded speakers), and sells an expansion storage module marketed as capable to run an OS that actually runs an OS without randomly turning off because of power draw issues.
To top that all off, at one point (I don't know if he's still employed) Framework hired a dedicated Linux community person who gaslighted customers with actual issues telling them it was their fault.
If this was any other mainstream PC seller, people would rightfully dump on them all day long. Instead, we are treated to long apologia from people like yourself because of "the vision".
99% of laptop users will notice no difference between 64G of RAM and 16GB of RAM. For example, I am a software engineer with an M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM for work and a personal M4 MacBook Pro with 24GB of RAM. There is no noticeable performance difference for my workloads.
'Premium' means things like build quality, speaker and microphone quality, camera quality, display quality, etc. etc. These are all things that are much more important to most people than raw specs.
You're not calling out the upgrade ability enough.
Most people comparing the price of a Framework seem to miss the long view. After the initial purchase, every upgrade is cheap compared to buying an entire laptop over and over again. Bonus that you can repurpose or sell the old mainboard.
There are better laptops than Framework when compared as one-to-one at a certain point in time, but that's missing the point of Framework's approach.
The point is that a laptop is a tool that you use every day. It needed to be reliable and very usable. Framework is compromising on usability in the service of upgradeability. It seems like you can have refined tool, or a repairable one.
Framework 13 11th gen has been my daily driver for years. It's reliable and very usable. Is it a $4k MBP? No. But compared to the bulk of laptops out there, one might even say it's refined I suppose. It's a sleek 3lb aluminum laptop. Like I said, there nicer laptops out there, but the Framework is a very capable tool.
I'm starting to realise that many of Framework's strongest soldiers have probably never touched a laptop other than a MacBook or similar in decades. The ability to upgrade the motherboard is niche yet genuinely cool, but instead I keep seeing breathless announcements of RAM and SSD upgrades as if no-one has ever heard of those before.
Direct counterpoint: I've been a Dell XPS 13 stan for years (owned 3), and my other laptop today is a System 76. I've run IT for labs at a major university (Georgia Tech), across Windows, RHEL, and MacOS. I've been a desktop Linux user since 2006, both personally and professionally.
Across those, I've repaired plenty of laptops. I mentioned the RAM above because it's recent, and because it's easy. And I don't just mean physically easy - I mean I can find the part with a quick search, and it's just like any other ecommerce thing. That's a big shift from figuring out how to upgrade most laptops, where your top search result is a forum post or pushing you to talk to a tech.
Is 2000 eur even a lot of money? I think that gets you into better than dogshit laptop territory but I'd hesitate to claim that a 2000 eur purchase every >5 years puts you in "luxury" territory.
For a good laptop it wouldn't be too bad, i.e. my X1 Carbon cost me about the same back in 2019 if I remember correctly. But it's ultimately about the price/quality trade-off, and this is where I feel Framework has some work to do, at least with the 16 inch model.
Out of curiosity - which laptop did you buy then? If "one of the open source projects supported by this company has lead who says controversial things on Twitter" is too much, I'm afraid you may have troubles finding one.
And you missed the point. I believed in the "mission" of Framework. That was my primary motivation to buy one. But their stance here is not compatible with that. So I may as well buy a product that has more practical upsides for me. You know, when I actually have to replace my 7840U. Probably not anytime soon.
Honestly I don't think I did. I think I understand you. I would like to buy "perfect" product for me. But I'm small niche. There won't be one.
I don't think we should cancel people that want to do something good over a few mistakes, while Microsoft gets to be openly hostile to users, Google does developer verification bullshit and Apple does blatant corruption right in the oval office. Don't even get me started on Zuck running servers on your personal hardware to get around private mode.
I may or may not agree with DHH views, but all that is just one guy's opinion which really doesn't matter that much, against one of the few companies that did something good with hardware in recent years.
I am not going to be an advocate for any company in that way if they willingly work with people that want to stomp out my rights or even my existence. I did recommend Framework Laptops to my work colleagues, friends and family. I wouldn't be doing that. You are of course correct that other companies are also bad, but Framework positions themselves as an explicit outsider to that system and they provide me with less direct value. It's not solely transactional to support them, it's a political stance. And it is unfit for me to position myself to support them. So I'll just go with the lowest bidder instead.
I would've been fine with it had there been a correction, but Nirav didn't even acknowledge the issue. His posts in the big megathread (for which they purposefully chose to merge into the one with the most incendiary name to make the entire point look bad) only address general sponsorships and Hyprland, a community that, from what I hear, has improved a lot. No word on their biggest sponsor check ever going to RubyCon. No word on Omarchy, a distro Nirav seems to have a personal stakes in (filed bugs, keeps interacting with DHH, keeps glazing them on social media).
My existence (in a literal way, in an access to HRT way, in a not being declaring as "inherently sexual" to be ejected from public life way... pick something) depends on enough people taking a strong stance against fascist rhetoric, and conversely not shrugging it off as "just some opinion". Of course I will prioritize that.
I actually agree with boycotts not being effective. I'm not exactly boycotting Framework - but I will not accept getting less value than I could get elsewhere for the signaling power for repairability anymore. I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now, and Nirav wouldn't even address these concerns head-on (there is a thread; he posted in it; he hasn't mentioned Omarchy, RubyCon or DHH with one word).
It's unfortunate I feel similarly (though less strong) about Louis Rossman/FUTO, because I like it when right to repair has strong advocates.
> I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now
Are you? Or is it just that they are capable of working with people who have different political views to them? DHH is clearly right wing but I don't think it's abhorrent to work with right wing people full stop.
And yeah I've read the supposedly awful things he's written. I don't agree with them but they aren't that bad. I am centre-left for what it's worth (in the UK, which is probably just left in the US). But I also have the ability to understand other people's viewpoints.
I am not fucking around when I say incompatible with my existence. Of course I don't mean getting murdered, but advocating conversion therapy gets pretty close.
See at this point you're boycotting a company for supporting a developer who wrote a favourable book review of someone that has unproven and controversial but absolutely not fringe views about transgender issues that you disagree with.
> I wouldn't be around if this was policy where I live
If what was policy? Higher thresholds for mental health diagnoses?
"favourable book review of someone that has unproven and controversial but absolutely not fringe views" imagine saying this in 1930 and suddenly it doesn't sound as innocent.
Personally. Not extrapolating from whatever toxic waste you consume online.
My bet is that you're not even in California. But even if you are. What hardship has an open definition of sex to include gender identity and expression inflicted upon you. Please, be specific.
My local gym has men in the locker room and it's illegal for the gym to kick them out as these men say they are women. I changed gyms because of this but this only avoids the problem. Many women quietly self-exclude.
> The Framework 16 weights about 2.2 kg according to my kitchen scale. For comparison, my X1 Carbon weights 1.3 kg. That may not seem like a big difference, but the extra kilogram makes carrying around the Framework 16 more difficult. In particular, I don't feel comfortable carrying it with just one hand while this isn't a problem with the X1.
The author wanted a bigger laptop but the straight goes and compares it to x1 carbon.
Modular ports
> Like the keyboard area the design is a bit janky though, with visible lines/space between the adapters and the case, though this at least is something you won't notice unless you're explicitly looking for it.
Not sure how you can make things like this not to have any lines for what its worth. So not sure what author is going for.
The author doesnt know what he wants and doesn't know what framework provides.
Yeah I never get this complaint about 16" laptops. Hell, I don't really get 16" laptops at all: they're huge! You're making a very strange trade off: they're only barely portable, and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop.
Maybe for a very small person or someone who strictly travels light? But I’ve never had any problem with 15” or 16” laptops even while traveling internationally.
> and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop
This isn’t really true any more unless your desktop is a gaming monster or full of multiple drives or something. I can have a 128GB RAM laptop with ultra fast CPU on the go now and it’s not a problem.
You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
Laptops are thermally inefficient and require throttling even with active cooling, meaning mobile chipsets are programmed to emit less heat over time. You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
Then there's the fact that mobile chips are TDP capped at much lower rates than desktops, both to save power and to limit heat.
Theoretically, your mobile chipset has a better $/Wh rate, but you leave some performance on the table compared to desktops.
> You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
So? I can’t carry a full desktop or even Mini ITX build around just in case I need to run a very long sustained load at absolute peak performance.
My 16” MacBook Pro has no problem consuming 80W or more at a time. The fans spin up, but it’s fine. It’s basically near desktop level performance for everything I’m actually doing on the go.
I think people talking about the sacrifices of laptops are either comparing to extreme high end builds or they’re stuck thinking about laptops from 6 years ago.
A 16” MacBook Pro is basically a high end Mac Mini or a base Mac Studio with a battery and screen built in. They only really start to diverge from the bigger machines when you get into the really expensive Mac Studio builds.
> You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
If you’re looking for sustained high performance computing then a laptop is a bad choice, I agree. But what are we even talking about here? Even for compiling large codebases or exporting a YouTube length video project, you don’t need the full thermal solution of a desktop anymore.
Throttling also isn’t a hard stop where the system comes to a halt any more. It just means the system is 60-80% as fast as it could be, which is still very fast. Throttling has become a bogeyman but really, it’s fine. I’ll take the boost for compiling that big project for several minutes. It’s great.
I’m guessing some of these comments are coming from people who haven’t experienced modern MacBook Pro level laptops?
My vision gets worse as I age. A larger screen lets me continue working with the same amount of code, etc. as when I was younger with a smaller screen.
Agree with you. I am always interested in threads about how to make the best of this. I recently read a blog post by someone who tried a mini pc and battery pack and vr headset as a portable workstation. Short answer was the vr display still isn't there yet.
I don't understand what people mean when they say "barely portable" about a device that weighs less than 10 pounds. You can't use a big laptop one handed in midair, but that's not "portability". And it can't be a weight hauling problem when small children can handle that much. What is the issue?
There's a difference between carrying ten pounds small distances for short durations, and carrying an extra two pounds over twenty hours of travel, across multiple connecting international flights in a single day. It's also not just an extra two pounds, it's an additional proprietary power cord, bulk, more mass moving in and out under an airliner seat, it all adds up. Especially when you're sleep deprived and physically exhausted.
Any amount of weight is annoying after that long, but if the extra laptop weight is reduced to 10% of your 25 pound bag then it's even less able to be the deciding factor between "portable" and "barely portable".
The majority of 16"+ machines are being made specifically as portable desktops. The target audience is college kids. If you live in a dorm that you have to move in and out of yearly, it is leagues easier to travel with a bulky laptop than even a small form factor desktop machine, because of all the peripherals needed to run it.
I have a 17" XPS and it's great as a computer for that floor of the house. Ie: for sitting at the kitchen table or the couch. I have a 13" for portability which is great because it's so small and light.
MacBook pros these days are really heavy. Having a MBP and an Air is actually a fair inventory but the MBP is just so expensive.
I do like the desktop form factor of keyboard and monitor but the 17"er is nice to use while I'm up making coffee in the morning or while sitting on the couch at night
So basically this article is 50/50 insightful and helpful feedback from a Framework customer, mixed with gripes by someone who bought the wrong laptop for them. Part of the reason this is getting a sour response is that most laptop companies don't even offer the choice of a larger, more expandable model. Framework does, and you bought it despite not actually wanting that, then dinged it for the compromises inherent in the design you chose. It seems like the 13.5" Framework was the obvious fit for your needs?
To use a silly food analogy, imagine there's a popular salsa company. The customer base has been clamoring for them to release an extra-hot salsa that also has corn in it, though that's a polarizing combination. A purchaser gives it a bad review because, in addition to some very legitimate critiques of the spice flavors, it's too hot and corn doesn't belong in salsa. People who wanted the extra-hot salsa with corn have a point when they say that person should have reviewed the medium salsa without corn.
All of the complaints you had are extremely reasonable reasons to not want the Framework 16 (or any Framework). While I personally am quite happy with mine, I very much believe that it is not for everyone, and in fact has quite a niche audience. That being said, most of your complaints should have been obvious from viewing images or reading any of the numerous reviews. So yes, I agree with the GP comment that you seem to have bought the computer without knowing what you wanted and/or what the Framework offered/was.
Being more expensive, heavier, and worse "fit and finish" is pretty much the tradeoff for upgradeability and repairability. Not everyone values those things to the same degree, and deciding that those tradeoffs are not worth it is completely reasonable. I just don't understand how you could get wind up buying one without knowing those were the tradeoffs you were making. I've read almost every one of these complaints in previous reviews. It's not exactly a secret.
> Not sure how you can make things like this not to have any lines for what its worth. So not sure what author is going for.
Machine them with wire EDM, like these executive desktop toys? Yes, I know the seamless effect is achieved by polishing the two parts together afterwards, but you can still achieve a practically gapless fit.
One bump in your laptop and you are shit out of luck then though. Removable parts imply that there needs to be extremely slight wiggle room (not to the level rightly criticized by the blog post author, but it cannot completely go away).
I don't recommended getting a Framework to anyone who isn't interested specifically in repairability, as it has its quirks and doesn't feel like something which should cost this much. I've broken something in every laptop I've ever owned (+the butterfly keyboard in a company 2019 MBP), so to me it's an important feature.
That being said my previous device - a "gaming" laptop - was essentially e-waste two years after purchase because firmware updates stopped despite there being unresolved issues and the official parts store didn't even have basic items like fans, which I had to get from AliExpress instead. Eventually it was the cheapo Intel SSD which did it in, as it slowed to a crawl from being 80% full for too long.
I think there's a problem with my 1yo FW16's keyboard as during intense gaming the "D" key temporarily just stops responding, but if it ever fails completely I can order a new keyboard and once it arrives replace it literally within a minute.
Other parts take longer, but the general idea is that any sort of malfunction is manageable.
> This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't sitting in the bottom right corner of your eye when you look at the display.
This is about the power LED and it makes me wonder how dark is the author's environment? Is that healthy?
I’m even very content with Windows in desktop using komorebi tiling manager. And macos compared to windows is still far ahead regardless of recent constant shittification.
The thing about Macbooks is people tend to compare them with all of the regular laptops, of which 95% are in entirely another market segment. Even worse, some regular laptops can vary from "cheap shit" to "good machine" under one name, depending on the options selection (looking at you Lenovo). Hats off to Apple, having very narrow selection of models with very limited customization options helps them greatly.
There are models from Dell, Lenovo, and ASUS which have better screens than Macs, better design and build quality (subjectively), on-par performance and just slightly worse battery life. It just takes time and effort to find them.
(also, am I the only one who finds Apple trackpads _uncomfortable_ to touch?)
Take screens for example. Sure OLED is nice (if it won’t burn in or have terrible PWM on low brightness), but most of them in past years couldn’t afford custom resolution with great DPI: 220-250.
No, those fuckers will install you either full hd or 4k resolution which is only good for movies.
In every other case you’ll need to use fractional scaling that will make your UI, fonts, what have you look like blurry shit.
—
The list goes on for battery life (google how many milliwatts apple consume during sleep), performance (full regardless whether they are plugged-in), etc.
Mind you, I would love to see apple-quality hardware with linux on it.
> repairability in a sense you’ll always find parts (albeit not cheap) and someone to service it
I'm sorry but that is just false. Various organisations assessing repairability consistently give MacBooks poor scores for having soldered components, glue everywhere and complicated assembly.
Meanwhile I have one screwdriver for my Framework, which came with the laptop and I can use it to replace any part, including those which are soldered on the MacBook.
That’s why I specifically told what I meant: it is not about being able to swap SSD, but that for at least 5-7 years you will be able to repair it (expensively).
Moreover in basically every corner of the earth there will be either authorised service or local one that will help you if soak your laptop in thailand or what have you.
And that’s only a subset of the engineering failures with MacBooks. You even bring it up in your post: the only reason they have “dead silence” is because Apple is literally baking your laptop and leaving you to pay the bill.
I’ll give Apple that their custom chips are pretty great for power and efficiency, but their actual product design is bad. I mean, who designs a laptop with the fan pointing the wrong way?[0] Or a power bus alongside a data bus?[1] These are literally basic errors that go into production for a company that is far too big for this to be happening.
They’re not. The MacBook Air can easily thermal throttle under any sustained load because they went with a fanless design. It may work for casual usage, but it also negates at least half of your claims.
Screen cracking was ~4 years ago for M1 laptops, which also included Apple making screen repairs far more difficult, exacerbating the problems they’re currently being sued over.
They did separate NAND from the rest of the board in recent models, but NAND on the board was only a problem because A) bad engineering & B) greed. Thay’s not even getting into MacOS overwriting to NAND and wearing it out.
“Engineering is hard” is not an excuse for a company that’s worth $4 trillion. With flexgate they cheaped out on shorter flex cables. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of flex cables knows that’s a recipe for disaster. And while Flexgate itself is an older case, it’s a clear example of their profits-at-all-costs approach.
For that ~$900 M1 Macbook Air, you’d get:
- an old laptop, nearing its end-of-life, with:
- a fragile, expensive-to-repair screen, plus:
- thermal throttling on any decent load
All for $1,000, which by the way is not “low-cost”. That same $1,000 can buy you far better machines. Genuinely, it doesn’t fit any realistic use case. Casual users? A Chromebook or cheaper Windows laptop suffices. Productivity? It can’t sustain loads, so heavy workloads are out of the picture (and can be handled more effectively by newer hardware). Its only clear benefit is the battery life, but that’s not enough to spend $900 on a 5yo laptop with known issues.
M1 macbooks are known to have fragile screens, there are multiple class action lawsuits over it. Just because you, anecdotally, have not had issues does not mean they don’t exist.
And the average Joe is far better off with a newer laptop with the same performance for 1/3rd the price. The M1 Air will be out of updates in 2 years, requiring whoever’s listening to your advice to either suffer with an insecure laptop or to spend another grand or more on a new laptop.
Apple has no unique benefits for the average person, and in fact a Chromebook fulfills the average user’s needs perfectly fine.
> Consider the number of m1 laptops manufactured and then the number of claims.
Consider the fact that most consumers wouldn‘t file a claim even if they were eligible—the FTC finds that only about 5-10% of affected consumers actually participate in class actions. And considering there‘s multiple class actions over different models of the laptops, that signifies a decent chunk of users.
> Regarding, the “fragile screens” — find me one that ended at least with a settlement and not dismissed.
As a long time Linux user I only recently tried my first framework (12), and shortly after got the 13 too because I realized that this is the laptop for me.
I wish I had realized it earlier.
But it's so refreshing as a linux user to use a laptop actually designed for linux, and have everything work so great out of box like battery and wifi.
Sure I've always used Laptops famously Linux-friendly, but it was still hit or miss, especially with new releases, and you always felt like you were breaking warranty somehow.
The entire experience buying a Framework, and using it, has been amazing. I'm hooked.
I've been using ThinkPads with Linux since the T410, T420, T430, T480s, and several others. For me, they've consistently delivered an "everything works out of the box" experience with Ubuntu and/or Fedora, including things like SmartCard readers. I'm currently on a Lenovo X13 Gen 6 (AMD), and the only component that required any tinkering was the 5G WWAN due to FCC unlock issues (see: https://github.com/lenovo/lenovo-wwan-unlock/issues/68
).
One thing many people don't realize is that some Lenovo models can be ordered with Fedora pre-installed. That's a pretty strong signal for Linux compatibility.
I've been watching Framework for years, and among my Linux-using colleagues we have ThinkPads, Frameworks, and Tuxedo machines, so comparisons are easy. I really want to like Framework, but recurring firmware issues, noise (!!), and the lack of built-in 4G/5G antennas have pushed me toward Lenovo every time. That said, I do like the modular idea. I even use a small USB-C adapter permanently to protect the port from wear, almost all docking/monitor issues I've seen over the years came down to worn cables or ports. In that sense, Framework's modules are genuinely appealing.
Yes, that does sound good, but if someone wants an inexpensive laptop that is also “actually designed for Linux”, they should keep in mind Chromebooks. I don’t think of these as competitors to the framework, but as a lower end alternative that is usually overlooked.
kinda similar experience with my thinkpad t14s gen 2 amd (what a name.) I like framework's philosophy, but there's so many refurbished business laptops out there (many unused) that I like upgrading every few years to a 3-4 yr old laptop.
Getting a laptop that's linux certified has been better than I thought, things like sleep and power management "Just Work" whereas on other laptops I'd spend more time configuring TLP or even just hibernating every time because I couldn't get a good sleep experience. Hope this inspires the other manufacturers to work on getting this working out of the box.
I have two Framework 13 DIY, top of the line (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 96 GB of RAM, 2TB WD BLACK SN850X). Well, TBH just one, the other one was stolen with less than one month, but that's a different story.
Can't be happier with this choice.
First of all, now I feel confident I can easily tinker with my laptop, open it and replace any components. No, I'm not repeating their Marketing, I'm truly confident now. Some months ago my previous Lenovo X1 Carbon stopped charging and I was scared as hell. Sure, I have everything in version control and cloud drives blah blah blah but if it doesn't charge, it's dead. Sure, I can extract the NVMe (is it easy at all?) and rsync the data (for a faster recovery) but is that easy, feasible, can I do it on the go (X1 stopped charging while I was on a trip).
The Framework 13 DIY I built it in less than 10 minutes. I can easily disassemble again in a heartbeat. This is priceless.
Other than this, build quality is higher than expected, and several other people said exactly the same when I showed my unit. Powerful? Most than any desktop out there. Perfectly portable. Works well OOB with Linux. What else do I need? Nothing, it's my laptop and will be the next one.
(Actually the next one may be cheaper, as I may only need to replace the motherboard, we will see)
Writing this on a first-gen 13 DIY, so it's already a bit dated. I've already added additional RAM and swapped in a much bigger SSD (really underestimated how much space you need if you heavily use docker and VMs).
The 1st year was a bit bumpy with 4k monitors over a USB-C hub being somewhat flaky. Ever since a clean Ubuntu reinstall, I'm very happy, no complaints whatsoever.
Sure, it costs more, but the combo of perfectly running Linux, giving me the piece of mind of repairability and easy upgrades for me justifies a higher price.
On the other hand, I'm not willing to pay the kind of premium you have with Apple products, where for incremental steps in more RAM or SSD you pay a multiple of the off-the-shelf price of the added space.
"Most components" seems a bit of an understatement when compared with the Framework.
Sure, some components can be replaced. And not at the same cost (opening and manipulating the Framework vs the ThinkPad). But not all, like the motherboard.
I may have built multiple dozens of computers in my life, so it's not that I'm new to this world.
I've been a very happy FW16 user, so much so that I got my partner an FW13 to replace her very old and very bulky gaming laptop. Similar specs to yours + AMD dGPU module. Recently cleaned the innards and upgraded my mainboard to the HX 370 in ~20min with zero issues. Compared to what I've been reading on various forums/threads, my experience as a whole has been virtually free of problems! FW + NixOS is a potent combo that squarely satisfies the kind of configurability/overall experience I need/want in the tech I use. (And perhaps more importantly, it handily assuages my paranoid mind.)
TBH I haven't deeply tested it yet. Laptop is a few days old and I'm still "automating the install" (Ubuntu autoinstall + Ansible tasks for post-installation including BIOS upgrade and install Nix + Nix and home manager to install everything else; post(s) upcoming), so I haven't done "production use" yet.
Anyway, and while I love long battery life, it's not my main concern. Most of the time I have a power socket available and/or a nice portable battery pack that does the job. Laptop feels so much faster than my X1 Carbon that everything else seems to be a distant second feature.
P.S. Hi, Yorick, again, not the first time we cross paths ;)
> One option is the Framework 13 given that it solves at least some issues I have with the Framework 16 (e.g. it's bulkiness and inability to lower the brightness further), but it also seems to share many of the other issues such as poor speaker quality and (at least from hat I could find) worse heat regulation, and a (possibly) worse battery.
The speakers are bad, but as a 13 owner I don't see or understand the heat or battery complaints specifically vs. the 16, it's considerably better on both fronts in the current iterations of the 13.
Unless you're comparing them to a Mac running macOS? It isn't clear, but in which case yeah, obviously it's worse than a Mac.
What I don't understand is why you bought the 16 instead of the 13. You didn't seem to need or use the discrete GPU, which is arguably the entire reason it exists. The only other feature you mention as useful that the 13 doesn't have is QMK support.
Yeah, and as others have noted here in the comments, it doesn't make sense.
You don't want bulk, but you chose the bulkiest option. You want a display with more even brightness and colors, but you chose the model intentionally built around a more refresh-performant but uneven display. You either don't care about or didn't bother measuring GPU performance, but you chose the model designed entirely around novel GPU features.
You cite unsourced reports of 13s having anti-properties, but it reads like you didn't research either newer 13s or the 16 at all.
I dual boot Asahi and Mac OS X on my Macbook Air, and haven't had any problems with suspend. IMO the two biggest problems are lack of USB-C display output (although this is less of a problem with the Macbook Pro since you can use HDMI) and having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop).
It seems like he's looking for a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't many options there. I'm not sure why he even considered the Framework, it's pretty obvious from looking at it that the downside for the configurability is the laptop not being as solidly built as less configurable/repairable alternatives. I would have suggested a Dell XPS if he's ruled out the X1 Carbon, but it looks like Dell still hasn't backtracked from their decision to ruin the XPS keyboard by replacing the function keys with an even less functional ripoff of the Apple touchbar from 10 years ago. I guess the best move is to suck it up and go with the X1 Carbon and deal with the screen resolution for the IPS version being 1200p.
It makes me wonder, does Apple have some insane patent on unibody construction? The pre-Retina unibody MacBook Pros were easily upgradable and very solid. They had a ton of room in the chassis, and hell, the first year of them the battery was toollessly removable. Aside from the keyboard and the screen, it was all latches and a few common Phillips #00's.
Why have no manufacturers copied this obviously great construction technique? It's not like a Framework is wildly cheaper than a MacBook, we're already paying a premium, so the costs of subtractive CNC can't be it.
I am not an expert, but it seems to be an engineering achievement, given that no one else does it. I doubt milling methods are patent protected, but rather Apple can use its volume and vertical integration to drive costs down and spend more on the chassis than other laptop designers.
Apple is #4 in laptop sales. Lenovo, Dell and HP each have at least as much volume. Apple also has higher margins than those companies, implying that any cost savings they make on other components aren't making it into the price anyway.
It's probably just that it costs a little more to do it and most customers wouldn't pay a premium to have it.
>Apple is #4 in laptop sales. Lenovo, Dell and HP each have at least as much volume.
True but they divide their sales among several models. Gaming models, 2-in-1s, 13" to 17" and so on. Apple not only has fewer models they often keep the same case design between generations which also benefits economies of scale.
Just curious in case somebody knows. Are OLED displays in laptops bad at low light? He cites that as a reason he doesn’t want OLED, but I’ve never noticed such a problem on OLED phones.
I'd say the inverse is true: OLEDs are the best in low light, as they generally dim well and black means zero illumination of the pixel. Author is ill-informed. Also, OLED burn-in is a non-issue with current displays in any normal situation (e.g. not a kiosk or arcade or other sort of always-on static dashboard).
No, those are generally not always-on in normal use. People let screens shut off, open up fullscreen apps, etc. Most OLED firmwares also have subtle pixel shifting and pixel refresh on shutdown routines, as well as very conservative brightness settings. OLEDs in normal use are actually less susceptible to color shift deterioration than LCDs in normal use.
I'm using an OLED X1 Carbon right now in the UK. I use it all the time in low light.
I just turned all the lights off (even the Christmas tree) and ran through a handful of usage situations and couldn't see any issues. I turned some lights on and did the same, I couldn't see any issues. I asked Claude, and got told to do the finger test, and that is barely perceptible. I then used my phone to record the screen and yes - I can confirm that there is an effect that my pixel 9a's camera picks up, barely noticeable at 240Hz, and definitely noticeable at 480Hz.
Maybe the guy is particularly sensitive, but from the framing of the rest of the article I think he's blowing a few things out of proportion.
I probably should've done a better job at clarifying this, but my issue with OLEDs isn't just that (at least historically) they tend to be too bright even at lower brightness, but also the other issues they come with such as burn-in and text potentially looking less pleasant compared to IPSs displays. Burn-in is probably my biggest concern here, especially since it really seems to be a case of winning the lottery or not (i.e. for some it's fine for years, others get burn-in after just a few months).
Basically I just trust IPS more than any other technology :)
Burn-out probably depends on the model, not a lottery, but shouldn't be a major concern for typical usage patterns in recent models. The text issue is caused by a pentile subpixel layout which are no longer common. I love OLED for low-light evening usage because IPS displays always have some backlight bleed, whereas OLEDs can display true blacks/pure warm tones which I find much more pleasant in the evenings. IMO power consumption is the only major downside of OLED displays for general-purpose laptops and phones.
I've only recently bought OLED laptops so I can't speak to burn-in but out of the three I've tested, they have a lower minimum brightness than my other IPS laptops.
In terms of text clarity, "2k" OLEDs (1920x1200) are a bit blurry. IPSs and 3k OLEDs are noticeably sharper, with not much difference between each other.
A lot of computers with OLED displays use PWM for the low brightness levels, and he seems like the type of person who would be sensitive to that sort of thing.
PWM is the only useful way to drive an LED and the people who deny this are, to me, hilarious. In fact for the author's stated use case of low light conditions PWM really is the only way to do it without wrecking accuracy (and efficiency).
My no PWM laptops look fine to me for watching movies. Sure, less efficient. But if I can't look at it for more than 30 seconds without my eyes burning then what's the point?
As far as I'm aware, all of the Snapdragon ARM laptops are existing chassis designs with different motherboards. I'm not sure how ARM affects build quality. Moreover, Snapdragon X support on Linux is still heavily a work in progress with issues with sound, power management, webcam support, and video acceleration. I don't know why anyone would go with a Snapdragon laptop today when Intel Lunar Lake excels at the exact same workloads Snapdragon X does, has similar battery life, and Intel actually works on getting device support upstreamed in a timely manner.
Most server and embedded oriented software has been compiled for ARM 7 & 8 for a while now, but in my experience, software you'd use on a desktop might not have ARM builds unless it's popular with RPi or handheld gaming enthusiasts.
But what do you mean by having builds? You should hardly ever need to download a pre built software from the Internet, outside of the repositories, unless it's proprietary software?
Author doesn't cite how they decided that only MacBook or Framework would fit their needs. I've never had trouble with Dell laptops with any Linux distro I cared about. If I wanted a powerful Linux laptop, I'd probably look at something like Dell's premium model:
I bought a few refurbished Dell laptops/desktops in recent years, and while older models hold fine, more recent models broke down quite easily within a year. Sure all of them are refurbished models (purchased through official website) that cost from $400 CAD to $800 CAD but I'm sketchy of the build quality of recent models.
What model did you buy? Was it a new one? I'm looking for anything that can live up to 5+ years. I have seen all kinds of issues, and the most frustrating thing is, most of the issues are small but deal-breaking.
My first laptop back in 2005ish or so was a Dell Latitude. Ran XP until Vista came out and I switch to Linux which it ran for a couple years until it was stolen from my car. I recall unimaginable pain and suffering due to wifi, which, IIRC, I side-stepped by buying replacing the stock Broadcom card with an Atheros card and I'm certain is not nearly much of an issue as it used to be.
I've had two Dell XPS laptops (a 13" 2015 model and a 15" 2-in-1 2018 model). Both had significant touchpad issues: not sure if that's a driver thing or a hardware thing, but both would sometimes act as if there was a phantom touch somewhere on the trackpad which messed with my actual input. One of them had a keyboard where key caps of frequently used keys (super, shift, ctrl) would split in two after a ~year of use; this was not fixed under warranty, I paid out of pocket after a year of ownership, another year later it happened again.
After those two Dell XPS laptops, I got a MacBook Pro 2021 with an M1 Pro instead of getting the keyboard fixed again. No issues. Linux support isn't great, but at least macOS is a relatively competent UNIX so it's fine.
I might consider another non-Mac laptop in the future. But it's not gonna be a Dell.
Mostly Arch Linux at the time, though I've had Elementary OS on it as well. I used to run i3 (and eventually Sway) on it, which worked well since I could have a keyboard-centric workflow and not rely o bc the trackpad.
Interestingly, the touch screen of the 2-in-1 worked really well! I often relied on the touch screen to do light web browsing when the trackpad was acting up.
I did briefly look into the XPS series but it seems this series isn't really a thing anymore? I also found a lot of comments describing recurring issues with the trackpad (or was it the keyboard? I can't remember). Basically it seemed like too much of a gamble.
I'm not a massive fan of the hardware or anything, but most Dell laptops (including this premium one I linked) are tested to work with Ubuntu. If you're ok to use an Ubuntu-derivative as your distro, you should almost always have that as an option. Much like the Framework, it should be easily returnable if you have an issue.
If your company demands/keeps buying the shittiest, cheapest plastic Dell laptops instead of XPSes or higher end Latitudes/Precisions, that's not Dell's fault.
My company uses XPSes and Precisions. They work great.
"My current laptop is an aging X1 Carbon generation 7... A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working. I decided it was time to look for a replacement."
Isn't that like deciding to replace your bike because some of the cables are rusted? Like a new set of cables, a new keyboard is a small expense compared to a whole new laptop.
Like replacing bike cables, swapping in a new Carbon X7 keyboard might be slightly challenging for an amateur. iFixit calls the keyboard replacement "moderate" in difficulty [1] taking about an hour with a new keyboard running about a hundred bucks. But it would be a simple job for a repair shop. So it seems hard to justify the expense of a whole new one rather than just the new part.
Of course, sometimes you just want a new laptop, because the bike analogy breaks down a little: unlike bikes, newer ones are inherently faster.
Generation 7. I realize you acknowledged the hardware age, but it's really the difference in my own workflows and experience.
I'm still on a Gen 8 i7 (with 40 GB RAM, to boot) T480s. I take pretty good care of my machine, so it's still in superb physical shape.
But, given today's massive webapps and video calls while having my workspace programs open, I'm in Hell. A failing keyboard would probably push me to repurpose the current machine and upgrade as well (and still replace the keyboard for kicks).
If I wasn't strapped for cash, I would have bought an AMD Framework eons ago.
Your analogy won’t hold scrutiny with a competitive cyclist: newer bikes are also faster given the same rider, even if not as meaningfully as a new CPU.
And modern bikes do make with the need for cable replacement or breakage (hydro lines and electric shifting, while more expensive to service, also require much less of it).
Life tip: Noone appreciates and there's no utility in nitpicking analogies. They're never the actual point of the message and it's incredibly rude and socially inept to lock onto a side quest like that.
idk, the OP is all about the author misunderstanding what they bought. Hence a comment about bikes not understanding bikes deserves just as much scrutiny.
My own life tip: there are plenty of good analogies, so no need to choose use an example you are not familiar with.
With this comment you completely validate izacus (shaky) judgement call: when you write "a comment about bikes not understanding bikes" you are clearly more interested in being rude than pointing out a flaw in the analogy.
We all see that OP does understand bikes in the general sense, indeed the fact you are nitpicking instead of trying to explain one of the many fundamental difference means you think that as well.
To me, it suggests that analogies aren't as useful as we'd like them to be. Either the analogy is perfect, in which case nothing is any simpler, or it's imperfect, in which case you're now distracted by the differences.
They're not totally without value but I find that it's generally better to avoid a analogies. Look for some other route to make the point.
Analogies are a simplification. The problem is not that they can’t capture the whole thing in detail. But that they just don’t stand up to any adversity (because that isn’t what they are for). They are only good for explaining things, not for arguing.
They rely on the recipient going along with the analogy and trying to make it work, not trying to find problems with it. If someone understands the concept well enough to needle the analogy, they probably have a better understanding than the analogy can provide anyway, so it is fine to give it up.
In this case it is neither used for arguing, nor for explanation really, I think, but as a bit of rhetorical flair. The analogy is to an obviously stupid thing to do, throw away your bike because of some easy to fix cabling issue.
People really should stop pretending that you're getting a Macbook out of a Framework. You're not. You're getting a PC laptop with all the advantages of a self-build PC desktop.
When you compare apples to apples (lol) - PCs to PCs - the current gen higher end Framework 13 and 16 are beasts. They contain the fastest mobile AMD chips on the market today, the Ryzen AI HX 370 aka "Strix Point". The only thing faster than that is the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 aka "Strix Halo", which would probably have some issues in a laptop with this size if you want to make full use of it because of thermals. Just look at the kind of cooler which sits on the mainboard of Framework Desktop (which does contain the AI Max+ 395) to get an idea what I am talking about.
You can choose between no discrete GPU, AMD RX7700S or NVIDIA 5070M; or just purchase them all and swap them around if you want to. (and who knows what dGPU will be for sale in the (near) future... and all it takes for them is to make that thing fit into the Expansion Shell)
Due to the included AMD mainboard you get USB4 instead of Thunderbolt 4, which means little to no protocol overhead when you hook up a EGPU and can run a docked 5070Ti or 9070XT at ~100fps @ 1440p.
You get up to six (on the 16) expansion bays which enable you to swap external ports to any configuration you like. They even have created 2 external SSDs you can slot in on these ports and blend in with the laptop (which come in sizes of 256G and 1T), and released everything required to allow people in the community to create their own ports as open source.
And I could rave on and on...
But again: Is it a Apple quality laptop? No. Is it a beast of a PC laptop? Yes.
PS: If you think Lenovo is the Apple of the PC world due to the fact that they could purchase some branding and design from IBM back in the day you are in for a very nasty surprise. I have all the hands on experience with a so called "premium" Thinkpad worth a pretty cool 3500 EUR back then to write this.
The Framework Laptop 16 has worse performance than other laptops that have the same chips, due to thermal and power constraints. Upgrading to the fastest option Framework sells might not have much value when the power budget for it is so low.
I've had a Framework 13 for nearly a year, been very happy with it, I've taken it on international work trips but it mostly sits on my desk with external displays attached. I ran Windows on it until I switched jobs, now its Ubuntu.
I also have an X1 Nano, which I love too, its the around-the-house laptop and a great little machine but whenever it dies, if I replace it at all, it will likely be with another Framework (perhaps the 12")
The real test will be in 2-3 years when I'm itching for an upgrade, assuming Framework is still around, I'll be able to swap out the MoBo and leave everything else as-is. We'll see.
Same. I'm very happy with my FW13 too. It replaces the MBA for my purposes -- dev on linux (mostly webdev on this machine, have a remote machine for gpu/heavy work), web browsing, streaming, some very light gaming (portal 2 on steam).
I'm waiting on that test too :) a few more cpu generations and I'll be itching to upgrade. I'm excited to for that to happen.
Why would an OLED display not make sense in a low light livingroom situation? I really don’t understand it, what is the issue in this specific scenario?
My brother has a 16, and it’s been good for him. It is big and chunky, more so with the GPU module; only a few paragraphs into the blog post I felt the author was trying to fit a big square peg in a round hole, and then blaming the square peg for being big and square.
That is to say, it’s a big, heavy, expensive laptop. My brother works shifts in a remote location and from what I can tell, the 16 is great for that: you wouldn’t bring a desktop, but once the laptop comes out of the bag, it’s going to stay set up on the desk for the duration of the hitch. He tried leaving the GPU module at home, and found the AMD APU quite capable (he plays Tarkov and BF6, among others).
I support Framework’s vision and ethos and am willing to pay a premium for them. My sister uses my 11th gen Intel FW13 for school and is happy with it (only she wishes it was better for gaming), and the AMD 13 I bought was a massive upgrade in gaming capability and speed – I’m able to play Arc Raiders with my brother, one of the few online shooters who’s anti-cheat works on Linux.
Another big plus is that FWs play very well with Linux. The Wayland window manager Niri is amazing – so smooth and fast, now with alt-tab in the latest release. And I see there’s Dank Material Shell (1), which bundles things like a bar, launcher, and control center that one normally has to assemble piece by piece in WMs like Niri and Sway (which I used before).
I ordered a framework desktop and got it "by accident" - in that I forgot that I had put down a deposit on a fully maxed out Ai MAX395+. After a few days of using it, I decided to keep it, and given how incredibly expensive 8tb NVMe drives and DDR5-8000 has beocme since then (even if you could get DDR-8000 on desktop form factor) - I don't regret that decision at all. It's a great little box - and AI is getting closer to colser to being a good experience.
That said, I have run into a set of frustrations with it:
1) The PCIEx is completely useless on the board. Forget about room for the slot - it's not exposed, there isn't enough exposure inside of the case. This is a real miss - It seems perfect for a occulink port or another USB4 port.
2) USB4 + PCIe tunneling was a mess. Seems to be working better now.
3) There are some real thermal envelopes that are resulting in similar systems with the exact same architecture running 10% faster then this box. That's a big bummer - apparently it's tunable in their bios, but framework really limits the bios settings.
4) Randomly right now, the latest kernel on Ubuntu seems to freeze on boot. No idea why - I can move to the older .5 kernel, and it;s working.
All that said, for what it offers - Framework offers a lot. I really honestly believe that either Mac or Framework is the way to go if you need significant compute power on the desktop.
I feel ya on the PCIe slot. And the on-board NICs are sub-par Realtek garbage, unacceptable both on features and quality. However, you can fit a small SFP+ card inside if you (a) cut out a correctly shaped hole in your case, and (b) turn the fan on at 40% instead of letting it turn off. The card will sit at a small angle but work fine, and with some 3D printing I even got a mounting bracket in to keep it stable. A lower profile connector, like USB 4, might fit outright.
Yeah, I was thinking of running a Occulink connector to the side of the case, the problem is that this would need a riser, and I don't think that occulink - even with a redriver, would do well with two additional physical connectors.
On the 5GB realtek - i think their 5G is far better then their 1g or 2.5g devices where.
It may appear to work, but it uses a lot more CPU than a decent 10G network card, despite being half the speed. I shudder to think what their 2.5G must've been if this is better.
> the Framework 16 feels more like a €1200-€1500 laptop at best… but two thousand Euros for this kind of laptop is just absurd.
You are literally buying a whole new laptop because the keyboard is broken and too difficult to replace, instead of a €65 euro replacement part with framework.
With framework, you are paying a 30% premium for the modularity and upgrade potential.
If that’s not important to you then why would you even buy a framework laptop?
This summer I bought and returned a FW 13, the newer AMD variety. Specs and performance were top notch, albeit a bit pricey I'd say (I brought my own 96GB of RAM and 2TB NVMe and the laptop was still 2200 EUR). Tinkered with it for a few days, tried Windows 11. The Mediatek Wifi card was horrible and it took a few hours of driver hunting to finally get it working in a stable fashion.
Reading the FW subreddit, a lot of said 'just drop in an Intel wifi card instead.' Well, yeah, that would surely have worked, but, again, I had already paid a lot for the machine itself. Battery life was subpar for it to be of much use as a laptop, but I didn't really mind. The screen was quite okay.
But what really put me off was how HOT and, consequently, LOUD it would get by merely watching YouTube at 1080p. Hot means really uncomfortable to touch and definitely not something you'd want sitting on your lap. People heard the fan from another room more than 10 meters away. That's when I decided that the little fan inside it would never be enough. With proper cooling, it would've been great as a workstation, though not as laptop meant to be carried.
tl;dr FW has a lot to work on noise, cooling and battery life. I don't suppose there will ever be a huge market willing to overlook these aspects just for the sake of repairability.
I can't speak to the rest of the text or the laptops themselves, but as someone who works with color reproducibility in video and print, those photos comparing colors of two different screens are worse than useless.
Uncalibrated screens photographed at different angles in different lighting conditions are not a valid basis for comparison. If you want properly calibrated displays, you need to purchase hardware (datacolor makes one such device) and calibrate them.
Even "factory-calibrated" monitors will benefit from this, because the quality of that calibration varies widely and your color reproduction is going to vary based on ambient lighting conditions etc.
The photos are just meant to illustrate the difference to the reader, not to be anything scientific. Of course manual calibration is ideal, but having a somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine.
Problem is, display profile support for Wayland has been, at best, spotty until recently - and, there should be multiple accurate targets available on any good display panel.
My factory-seconds F13 (using 11th-gen Intel, still the best in terms of power savings) shipped with the older glossy display, which had a known, disclosed-as-cheaper LUT issue at lower brightness settings. After a couple of calibration rounds, it is spot-on and my go-to PC laptop.
Decent keyboard, too.
Of course, things are often more expensive in Europe (compared to the US) for zero good reason, so the F16 will always be at a proportional disadvantage compared to the F13. You may find that a much better fit.
I am aware that most people don't have any idea of what "display calibration" is actually about (which is primarily about display profiling), but the observation that the "The colors of the display are overly saturated, with reds in particular looking more intense than they should." seems to be to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening here.
The framework 16 has a screen that is more capable of displaying reds than either of your two comparison screens (X1 Carbon 2019 seems to have a sub-sRGB gamut, while the Eizo CS2740 seems to be designed to match AdobeRGB [which has a red primary that matches sRGB]).
This is by design, as framework claims 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage (which has a more saturated red primary than sRGB/AdobeRGB).
In terms of red saturation, the framework monitor is literally displaying superiority over the other two by demonstrating the capability to show more colours, yet it is being framed in a negative light here as being something that is "over saturated".
The responsibility to dictate how much of the display's capabilities (i.e. red saturation) to use to lies squarely in the software (and their associated colour-management systems), which require a display profile (ICC) that accurately models the display's capabilities (profiling), and thus allows colour-managed applications to appropriately scale their source colourspace values into the target display colourspace values. These display profiles are generated via colorimeters or spectrophotometers using specialized software.
Once an appropriate profile is loaded (for each screen), the output image should look identical on all screens that are capable of displaying the colours in the image (e.g. in an sRGB case, all three screens show show the same image, save for maybe the X1 Carbon being slightly desaturated).
Correspondingly, attempting to display an image with a DCI-P3 space (that fully utilizes that space) will cause undersaturation on both your X1 Carbon and the Eizo CS2740 (i.e. the ability to show more red saturation is strictly a plus).
If your critique lies in the fact that framework laptop does not ship an appropriate ICC profile for their monitor, then fair enough.
But I don't agreement with the statement that "somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine."
I don't believe many laptop manufacturer's ship reasonable ICC profiles at all, and mostly just rely on either the consumer liking the oversaturated look or by having their panels only be rated for around sRGB where implicit colour management (i.e. doing absolutely no colour management and having it work merely because the source and the target are the same space).
It is entirely possible that you do understand all of this and I'm making assumptions about potential misconceptions where none exist.
However, you seem to have alluded to using Firefox as your main browser (which is not colour-managed by default) and your Eizo CS2740 being "properly calibrated (at the hardware level at least)," which to be suggests that you might be susceptible the misconception that I have pointed out.
If this is not the case, then I deeply apologize.
Thank you for mansplaining what color calibration and accuracy means, but I'm well aware of how it works due to my background in photography and having spent plenty of time calibration displays in the past.
In particular, there's a big difference between "can show more colors" and "shows the same colors but overly saturated".
The Framework 16 suffers from this by default, something that's quite obvious when comparing it by looking at photos for which you know what the actual colors look like, something I did do but didn't cover in the article.
Whether this is because the display operates in a different colorspace by default (e.g AdobeRGB) or not I don't know, but there's at least no option for it anywhere in the BIOS that I could find.
Claiming the Framework is superior over a monitor literally meant for color grading and photography is laughable to be honest, and seems to suggest you interpret display quality as "more intense is better".
I can add anecdata for the factory profile being very over-red - it's quite obvious out of the box. Not as bad as many Samsung OLED phones you see in stores (typically set to some crazy "enhanced" mode), but it's certainly closer to them than a calibrated screen.
One thing that has bugged me for a while though: why isn't it possible to make my own color profile by hand? Everything seems to imply that you can only get a profile definition file from a calibration device, and I don't have one... but I can eyeball it significantly better than the default profile. Is there something software out there that will let me adjust my curves, like the OS already does with night-mode color balance changes?
Contra the author, the extra vertical space you gain with the 3:2 ratio on the 13' version makes up for the small form factor, especially it makes you realize that what you are often missing on a laptop is extra vertical space.
Exactly, this is why he should have got the 13' version. Sometimes you feel you want something "just slightly larger" (sic) than 14' but if you are not ready to pay the price for it, what's
I am pretty the issue comes from people wanting to work on two windows side-by-side but for that to be comfortable you really need at least 16' if not 17'
The way I go around this issue is that instead of having a subpar side-by-side windows experience I just optimized for fast window switching:
I just have mod + j/k mapped in my windows manager (can't do that in Gnome ofc) and I can just put the two window in their own workspace so that it's only cycling through those two if needed
My main gripe with the framework 13' is that it doesn't feel sturdy for some reason. Don't get me wrong, it is not flimsy either but if you get your hands or a macbook or even some other laptop in the same price range of the fw, it will feel better.
I thing it has to do with the partly recycled aluminum, it's a material that's just not as hard as it seems.
On the other hand not having to throw out your laptop because you stupidly broke the screen is a great feeling.
Sorry your product experience was sub-par. We have four of the various revisions and the quality is on par with the other laptops in the price bracket. Framework versus MacBook - Not even a comparison - One of them you can do whatever you want with, and the other not so much. Linux is the best option for these computers, as with Windozers the battery life is worse. Baseline CPU idle on a clean linux install is like 0.5% - this results in a low power use battery life of about 7 hours on the 13" model under web browsing/audio playing loads.
My Framework seems to get worse battery life on Linux than Windows. Different tools like powertop help close the gap, but inevitably if I put the framework in a bag for a week, it'll be dead when I take it out
If your laptop is using a recent AMD Ryzen based SoC:
ACPI C4 power state (for powering down more of the SoC during S0ix suspend) is not supported on Linux yet, for recent (last couple years) AMD processors.
Patches submitted for 6.18 were described as "laying the foundation for AMD C4 support". So, maybe won't be fully supported until 6.19 or even later; Sorry, I haven't followed up to see what has actually landed.
I shut mine down completely and haven't had the battery drain issue, but on "modern standby," yes these don't last very long. Probably 2-3% per hour on standby and worse than that if anything is plugged into the expansion slots.
You have to muck around with your disk partitions on Linux (although windows I think supports it out of the box)... I haven't spent enough time researching it to feel confident I can do it without borking my system
Nothing beats a MacBook Air if you’re not chasing raw performance.
I ended up with two machines:
- MacBook Air (16GB)
- MINISFORUM UM870 with 48GB RAM
The Air is unbeatable for portability and battery life. The MinisForum is still “portable enough” and gives me real horsepower when I need it.
I flew SF -> NY -> SF with the MinisForum and a portable monitor as carry-on. Everything fit in a Trader Joe’s tote bag. I even presented a conference talk using that setup.
For ~$2k total, you can buy:
- a MacBook Air
- a small PC + one or two portable monitors
- and still have money left
IMO the era of $2-3–4k “do-everything” laptops is over. I don't see how and why they're competitive.
There is a lot of weight put into this number...and it seems that everyone forgot why US makers prices have inflated to this point. It's not to polish the "premium" experience, it's tariffs spread on the whole customer base.
Laptops are compared to other laptops availiable on market. Apple sells a entry line of their premium laptops at 1000$. And these are VERY good laptops.
My point was more that throwing around the lowest price point (in a different currency...) of a differently positionned product line helps nothing.
Comparing Macs to Framework laptops is also an exercise in frustration in that nobody's seriously looking at the two for the exact same task. The price point discussion was already a distraction IMHO.
Can you imagine someone thinking "I'm gonna buy an officially supported fully user repairable Linux dev machine, should I get a MacBook Air 15?" or "I own everything in the Apple ecosystem and just need 'a laptop', how does that 100% incompatible machine fit my needs ?"
How much of an overlap is there really ? I totally understand the article author getting mad when he was looking for a completely different thing in the first place.
I think it depends. At least on $dayjob’s stack (webdev/Go) both are interchangeable and I’m fine using either. Ofc they aren’t the same thing, but depending on your task and constraints, both a MacBook or a Framework can attend your needs.
I can agree with you that they don’t have the same position, but users are going to see a Framework laptop on mainstream media and are going to compare options. A few might try out, and even though they’ll get frustrated, they might now understand the ideology around open hardware.
Yes. I think jobs where any laptop would do will get better ROI from the most run of the mill machine, whichever it is.
Back in the day it was the Dell XPS and Thinkpad lines, right now I see the MBA and Surface added to those. Economies of scale just work that way, and these machine will be aimed at perfectly doing the 20% that cover 80% of the requirements, Pareto style.
Does Framework get mainstream media treatment ? I thought they weren't even sold in stores, and only got press from TheVerge and other tech focused media. So the target market ends up being people dedicated enough to pay thousands sight unseen from a smallish company that will deliver in batches months after the order.
I automatically bundle Linus Tech Tips into mainstream, mainly because how much people with no hands-on experience (i.e.: bring their laptops to a shopping center’s IT shop to upgrade RAM/SSD) around me watch it. I hope that eventually they are encouraged enough to try stuff on their own, and if they are in that mindset, framework is the best brand they can buy.
I think if you compare on price alone, yeah there are quality tradeoffs when you purchase a Framework. They don't get everything right, and often an equivalent model from Lenovo or HP is going to feel superior. But... buying Framework is putting a stake into having somewhat open laptops that you can service and upgrade yourself. Lenovo laptops have become less and less reparable (following the MacBook formula) and it's very important a company like Framework continues to exist.
At the same time, this kind of user feedback is very important, to help Framework identify the areas where they can or have to improve. Framework is a very reactive company and while hardware takes time, they typically address issues in their next models.
TL;dr Framework isn't worth the price. If you put it apples to apples with a great product like the M1, Framework loses everywhere.
I had the same conclusion after daily driving both for 2 years; until yesterday, when my water bottle opened in my backpack and soaked them.
When I got home, I ripped apart my Framework and dried each piece. I left the M1 by my heater and tried to dry it out. This morning, I put the Framework back together, and everything except the keyboard works. The M1 won't boot.
While I did pay a ridiculous amount for my Framework, the keyboard is 50$ to replace. After the M1 design had me feeling it was more premium, it ultimately failed first.
To be fair I once spilled water all over my Macbook's keyboard. It wouldn't boot for weeks afterward. I got a new computer and then checked back a few months later and my Macbook was magically able to boot.
Any repair shops specialized in saving devices from water in your area?
Haven't had a laptop rescued yet, but there was a phone simply dropped in water in my family. I put it in a 1 kg rice bag, drove to the repair shop. I don't know what magic they did but it worked for 2 more years until we upgraded it.
As the multiple siblings say, let it sit. Some desiccant next to it to suck moisture out of the air will help - rice is famously OK for this - no need to put it in the desiccant. A little bit of airflow is also good.
You may also find that rotating it into different positions accelerates it.
>A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working
For a couple decades I was running exclusively Thinkpads, and always loved replacing the keyboard because it made it feel like an entirely new laptop. It also usually was quite easy and inexpensive. Probably worth doing in this case if there are no good alternatives.
Unfortunately, the X1 Carbon is, due to the form factor, a bit tricky, but probably won't take more than an hour or two depending on your skill level. You have to go in through the back, and there are around 100 screws that need to be removed and reinstalled.
Could be worse though, I replaced a friends daughter's keyboard in her Dell, and that was a similar remove-the-motherboard operation, but the keyboard was plastic welded in place.
I think what would be my biggest issue with the Framework 16 is mentioned... the spacers next to the touchpad... I really wish they'd offer a standard single-deck option for the touchpad that didn't have spacer/relocation options at all. The speakers would also be something I would regularly notice.
I'd probably go for the 13" myself... hardware wise, IMO Apple is really hard to beat all around. For what you interact with, it's absolutely the best model(s) around... the air and pro are both really good and solid. Displays, keyboard, touchpads, speakers are all well above average, and I don't think I've seen a combination I feel is better all around... that said, I'm less inclined to want to lock myself in. I'm going to use my M1 air until it dies, but I don't think I'll ever buy Apple hardware again though.
I probably should have returned mine. I still love the idea of the device, but the speakers, display, and trackpad are subpar. I get that I'm spoiled by the quality of a MacBook Pro in those areas, but they still feel worse than other laptops I've tried.
Also he says he's never heard the fans spin up but I've had the system spin the fans up very high and they get loud. And the spin-up was definitely valid the times when I checked because the device was extremely hot, I think from charging.
Now the laptop is being used as a server. Ended up being good for Jellyfin because I can have the GPU handle transcoding and tonemapping of 4K HDR movies.
Would be cool if Framework would sell speakers, a display, trackpad and housing comparable in quality to a MacBook Pro. It would have a high pricetag but you could slowly upgrade your machine. Especially since swapping out speakers or a trackpad is so easy.
Right now the Laptop 13 speaker kit is €20 but they could offer a €150 option that performs similar to a MacBook Pro for people who value sound.
It's not only a matter of having better hardware (though it certainly helps a lot). For example, Apple does a lot of software tuning and tweaking to make the Macbook speakers sound as good as they do. And it's been fascinating to read the extent of work Asahi Linux had to do to recreate the software portion of Macbook's audio stack.
The problem is you need correction EQ built into to the drivers tuned to the enclosure (in addition to loudspeakers that are also designed accounting for their directionality, position, and the volume of the enclosure).
They should be able to offer a better trackpad module (and I've been hoping that they eventually do). The speakers seem like a harder problem to solve. The acoustic engineering that goes into designing a good speaker involves every element that can interact with the sound waves, not just the driver itself.
What's is the deal with Linux and suspend? It seems only a select few combinations of hardware and software can handle suspend and resume. AMD is commonly praised for their Linux drivers but my all-AMD system crumbles down on power state transitions and especially suspend-resume. I never though words "data", "fabric", "sync" and "flood" can be used together, but now they are a common sight in my logs.
I'd return my Framework laptop if that was still an option. First they sent me bad RAM, and left me on my own to sort it out with Crucial, which never went anywhere. The mainboard has some weird power issue that prevents the modular ports, which are otherwise a cool idea, from working properly, and I went back and forth with support about that for two years before they finally told me it was out of warranty so I was SoL.
They replaced the hinges on a batch 5 this year for free when I finally complained about it. I just asked nicely and showed them a video of a fan blowing the screen down. New ones are tuned as expected.
The 14" MacBook Pro is unequaled as a daily driver. You can compile some things in a pinch, but let's face it, if you're writing compiled code professionally, someone in management owes your team build resources. Your laptop is your canvas, your easel, your blank page, your sketch pad, and your research library and research notebook. In 2025 and in 2026, your laptop is not for compiling.
Framework 16 owner here, had mine for a year and a half. While most of this post is also true in my experience, I just don’t care. These are largely small cosmetic nitpicks that you need to look for to notice. The only complaints here that I really share are the jankiness of the spacers (a little jarring at first, but now I’m used to it), and the speakers really are noticeably worse than any of my other devices. So? I don’t watch movies on it, or listen to music, that’s what I have a TV and headphones for.
Seems inarguable that you can get a much more “premium” laptop for about the same cost. But I didn’t buy a framework for a “premium” feel… I was hoping to buy the last laptop I’ll ever need. And so far I’m happy with the result!
PS: the battery life is by far the best of any laptop I’ve owned. Maybe that just shows that my previous ones were junk, but I’m quite happy with it
PPS: I should note my employer was willing to buy it for me, so price was much less of a concern. Not everyone is so lucky ofc
Maybe the FrameWork company wants to build something out of the clutches of proprietary software and big corp hardware. And that's fine. Since they don't have the volumes to make enough money they may have to charge more per laptop, which is fine.
But if they want to have me as a customer on these core values (which I'm pretty much aligned with), then they need an additional core value: they need to convince me their higher price is justified. So I want transparency on the way they use my money (and the one of their other customers).
Without that, I'm left wondering if it is not some "green washing".
IOW I'm sure Apple is expensive because it's luxury, I'm sure other laptops are not expensive because they're cheap/sold by millions. But FrameWork, I don't know why their expensive. And repairability doesn't count, design for repairability doesn't make things inherently more expensive I guess.
I don't find framework appealing for upgradability, but I do think it's great for repairability. Being able to extend the life of a machine easily by replacing a cracked screen or degraded battery is so much better than going to the fruit store and being upsold a new machine and spending more. Obviously you pay extra in upfront costs and sacrifice build quality for a framework.
Also I think framework will excel in the SMB market where companies may have diverse requirements for different employees. Some just need a machine for email/browser and others for dev or video editing. But they can share parts, and upgrading a dev machine might have the benefit of upgrading other employees machines with the extra parts.
I'm currently in China, pondering whether Framework's approach to promoting repairability is feasible locally. I can easily purchase parts for nearly any retail laptop (yes, nearly any) on online shopping sites, sometimes even including the motherboard. Repairing electronic hardware isn't easy for non-professionals, but Framework's parts aren't just "parts" anymore—they're modules designed for easy repair. They clearly aren't manufactured and sold as individual components. This reminds me of LG's modular phones. For a time, their market lifecycle was so short that some of LG's premium modules ended up circulating at prices higher than the devices themselves.
I'm quite happy with mine, and like the keyboard in general though I can see why a coming from a decent Thinkpad would feel like a downgrade. I like it a lot better than the "butterfly" keyboards Apple insisted on, however, and have used quite a few more-expensive laptops with much worse keyboards. And I have gotten WAY more use out of the swappable ports than I expected, that's a killer feature imo.
The price is a "put your money where your mouth is" purchase for me on repairability - it's absolutely not competitive with a same-priced machine. But it's not too crazy if you upgrade or replace damaged parts, the significantly lower costs there add up extremely quickly.
The speakers though. Holy cow. They're truly awful and I think they drag down the entire product - put them over 50% and they blow out the sound and distort extremely badly. They really need to change them, I'd happily pay a premium to get something more usable.
So basically the same price as an already decently upgradable Thinkpad P1 G8 on sale, but with a terrible screen and janky chassis. Plus it costs about the same to upgrade as getting a new machine, but then you no longer have the ability to throw Linux on the old one and donate it to a school or less fortune person. Tough sell.
Beyond Apple, I think the state of laptop quality is absolutely abysmal. I haven’t tried Framework, but it is disappointing to hear their products suffer many of the same issues as other PC builders. I guess there just isn’t a market.
I was in a similar situation to OP: my Carbon X1 Gen 8 keys, notably `/` and some arrows keys, stopped functioning. Sometimes they did, but it was very erratic.
Luckily, when I replaced the battery (got a lot from iFixit) and tightened all other screws, the keys magically started working again.
Rather subjective. I'm really happy with a used "16 gaming laptop, top performance, memory ssd extendable, extremely good display for ~1200€. Build quality is "ok" and creeks a bit, but magnitudes better value than a Thinkpad/Mac, even used ones.
While it has improved a lot over the years, the core issue is that Linux still doesn’t work well on laptops compared to other OS’s. 99.99% of the time you’re not going to get a “premium” laptop running Linux for this reason
The other reason, he’s not getting a “premium” experience is that he’s buying a laptop built for repairability and upgradability. You’re going to have a lot of tradeoffs for that.
IMO the only way to have a “premium” laptop experience with Linux, is to buy a Mac and run Linux in either a container or VM. It’s an understatement to say that the author is not being realistic.
The hidden story is the depth of work required to replace a keyboard on a newer Lenovo. The amount of work is absurd. Easily an hour or two for the casual owner plus use of multiple tools. Don't blame the author for giving up on it.
I am quite happy with my AMD 13 laptop. It replaced my Thinkpad T530 after its ~10 years of service. So far, nearly one year after buying it, everything works well. Ubuntu, Docker containers, clion+pycharm, sometimes Blender and other apps. Plus several tabs on Firefox. Camera and audio are better than my old thinkpad, so i have nothing to complain about yet.
There were issues like configuring Linux (extra monitor, logitech mouse, tablet, some software) but I found everything on Framework forums or googling a bit.
the core argument boils down to value proposition purely from an end user who does not care about the laptop's usp.
as a fairphone of laptops, it still seems like a much better deal imho. the core performance is not much worse than the competition. the user-facing hardware, while not as good as the best, it is quite in the same ballpark as other windows or linux laptops.
also a lot of quirks are starting to be solved by the community, which seems to be in a healthy state. the pixels and macbooks have enjoyed this in the past, despite their own quirks mainly due to network effects. plus rarely one could opt out parts not needed while ordering the laptop.
I don't understand the author, on the one hand he complains about the repairability of the thinkpads (which is weird in itself, they are still the most repairable laptops bar framework, especially because it's trivial to find resellers for pretty much all the parts. If finding all the screws is a problem, then you can just look at the repair manuals which are freely available. But after complaining about repairability he the looks at apples as alternative, which are like orders of magnitude less repairable than thinkpads.
My desktop PC has been constantly evolving for about 15 years now, literally the ship of Theseus. Currently, following the latest upgrade in September, it's an absolute powerhouse.
During the same time, I burned through four laptops (for travel purposes), all of which were mostly weak, with a maximum of 16 GB RAM, no real GPUs, and 14"-15" screens, expensive, and had poor resale value.
I have a Framework 16, and as for it being a Linux machine I couldn't be happier with it. I still daily drive my MacBook Pro 16 instead, because it's just a more polished, more performant (and better battery life) machine, but still, I also really like my Framework 16. I eagerly await the time when Linux desktops reach the level of polish I'd like to have, and I feel like that isn't that far away anymore.
I went for a similar upgrade from X1 Carbon. I don't undestand why OP would compare the weight of a 16 to carbon which is closer to framework 13 (which I bought).
For me on Arch it's working great and has none of the issues he mentions, its the best laptop I ever owned. I bought one because the Carbon started decomposing fairly quickly (headphone jack, usb c port, keys) and think the modularity is a really great feature.
I bought a framework 16 shortly after it came out. My one gripe is around the track pad and the modules on either side of it. The fit there is not great. I really wish they would sell a full width track pad piece because the seams are imperfect. That said after the first month it hasn't bothered me. Definitely something I would change but not something that I notice or am inconvenienced by in daily use.
I have the similar ThinkPad like the author, except Gen 3, I7, 16Gb. Have Omarchy on it, works like a charm, even camera is not bad. Battery works but I can plug it in the same dock my macbook is (two usb-c dock).
While you can change keyboard or battery on your Thinkpad, they are cheap enough, around $500 that you can just get a new one. I get why he wanted Framework, they say 13" are much better and more useful deal then 16".
I wish Framework 12" is better, but it is not. Maybe Apple can dazzle us at this form factor.
The Framework 16 seems like a pretty unappealing device to me due to the bulk and cost, which is unfortunate. I have a 13 and absolutely love it, but the one thing is that I wish it had a direct PCI-e extension slot that I could use with an e-GPU. Thunderbolt is just too slow.
Im in a frustrating situation now where my laptop has a way faster CPU than my desktop, and my desktop has a way faster GPU than the laptop. I really wish I could use my big fancy GPU with my laptop without a massive performance loss.
I used to want a FW laptop. The idea is sound, instead of throwing the whole computer away when upgrading, just upgrade what needed(CPU, RAM, etc)
But the execution is, not good. The cost of new Motherboard is sometime as expensive as the new machine that has similar spec. I understand FW does not have economy of scale like Lenovo or Dell, but, the cost of upgrading is deal breaker to me.
> A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working, specifically the 5, 6, -, = and Delete keys. Sometimes I can get it working again by mashing one of them for a while, but it's not consistent.
I had the same problem on my X1 Carbon generation 6 and managed to fix it simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the keyboard ribbon cable. It's a very easy fix, the only thing you have to unscrew is the bottom cover.
I may be wrong here but IIRC at least with the 7th generation you have to disassemble the whole thing to get to the keyboard. I'll have to take a look though, because if it's really that simple then I may be able to make my life a bit easier. Thanks for the suggestion :)
I won a max spec Framework 13 at a hacking tournament a few months ago and use it as my daily driver now. I'm very happy with it. The 13 is much more clean than the 16. Framework 16 still feels like a bit of a beta product.
That being said, I probably would have gone with a Thinkpad if it had been my own money. The peicing is just really steep.
I know, the repairability isn’t great, and they’re not upgradable at all. macOS can be annoying and restrictive. But life is short, so I just buy MacBook Pros. I wasted too many hours in my 20s getting Linux to work on the desktop (not to mention a laptop).
I'm by no means an HP fan, but EliteBooks have pretty great repairability and (unintentionally) great Linux support. Though they are a bit bulky compared to laptops that have been soldered together. So there are definitely more options.
Flex & build issues. Only 8h battery life. Display issues. Suspend issues. Trackpad issues. Speaker issues. Yup, and this is why you jut buy a MacBook. Sorry but there simply is no “option b” for laptop hardware quality.
You are allowed (1) USB-C port. This is in a > $2200 laptop.
$200 netbooks had all this (minus the Ethernet port) standard 10 years ago.
This is unacceptable. An artificial limit imposed by the mechanicals of the inefficiently large port modules - an idea that should have never left a whiteboard, let alone made it into a production laptop.
On the bright side you are forced into configuring them as all USB-C, you can reuse the man purse you used to carry all your dongles from an earlier generation Macbook.
I think they have another USB-C on the back if you get the upgraded video module. I wish all desktop replacement laptops had copious ports on the back like my Dell from ~2010 did. Who wants video cables jutting out sideways across your desk?
I don't really use ethernet, or an audio jack, or an SD card reader regularly. I just use wifi and bluetooth, and I suspect most people do as well.
You can also just keep the extra dongles in your backpack and plug them into any open USB-C ports, or just unplug the dongles to free up more USB-C ports as needed.
I bought an early framework 13. It cost a little more. I’ve since upgraded the main board to get a faster/newer experience. The overall cost has been less than 2 laptops.
Some of this depends if you’re playing the long game
Or just buy a MBP and use MacOS and not worry about any of these problems. I use Linux for everything but my laptop, but I’m not about to deal with a subpar experience when decent laptops are already so expensive.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
What? Low light is ideal for OLED compared to most LCDs where in low light contrast is poor due to bleed-through on the black areas via the backlight. The problem here isn't the laptop, it's between the keyboard and chair.
> I narrowed it down to two options: Buy a refurbished M1 or M2 Macbook and run Asahi Linux Buy a Framework
...or stop being a dogmatic baby about your OS and run MacOS, which is infinitely better than Linux as a desktop OS?
> I looked at some other brands but it appears that in 2025 there's just aren't many good options for Linux users
A market of less than 1% has terrible options? *gasp*
The only people still using Linux on desktop are people who think that *twenty five years* into "the year of the linux desktop" this will be the year that Linux doesn't stop being the worst option for a desktop OS.
If 2/3rds of the current linux distros hung up the hat and went to go help with other distros, there _might_ actually be progress on this front - but the nerds are too interested in fighting over asinine personal preference type things nobody else cares about, to actually make a distro that works properly and reliably. The Linux world is so hopelessly fragmented and there's thousands of people doing the same work as at least 6 other people all because they think their particular way of installing a linux package is better or their file layout is best.
Considering this customer's gripes, I might suggest the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14. It's even lighter than their X1 Carbon, has great battery life, is silent, and has a spectacular display.
> Knowing my luck I'd also run into OLED burn-in the moment the warranty expires.
Not being aware of the author's history of luck, that's an extraordinary claim. OLED screens are commonplace in modern devices -- phones, tablets, laptops and desktop monitors etc. If burn-in is still a real and significant concern, manufacturers would not have released so many devices, often with OLED screen as the only option. You would see videos on YouTube and TikTok warning you about OLED screens everywhere.
If anything, battery life is a bigger issue.
I really wish the author had done more research before making the decision or writing this piece.
Putting aside anything specific to Framework, this article really puts into perspective just how piss poor the laptop market is right now.
Macs have fantastic hardware, but of course only really run macOS. The future of Asahi Linux is very questionable and, like the author, is not something I'm interested in relying on. I don't hate macOS by any means but I much prefer running Arch with Hyprland.
PC laptop hardware is just shit in comparison. Like the author, my X1 Carbon (Gen 11) has keys that intermittently fail, and the cooling is pretty bad (I actually love the OLED display, though, and don't really understand the author's concerns here).
I haven't found any non-Mac laptops that beat the X1 Carbon line, though (relatively low bar that it is). Frameworks are cool if you are fine with the tradeoffs, but personally I'm just not -- I much prefer to tinker with desktops/servers, and am totally fine with laptops being a physically-closed "appliance," as long as that results in great battery life, cooling, and adequate performance (I can always offload heavy tasks to my desktop if need be).
Which is all to say: what I want is Mac equivalent hardware that can reliably run Linux.
For now, I've landed on using my extremely beefy Arch desktop when at home, and my M1 MacBook Air (which is still running great 5 years on) when mobile. Even accepting that I'll be using an Apple device when mobile, though, there's still room for improvement in this setup: I'd love LTE support (no, a hot spot isn't a good replacement), a nano-texture display (which appears to be locked to the MacBook Pro line), and either an even smaller footprint (like the old 12-inch MacBook) or a little bit of active cooling to offset the performance regressions in macOS. An iPad might make sense, but I own one and frankly hate it due to OS limitations, such as only a single stream of audio at a time (which causes lots of bugs -- watching a YouTube video while scrolling Reddit will cause the YouTube video to pause whenever you scroll past a video on Reddit, even if it's muted), a lack of terminal, etc. I want a "real" OS, so tablets are out of the question entirely.
I don't understand why absolutely zero PC manufacturers have even tried to take on Apple's laptop offerings. Sure, Apple Silicon is great, but Intel and AMD have done an admirable job at increasing battery efficiency since its release; it's not the only component that makes Mac laptops so great. I'm sure these manufacturers know what they're doing in this regard and have decided it doesn't make business sense to take on Apple. But man, I just wish someone would at least try.
1000% agree with this. Been using Macs for decades, but now prefer Linux. But Mac hardware is just so much better. Funny note: Sorta just for fun I bought an old Mac Mini ($25) and installed Mac, Windows, and Linux Mint on it. Fun device that is actually pretty useful with a KVM letting me use it seamlessly with my main Mac (also providing a shared external drive). Fingers crossed that the next leader at Apple after Tim has a Nadella-like moment deciding that Linux can be a friend not a foe.
I don't know how many laptops people own to rule out every possible model. My own experience is owning several various versions of Lenovo Legion for gaming and work, and currently an Acer Nitro 16.
None of them have given me a single issue.
Great screens, great keyboards, great performance, easy to upgrade the SSD or RAM. Short of really intense gaming, the fans aren't audible.
And they are all around $1000-1200 USD. All with AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. Doesn't seem like they are unicorns.
It certainly doesn't compare which is why I've never bought a Mac....
But that's a goofy argument. Different use cases, different value proposition. My speakers are actually really nice though I alternate using them or using my HyperX headset.
Still I think you probably have zero experience with an Acer Nitro 16 if you think it's as bad as you're hinting at.
I'm okay with spending 1000 on a screen and chassis, under the impression I upgrade the computer every 2 years. Unfortunately when a mainboard cost $1000, it's cheaper to buy a new machine every 2 years. This shouldn't be the case... Look at the chinese producing MoDT boards with full IO for $300 (likely the same shops who work with framework.
I like framework in the sense that I can ship of thesues my laptop the same way I can with a desktop, but at the end of the day, the premium is outrageous. If third parties start making framework compatible boards I'll buy into the ecosystem.
I'm on a Framework 13. Aside from the wretched 4:3 screen size (which I knew in advance, it was a tradeoff, but my god I miss 16:10) I really do like it. No battery issues, the thing is incredibly fast. I've had the pleasure of repairing parts of it (screen, keyboard) and it has been super easy. The touchpad's button click could be a little more "tuned" (I miss physical separate buttons), but that's my only functional gripe.
But seriously, make a 14" 16:10 Framework please. I will buy a new one just for that.
I have a Framework 16 from one of the early batches (2023, think it was ~1000usd).
> Not only does [the spacers] look weird, you can also feel the gap and edges when resting your palm on them ... and the edges are quite sharp. If you have arm hairs you may consider shaving them off or risk getting them stuck. I also suspect gunk will build up in these edges over time.
> There's also a practical problem: due to the flex of the spacers if you try to hold the laptop on its sides it will actually "wobble" a bit. Combined with the weight I suspect that unless you hold on to this laptop for dear life, you will at some point drop it.
I can confirm the spacers are raised with an edge (though sharp might be overstating it). It's even at a slightly different height than the touchpad, which is probably more defect than intentional. But I'm not picky about the aesthetics so I don't mind the lines / colors.
Can't say I've had issues with the spacers actually flexing or accumulating gunk though. And I carry it one-handed by gripping the corner with the spacer all the time.
> The keycaps are a little mushy, which isn't too bad but not great either.
Yeah this is an apt description. My biggest gripe is that the keycaps are near impossible to remove / clean without breaking something.
> The display isn't terrible, but it's not great either.
I had the chance to compare my framework (ips, 165hz, 2560x1600) with some newer laptops recently (3x oled, 2x ips). I was pretty impressed with the colors, very little difference compared to the OLEDs and much better than the shitty IPSs. Text was as sharp as the 3k OLEDs and sharper than the 2k OLEDs. But OLEDs (obviously) had the advantage for darker / high-contrast images.
> I didn't do any proper testing of battery usage, but it seems to be on par with other Linux capable laptops based on my usage thus far. This means you'll likely be looking at 6-8 hours of battery per charge for average programming usage.
Pretty much. Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life. I clocked maybe 16 hours browsing the web / watching youtube.
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a €1200-€1500 laptop at best and certainly doesn't deliver a premium experience.
Yeah premium price without the specs and aesthetic to match. But I guess the premium is because of the modularity and (presumably) low production count. Plus I trust Framework's QA a hell of a lot more than any of the dozen HP / Lenovos I've owned. And it is nice that a failed keyboard / touchpad doesn't force me to buy a new machine (which has happened to me because of a spill).
> Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life.
Framework seems to offer the "H" variants only, though. Looking at specs, the "V" variants appear much lower performance and less capable. (Maybe a good trade off, but... YMMV.)
People need to realize, Framework laptops are atrociously overpriced, terrible in terms of specs, loud, unwieldy, and not robust. It's a bad company that just rides on being in vogue with the tech crowd who see the word "repairability" and go nuts over it.
for 2k euros the author could have gotten a maxed out 16 inch m5 pro with:
10-Core CPU
10-Core GPU
24GB Unified Memory
1TB SSD Storage
This setup is superior to framework in basically every conceivable way (better power efficiency, more ram, more storage, better GPU, better multithreading, better single thread perf, more durable, cheaper).
If you are buying a framework you might as well set 300$ on fire and buy a macbook instead.
I ran linux for 15 years on a range of different machines. Desktop the most successfully. For laptops I tried everything but once I switched to a mac I’ve never gone back. The hardware is at least twice as good as any other laptop.
I’ve seen framework getting a lot of mind share recently. Especially with DHH singing their praises. I have come to loathe apple software over the years but can’t get over terrible build quality.
I thought framework was supposed to be the premium linux option but after reading this it looks same quality as all those windows turned linux machines.
As a reader interested in Framework and looking for honest feedback in the wild, this was a really frustrating blog entry. It feels like at every turn you’re coming up with conflicting requirements and impossible demands that even your X1 doesn’t meet. For example: regarding the MacBook, the worry about long term support for Asahi is understandable, but one of your main criticisms is that it has the same battery life as other Linux laptops? You wanted a bigger, repairable laptop and didn’t expect it to be larger or heavier? You preferred the slightly more washed out red of your old laptop, but didn’t tell us whether you could fix it with a display setting or why having more vibrant colors or having to adjust display settings is a bad thing for your use case? Have you considered just turning on a light rather than working in a dark room (please turn on a light, I destroyed my eyesight working like that)? I’m devastated to read you found the battery life simply par and that it used a little bit of electricity after suspend for 8 hours like every other laptop on the market, and that you were able to turn the power led off but not in your preferred location.
At the end of the day, you’re not required to like a thing for any reason you see fit, but I very much hope you figure out what you actually need and that such a device actually exists on this planet before you purchase another one.
my tip to people who don't like mac os. buy a macbook pro, disable System Integrity Protection (SIP), gut the OS, live in the terminal and browser. works way better than linux (10h+ battery life, SoC with a lot of memory) and you will barely notice that you're on mac os.
It's not windows. there will be no forced updates and surprises.
Also install the GNU coreutils (or I guess uutils). If you're begrudgingly using macOS then you're going to hate the differences between BSD and GNU utilities.
Personally I just can't, I really hate the UI and the software stack.
Sure as long as you are in the terminal you don't notice it but at some point you are going to need to open Finder (and Finder really sucks, sorry) and you are going to need to install software and homebrew is in the same category as npm.
If has maintainers, well it's clear by now from all the security problems which happened in homebrew first that it's nowhere as diligent as apt or rpm.
Also next problem with it, I really don't want to build everything from source, otherwise I would use Gentoo and not MacOS...
i hear you but the latency between the cpu and ram, the battery life, and the quality of software is way worth a few weird buttons to me. everything has downsides. Windows is completely ridiculous, and between Linux and Mac OS, well, I think it depends on your use case.
Given my past experiences with X1 Carbon laptops breaking outside of warranty and the frustration that comes with replacing their components, I decided it was time to look for a replacement.
[...]
There are also some other issues with the X1 line in general, such as poor CPU cooling and the absolute nightmare that is opening them up to replace parts or clean them properly.
Maintaining an X1 is certainly possible, but it's incredibly frustrating and based on my past experiences with this series I strongly suspect other components will also fail in the near future.
The battery life doesn't appear to be all that better than conventional laptops when running Linux. This isn't entirely surprising because of a lot of the battery improvements on macOS are the result of the software and hardware integration, not just the hardware
The issue is the kernel here, not just the hardware. Linux power management is meh.
I'm still chugging along on a Dell XPS Developer Edition that came with Ubuntu 20.04 preinstalled. It's not as repairable as a Framework but it's been very reliable.
If I had to get a new laptop for personal use today I'd probably go for an X1 Carbon. Those seem to have very good luck with Linux even without OEM installs.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
Huh? I thought OLED would make a lot of sense with a pure black background theme in your IDE. Less light in your eyes?
I love my x1 extreme, I dual boot Linux (i3wm) and windows. I hate macOS with passion.
My next laptop will be 16” MacBook Pro, when m5 version will arrive. I looked at reviews, I tried “deep research” with llms… there is just nothing even remotely comparable.
Variety is great, but idk why anyone would buy anything other than MacBook for programming or media work in the age of Apple Silicon. Unless they specifically need CUDA or a particular version of Linux or some Windows features, or actually want to tinker with/ tweak the computer continuously.
I'm a programmer but I can't stand macOS, so a MacBook isn't an option, as much as I like the hardware. I've looked at Asahi Linux, but, while they've done an amazing job with no documentation, it doesn't meet my needs.
So Debian on a Framework 13 it is. And it's fine! I'd agree that Apple hardware is probably the best, but the difference doesn't really matter to me all that much in practice.
I appreciate the authors thoughtful review here, but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
People (not necessarily the author, but likely many commentators that make similar complains about the frameworks price) will lament how manufacturers don’t have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price.
I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Rergardless, what I feel like we see here (along with a lack of scale from a small company) is the core tradeoffs that we’d have to make to get back repairability, etc. framework certainly isn’t above criticism, but if you don’t care about these things then why look at this machine? A large established brand is always going to offer a a better value on the things you care about.
The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody. Reliable machines rarely need repairs outside of owner mistreatment, and most people I know who are technically capable enough to care about upgrading generally do it maybe once every 4-6 years, by which point hardware has usually advanced far enough that buying a new laptop is easy to justify.
So while upgradability and repairability are great to have, their material impact on day to day user experience is minimal, except maybe for people who have a tendency to severely underspec their initial hardware purchases. On the other hand, things like chassis rigidity, cooling performance, fan noise, and battery life being subpar are constant reminders that you spent a pretty penny on a laptop that's not meeting your needs.
The reality may be that wanting a laptop that's well rounded and competent across the board AND repairable+upgradable is akin to having your cake and eating it too, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it anyway.
As an aside, I believe that Framework could probably get closer to that ideal if they unchained themselves from the port module idea. Yes it's cool, but it forces all sorts of design compromises that otherwise wouldn't be necessary, and I'd bet that something like 80-90% of Framework buyers would be just as happy if changing ports required opening up the chassis, swapping out side plates, and doing a little bit of internal wiring.
> The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody.
Judging reparability and serviceability the same way as you do with other features is absurd, to put it charitably! It is one feature that you rarely use, but brings you huge value when you do use it. You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time. This dismissal of the feature is bizarrely shortsighted.
> The reality may be that wanting a laptop that's well rounded and competent across the board AND repairable+upgradable is akin to having your cake and eating it too, but that doesn't stop people from wanting it anyway.
I talked about this just two days ago. Unlike how you project it, that ideal is entirely feasible if there was enough investment and a large enough market. Instead, OEMs inflict the opposite on the consumers who take it all in without pushing back. These companies choose and spread suboptimal designs that suit their interests and then insist that it is the only viable way forward. It's absurd that consumers also repeat that falsehood.
> You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time. This dismissal of the feature is bizarrely shortsighted.
The main things I keep long term are the drives and power supply, and those can be kept on most laptops too.
In the medium term I get a lot of use out of separately upgrading CPU and GPU, but most frameworks can't do that. The 16 gets half a point in that category because the options are still very limited.
A Framework lets me keep the same screen which is cool. And it lets me keep the same chassis which is not as beneficial if it's not a particularly good chassis.
If I'm generous, the extra flexibility in a Framework would save me $200 every 5-8 years. Which leaves me in the hole, further if I'm less generous.
I hope they reach a scale where they can price things better, and I'm willing to pay some extra for what they do, but not as much as they currently charge. Looking at Framework's site I can get the same specs as the author for $1800. Lenovo offers a model with a worse screen but otherwise the same specs for $600. Gigabyte has a fully matching model plus bonus GPU for $1150, and for half of November it was on sale for $1000. And if you want an RTX 5070 then Framework is $2500 and Gigabyte is $1350.
> If I'm generous, the extra flexibility in a Framework would save me $200 every 5-8 years. Which leaves me in the hole, further if I'm less generous.
I think this statement is heavily underestimating the value of a repairable /user serviceable computer.
The value proposition of user serviceable equipment is the same as the value proposition for open source for software. It gives you the FREEDOM and the ABILITY to make the changes you want to make IF you want to make them.
But as it is with open source software, most users are never going to be directly editing the code for postgres, Linux, or any of the other 1000s of open source software that they use on a daily basis - but IF they choose to do so, they can.
> The value proposition of user serviceable equipment is the same as the value proposition for open source for software. It gives you the FREEDOM and the ABILITY to make the changes you want to make IF you want to make them.
This is true to an extent, but I think that's greatly overselling it when phrased that way.
90% of my customization is either during the initial purchase, or it's a RAM/drive upgrade, and I don't need Framework for that. It's only a small portion of customization I lose out on. And in some ways I actually have more ability to customize outside of Framework, for example they only offer two GPU models.
That is my point. Most users - such as yourself, will not make use of the freedom a Framework device provides but there are others who will directly benefit from it. And that freedom is essential.
To use a vehicle analogy - it is the same as getting a car which has parts you can opt to change/replace. Most people may not even be able to do an oil change but this "feature" is nonetheless a VERY important one to have.
My point was that even for people that benefit, the benefit is greatly reduced.
Let's dig in to why it's useful to be able to replace parts on a car. If we analogize the extra flexibility of the Framework to being able to replace all these parts in the engine bay, that sounds really cool, until you realize there are no third party options for the core components and Framework only makes a couple versions. It's still useful in a few circumstances, but it's not this massive unlock of freedom. You can't have a fully customized engine, and the best way to get an engine tailored to your tastes is to abandon the weak after-the-fact customization and go find something that you like from the start.
Even to a user that really values freedom, Framework doesn't properly deliver at this point in time. The Framework freedom is so restricted that in most ways you get more freedom by considering all the non-soldered-RAM laptops from other brands as valid options too.
Edit: And I don't mean this as an indictment of their small company, they're trying, but right now the impact is limited in many ways.
> A Framework lets me keep the same screen which is cool
Probably the last thing I'd want to keep. Screen technology still moves forward at a decent pace. Screens are disposable, backlights fade over time, pixels get stuck, screen burn-in.
The only universal thing I can think of about machines I've upgraded over the years (not laptops, of course) are cases, power supplies, CPU coolers, and as long as the form factor hasn't changed/there hasn't been significant progress, HDD.
Everything else goes with the system. New CPU meant new socket, which also meant new RAM. Need to get rid of that old video card, of course.
I think a major clarification is in order here. I'm not talking about just the framework here. If anything, the problems with framework is the direct result of the absolutely stupid industry-wide product design culture and market tastes. You can see all the major open-ish hardware designers grappling with similar issues - pinephone, System76, Librem... I will explain later why it is so. But here is the point - we need a major shift in both the product design culture and the (non-existent) consumer culture.
Back in the days of modular desktop PCs (which is still alive, but barely holding on and slowly fading away) about a couple of decades ago, there would have been immediate and sharp backlash if any hardware manufacturer pulled the tricks that they do today - soldered-on RAM modules, thermoplastic glue instead of screws, riveted keyboards, irreplaceable ICs that are paired using crypto, permanently locked firmware, etc. That would have shook their sales enough for them to care. Right now, these 'features' lead to short-life hardware (because any broken parts mean everything has to be thrown out), landfills full of e-waste, frequent new purchases, etc. It does nothing good for anyone or the ecosystem, except filling the pockets of trillion dollar MNCs.
The advantage of such consumer pressure is that you'd have a vibrant spare parts market with much more choices. Many people here are complaining about how poor the spare parts market is. Had the consumer choice been more on the side of modularity and reusability, that problem wouldn't have even arisen. It wouldn't be just framework who manufactures such things. In fact, you wouldn't even be able to decide the brand name of the laptop as a whole. Another point is that you're still thinking about laptops as a unit, instead of as a collection of parts. And that would be the case if the industry spent more resources and effort into it. It doesn't have to be bulky as you imagine either. Hardware interfaces, housing and fasteners would have evolved to a more compact, universal and standard form, much like how a dozen different ports were replaced by USB. Right now, you're thinking about how you can transplant parts from your old laptop to the new one. Instead, you could swap parts of a laptop one at a time. Currently, the CPU and GPU cannot be swapped like in a desktop PC. You have to make do with replacing the whole motherboard now. But has anybody demanded replaceable CPUs and GPUs for these? Why are those precluded?
Now about why framework, System76, Librem, Pinephone, etc have problems making such devices. The choices they get is abysmally small. The OEMs and component manufacturers (mostly from China) have created this supply-chain system where they involve in huge-scale exclusive contracts. It's simply too hard to get a fully compatible chipset without signing an NDA that effectively ruins your chances at making open or modular hardware. Those companies are doing an impressive job at making these hardware with what they have.
You may want to dismiss me as too idealistic and dreaming about what could be, instead of dealing with what it is now. But let me point out why we never catch a break. The tech community takes an obstinate and imprudent 'all or nothing' approach to everything. 'Framework is not good because it's too costly, modules are not good enough, GPU cannot be replaced, yada, yada'. Nobody is willing to settle for anything less than perfect. But you need to realize that you are not in the bargaining position here - you don't hold the cards. Your choices are dictated by someone else who is more resourceful and patient in making short-term compromises and playing the long game of shaping the market and making insane profits at the end. The only way to get your way is for everyone to unite and show even more resolve and patience in demanding what you want. That means putting up with some inconveniences for now. But everyone will be rewarded at the end with the perfection you demand.
>about a couple of decades ago, there would have been immediate and sharp backlash if any hardware manufacturer pulled the tricks that they do today - soldered-on RAM modules, thermoplastic glue instead of screws, riveted keyboards, irreplaceable ICs...
That's when this trend started, with Apple's Macbook Pro leading the way, winding up one of the best-selling consumer laptop brands by targeting incoming college freshmen and their grandparents, focusing on cosmetic appeal over dollar cost for performance.
Most buyers don't even know what CPU model their laptop contains, let alone understand the difference between faster or slower processors from different generations. It will always be a tiny segment of the market that appreciates the value of Framework's features.
Apple did not start anything.
PCs are the odd ones, all other 8 and 16 bit home computers were vertically integrated, most expansions were done via external buses connected into one of the sides, usually the back or right side.
With the race for thin margins at any cost, if anything thanks to Apple, is that OEMs realised going back to Spectrum, C64, Amiga, Atari ST kind of hardware designs payed off in their bank accounts.
My point was that soldered RAM and lack of upgradeable components didn't inspire much of a backlash back then. It led to Apple dominating the higher end of the consumer laptop market.
Which was already the way on 8 and 16 bit home computers, for the most part if you wanted an upgrade you would buy the newer model.
The exception being PC clones.
Apple also drove the quest for extreme thinness. Even Lenovo Thinkpad T keyboards are terrible now due to it.
I really want to love the MTNU reform with its Kailh Choc White switches. I wish like there was a laptop that actually had a mechanical keyboard.
That's why I've been thinking of paring my desktop-replacement 16" laptop with a Pocket Reform or something like that.
Oh yeah I didn't know that one. I do know Logitech has some ultra-thin ones too though. Very good keyboards too. They'd do nice in a laptop as well.
I'd very gladly sacrifice thinness for a decent keyboard. The Thinkpads had an OK compromise for a while but since the Thinkpad T14s gen2 or so they have been horrible as well. My old T490s was still serviceable.
One space that I don't think I've seen explored is building a laptop around a tiny, ultra-low-power passively cooled SoC board that can easily fit beside the keyboard instead of under it in a 12"-16" chassis and saves space that'd otherwise need to be dedicated to cooling. That'd buy a substantial amount of Z-budget for a quality keyboard without blowing up chassis thickness.
Naturally this laptop wouldn't be suited for some types of work due to lack of horsepower, but there's always tradeoffs somewhere.
We're kinda there already. Most recent laptops I've seen have a tiny motherboard not even taking up the whole width of the device. Under the keyboard there's usually the battery.
Don't forget a significant part of the weight has to be towards the front edge so you can tilt the screen back without flipping the whole laptop. Some of my cheaper atom based laptops (with tiny motherboard and batteries) even have a metal bar in there for that purpose.
Right, but my idea was to do something like shove the mainboard up into the bezel above the keyboard and battery into the palm rest, with nothing sitting under the keyboard except maybe ribbon cables. That’d get you a laptop with a thickness of under an inch that still has a keyboard that’s not compromised and keeps weight shifted to the front. It’d simplify repairs to some degree too since there’d be very little stacking.
You are just repeating the same unpopular debunked arguments that the industry makes out of vacuum. Why does anybody have to know the internals of any system to get the advantages of reparability and serviceability? What were independent service personnel for? Did everyone know how to open and repair watches, cars, refrigerators, etc? Did that stop them from getting the benefit?
I always enjoy how Thinkpad bros have been badmouthing MacBooks for two decades, when those have had the best battery life, screen, hinge, case, bluetooth, fan noise and other amenities during all of that time. They were the first to have WiFi.
Apple figured out pretty soon that a laptop doesn't need to be a dragster or M1 Abrams, it needs to be a Volvo.
> soldered-on RAM modules
That can have significant performance advantages, though. Which might be hard to overcome due to physics
If you're gaining advantage by changing RAM from sockets to soldered joints, it's probably time to change the system design altogether. It's better to put the DRAM on the same IC/SoC as the processor - on a dedicated die if necessary. Any additional memory requirement can be added as socket based RAM modules. They sure will be slower. But they can be treated as another memory layer, kind of like the optane memory (without persistence) or NUMA. You'd still get significant speed up because a portion of the DRAM is colocated with the CPU now.
This also adds to the core philosophy that I'm trying to push. Modularity and serviceability doesn't necessarily mean sacrificing performance, compactness or security. That's a myth that's too prevalent in the industry.
There is a new system design, it's called LPCAMM. And framework would have used it in the desktop but those CPUs have some flaw that make them not compatible with full speed LPCAMM.
Moving the memory even closer doesn't have all that much advantage. And having super close RAM and sockets is a waste of die space on all those I/O channels. One or other can fit all the needs of any particular CPU.
Worth noting that even Framework's own desktop has soldered-on RAM, for exactly this reason
And that was even after constructive cooperation with amd. Now think about the more common, hostile, interaction many suppliers provide.
It's also worth noting the CAMM2 ram gets about the same performance.
Framework has stated that it asked AMD if there were any way to make the RAM on Ryzen AI Max APUs (like used in the Framework Desktop) socketed, and AMD said no due to the stability hit that’d entail — the physical distance from the CPU that’d be required with RAM sockets reduces signal integrity too much for it to function.
Which is weird. The entire point of [LP]CAMM[2] is to be able to make that work.
The Framework desktop clocks the memory at 8000MHz. That's well within the limits of the interface. Something is flawed or omitted in those CPUs if they can't handle it.
Lamenting market taste and the resulting mass market designs is basically yelling at clouds.
Simple fact is that most people have different priorities than the “make everything upgradable” crowd would like. That’s not going to change. Why would 90% of the market “unite” with 10% who want a totally different set of tradeoffs?
It’s like asking that all car buyers unite and demand manual transmissions in every car. I love manual cars, but I recognize most people do not want that for most of their driving. So why would the majority demand this feature that they don’t actually want, and which would not be a better experience for most?
I was expecting this reply here. But it's still the same old excuse to do nothing. It's as if we deserve nothing better than what the companies impose upon us. That's such a defeatist stance.
I don't think anyone is concerned what anyone deserves in terms of hardware.
Different companies "impose" different tradeoffs upon us. Pick what you like, but expect to pay a premium for a less popular choice.
> Different companies "impose" different tradeoffs upon us.
The "different tradeoffs" those companies offer us are a lie. There are other tradeoffs they won't ever explore. But I won't explain it anymore because I did that practically in every single comment of mine in this thread. Just ignoring it and repeating this trope is hardly a counterargument.
> Pick what you like, but expect to pay a premium for a less popular choice.
The argument about choices is also a lie. They don't exist because the market is a heavily captured and manipulated one. You might as well wait for Santa Claus to deliver it instead. This is again something that's repeatedly ignored. We're just arguing in cycles here.
There are a lot of missing choices in modular, serviceable and repairable market - which is why you see so many little complaints in this thread about a company that's sincerely attempting to offer and improve modular options. It's not that there's no demand for it. But the majority consumers just de-incentivices such products out of the market by following the hype and choosing the harmful options.
At least, the majority of the consumers can be forgiven for their ignorance about those tradeoffs. But that's something that the knowledgeable and expert population can solve. The others respect their opinion. But instead of pushing for the common good, they consistently show apathy. It really isn't that big of a deal. The experts have to be more honest and vocal about their own specialities, and the situation will gradually improve. People have rallied and achieved much harder goals.
But the really frustrating aspect is that some people actively sabotage the commons. At this point, I don't believe that the tech influencers are being honest about the interests they serve. And equally bad are the misguided defeatist arguments raised against advocacy for the commons. I really don't understand the motivation behind such excessively cynical takes.
And yet, you completely ignore the possibility that someone could value portability, lightness or even looks of the device far above any points you hold very dear.
I get it, all that you say I would agree on regarding my stationary hardware.
On the go, I have very different demands. And the hardware sellers are not stupid, they know what sells.
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> It’s like asking that all car buyers unite and demand manual transmissions in every car. I love manual cars, but I recognize most people do not want that for most of their driving. So why would the majority demand this feature that they don’t actually want, and which would not be a better experience for most?
Um that's like the status quo in Europe lol. We all drive manual here. it's not that unlikely. Automatics are the exception here (and you must learn to drive manual otherwise you get a restricted license)
Driving it is different from demanding it. What percent of people in Europe would pay more for manual?
> I talked about this just two days ago. Unlike how you project it, that ideal is entirely feasible if there was enough investment and a large enough market. Instead, OEMs inflict the opposite on the consumers who take it all in without pushing back. These companies choose and spread suboptimal designs that suit their interests and then insist that it is the only viable way forward. It's absurd that consumers also repeat that falsehood.
Talk is cheap. Reality is a better indicator of what is and isn’t feasible, and it’s not like there haven’t been many attempts towards that ideal, but for whatever reason, Apple’s model is the desirable one, for most.
I've seen it from Netflix, Steam, and several others. People simply love having all their eggs in one basket, and will stubbornly support it long past the state it starts to exploit them. They support security over freedom every time, consistently.
It's a bit crude, but it's also why I'm not surprised AI is catching on so quickly. People will happily outsource their ability to "think" if the product is convincing enough to them. We already spent the last decade or 2 trying to maximize the dopamine hits from social media. Now there's a tech that can (pretend to) understand your individualized needs? Ready to answer to your Beck and call and never makes you feel bad?
Not as cool as thr VR pod dystopia, but I guess I overestimated how much stimulation humanity needed to reject itself.
> People simply love having all their eggs in one basket
It's more accurate to say that people don't like having twelve different interfaces that all do the same thing.
The proper way to do this is, of course, to have a single interface (i.e. a user agent) that interfaces with multiple services using a standard protocol. But every proprietary service wants you to use their app, and that's the thing people hate.
But the services are being dumb, because everyone except for the largest incumbent is better off to give the people what they want. The one that wins is the one with the largest network effect, which means you're either the biggest already or you're better off to implement a standard along with everyone else who isn't the biggest so that in combination you have the biggest network, since otherwise you won't and then you lose.
Yeah, thars a more generous way to put it. People are fine with the illusion of one basket. Thars pretty much how any large website works.
The ideal would be for users to choose their front end and have backends hook into it via protocols. Aka RSS feeds or Email (to some extent). But the allure of being vertically integrated is too great, and users will rarely question it.
>But the services are being dumb, because everyone except for the largest incumbent is better off to give the people what they want.
Yup, agreed. At this point, it's really an issue regulation can fix. Before it's too late.
Even more unimaginative dismissals are not what I wish to debate. I have already explained why this argument is disingenuous at best. Apple's model isn't the best. It just appears so because these companies never put significant effort into better alternatives and the consumers never demanded it. I keep trying to point this out - this is a repeated misdirection tactic employed by these companies and their fans.
I don't think this was understood charitably. The point of the parent is that in practice, when it comes time to update one part, you'll also want to update all or most of the others. So, in practice, you will not see any of these savings.
The potential savings may be significant, but for most people, it may be the case that the actual savings are unlikely. A modular, upgradable laptop may be a niche product for people who want to upgrade each part more frequently, not less.
> I don't think this was understood charitably. The point of the parent is that in practice, when it comes time to update one part, you'll also want to update all or most of the others. So, in practice, you will not see any of these savings.
It's frustrating to have to repeat the same point again and again. That is not correct at all. I have exercised it in practice. What you refer to as in practice are the deliberately crippled and limited options that are available in the market today.
> The potential savings may be significant, but for most people, it may be the case that the actual savings are unlikely. A modular, upgradable laptop may be a niche product for people who want to upgrade each part more frequently, not less.
Completely disagree. That's not what's seen in practice.
> You don't realize how much savings we used to extract by progressively upgrading the same desktop PC for two to three generations instead of throwing away the whole PC and buying a new one each time
Do you actually realise any savings doing that? Pretty sure I never have.
Typically by the time I get around to upgrading, they've changed both the CPU socket and the RAM, so I need a whole new motherboard. And I certainly don't trust a 5-year-old PSU to run a higher-watt load at that point. So most of the time all I'm reusing is the case and maybe a couple of auxiliary SSDs (which aren't a major part of the cost)...
Aren't part of the cost Yet :) actually upgradeable components were priority when motherboards and CPUs were too expensive to upgrade, it was ram ssds and memory that were changed out...
Soon, now actually, it is the inverse. Ram, ssds, high speed network, consumer GPUs, and anything else that needs a modest amount of DRAM.
AMD sockets last nearly a decade, and power supplies come with up to 13-year (or longer) warranties. It's just that it can be difficult to stay the course for the sheer amount of time it would take for you to realize those savings.
> power supplies come with up to 13-year (or longer) warranties
Unfortunately, those warranties don't tend to cover the rest of your components, if the PSU happens to take out a motherboard or GPU as it dies, you are up the proverbial creek.
Having had a couple of older PSUs die spectacularly, I'm not risking re-using a ~$100 component, on the off-chance it fries ~$500 of brand new motherboard/GPU/etc post-upgrade.
Why do people think newer components are more reliable? Is it the same thinking that says newer cars are more reliable? Newer computers? (The answer to all is no.)
Clean the dust out of your PC once a year. It'll last longer than it has any right to.
> Why do people think newer components are more reliable? Is it the same thinking that says newer cars are more reliable?
I'm not making any statement about newer models being more reliable, I'm saying that electronic components age, and hence the risk of failure goes up over time.
If you buy the exact same model of power supply, but one that is manufactured 5 years later, it will (statistically) be more reliable than the unit that's already been in use for 5 years.
Isn’t “reuse the PSU” kind of a tempting trap? I though it was—a cheap part that can take down the rest of your expensive system. I though the advice was to get a new one with each build…
I've been on the same PSU for I think 13 years now, its currently running my Ryzen 7 3700x and RTX4070 desktop. I suppose if its not a great quality PSU or its already suspected of causing issues then replacing is a good idea.
A quality PSU can often last 10 years and multiple builds. Quality in this case just means "has things like over voltage protection, proper wiring included, decent caps, and decent voltage regulation" not "was really expensive". E.g. that $140 85 W Seasonic Focus tier is quality in this regard, the $80 no-name 850 W PSU is what people warn about, and the $400 Seasonic Prime titanium rated PSU is mostly for those scrutinizing VRM designs or wattage limits on the cables to the GPU for their overclock goals.
It's common to upgrade your PSU anyways though as it seems like parts wattages only go up over the years (particularly for the +12v rails) or one may want to cycle out the old system completely for reuse/resale. Generic advice (since most people buy cheapo no name PSUs and upgrade rarely) might be to say to replace just to be on the good side of every situation... but if you're one that knows you got a quality PSU or likes to upgrade your build every other CPU generation, then swapping out the PSU every time is likely a waste.
If the PSU is that crappy, then yes. But these things are supposed to come with over voltage protection, current limiters, resettable fuses etc at the output. Even bad ones are not supposed to cascade their failure to the rest of the system.
But let's think of a better option. What if all spare parts came with an expiry date and a service schedule? On top of giving us a baseline to retire the part, the manufacturer will also be forced to divulge an indirect quality score (useful lifetime) and compete with others on it. If this sounds too fantastic, we sort of had this in operation half a century ago. I don't think a lot of people remember that era.
Oh neat, I was not aware. In the 70’s then, computer parts came with an expiration date? I wonder why they stopped, was it a tradition inherited from car, radio, or appliance parts, or something, where the idea of a wear-part is (or at least was) somewhat more developed?
> hardware has usually advanced far enough
That's not what we're experiencing.
Screens have seen improvements, but not in a significant way within these 4-6 years. Keyboards haven't improved leaps and bounds. Track pads either. Laptop casings haven't seen innovation either.
The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
> port module idea.
That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
I wish I could do that right now. The only reason I haven't one of their laptop is their stubborn refusal to ship outside a dozen or so countries.
I’ll contest that on the screens. Mini-LED backlighting is a substantial step up for contrast, backlights in general have gotten brighter, IPS panels have gained notability better color gamuts and contrast, and OLED panels are now widely available even in budget machines. The screens on the M1-M4 MBPs look quite visibly nicer than those MBPs used up until 2019.
Those painfully awful 1366x768 TN panels that used to be commonplace have finally mostly been ousted, too. As a result, chances are that the laptop you buy at nearly any price bracket in 2026 has a screen that’s moderately to dramatically better than was found in laptops in the same bracket up until 2020-2022.
The problems with the port modules are that due to their dimensions, the number of ports you can have on the laptop at once is small and the big voids in the chassis required for them to be able to slot in greatly weakens it and makes it more prone to flexing.
With an alternative design that uses internal port boards (still hooked up via USB-C) with matching exterior side plates, you could easily do something like 3x USB-C, 1x USB-A on the left and 1x Ethernet, 1x USB-C, 1x USB-A, 1x SD/microSD on the right in the same space as would’ve been taken by the modules for half as many ports. This would suit most users perfectly out of the box, precluding the need for swapping for many, but for those who need one side to be full USB-C or multiple NICs or a cell modem or something that’s still possible.
Point taken, I totally see how brighter screens must be a boon for people who actually bring their laptop outdoors.
My personal needs are way smaller so I missed that part completely (on contrast IDK, I recently had a Surface Pro 8 next to a MBP 4 and it didn't strike me, but I might not be sensible enough to that)
> 1366x768
We've had HDPI for a decade now, that's truly awful.
> ports
Agreed, people needing more than 4 ports or caring a lot more about size are kinda SOL with the current modular setup.
Brighter screens is a boon for anyone using a laptop, full stop. If it’s too bright, you can turn the brightness down, obviously doesn’t work this way in the opposite direction.
Besides, the point isn’t even absolute max brightness, but the contrast ratio. OLEDs aren’t the brightest displays, but their contrast ratio blows pretty much everything else out of the water and that’s what makes you go wow when looking at an oled in a dark room. (At least it does for me, still, and I’ve got an oled tv in 2018.)
To me, OLED being self-emissive is a far bigger deal than the contrast ratio. With LCDs, even the laminated ones in MacBooks, you get backlight shimmering, bleed, halos (especially with Mini-LED), and general inconsistency. With OLED, the pixels are a single, nano-thin layer, the display looks directly printed onto the surface (because it is), there are no backlight issues because there's no backlight, and there's no polarization or enclosure to create viewing angle artifacts. (Note: QD-OLED is inferior in this regard, especially with ambient light, but that doesn't bother me that much; WOLED however is trash.)
The OLED iPad Pro is one of the best screens I've ever seen, besides the awful pixel density. Even if deactivated pixels weren't fully dark, it'd still be far superior to any LCD.
OLEDs have a lot of great properties, but I’m still on the fence when it comes to building them into laptops. On phones and tablets where usage is intermittent, usually shortish, and content is constantly moving they’re well suited, but with a laptop screen that in some cases can be turn on for 12+ hours and is displaying the same static content for large chunks of that, I’d be worried about burn in.
Maybe it’s not an issue with tandem OLED and strict binning though.
I have a non-tandem QD-OLED I used as a desktop monitor for some months and it's totally fine. If you're part of the Apple hype cycle and you replace your $7,000+ laptop every year, you'll never see burn-in.
Not necessarily just outdoors, but to any well lit environment.
Including indoors in rooms with large windows that face east, south, or west! This describes a lot of office buildings, as well as my bedroom in a circa-2005 cheaply built mass development home too. On sunny days, it’s brightly naturally lit for basically half the day, and dim displays can struggle in that environment.
Not to mention cafes, libraries, or other large buildings which are many times constructed to let in as much sunlight as possible.
I have a 6 year old high end laptop that I keep as a backup and I disagree about no progress being made on screens. The current screens are very good, especially in high brightness environments.
> The only thing that significantly changes is the motherboard, which is not nothing, but replacing it independently makes sense to me.
Laptop motherboards aren’t like desktop motherboards where you can define a big outline and fit standard parts within it. The laptop design leverages tight co-design with the enclosure for thermal performance. If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for. However the optimal solution will always be to co-design the chassis, thermal solution, and motherboard together.
> If you’re lucky and leave enough extra space then you can design next generation parts to line up neatly with the thermal solution of last gen, then cap it at the limit of whatever last gen was designed for.
The mobile Ryzen 3/5/7/9 processors from the current year have a configurable TDP up to the same max (54W) as the earliest Ryzen "H" processors from 2017. The first generation mobile Core i7 from 2009 had a TDP up to 55W. The mobile Pentium 4 from 2003 had a TDP up to 76W (which appears to be the high water mark). In any given generation there were also lower end models using less power across a power range that seems to be fairly consistent over time.
Why does the thermal solution need to be redesigned if the heat output hasn't materially changed in decades?
Screens are dramatically better than a few years ago and have been advancing if you care about and shop for the feature. Trackpads are slowly sucking less.
Most people only see this in MacBook Pros, but the other manufacturers have excellent screens that are often hidden behind customization options and complex models/branding.
I have a framework and love it, but it’s a computer made for a specific purpose that doesn’t align with most people. That’s ok - Dell makes like 500 different let laptops and Framework has a totally different proposition.
I have to disagree on trackpads sucking less. This year I walked into a big box electronics store and tried the screen, keyboard and trackpad on every laptop they had on display.
Trackpads were universally abysmal, with the sole exception of the macbooks. They all had the frustrating diveboard design, every single one at every price point from every manufacturer. I’m sure you can buy laptops with decent trackpads online, but they had none in the store, macbooks excepted.
Keyboards were all over the place, but I notice that even some premium models are now carrying generic low end keyboard parts with weak travel, lack of key separation, num lock mashed into the backspace, and awkward arrow key layout. If anything I think keyboards are getting worse.
Screens are the one place where I’ll say things have improved noticeably, especially colors and black levels, although getting over 200 ppi and 500 nits is still a rare treat, and that is my bar for a compromiseless display.
> walked into a big box electronics store
You're comparing Apple to unnamed computers brands you touched at a random place, I'm not sure what to make of it.
For instance how does the Macbook Air compare to the current 13" Surface Laptop ? Is that what you call diveboard design and awkward arrow key layout ?
I didn’t say good just less bad.
Apple obviously produces the only product incorporating a touchpad that applies any significant, deliberate thought about it.
500 nits is not really good enough for laptop that you might use outside.
Luckily they are still improving and we now have Tandem OLED with about double that.
Should a laptop be optimized for indoor or outdoor use?
Given the primary selling point of laptops is their portability (often at the cost of other things), they should be optimized to be highly usable wherever they might end up getting used.
> Trackpads are slowly sucking less
This is an oddity of the PC laptop market I have never understood - Mac trackpads from a decade ago are still better than a top-of-the-line PC trackpad from the current year.
The only thing Apple has done in that decade is make their trackpads slightly bigger (and made the click haptic rather than physical), so it feels like the PC folks should have caught up by now...
Part of it is software (drivers), and that’s something that hardware vendors have traditionally been poor at writing. The bar for a driver is “it technically works and doesn’t bluescreen” rather than “it works well”. It’s just more evident in this case because the continuous-input nature of a trackpad makes the poor functionality much more apparent.
The other is that I don’t think most laptop vendors spend nearly as much on their trackpads. MacBook trackpads have for a long time shared their touch sensitivity hardware with iPhones, which makes them extremely responsive and precise, and this is paired with a high end haptic motor to produce click sensations. Finally, their surface is oleophobic glass which reduces friction. This all combines to produce a great experience, but I’m positive that they cost notably more than the typical plastic diving board fare, and most laptop manufacturers are squeezing out margin with cheaper parts wherever they can.
Apple pours all they have into making their trackpad the best it can be, including working from the OS to the UX to the SDKs.
It's sailant when using the Magic Trackpad on Windows: the acceleration curves don't match, the keyboard combinations are less natural, the gestures clunkier and the overall advantage of the trackpad is I think lesser. Mouses are a better fit on windows in every respects IMHO.
The modules are just inset usb-c dongles.
Handy that you can have them fully encased but there’s nothing really limiting any other laptop on this front. You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility.
Maybe some people really want the enclosed module so they have fewer things to carry, but that’s a pretty small advantage that I’m not sure many people will value.
I could get something like this ( https://satechi.net/products/undefined/products/pro-hub-slim ) for my MacBook Air and come out ahead on weight and size.
>but there’s nothing really limiting any other laptop on this front. You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility.
Yeah, but thars another part to lose. I have tons of dongles and expansion bays, and have lost half a ton of them to the tides of school, work, travel, and carelessness. Most lost, some break because it's a huge portrusion out of your core machine. A few borrowed and never returned. One of them stuck at an office I got laid off from but never returned to post pandemic (but the severance hush money was worth more than me raising a fuss as opposed to replacing the $30 bay).
I don't need it to literally be plug and play, but I appreciate a more modular setup that is flush and stuck to the machine.
PS. Your link is 404.
Ah weird the link didn’t work. It looks like their site overrides the url that is set for link sharing.
This one should work, copied it from the address bar instead.
https://satechi.net/products/pro-hub-slim?variant=4019950983...
In wish I could have lived for a month or two with the Framework system to get a better feeling of it.
I'm usually either docked at my primary desk and only need a single USB-C, or moving from place to place and need 2 USB-A and a full size SD reader. I imagine the nice part with the insets is they're flushed so they'less surface to hit when moving the machine around.
I'd actually love to make my own insets that bakes the wireless dongles in them, that sounds doable.
If you have a 3D printer you can print enclosures https://www.printables.com/model/139879-framework-laptop-exp...
https://github.com/LeoDJ/FW-EC-DongleHiderPlus?tab=readme-ov...
I've yet to build one, but this project looks very interesting in that regard.
> You just use an external dongle and have the same flexibility
And with thunderbolt, you get to have one dongle-sized dock, that connects with one cable, and gives you the full gamut of ports. I really love being able to connect 1 cable when I get to my desk, and have multiple monitors, all peripherals, plus power cable instantly.
> That's one of the best idea they have! You might have bought a laptop with 4 USB ports 5 years ago, only to realize you'd be so much happier with two USB-A. Or you realize you never ever use the SD Card slot. Well, you'd fix that easily on a Framework, not on any other laptop.
With all due respect -- meh.
I have a fairly old-ish laptop that I am not bothered to upgrade because a Ryzen 5500U is super capable to this day (and I don't do local LLMs) and it has a 10Gbps USB Type-C port, an HDMI port, and a USB 3.0 Type-A port. And an SD card reader.
I bought a hub. I put the laptop on a stand and plug its Type-C 10Gbps slot in the hub. Job done.
All this clamoring about being able to replace ports surely resonates with many people but to this day I don't view it as a true advantage. If you have to carry your laptop to a dedicated office, a stand and a hub are table stakes anyway. And that's not even touching a proper big display, keyboard and a mouse.
And furthermore, if making the ports flexible leads to too many design compromises then to me that means that I am making a bad deal.
I am periodically inspecting Framework laptops and I still find them lacking. Their appeal to tinkerers has IMO peaked and they should pivot to another pitch or they might not survive. Though I really, really hope they do. We need the competition.
I’d be better off for my work laptop with an even smaller cube that was built expecting a hub to be plugged in. No monitor, keyboard or mouse. I don’t think the keyboard and monitor on it have ever been used outside of diagnosing why the hub isn’t working.
Yeah, that too. And AFAIK many devs do that, they buy mini PCs that are very generously specced and just carry them between home and office, usually plugging every periphery needed (display, keyboard, mouse, Ethernet) by just plugging one high-speed port from the box PC to the hub.
I worry about throwing a box that isn’t meant to be moved a lot into my back back every day
> keyboard and a mouse
That's the part that's hitting me the most.
I have two dongles for the wireless connectivity of both, and the choice is between sticking both in a dock and bring the same huge dock every single place I go, or move them from dock to dock as needed.
Having two USB-A would mean I stick them on the machine itself and never think about it anymore. Then if they could completely disappear inside the port extensions it would be a dream.
TBH I wouldn't be using the Framework as my primary work laptop either way, use cases are very limited and I already have the power and modularity needed with the Z13, but as a personal laptop for way wider use cases it ticks all the right boxes. If only it shipped outside of US and EU.
I understand. I have a mini hub, something like 10x4x1 cm. Works fine for me and it even also has Ethernet.
As mentioned, I'm sure Ftamework has valid usages. To me they command a much higher price premium than I'm comfortable with paying for those valid usages however.
I do love and want a libre booting stack. To me _that_ is the really good stuff. But they need to chill on prices.
This. My idea of a repairable laptop is the Thinkpads up until around 2015. And I absolutely agree that the port modules forces Framework to limit the number of ports to the point that I'd hesitate to purchase one because I'd be swapping ports all the time.
The replacement parts aren't cheap either as Framework has very little used parts market.
I can rehouse a Thinkpad or most other high volume laptops for a quarter or less the cost of a Framework, making the total lifetime cost much lower. Framework will sell you a new housing with screen for $399, but at that point I can buy an 11th gen Thinkpad for half the cost.
I want the economics to work, but even with free labor it makes no sense.
As the owner of a Framework 13, you're exactly right. It only has 4 ports, at least one of which is pretty much always for charging, and let's face it you will always want a USB-A, so that leaves two. If you want to be ready for HDMI output or SD cards, that occupies them both, better hope you didn't want another USB-A or whatever.
Oh, and there's a permanent headphone jack, for some reason.
Compare to my last Thinkpad (a T460), which had a charger jack, three USB-A, HDMI, RJ45, MiniDP, a headphone jack, and an SD slot. I didn't need to swap adapters because everything was just already there. (I never used the MiniDP or the headphone jack, but everything else, yeah.)
If the Framework had 2 or 3 permanent USB-C's in addition to the 4 swappable ports, or just had 6 or 7 swappable ports, I'd be much happier. But as it sits, carrying a baggie of modules in my backpack is just silly.
That said, it can do something super cool: Charge from either side. Because there are USB-C ports on both the left and right, and any of them can be a power inlet, I'm presently laying on my side in bed, with the charger plugged into the "top" side, i.e. the one that's not leaning into the mattress. When I roll over, I'll just move the cord.
When I was shopping for my "next" (present) machine, I was able to find one Ideapad that claimed it had USB-C ports on both sides, but it was eye-wateringly expensive. I couldn't get Lenovo's site to tell me which cheaper models had this, and their support people couldn't produce such a list either. Finally in frustration, I decided to give my money to Framework instead, and the either-side charging is a trick I rely on frequently.
My current load-out is two USB-C and two USB-A, one of each on each side.
I also find the lack of ports in a Framework frustrating.
My Thinkpad has
and a Framework has only half of that.Most of these are used at least once per day.
I'm hoping for third party chassis offerings to solve this.
I feel like folk in this thread haven't used a Macbook Pro from the past ten years or so — which is fine, I don't expect everyone to want to use MacOS (I prefer Linux) but the hardware is genuinely nice.
On my personal 2019 MBP I have four USB C ports, and can charge via any of them. My work M3 MBP only has three, but has a full-size HDMI port too (and a magnetic charging port I've never used). I carry a cheap USB C dongle that works with pretty much anything and gives me a couple of USB A ports, HDMI, a USB C with pass-through charging, and Ethernet. It's great, and it's DP alt mode rather than TB so it works with anything (including Android phones with the right hardware).
Apple definitely aren't perfect (although I do actually like my touch bar) but when they make hardware that works, it really does work well. I wish it were possible for other companies to make things as nicely.
My wife has a recent MBP (a compromise to get away from Windows) and it's slick, fast, and super reliable. But you hit the nail on the head: Linux. There is no substitute. That's one reason why I swear by my Framework 13.
While they aren't the only manufacturer guaranteeing excellent Linux support, that and the upgradeability seal the deal.
Speaking of the MBP, the fixed disk size is really frustrating. Historically this is the one part that was upgradeable on all laptops.
Quite a few laptops support dual side charging fwiw. It’s definitely useful but not all that rare.
Right, but there's no way to search for them, that I've found. Even if a machine has multiple USB-C ports, the only way to ascertain that they're on both sides is to find photos of both sides. It's not like a specific amount of RAM that you can just click a checkbox to filter by.
And then you have to assume that the photos depict the actual model and variant you're getting, which is not always the case. It'd be a hard row to hoe, to return a machine based on "it had all the same ports it claimed, but in different places"...
I first saw that feature on a cheap Chromebook and was a bit surprised. But I suppose the more expensive machines have great battery life (for the first year or so) and the people who own them are too cool to use a cable.
> That said, it can do something super cool: Charge from either side.
Heh, that does sound nice. But for me it's not a problem, because my X230 charges from the rear.
Have you ever tried dealing with Lenovo for parts or repairs ? My only experience with them was bleak and I never heard good stories on this front.
No, I've always gotten my Thinkpads and parts from eBay and other second-hand marketplaces.
>Reliable machines
Maybe one day I'll have that. Meanwhile,
- my first hp laptop had to be sent in twice in 2 years. Then by year 3 I just gave up the ghost (having side income helped)
- 2nd Asus laptop was used and a decent discount, so I didn't complain too much. But it hit screen issues in 2 years.
- then I got a razer blade. Honestly not bad (just really expensive), I simply had the lack of hindsight to realize 3 years later that it wouldn't be compatible with Windows 11. For what reason I will never know. Not too long after the battery simply refused to hold charge as well. I could have spent to repair that, but I was already looking at an upgrade funded by my work perks anyway.
My current Asus has been relatively problem free, but there were still minor things I opened it up for. Typical ram and storage upgrades at first. Spotty wifi chip early on, but I upgraded it to an Intel one for AC support a few months in regardless. Also hate how I discovered that the computer has vents on the front and will freak out if you close the display for secondary monitors no matter how well you cool the rear vents, but I guess that one's on me for not more carefully considering.
So yeah, I'd rather just have something repairable.
On the other hand, we hand down our MacBooks in the family and our old 2018 MacBook Airs are still in daily use without any reliability issues AFAIK. Zero user repairability.
I had an old MacBook Air that I ran until it eventually lost battery function and new software just wouldn’t run well on such old hardware, and I stopped getting updates for the OS which meant apps slowly became incompatible.
Loved that machine. 10+ years of use from the best laptop I ever had.
I would’ve bought a new one when I eventually gave up on it, but the Apple of 2025 is worlds apart from the Apple of 2012.
Experiments with Touch Bars and software escape keys, butterfly keyboards that frankly just suck, thin glass screens that crack, USB-C ports requiring dongles everywhere…
I didn’t buy a new MacBook and migrated away from Apple instead.
You’re describing the Apple of 2018.
Ah sorry, I must be thinking of the Apple of 2025 that still hasn’t added USB-A to their laptops (even though my Framework has 2) and expects me to carry a dongle everywhere, because after all, it’s my fault for not completely rearranging my world to do what Apple wants.
Or I must be thinking about the Apple of 2025 that rolled out Liquid Glass, an OS so disastrously bad I have to toggle accessibility settings just to make it usable.
I’m pretty comfortable saying modern Apple has had a sad and shitty fall from its peak.
China and EU have mandated usb-c for all rechargeable devices, for many years. Usb-a is legacy, together with vga, parallel printer ports and other old and bulky connectors, such connectors should require adapters. This is a good thing.
That’s why apple laptops are using usb-c.
Such a ridiculous sentiment. You can justify all you want, but I still have USB-A on my Framework :) It is not legacy because 1) I am not in China and 2) I want it.
And I noticed you didn’t touch on Liquid Glass… guessing that one is much tougher to explain away…
Additionally, most MacBook USB-C ports are also Thunderbolt 3/4/5 ports which can do a number of things that USB-A ports can't. A laptop with 3x TB ports is substantially more expandable than a laptop with 1x USB-C and 3x USB-A.
Are Frameworks even upgradeable enough to enable the same kind of upgrading in the typical upgrade window as one would get buying a new machine? This means replacing nearly everything except the chassis, keyboard, and screen.
My current 128gb AI 300 started as a 16 GB 12th gen Intel. Unrelated, I also upgraded to the higher resolution screen.
For me anyway, the answer is "yes".
It’s frustrating. A small manufacturer can’t hope to beat out a large one on price. And that’s before we consider that the maintainability that Framework offers means you can’t cut the corners the regular manufacturers do. But even I find things like the weight an unappealing proposition even though I have no idea how you’d build a laptop like Framework’s that appreciably lighter.
I think that what it means one needs to pick their battles, at least early on. Trying to achieve repairable + upgradable + novel expandability all in one go might be somewhat overambitious for a brand new company. Do one thing really, really well instead of five things mediocrely. Once you've got one mastered, move on to the next thing.
But then again, I've never run a hardware company, so maybe I'm wrong.
Also the fact that hardware is pretty stagnant and upgrades aren’t that important anymore for most stuff. I bought an Acer in 2012 and over the next 5 years I upgraded the RAM from 4 gb to 8gb and swapped the hdd for an ssd. Those were enormous upgrades! Then I bought a MacBook Pro with 16gb and an ssd and didn’t need another computer until this year (still didn’t NEED one but I found a good deal on a 4 year old MBP).
Exactly this. Everyone says they want upgradable (stated preference), but when making personal purchasing decisions, a “premium experience” is valued more highly (revealed preference).
“Upgradable hardware on a laptop” is a loud minority.
I want open hardware. I want to know what’s running on my machine. I don’t really give two shits if the RAM is soldered because I will probably upgrade when (if) it becomes a problem.
"The crux of the matter is that even if one values upgradability and repairability, neither is a frequent need for practically anybody."
That is entirely irrelevant.
The product does what it says on the tin. If you don't value that because "repairability isn't a frequent need" then you don't value that (and the reason doesn't matter).
If you* don't value that, then why did you read the tin, buy the thing, and then complain that it is what it said it was going to be?
That is what's annoying to witness.
I can do all that same math about price and features, yet why don't I have any buyers remourse? Do I not know about Dell and Lenovo and Apple? If the value proposition is innately bad, then why aren't I complaining too? Have I been hypnotized into acting against my own priorities and intentions?
The problem is not with the product or it's price.
* not literally you, sorry for how that sounds
As others have pointed out, a lot of us would very much like to buy a Framework laptop but as it is we can’t make it make sense. We’ll be customers if Framework can figure out how to patch up their shortcomings, and by expressing that sentiment hopefully they’re encouraged to try to do that.
We value reparability and upgradability and are willing to pay for it all else being roughly equal.
It’s like for the same price, being given a choice between a hybrid car that’s quiet on the road and gets 45 MPG fuel economy with great torque and responsiveness but needs to be taken to the dealer to service and a car that’s easy to self service but has an annoying rattle at highway speeds, gets 15 MPG, and has a 4-speed automatic transmission. Both technically do the job, but you’d be hard pressed to find people who’d choose the latter over the former.
No major manufacturer is even approaching what Framework is trying to do, so I'm happy to cut them some slack in order to support a product philosophy that I believe in. My 12th Gen Framework 13 is certainly good enough in this respect.
People have bought not so well made electric cars for the same reason (e.g.: Tesla).
Your car analogy does not really hold up though, considering that anything but an absolutely awful car is quite repairable and (in the right hands) upgradable.
> If you* don't value that, then why did you read the tin, buy the thing, and then complain that it is what it said it was going to be?
Because the tin didn't say "repairable and upgradable and poor battery life and shaky case". It only mentioned the benefits but not the drawbacks.
To be fair, I've had plenty a non-repairable laptop with poor battery life and shaky case. I don't know their excuee.
If all the laptop components break at the same time, there's no need for repairability. Then it’s just a somewhat disposable computer by design. For a car analogy, this is how many americans could afford their first car.
The truly bad designs are when one broken component is preventing repairability. Hello apple!
This is an insane take.
The number of MacBooks I’ve seen shipped back to repair center for weeks, over a single non functional key, is astonishing.
But how common of a problem is this, now that Apple is well clear of the butterfly keyboard mess? I haven’t had to get my MacBooks repaired even once in the past decade and change, and that’s despite two of the machines I’d used during that time being the butterfly/touch bar models!
That being said, yes it’d be better if such a repair were quick and easy, but I’m not sure that it’s so valuable as to justify battery life being around a third what my MacBooks get or wrestling a buggy, immature BIOS and all the issues that come with that. A laptop that’s bad at being a laptop isn’t worth a whole lot…
> I’m not sure that it’s so valuable as to justify battery life being around a third what my MacBooks get or wrestling a buggy, immature BIOS and all the issues that come with that.
It is to me, given my 15 odd years of using Windows and Linux instead of Mac. I'm not even liking windows much these days, but I've never had a situation where I was forced to use a Mac.
You are correct that example has been made very much better.
That was due to a defective keyboard design that the company denied, failed to fix after several revisions, and was ultimately sued for.
I was stuck with one of these at work. I’ve owned or had in my custody probably 30 laptops since 1995. It’s the only one that required keyboard replacement, and ended up needing 3.
As opposed to taking the part out of a Framework laptop, shipping it back to the repair center for weeks, and then reinstalling it when it comes back?
Or if time is of the essence, ordering the brand new part to skip the repair process and then installing it yourself when it arrives later?
Contrast this with the amount of time my coworker spent hauling his laptop charger everywhere and obsessively topping up his laptop battery while traveling because the battery drain during sleep was a problem at that time. This added extra wear and tear on the battery, of course, but I guess he could replace it himself?
You just order a new key, and install it. And not have the downtime. (You can remap key or use an external keyboard.)
And yeah, replacing the battery is easy. Not a Framework, but I replaced a laptop battery some years ago, was glad I had that option, because lithium battery lifetime always decreases eventually.
I’m old enough to remember when many phones and some laptops had removable batteries. Switch to a spare, and boom instantly full, you didn’t need to tether it to a wall.
The thing I don't get about the framework upgradability is that, what are you honestly going to do with the old system board or graphics card? I guess you could sell it. Who's going to really buy it?
I tend to upgrade my laptop every 6-8 years and by then there is nothing to upgrade well, frankly the technology has moved on, new PCIe standards DDR screen tech etc. One of the reasons I did not buy a framework (was very close to it) is the screen. I value having a decent screen attached to my laptop. I think some of these newer laptops with Tandem OLEDs will be a real improvement over what was out there previously.
I thought about the port configuration as well, and that's all cool you can have 6 ports that can be anything you like, but really they are just two USB controllers controlling all that. One on either side. What would be my ultimate port configuration? Well probably like some USB-C and an audio port and a HDMI port. The network adapter sticks out so that's going to be super annoying. The newer Lenovo and Dell laptops have replaceable USB ports, which means if I wear one out I can replace it easily.
What I also realized is you can do some really cool things like PCIe passthrough with Thunderbolt that of course you don't get on a Framework. Want to have an awesome GPU? Well you can use an eGPU or perhaps an flash a firmware to your NVMe (you can't do that over USB), but you can over PCIe passthrough where the device shows up as /dev/nvme0. I've always had problems with disks over USB, sometimes they'll drop from the system, and things like eSATAp were always more reliable for 3.5" disks, but that's only available on desktop with a special bracket.
One of the other reasons I ended up not going for the Framework was that it uses Insyde BIOS and they were a bit slow on their Logofail firmware updates. Prompt security updates are important to me. None of them also have vPro or Ryzen Pro models, (so no encrypted RAM) https://fwupd.github.io/libfwupdplugin/hsi.html#dram-memory-... if you want to achieve higher HSI 4 levels. https://fwupd.github.io/libfwupdplugin/hsi.html#hsi4-secure-...
In the end I'm just going to spend a little on a T1g Gen8 probably. I can upgrade the RAM in that because it's CAMM2. It may cost a little more than the framework but on special I should be able to get it for a nice price.
If I had less money I'd probably just go for previous gen.
Drop it into this case to be used as a home server or a set top box!
https://frame.work/products/cooler-master-mainboard-case
I already have a server at home server. I used a MZ32 motherboard with a bunch of disks 3.5" in it as it's mostly a storage server.
My HTPC is an old ATX desktop computer on its side in a Phanteks P400A case. On it's side it just looks like a black speaker grill front to back cooling it has three Noctua NF-A12x25 fans that are barely even visible.
The good thing about using standard parts is if the GPU died I could buy another cheap one to replace it.
But I guess that case is a cool idea if you didn't have those things.
[dead]
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
Buying one of the original Frameworks and a Macbook Air at roughly the same time made me realize how little I actually care about upgradeability and repairability. This feeling took me by surprise. Modern Macbooks are just so much better in terms of feel it's like comparing tech from a different decade.
(it also turns out that having a defect that the manufacturer doesn't make right can cause a person to feel a few different things, but gratitude for the product's repairability isn't at the top of the list)
Agree. I want rock solid Linux compatibility with mac like hardware quality / battery life and a Thinkpad like toughness and keyboard. I don't really need it to be upgradable as long as it lasts 8 years.
IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer.
I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.
We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just tossing it into a black hole.
Maybe in the late 90s and early 2000s. These days hardware from over a decade ago works fine. I am typing this comment on a 2011 Dell E6410. Install Debian / Arch Linux and the machine is surprisingly capable. Just running HTOP I am using 2.5G of ram (out of 8GB) and the CPU is at 2%.
TBH, I have a Ryzen 5950X based tower and while it is faster than my previous desktop which was a i7 4970K (or whatever it is), the previous machine would be fine tbh. I am not even sure why I upgraded tbh.
I guess its a byproduct of a faster moving curve with improved technology. 20 years ago you didn't need to replace the entire platform for at least 10 years.
20 years ago I was hopping from Intel to AMD and then back to Intel. After that practically every decent jump in CPU performance on the Intel side of things meant a new socket (LGA775, 1156, 1155, 1150, 1151...). AMD typically kept sockets for a bit longer but wasn't as competitive until Ryzen which had a few jumps in chipset compatibility in there.
In the last 20 or so years if I wanted a few years newer CPU for whatever reason it usually meant I needed a whole new motherboard, and that often (but not always) also meant new RAM.
Is it artificial though, really? You buy whatever is available now and it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to buy a new one. Maybe there is some kind of multi vendor collusion going on but it doesn't seem that likely.
Where I think repairability really makes sense is in things that don't materially improve and should last 30 years (e.g. appliances).
If there's an ability to upgrade my GPU 3 years in but I can't, then yes. It's artificial. We just got way too comfortable with the mentality of throwing out everything and getting new cheap tech overtime.
I guess the one thing AI is doing that's good for this scene will be to make people value what they have more.
Who is "we"?
I'm pretty sure part of the reason of integrating everything on the board has some nefarious reasons, at least on Laptop's. Louis Rossman talked about a design flaw in Apple Macbooks where if the SSD fails, in my cases, your system will fail to power up because the mainboard is designed to fail when the SSD fails.(If I am interpreting that correctly)[0]. Remember this flaw is in the Macbooks where the SSD's are soldiered into the board. IMHO there are ways to design integrated hardware in such a way where failures minimize damage and I think many companies decide its not in there best interest to design hardware to prevent that. IMHO this is done in bad faith.
[0}: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qbrLiGY4Cg
My partner with a Macbook works on AI and has told me how great Apple silicon is, and their Macbook would run so many things so well.. except they don't have enough RAM and there's no way to upgrade it..
I’m in the same boat as your partner except that I generally max the RAM in my laptop when buying it.
The thing is it would probably be the same issue with a Framework or any other brand of laptop as they all have some final limit on RAM or GPU RAM.
If you upgrade the GPU or motherboard you have to ask what will happen to the old one. You can reuse some of them but most probably will just be e-waste.
There’s a chance when upgrading a whole laptop that the old one will a new use somewhere.
I'm a hoarder so I'd just keep it around. I still have my Playstation 2 after all.
Every laptop except my first college one is also somewhere around my house. Even my $300 high school laptop that could really only run Microsoft Word (I remember running Fallout 3 on it at lowest settings at a brisk 10 fps). Even for that college laptop I salvaged the storage, ram, and disk drive.
This is exactly what I want.
Some people around me prolesytize these modern Macbooks endlessly but I don't quite get it. I've tried them but I still love my Framework 16 to bits and I'd take it any day of the week. The Macbooks are great machines, and one thing I can say in their favor is the battery life is phenomenal, but I prefer my Framework's aesthetics and feel - it feels more like I'm holding something I've worked on and made my own vs just bought, I prefer the shiny metal over the dull gray of the Macbooks, the keyboard and trackpad are just as good (and I love the rgb pad I have in place of a numpad), and taking it apart/replacing modules just feels so cool. I've also saved those friends various times by lending an expansion card, usually usb-A.
> the keyboard and trackpad are just as good
The keyboard on my framework 13 is fine but it’s got a very sketchy touchpad and that classic symptom of a modern, shitty laptop: the whole thing flexes if I pick it up by the corner, and oftentimes actuates the trackpad button. Other times if I’m sitting in an unfavorable position the machine flexes and the trackpad button no longer works. Compare that with the rigidity of a modern Macbook.
Framework 14 is the original (and best tbh). The 13 and 16 unfortunately don't hit the balance of feeling premium like the 14 does. This thread has me wondering if they really diluted their reputation with these new devices...
I meant 14, then. I bought my framework from the third or fourth batch that was available (going from memory), in November 2021 (going from email).
Nothing premium about it at all. That’s ridiculous in my opinion, the quality is cringe in comparison to an Apple. On the other hand, I’ve got four years of use out of it, so… whatever.
I wanted to love it very badly, and they did the right thing with the camera and audio cutoff switches and their location. But that wasn’t enough to make it a great laptop.
First time I read that the trackpad of Framework is 'just as good' as in macbooks
As a daily user of both a first gen framework 13 and a M1 MacBook Pro, the MacBook touchpad is like 5-10% better. And I suspect that's all software because I did something recently that absolutely fucked the response and feel of my framework touchpad that I haven't figured out how to undo so there's clearly a lot of room for manoeuvre in software.
Yeah I agree. You can get two base MacBook Airs for the price of that laptop. A base MacBook Air is a very very capable machine.
And has enough UNIX for those that care.
Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it. Framework offers repairable laptops at a fixed price. To some the repairability adds enough value to warrant the higher prices, to some it doesn't. (As well as customizability and mainline Linux kernel support).
I've found that if you're in the habit of repairing laptops, Frameworks may come cheap to you as you might have spare storage and ram around. Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
What is the implication of this? You're not allowed to criticize a product unless you're being forced to buy it? What is the list of companies you're allowed to levy any critiques of, then? Your electricity provider? You could always move, right?
Is this the mentality that leads people to only ever criticize government power and let all others off the hook?
I sometimes feel like people criticize products as if they were offered to them personally. The pricing of a product may be absurd to them but if it were absurd to everyone there wouldn't be a market for it.
You can objectively compare the features between two products and criticize them that way. But to criticize the price you need to attach a monetary value to those features. With a framework one of those features is repairability, which to some is worth nothing, and to others it's worth a whole lot.
So is the frameworks pricing absurd? That depends on the person buying.
So you're not allowed to criticize pricing unless you're forced to buy it?
I am not prohibiting anyone from doing anything. I am just saying I don't think people should criticize pricing as if they're forced to buy it.
Do you have any evidence that anyone, ever, has been forced to buy a (framework) laptop?
> Not being forced to buy ram and storage is one of the "luxuries" of buying framework.
To be fair at least Lenovo and to some extent dell also offer this for individual customers.
It usually is not an option on the latest processors for premium models though as soldered RAM becomes more prevalent there. A minor problem of the author might be that they are looking at the relatively high tier models, which ime have less options for "saving" money, while something like a thinkpad e14 might also have been a good candidate instead.
I think the people criticizing would be potential customers who are voicing the issues that are preventing them from purchacing one. For example, I would criticize the lack of a trackpoint equivalent. And in fact, I'm not purchasing one because it doesn't have a trackpoint. If they listened to my complaint, I'd be much more inclined to buy one. (Not right away — I'm not on the market for a laptop right now — maybe 3 years down the line.)
> Right? People claim that the pricing is "absurd" as if they're forced to buy it.
This happens all the time, especially with Apple. Complaints about the inability to side load or use alternative stores for example. Nobody forced you to buy it. It's stupid when people do it for Apple and it's stupid when they do it for Framework.
I'd say comparing hardware vs software is very different. If there were 5+ competing OS's with decent market share, maybe you'd have a point there. But the reality is that mobile software is controlled by 2 trillionaire tech companies that made use of anti-competitive measures to prevent consumer alternatives.
Heck maybe even 3. The desktop scene doesn't feel that much better, but them all allowing "sideloading" as we call it today alleviates full control of the OS.
> In contrast, Framework laptops has many supposed benefits: they're upgradable, repairable
Why would you propose that the author does not care about these things? They clearly do, they are simply not a single issue voter – and who is, when buying something as complex as a laptop? There is a trade-off and the one that Framework made here is not hitting the mark for the author, and they go into some detail to explain as to why.
I am super excited about Framework stuff: They are clearly getting somewhere with this; it's nicer than anything that came before with comparable repairability. I think it's super plausible that we don't exhaust the physical limitations that arise through repairability before it's so nice, that the trade-off will be negligible for most folks.
IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability. If you are doing this I think you are missing the point. This isn't a apples to apples comparison.
I also feel the frustration of the parent, and I also see that many people don't want to pay or consider the ramifications of where we we are at right now in this given time. Most devices are designed to be throwaway, manufactures cut corners, operate at a loss. These are byproducts from our badly designed technology from a suitability perspective that have driven prices down in a unhealthy way IMHO.
Its like trying to compare prices between now and fifty years ago. If you want the world to be more sustainable, you need to consider that its going to cost more, its not going to be comparable to whats out there right now, and you are going to need to deal with the growing pains.
Comparing Framework laptop to whats out there today in terms of features is a losing proposition. The market is built around a lack of sustainability.
> IMHO I think its not helpful to be comparing Framework's price to whats currently on the market. You are paying for sustainability.
But is it really more sustainable to have a poor quality but easily repairable/swappable laptop where you had to exchange multiple parts over e.g. 10 years, compared to a high quality laptop that lasted the full 10 years and didn't need any repairs? And that is not unusual, my 10 year old X1 carbon is still going strong, I just had to take change the battery at some point, but that was not very difficult.
If you have this mythical laptop that lasts 10 years, let me know. Meanwhile, I don't think the GT 1050m from my 2015 laptop would truly have been that competitive today. And it sure did need several repairs to last the 4-ish years it did get.
I'll admit my bias as a gamer and game dev, though. My industry more or less requires a stronger machine by default and the line shifts quickly. Even my decent GTX 3080m is starting to fall behind a bit. But not as drastically as the Moore's law era.
> If you have this mythical laptop that lasts 10 years, let me know.
I have 5.
Thinkpads. X220 i5, X220 i7, T420 i5, T420 i7, W520 quad core i7.
All maxed out or nearly, all in regular use. All nearly 15Y old.
The ?20 range was the last Thinkpad series with good keyboards. That's why I stocked up.
I am puzzled by the "GT 1050M is not competitive today"? What does that even mean?
You are moving goal posts. Your parent clearly specified long-term stability and lack of repairs. Granted not all laptops are that durable. But many are. I have a pile of old laptops, one I clearly remember using it as a daily driver for development in the interval of 12 to 10 years ago. Just ran it yesterday, wanted to see if I can put it in a homemade computing cluster. Worked fine after being battered with Fold@Home for 12 hours.
You did admit your bias, for which I am grateful. But admitting it or not, let's recognize it's still making people prone to judging from a filter bubble perspective. Barely any dev cares about GPU performance being competitive today. I am a fairly average dev and I and my kind care that the laptop can drive one 4K screen at 60Hz and that's it.
Sure , "sustain" is subjective. If you're sticking to Arch Linux, programming VIM, and browsing docs for 20 years, you'd get more value out of one good base over any potential upgrades. But that doesn't seem to be the world we live in, hardware or software wise. We don't really build laptops like we would fridges, and the former has a lot more moving parts regardless.
>But admitting it or not, let's recognize it's still making people prone to judging from a filter bubble perspective.
Sure. My other opinion to emphasize is that I don't think Framework is trying to aim for the average user. Nor even average dev. If you're questioning why you not buy some $600-1000 range laptop,or why you need a 5090 at all, you 99% don't really need the flexibility of a modular laptop.
On top of that, the average dev could (or at least, used to until recently) also afford a brand new replacement laptop, so they probably aren't as cost conscious nor as specs demanding as a game Dev like me living in a boom bust cycle (and it's pretty bust right). I'm around that time considering an upgrade and I'd much rather throw down $600 to just slap in a new GPU like I would in a desktop, instead of another $2000+.
What's the measure we're using to define quality?
I would say durability. HN is obsessed by e-waste so pointing out that something can last 7+ years wins some over. Not being sarcastic, nor am I mocking anyone, I am stating an observation.
I don't know if I consider Framework laptops poor quality. I wonder if you are considering the impact to the planet though. We have tons of waste everyday from devices that are not built with sustainability in mind. Yes Framework has a ways to go with that, but its the only company that I know thats really doing something about it. We have all these devices that if they are not built around sustainability in contributes to a worse climate and I worry what kind of world we are leaving behind for our children.
This is unfortunately a pure “feels over logic” comment that doesn’t engage with the parent poster’s argument at all. The point is impact, not what anyone has “in mind”.
I want Framework to succeed, but the author's objection isn't unreasonable:
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a €1200-€1500 laptop at best... two thousand Euros for this kind of laptop is just absurd
For most people the long-term total cost of ownership is going to be a major factor when they consider a more repairable laptop. Sure, generating less e-waste is nice, but saving money is probably the main point. What the author is asserting here is that to get the repairable laptop you need to spend 50% more for the same specs! As well as accept that the form factor is bulkier etc. At a 50% premium you do have to question whether you're going to save a meaningful amount of money in the long run.
For me I probably would - I find uses for machines that are a decade old and the repurposability of Framework components is pretty interesting. But interest in this level of reusability is a pretty niche market.
I think the Framework 16 is too expensive. They can access a niche market at these price points but to get bigger they will need to find a way to deal with the cost issue. PC World's review of the Framework 13 this year was: "A steep price for a compelling upgrade."
>But interest in this level of reusability is a pretty niche market.
We're getting to a point where some people don't even have a laoptop in their household. I think "serving a niche", especially one willing to pay 1000+ for tech, isn't a bad thing here. The tech required for browsing internet and streaming videos doesn't need to spend more than $500, or even get a windows/mac.Chromebooks will happily cut into that entry level market.
This is all before mentioning how memory prices will only make the problem worse for all consumer electronics.
If you want user serviceable equipment - example: phones, computers, cars, bikes, washing machines etc, you will have to deal with the issues that come with it - the same as the inconveniences that come with user serviceable software AKA open source software.
The reason being that a device which has been tested to work with only a fixed set of parts will likely have more of the issues ironed out in comparison to a device which has to work with a much wider range of devices.
You may not get the same form factors because user serviceable equipment will tend to be bulkier - for instance, you may not be able to get ultra thin laptops, phones etc.
However, these inconveniences are worth it because the alternative is that we will find ourselves in a place where the equipment becomes more and more adversarial to consumers.
Maybe the feeling of saving money, but any TCO calculation isn't going to land on the side of upgradability or repairability.
> but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
On the contrary, I think a lot of people completely understand the value proposition. It’s just that once you evaluate it against all of the tradeoffs and other priorities, it reveals that upgradeability is not as valuable as the other priorities. Most consumers aren’t single-issue voters who purchases hardware based on a single axis of features.
With Framework laptops specifically I’ve started to feel like “but it’s upgradable!” is becoming a tired rebuttal to any discussion of the tradeoffs you take one when you buy one of these machines.
In theory I enjoy an upgradeable machine, too. But in practice I’m not willing to give up much now in exchange for the possibility of maybe upgrading part of it later.
This is a classic example of revealed preference in product design. When you ask people in a vacuum if they want features like upgradeability, swappable batteries, or tiny phones that fit in your pocket the answer is always “Yes, obviously!” Then when the product comes to market and people have to vote with their wallets they survey the options and pick the laptop that’s light and highly integrated, the phone with a built-in battery that’s compact and sturdy, and the phone with a screen big enough to not feel cramped. This leaves a vocal minority trying to tell everyone else that they’re making the wrong choice or they have their priorities wrong, but the simpler answer is that these products are best reserved for the minority of people who prize singular design goals like upgradeability options to such an extreme that they’re willing to compromise or ignore everything else.
Value wise when trying to spec out my personal Lenovo laptop on framework, it'd never get anywhere close to being worth it even if I completely made use of the hardware after a future upgrade.
Framework makes sense if you're going in on the sustainability idea, but other than that it's really just an expensive laptop that's not compelling against its competitors
The pricing when I looked was similar. I went with a Lenovo last time because the Framework 16 hadn't quite matured, but premium anything is never going to make financial sense.
Buying and repairing a framework is never going to be cheaper than going through consumable trash laptops, and buying top of the line laptops and trying to use them longer is never going to be cheaper or better than buying medium grade laptops and upgrading more often.
What you're paying for right now is the customization capabilities and the ideology. Upgrading and customizing a single platform with a community, vs. a fixed one-off design that'll be lost next time you upgrade.
If Framework isn't already compelling to you at this time, then you're not the target audience. They might drop in price, but they'll never win a race to the bottom.
> buying top of the line laptops and trying to use them longer is never going to be cheaper or better than buying medium grade laptops and upgrading more often.
I think this is much less general than you make it out to be and has an extremely strong dependency on how you use the thing and of your preference. It makes me think of the boot theory.
Personally, for the type of work I do, I rarely need the latest ludicrously fast CPU. But I use it a lot and love to do so comfortably. To me, that means a great screen, a quiet fan, and a nice keyboard and touchpad.
Buying a mediocre computer and changing it more often means you'll always have a mediocre experience. A case in point: at work we have HP Elitebooks. The brand-new 2025 models I see people receive have worse screens and trackpads than my 2013 MBP. Sure, that box was quite a bit pricier even in nominal terms, but it had the same amount of RAM (16 GB) and SSD (512 GB) as these new computers. I'll also grant that the new ones have a faster CPU but the SSDs are somehow absurdly slow. I haven't seen a single one of these machines last more than 10 years fully functional. My mom still uses that MBP.
But the experience is sub-par. In the period 2013-2015, we never got to experience a nice laptop. For the office work these people do, that 12-year-old Mac would be an all-around better experience.
The HP screens at the time were truly horrendous. They're leagues better now but still poor and clearly worse than the 2013 mac. They are relatively contrasty, but the colors are all weird.
The trackpads have also improved a lot, but there still is some kind of odd lag when you use them [0]. They're horrible enough that many people still prefer carrying a mouse when using them away from their desks, and the mice we're provided aren't some Rolls-Royce ultra-premium affair, just a crappy, laggy Bluetooth Dell.
They also degrade from daily use: the screen hinge loosens so it moves if you look at it wrong, barrel power connectors from older models somehow become unreliable, and USB ports start to get loose (although when new they tend to be extremely tight). USB-C ports tend to become mushy.
Newer models tend to be quieter, but up until a few models ago, the fan would go wild for no reason (I work with many "non tech" people, so they basically use Outlook and browse a few random websites).
Now, if you only ever use your laptop tethered to a big screen and whatnot, and it's basically a very compact and easy-to-cart-around desktop, then sure, I can understand not caring one bit about all this: you never go out in the rain, so you never get wet feet!
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[0] This is possibly a Windows driver issue, since on my lower-end Elitebook (840 vs 1040) from 2020 running Linux, this doesn't happen.
> I think this is much less general than you make it out to be and has an extremely strong dependency on how you use the thing and of your preference. It makes me think of the boot theory.
The boot theory is different: It is about buying something not crafted with proper materials which will quickly fall apart and cost more in the long run. However, unlike technology, there is no cowhide 2.0 coming out 6 months after, with all leather made the cowhide 1.0 way instantly dropping in value and fading into irrelevancy.
Low-end laptops tend to be build around older SKU's which are no longer of interest but function no worse than they did when launched, and mid-tier laptops tend to be made with current SKU's in the more reasonable binning categories.
At the same time, the replacement rate also means that whatever high-end laptop will soon have its rear handed to it by a mid-tier machine of the next chip generation. While it's outdated within a year or two you of course won't replace it that soon, but that upgrade might stretch your upgrade schedule 50% to justify it - from, say, 4 years to 6. More years of being generations behind.
Keeping a Framework around for longer also only makes sense when considering upgradability.
> A case in point: at work we have HP Elitebooks. The brand-new 2025 models I see people receive have worse screens and trackpads than my 2013 MBP
HP Elitebooks are expensive, high-end machines. The issues you see is because HP, Dell and Lenovo all cater to IT department buying strategies, and therefore all offer a bargain screen option as the machines are bought in bulk and mostly used docked. You'll find that they also have an mid-tier screen option (usually a color-accurate 1080p or 1440p panel), as well as a high-end option (say, 4k OLED touchscreen with wacom digitizer).
The trackpad is a different story entirely. If you're used to a Mac trackpad, things are a bit grim on the PC side. There's some nice ones coming out though.
> They also degrade from daily use: the screen hinge loosens so it moves if you look at it wrong
Everything degrades from daily use. My hinge loosened on my last Mac, the screen damaged itself because the 15" panel did not have the necessary rigidity to main the intended 0.5mm gap to the keyboard keys (confirmed as the second panel did the same), the shitty magsafe port overheated as using pogopins for high power transfer is a terrible idea, all I/O on one side died, and the battery had inflated at least once...
My Dell XPS 13 costing 1/3rd never had any problems, and when replaced it just felt a bit slow and had a somewhat aged battery.
Price is not an indicator of quality or expected reliability, nor is the brand itself a reliable indicator. Use common sense, take a look at the product and avoid the bottom of the bargain bin.
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Do get a good mouse and keyboard though, it has a much more direct impact on your user experience and a mouse that costs twice as much isn't as much of an issue as a laptop costing twice as much. The keyboard and mouse also lasts longer if kept well.
I can swap out my mobo for a RISC-V mobo, or ARM.
Get away from Intel and management engine.
> I can swap out my mobo for a RISC-V mobo, or ARM.
You can't do that with the 16, only the 13 [0] and you can't upgrade ram on it. Which is kind of the problem in a nutshell. Over time fewer user modifications make sense due to the context of the whole computer as an integrated system.
0. https://frame.work/products/deep-computing-risc-v-mainboard
Or you could just buy a MacBook Air for like $900 (or one of the windows snapdragon machines, but it you care about avoiding Intel I’m assuming you want Linux and doubt the support is as good as asahi on Macs)
I guess that's the issue? I spent nearly $2800 on my current laptop, top of the line specs at the time. I'm just not the kind of person trying to compare down to A $1000 mid-level Mac. I need to use this thing professionally.
In that lens, the config I played with (before ram prices surged) ended up around $2200 and it felt nice knowing I could upgrade the GPU down the line for $400 instead of pondering if I can last another year or 2 before things fall behind. As long as the chassis and screen is solid I can deal with some compromise for that value.
Sub a $2500 MacBook Pro in for air then for your needs. In several years if that new GPU is actually worth an upgrade it will almost certainly need more cooling or have higher power demands than current framework logic boards/chassis can handle.
Even on desktops where constraints are easier, piecemeal hardware upgrades of anything but storage and ram has never been worth it or done much to extend system lifespan.
Macbook air = small keyboard, small screen, limited battery, all parts expensive to service, etc. Try hacking a Mac Mini instead: https://github.com/vk2diy/hackbook-m4-mini
A MacBook Air is just a Mac mini with a keyboard, screen, and battery. You can choose to attach the same peripherals to your MacBook, and have the flexibility of a laptop when you need it. Paying a couple hundred dollar premium for this is a good deal.
The MacBook Air has a standard size keyboard.
battery is good even on m1 air and better on 15' airs which have bigger keyboard/battery
Snapdragon support is decent to great these days, and importantly it's all in the mainline kernel tree.
Edit: though it should be said that what I think is good might be a far cry from you think is good. I did use a Thinkpad X13s as my primary work machine for 6 months, though.
Unfortunately it's pretty device dependent. My SP11 seems pretty tough to get working :(
Literally just picked up a 13" M4 Air for $750 from Best Buy for my wife. It was spend $500 to replace her older MBA screen or a bit extra for a whole new device.
I mean, this could literally be the last laptop shell, screen, keyboard and power adapter you ever buy. That's a fantastic sustainability story. Not to mention that if it dies you are never at risk of having to replace the whole thing unless it melts in a fire.
It could be… but it won’t be. Internals will be outmoded quickly, and I would be shocked if logic boards from ~5 years from now will still be compatible just as needs evolve (especially around cooling and power delivery)… and this is all before physical wear and tear on screen/keyboard/ports.
I would be very surprised if many frameworks are upgraded ship of Theseus style for decades, or if the total cost of ownership (and even ecological impact, most of the nastiness is going to be the electronic internals, not the metal casing) is lower than for someone buying a more integrated laptop ever 5-6 years.
>It could be… but it won’t be.
Hard to say. If people boast about a ThinkPad lasting a decade, I see no reason (post Moores law) that this can't last that long. The only think not obvious on how to replace is the screen and speakers.
But my nearly 10 year old ThinkPad hasn't needed upgrades to last that long, it just has decent build quality. Will the Frameworks last that long?
A good test would be to work out what's the oldest in-use Framework (which should be one of the first, if not there's an build quality issue) and see how many upgrades were needed to keep it functioning compared with similar era machines from other manufacturers.
In the context of the massive amount of throwaway packaging involved in the food supply chain, or every other part of the supply chain for every consumable we use, how big a deal is that? Are electronics uniquely impactful in terms of sustainability versus eg plastic clamshells to transport apples?
nobody ever does. maybe 2 people on the planet...
for everybody else, a Mac is perfect ;-)
I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. While it can be compared to laptops without modular RAM, SSDs, or Wi-Fi cards, the real comparison is to laptops with modular ones of those for significantly less and suddenly the amount of upgradeability value drops significantly. Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well. The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability - especially with the breadth of selection so far. In the meantime, you're paying significantly more for less quality to have said ability.
To me, the core value proposition of the Framework is actually more in customization than about upgradeability. That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout, your order builds up without really assuming you want a charger, RAM, and SSD to be included. If you don't particularly care about those things or you can find a laptop which matches what you want up front then it just leaves you questioning the massive price increase to do it the Framework way instead.
I'd really like to enjoy the idea of fully upgradeable laptops, but I think trying out a Framework laptop just made me realize how much it doesn't work out like I'd hoped rather than making me more excited for it. I ended up returning it and, ironically, getting a 395 laptop with soldered RAM (in my defense, Framework sells a desktop with this as well).
I don't see why upgrading a motherboard to one with a newer generation CPU is not valuable. Or why going 16 to 32 GB RAM a few years after buying it first isn't.
Yes full upgradability of each component would be pretty nice but now we have a desktop and factors like compactness and "premium feel" would be even worse
I only said the value is not that high, not that it's not valuable at all. Paying a premium up front and on the upgrade to swap out the CPU + Motherboard (also forcing the GPU on certain Framework models) eats heavily into that limited value vs just buying lower cost laptops that aren't as modular.
Regarding the RAM, again, you don't need to pay for a Framework to do be able to do that. Same for the SSD. These are probably the two most reasonable components to upgrade, and it's not novel to have options to do so.
That full upgradeability actually doesn't make sense in the end is my exact point/realization I had trying it out. You can get somewhat upgradeable laptops where it makes sense already, and compromising every which way to be more upgradable is a hugely diminishing return.
In my experience, when there is a time to replace the CPU/board by a newer one, the case if a notebook also accumulated enough wear and tear damage that make sense to replace it.
And when not, replacing whole notebook means i still have the old one, which i could use as a backup or sell or give to someone.
> I think the bigger problem is Framework doesn't actually offer as much in upgradeability as it sounds. [..,] Unofficially, many of the laptops I've had I've been able to upgrade even the screen on as well.
The Framework's screen is officially upgradeable, though, and I see that as a strength: while you or I might not blink at doing an unofficial screen replacement for some other laptop, I'm sure most people would be afraid to attempt something like that.
I've also (officially) replaced the webcam (new one is definitely better) and speakers (new ones are better but still meh). When my battery starts to go, I'll replace it with the higher-capacity battery that's available now.
So it's definitely quite a bit more than just RAM, SSD, Wi-Fi.
> The value prop for replacing the mainboard+CPU while keeping the same generation RAM and SSD is really not that high in terms of upgradeability
I agree on the RAM: I have a Framework 13, and my next mainboard upgrade will require new RAM (which is of course crazy expensive right now), as my current board uses DDR4. But I view that as a forced upgrade; if I didn't have to go to DDR5, I'd probably stick with DDR4, and I'm sure it would be fine, even if not optimal.
But I really don't understand or agree with your comment about the SSD. I have a 2TB NVMe drive in my current laptop, and I expect I'll be using the same drive for years to come, certainly through my next mainboard upgrade, and probably even the following one.
> That's just a lot less valuable overall. I.e. you can place your port layouts in any order you want, you can customize the keyboard style and layout,
Right, agreed: I have not changed the layout of my ports in more than a year at this point, and I never changed the keyboard style/layout. It was nice to be able to easily replace the keyboard when my original one developed issues a few months ago (not Framework's fault... it was my cat's fault), at least.
But I think all of this is a matter of taste. I expect there are some people who change out their expansion ports fairly often. It's fine that I don't value that feature as much as I expected I would.
My expectation is that I'll have this laptop chassis for another 10 or so years, probably with 2-3 mainboard upgrades in that time. My prior two (non-Framework) laptops were in the $1800-$2000 range, each of which lasted three years, and had significantly less RAM than my Framework does (those two laptops weren't even offered with 32GB, let alone the 64GB I have now).
My next mainboard upgrade will likely be the cost of that new laptop, given the crazy cost of DDR5 right now (though it looks like I'd be paying Dell around $2400 for a 13" laptop with 64GB; I could probably do the Framework mainboard upgrade plus RAM for $1800 or so). But maybe the next-next mainboard upgrade will still use DDR5, and I'll get a brand-new computer for around $1k. That's a really great value prop for me.
"Most people" don't upgrade individual components of their desktop or spend thousands on their computer either, especially beyond the storage and RAM, so I'm not sure who the average person it's supposed to comfort that it's official vs not to do things as small as upgrade the screen out of cycle from upgrading the rest of the machine. Framework is, unfortunately, positioned in every way for exactly the type of person who would do this (high end, willing to assemble, Linux compatibility, customization - it's all exactly that kind of power user target). I mean I'd like it to make sense, it just doesn't.
Same with replacing parts vs customizing them on equivalent "standard" laptops. I've had to replace the keyboard on my laptops due to failure/damage once in the last 10 years, each time it took less than 15 minutes. Would it be nice if it was 3 minutes? Sure, but how much is 12 minutes really worth paying for and what do I lose for it in terms of the sturdiness problems with Framework.
Barring the decision to go with something like the 395 where standard RAM wouldn't make sense for it anyways (which is why Framework didn't make the RAM modular in the desktop version) there is nothing special about Framework that lets you reuse RAM between upgrades giving Framework an advantage. Every other normal x86 laptop I've ever used has had swappable RAM I've taken advantage of without paying $1800 for even the entire laptop, let alone the upgrade board.
There is some subjective preference in it all of course, but it seems that is just for a lot fewer people than it might have seemed. I.e. I don't see average people buying $500 laptops ever going for this and it almost feels like it has already reached its peak interest in the tech crowd too.
This is the first time I've ever even heard of unofficial screen upgrades even being _possible_, and I'm at least two standard deviations from the mean on the "likes to tinker" scale.
I can't even begin to think about how a laptop screen upgrade would go. Who's manufacturing them? How do I get just one? How do I make sure I don't spend a month waiting for shipping and get a fake? How do I make sure the housing is going to fit right? How do I make sure the pin outs match?
... and etc etc. An official upgrade pathway eliminates all of that. Sure, it's not bringing you back to "average person", but Framework have been super clear that's not who they're after. They want people in my bracket. To be honest, as a cohort, we've proven we're willing to (over)pay for this kind of thing, too. It's why the PC Market still exists despite graphics cards being overpriced by about double.
I don't think it's particularly common for techies to upgrade the screen, just that they are the only ones who would because... well, upgrading a screen usually isn't ever needed. The only reason I did is work was offloading some good laptops for low cost but they had sub-1080p screens. I took one with a broken screen for free and when I did the replacement I used a higher end model's replacement part.
I.e. the only different part is finding a laptop of the same screen size and eDP (embedded Display Port) generation to select from. The rest is the same. If you've already got a good screen it's usually not possible though as you're limited by the eDP generation's speed instead of the panel.
Dave2D made the argument that you could buy another laptop for the same price as upgrading the Framework 16. This makes it hard to accept the quality tradeoffs.
I think what’s lost here is when the framework project was launched, all the companies were moving to SoC designs and reliability was unknown.
Replacing a stick of ram is still much cheaper than buying a whole new MacBook, but these systems seem to be reliable enough that ram failures aren’t front of mind. Same for SSDs.
Gaming laptops tend to have replaceable RAM and SSD so the advantage of Framework 16 is much less.
The current benefit for a Framework is that you can swap out the entire inner/guts without being an expert and everything still works together. Most of the laptops I have provide 2 SO-DIMM slots and a slot for either NVME or SATA for storage.
So for me, there is little value in that in most scenarios. There are a few laptop chassis that I am very fond of and have wished I could "use that chassis with that hardware", but even then I haven't seen Framework chassis designs that give me that impression. I'm not saying they're crappy, but I'm thinking of different types of brushed metal, magnesium alloy stuff, etc.
It makes me wonder who their audience is if they are targeting users that will pay a premium for an upgradable system, but are afraid of modifying the guts of the computer.
Replaceable GPU and CPU is the big draw draw for me. Heck, the config nature of the shop also means I can chop off buying ram and memory instead of haggling with the store, since I have quite a few spare sticks lying around.
> replacing a stick of ram
How often does your RAM fail you?
The use case is to replace an existing working stick with a higher capacity stick, not just for repairs.
On my experience, every time I’ve been in the situation of looking for more capacity because the software requirements have gone up, I’m 1-2 generations of DDR behind and it doesn’t really make sense to do the upgrade anyway.
How often are you actually going to do that though? My desktop from 12 years ago has 16GB of RAM and Apple only just upgraded their base specs to 16GB.
Ok granted my new desktops have 128GB, but that's massive overkill so I can have like 12 VSCode's open. For normal people 16GB has been the sensible amount for at least a decade.
I tend to agree. But some people at least want the option. I would also say only in 2025 has that shifted for me as well. I've been perfectly fine with 16gb of ram for at least a decade, but local LLMs have me wanting for more.
Considerinng how much memory Chrome consumes, I would say that 16GB is the bare minimum these days for any computer.
Currently? Every 1.5 years, luckily still within warranty the last few times. Different systems, different manufacturers, different generations.
But that's an edge case, and I still don't really understand why it's happening.
you get another mainboard to use as a sever or resell
I have a FW13, 3 yrs old, battery was getting weak, i just ordered one from FW and popped out the old one and put in a new one. Same for SSD and memory. This alone makes me stay with FW.
Not trying to change your mind but at least when it comes to exchanging the SSD and battery, you can do the same thing with practically all Thinkpads and Dells?
Just did it with my old Dell a couple days ago – I was done in 5 minutes.
Official battery replacements are impossible to find for older Lenovo models. I have a 4 year old X13 Yoga and can’t really get a new official battery for it in my country. So while replacement is easy, finding the parts is not.
Not too long ago, in a galaxy pretty close to here, there were laptops with removable batteries, and switching them required no tools and took all of about 10 seconds.
Replacing battery, KB, RAM, SSd in most Elitebook, Latitudes used to be easy. Not anymore atleast with Dell. Most RAM soldered.
But if it lasts 3-4 years I guess many end up upgrading anyway. My Latitude 5330 has everything soldered even the disk but going strong for 3.5 years.
You can do this with EliteBooks, and HP replaced my battery for free.
One of the issues with the 16 is it’s just a way worse value proposition than the 13.
The 13 is great. I’d even go as far as calling it a good deal, cheap even, especially if you DIY and bring your own memory and storage.
The 16 just gets badly outclassed by alternatives.
I think the problem is that once you get into that big laptop territory people start wanting more specific use cases like gaming or other performance metrics. There has to be a reason to want a big bulky laptop.
Plus, bigger laptops more frequently come with better repeatability.
I also find that there’s a lot more PC competition in the 15-16” screen sizes. The framework 13” is actually uniquely small/light. The Framework 16” is somewhat worse packaging than its competitors.
The 16” really needs to have an option for a 5070Ti and 5080.
If I wanted the innards of my laptop to be upgradable, I would want the only part of it that would stay with me for the next decade or two (the chassis) to be damn near perfect.
There's a reason why there are enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads. These things were built like a German executive sedan.
> enthusiasts making custom motherboards and screen adapters for old-school (seven-row) ThinkPads
This. It baffles me that companies like System76 and Framework refuse to borrow from an existing successful solution like ThinkPad. I remember asking System76 representative over the phone about trackpoint; from time to time I revisit that one thread on Framework forums about trackpoint keyboard... No progress there.
The only explanation I have is that they obviously can't copy, but designing something like an old ThinkPad is intrinsically hard and costs way too much for a small company.
I don’t know about today but once upon a time those trackpoints were encumbered by patent issues.
It did annoy me slightly that they released higher quality more rigid upper parts of the chassis ('top cover', behind the screen) shortly after my launch order of the 13.
Sure I can upgrade, for £129, but my first upgrade as a result probably may as well be a whole new laptop: top cover, motherboard+CPU, RAM (necessitated by CPU advances), as well as perhaps screen (higher resolution and matte finish now available).
But I couldn't really expect that for free (I did get free stiffer hinges to resolve a problem) and I do want it to get better...
Upgradable to what? The ability to upgrade is well and good, but suppose the “endgame” configuration of an upgradable laptop was worse than the very base model of a non-upgradable. Why would you care about upgradability then?
Upgrading to a new processor, or in the case of Framework, perhaps better hinges or keyboards or the like is IMO much more important to the long term desirability of a laptop than a 5% better keyboard or trackpad or RGB LEDs on the chassis.
I feel like the term "endgame" has completely lost its meaning - an "endgame" laptop is likely to be wholly irrelevant in at most ten years, especially so if you buy a super high end machine and expect high end machine things from it long term.
Yeah, it’s a dumb term, sorry. Top spec? Whatever it is.
Certainly it’s fair to argue that the top spec will continue to grow year over year, like happens with long lived desktop CPU sockets. Framework is bearing this out! But that spec does have to actually be GOOD!
This is the hard part about what they are trying to do. Is a 12th gen in a Framework better than a 10th gen in an fully integrated laptop? If not, what does being able to upgrade to 12th gen mean?
The IBM PC platform worked so well because every annual component upgrade was an immense step forward. The macs, by contrast, began to dominate when the annual upgrades began to provide less benefit than seamless vertical integration did…
>Upgrading to a new processor You cannot upgrade the processor yourself. This is either an expensive repair or replacement of the entire motherboard.
That's a weird argument/hypothetical, because the Framework is not worse than the very base model of a non-upgradeable laptop.
It’s an extreme framing for the sake of thought experiment. More specifically, I believe for “upgradable” to be a meaningful sellable feature you need something like this:
LaptopA costs more than low-spec LaptopB. But LaptopB can be user upgraded post-purchase to be strictly superior to LaptopA (even though this costs a bit more in the end)
Or
LaptopA costs more than LaptopB. But LaptopB can be upgraded and customized to be superior than LaptopA under certain parameters (say, a high quality display) for a lower total price than LaptopA.
> but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability
Back in the day we used to have upgradeable laptops that weren't rattling tin cans with uncomfortable displays. Making something worse than it was 20 years ago for more money isn't a value.
The idea of upgrading a laptop may sound great at first, but I don't think most people really want that.
After 2-3 years, my laptop is pretty beat up from carrying it around in a bag daily. I usually buy premium laptops, but still the hinges get loose, the corners bent, scratches everywhere, ports loose. Usually superficial issues like that make me buy a replacement before I really need upgraded chips.
With a Framework laptop you could fix these superficial issues while keeping the chips (and the superficial parts that don't need replacement).
I could, but considering how much value I get out of my laptop, I'd rather just spend $2-3k every couple years and have everything new.
Thr value proposition just doesn't make sense unless I were a struggling student.
Or environmentally conscious.
Also buying a laptop that’s not subsidized by ads and shovelware.
Please subsidize it by ads and shovelware, I'm not going to use the factory image anyways.
Take heart Steve Jobs’ warning. If/When ads/shovelware are what are bringing in the money then they are the ones that end up running the company.
> an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine
The market assigns almost no value to these tenets, nor do the consumers participating in it.
Your assertion seems to be trivially proven false, given that Framework still exists as a going concern.
Though I suppose what you say is perhaps still true, if you allow "almost" to do a lot of work.
One can move the word "almost" to make more sense: it's only almost a market even if everyone in it is rabid about those features.
It's not a substantial share of the overall laptop market because, quoting from above…
people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience ... will lament how manufacturers don’t have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop
The flip side is technorati gripe about Apple (lack of) repairability, but their revealed preference then shifts back to this: a claim to want reliability but actions of shoppings for premium performance and fit and finish in slim value-holding form factors. To achieve those, particularly with durable value (and resale value to prove it), there's a way to make things that "repairability" generally makes compromises from.
Research has suggested Apple's approach — laptops with 4x the usable and resalable life span — results in less e-waste per capita than both the disposable and repairable ecosystems.
I think there is a revealed preference that most people don't focus much on repairability, but I don't think it's at odds with a good form factor.
I am not focused on doing it myself. The most that I care about doing myself is buying a new charging cable if somehow I damage the one the laptop comes with.
And I have this feeling most people are kind of the same page as me.
I guess repair-ability only matters if you expect the laptop to break. And there's no benchmarks for durability. But yeah I agree that upgrade-ability is of dubious value for most people.
Enterprises that buy ThinkPads do care about maintainability and Lenovo does provide parts and detailed instructions to repair almost every aspect of their machines.
They most likely have contracts with them Lenovo and were former users of IBM.
I haven’t heard of any big company tyat repairs their own hardware in about 20 or so years.
Apple continues to be the elephant in the repairability room. You want something that likely won’t need repair ever for its useful lifetime, a current MacBook is worth looking at. Upgradeability, nope.
Yup, Apple user since 2001, desktop and laptop, 20ish years in an office environment used for 8+ hours a day, now 5 years retired. Total faults - zero. Desire to upgrade RAM before rest of machine needed updates (eg storage+CPU+screen) - zero. Dissatisfaction with "Apple model": zero.
But... lately I've felt a hankering to run Linux as a first-class citizen rather than a VM and that's definitely a gap in Mac functionality. I wouldn't sacrifice the five years I enjoy MacOS on my machines for the ability to then move them to Linux, but it would still be nice.
I think the farther allow non-free implementations of technology to go, the harder it will be to bring us back from the brink.
We sacrifice our freedom now, because of convenience and feature sets thinking everything is going to work out in the end. In 25 years I think we are all going to look back on this moment and wish we didn't make the choices we did, myself included.
Having managed fleets of Macs (along with Windows and Linux machines) at last three $worksplace, repair/replace is no more hassle with Apple than Lenovo.
Arguably less, as if you have the right relationship with Apple, you can let your employee walk into any Genius Bar™ for fix, or walk into Apple Store or visit your own smart hands crew (with inventory on hand), for an incredibly straightforward swap.
And to your point, it's almost never needed.
They are less repairable but not impossible. My M1 Air has had a new usb port and screen. Battery probably soon.
I'm torn on your take, because on one hand I agree wholeheartedly (I own a Framework 13, and considered the repairability to be a part of the price, and a little added bulk to be a trade off I was comfortable with), but on the other, I think there's just some entirely-reasonable human psychology at work here that expects a €2k laptop to be premium in fit, finish, and polish.
But I do think Framework still has a ways to go when it comes to polish and build quality. I've had my 13 since August 2022, and had a ton of problems with it (thermal issues) that were only resolved nearly two years later, after lots of frustrating back-and-forth with support. I'm very happy with the laptop these days, but it shouldn't have taken that long to get there. I now have the 2023 Intel mainboard (the final resolution to my support case), and I'm looking forward to upgrading it to whatever the 2026 model turns out to be[0].
For me, Framework has been sort of a "stick with it for a while and it will get better" type of experience. And while it's worked out, that shouldn't be how it works. It should work well on day one. And frankly, based on the author's description of the Framework 16, it sounds like the 16 is not even up to the 13's level of polish.
[0] Well, we'll see what DRAM prices look like next year, as I have 64GB of DDR4 in my current laptop, and that same amount of DDR5 is not something I'd want to pay for right now.
High-end ThinkPads were always very repairable (even if not upgradable wrt. motherboard). The P50 I bought 10 years ago came with 4 RAM slots (and ECC capable), 3 disk slots, removable battery and way more ports than a Framework.
It really baffles me how people are willing to put up with the flimsiness of the Framework. Maybe they only move it from the desk to a sofa ? There are enough reports of Framework laptops dying after being carried too many times or being dropped. The lack of structural integrity is killing them, and this is all due to the approach to port flexibility.
> the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn
That value proposition isn't good enough for the machine you have to live with day after day. I think a lot of people get the value proposition, but Framework just isn't a good enough machine. Even if it might be an interesting platform.
And, the world still needs better Linux laptops. The value proposition in that demand apparently isn't resulting in them.
Thank you for this interesting perspective. I’ve moaned a little on HN previously about the relative value of the FW13 - IIRC it was roughly 60% more than an equivalently (or in some areas, better) specced ASUS.
Taking your position —that repairability is a premium feature to pay extra for— the question then becomes how much more is that feature worth? (After all, we’re well used to making value judgements regarding a better screen, more memory, etc.)
I guess what’s missing for me is a more thorough understanding of why the FW13 is so much more expensive than the competition? I can write off some of the difference down to lower production volumes, and some of it down to the direct costs of repairability (i.e. extra items that need to be made that just wouldn’t exist in a non-repairable laptop). But this feels a long way away from explaining the ~60% I think I’m looking for, when many of the major parts of the laptop (e.g. processor, RAM, SSD, screen, hinges, fans) are (or could be?) available ‘off the shelf’ at a similar cost to any other manufacturer?
As someone who has done more than one hardware project: most people generally have got no idea how pricing comes to be.
Usual points involve:
- not understanding that a manufacturer has to charge more than parts cost ("But the parts only cost X, why does the product costs 3 times X?")
- not understanding economies of scale ("Why does your product [selling a hundred pieces] not cost the same as the product by the market leader [selling hundred-thousand pieces]?")
- not understanding that certain things are genuinly complex and thus expensive ("Why does a mere fusion reactor cost X, when I can get a single bicycle dynamo for 5 bucks?")
- comparing apples and oranges ("Why does product A [rugged, incredibly tight tolerances, extended temperature range, waterproof, 10 years warranty, with support] cost 10 times more than product B [broken when you look at it wrong]")
With framework the scale is smaller than the likes of apple, also framework had signifikant R&D cost to make it repairable. And if a repairable laptop is what you want it is one of the only good choices out there.
Your comment is sensible, so long as repair parts aren't duds all the time, and repairs don't cost you the same as a purchase.
For most laptops, including macs, replacing things like batteries and screens is not what makes them irreparable, but it is things like the cpu, discrete gpu, etc.. I applaud framework on what they're doing, but it isn't there yet. If anything on the mothrerboard breaks, you're looking at a hefty repair bill to replace it. If they keep a decent stock of original,tested and quality parts long-term (10+ years) that would be one thing, but if "repair" means upgrading to the latest stuff, then it is just saving you on a replacement.
Ideally, I would purchase replacement components at the time of purchase, so if I have a loose $300 after the initial purchase, I might spend it on a spare ram, cpu, or gpu. Now, with that money, I can only buy cosmetic/casing parts, battery, connectors and such. Again, I appreciate their direction, and if we're spending to support them alone, that's great. But they have been around for a while, and some constructive criticism regarding value might be good.
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.
I don't consider that so either, no. I think it should be a standard experience. Not something I have to pay extra for. And really, the bulkiness is something that shouldn't suffer too much from a 2mm memory module.
Is it fair to say that maybe the author doesn't value repairability? Maybe they just want a 'premium' laptop in the way the Apple laptops are premium, but want x86 and Linux/Windows? Surely for as large as a market there is for Apple laptops there is for a non-macOS equivalent.
The author begins by stating that "the absolute nightmare that is opening [the X1 Carbon] up to replace parts or clean them properly" rules it out.
He then eliminates the MacBook because if "something needs replacing I basically have an expensive paperweight, because everything is soldered together".
This would suggest that the author does, in theory at least, value repairability.
By all accounts the Framework 14 hits the balance well, feeling basically like any other premium metal laptop. Maybe based on that reputation alone, the author decided to buy the 16.
But the 16 is meant to be a chonky desktop replacement with a giant GPU enclosure on the back. Just by virtue of what it is, it's never going to feel very nice.
The author's other option to buy being a MacBook tells me they neglected to do their research on what they were buying.
What they really wanted was a Framework 14! It basically IS a MacBook with replaceable components and full repairability.
> but I can’t help but be frustrated by the constant lack of understanding of the core value proposition of framework both in this post and in many comments here on hn.
The thing is, it doesn’t _really_ excuse many of the issues they had. For a 2000 euro laptop, you should not be cheaping out on, say, speakers. Acceptable laptop speakers are not expensive. And coil whine, while a common problem with expensive laptops, is not IMO acceptable at this price point. Neither of these issues are even vaguely inherent to it being modular.
There are weirdos out there. I am looking for a bulkier and more hackable laptop! I bought a ThinkPad P14s Gen5 AMD which has turned out to be a flimsy, plastic (not magnesium like the Intel units), disappointing piece of shit with frequent (but known) GPU crash issues, which I bought because I had a certain moment when I needed a computer and the Framework 16 was still on last-gen hardware, which felt silly to buy so close to an inevitable upgrade. I wish I had, though. Not much difference between an 8840HS and a 7840HS, but a huge difference between even a fairly upgradable ThinkPad like the P14s and a Framework.
I just bought a car, and the same issue exists there. I can buy an expensive car that is also expensive to service, or a slightly cheaper car that is cheap to service, or a cheap car that is cheap to service.
That middle ground is much nicer than realising after the honeymoon period that it's costing you an arm to replace the control box for the left headlight. But TCO is really difficult to find numbers on, especially when you don't exactly know how you'll use the device as you buy it.
What value proposition exactly ? If you're comparing to similar build quality laptops you're looking at price for two devices vs one with HW upgrades. And you can't even compare it to a premium device.
And worst of all you can only upgrade to what they have available - you can't get a strix halo inside of that thing - this is the only scenario that would make sense for me - enthusiast level hardware support.
Yeah, I felt the same way. The upfront cost is larger, but the idea is that 2-3 years down the line you can upgrade (or simply replace) your GPU or even CPU it won't be another 2000 investment down the line.
But of course, weight is a personal thing with a laptop (my Asus is around 2kg and I never felt like I couldn't carry it one handed) and if core things like the screen or speakers really sucks, that's a deal breaker no matter what.
> "People (not necessarily the author, [...] will lament how manufacturers don’t have upgradable ram, etc and then turn around and are upset at the bulkiness of a repairable laptop, or the price."
I desire sturdyness and repairability but anything larger than a 14-inch machine (and then only either as detachable or at least convertible) is completely inacceptable to me. And that 14-incher better be a dream. In other words: As small and light as possible, as big and heavy as neccessary.
I agree, if they had a framework it would have been trivial to swap to a new keyboard.
Also I get annoyed where they say they don’t like it but don’t yet have an alternative.
Sorry I didn't buy framework laptop but did find their prices high. Regarding assigning premium to repairability, wonder what's really premium about that? I mean in terms of materials used. Ignoring premiums paid for branding, I would think it's fair to charge premium if offering such feature comes with higher cost.
It depends on what "premium"/"luxury" mean to you. For some, red leather that has been masterfully tanned and stitched lining the interior of their car is premium. For others, the ability to transport you hundreds of thousands of miles in any terrain and any conditions with equipment failures that are rare and easy to fix is "premium". Being swaddled in high cost materials while stuck on the side of the road in a snowstorm isn't exactly a "premium" experience.
Likewise, for some, there is nothing premium about a product that 1) becomes a paperweight when a single component fails or is no longer sufficient to satisfy the user's changing desires. 2) Hasn't had engineering time and BOM on high-cost materials devoted to making the device easy-to-repair, or has had engineering resources spent making the device hostile to repair.
Framework doesn't just give you permission to repair and modify their product, they have engineered and designed a product that is easy and intuitive to repair and modify, and made out of materials that are designed and selected to endure being touched and manipulated, one great example that probably comes to mind for many FW13 owners that have opened the device is the touchpad cable finger loop in the FW13.
As any technician or DIY enthusiast might tell you, the materials e.g. Apple uses that you interact with during disassembly aren't exactly robustly made, and there is no sign that care or good taste was used when designing the disassembly procedures. But again, it depends on what you want, for some fragility enhances their experience of an object as premium and they have no interesting in upgrading/repairing their own device so the quality of that experience is irrelevant.
I understand and agree with the logic of repairability and user servicability. No arguments there. Point is why should that be premium for non marketing reasons? For instance, is soldered RAM somehow cheaper than RAM slots? Same for SSD, WiFI card, battery, keyboard assembly etc. (all of which used to be perfectly replaceable not too long ago, in most laptops esp high end Elitebooks & Latitudes as well as mass market Acers)
The author seems to be very aware of the benefit of upgradability, but thats not an excuse for the shoddy experience. Some of the issues the author mentions are just absurd. Sharp edges, panels that creak? Come on.
I have a 12th Gen 13. No problems like that.
The sharp edges are exclusively an issue with the Framework 16 due to the spacers that allow you to change the alignment of the trackpad. It's definitely been one of my main annoyances with my F16 that I didn't experience with my F13. I've been scratched by them and had my arm hair caught and pulled.
However, Framework has already indicated that they are looking into providing an input module that spans the entire width of the device to eliminate the need for the spacers.
I don't really know what the "creaking screen" is about though. IMO the F16 screen and hinges are a higher build quality than the F13. I had to upgrade my F13 hinges to the 4kg hinges to keep it from bouncing and moving.
I had a 12th-gen 13", and I had severe thermal throttling problems that took two years for Framework to resolve to my satisfaction (eventually they gave me a free 13th-gen upgrade that "solved" it).
I think the "I have X and don't see problems the author has" is a generally useless statement. Well, duh, sure, it's pretty rare that everyone will have the same problems. And some people will end up having no problems at all. But that doesn't invalidate the experiences of the people who do have problems.
>Frequently the author brings up that for 2,000 euros they expect a premium experience, but no where is there an evaluation of the value granted by upgradability and repeatability of the machine, and only briefly is there mention of the configurability.
I'm convinced that a lot of people have Dunning-Kruger effect when it comes to niche products like Framework. The fact that Framework exists at all is amazing, and like you said, it's frustrating to see the lack of understanding of the core value proposition of Framework both in this post and HN.
i think the author is pretty clearly making the point the trade off is not worth it to him. which is not all that suprising given that seems to match the preferences of most people given the popularity of apple hardware which has for a very long time been on the far end of the irreparable, but smaller, quieter, etc, spectrum.
I feel like Framework wasn’t for this customer. They would have been happier with a Lenovo or something or a Mac.
I agree, although I do not think even Lenovo would be enough.
I think you’ve brought a really interesting point up. A lot of these laptops are the way they are because miniaturisation. Framework trades that off. But for some, this tradeoff isn’t in the right spot.
The challenge for framework is to build a modern laptop, that doesn’t have these tradeoffs. Which is an impossible challenge, hence why all of the other manufacturers ditched it. (That and repairability being bad for business)
So, a framework laptop, that’s as light, thin and fast as a mbp, while being a comparable price and being able to pull tabs to swap ram. The better their engineering, the closer they get to this and the more customers they can please.
I own a Framework 13. It is one of the worst machines I've ever owned. I am not misunderstanding the value proposition. For the amount of money I paid I expect a machine that sleeps when I close the lid, does not run out of battery when sleeping in a day and a half, has decent battery life with mixed use (with the upgraded battery), has speakers that aren't actual garbage (with the upgraded speakers), and sells an expansion storage module marketed as capable to run an OS that actually runs an OS without randomly turning off because of power draw issues.
To top that all off, at one point (I don't know if he's still employed) Framework hired a dedicated Linux community person who gaslighted customers with actual issues telling them it was their fault.
If this was any other mainstream PC seller, people would rightfully dump on them all day long. Instead, we are treated to long apologia from people like yourself because of "the vision".
2000 euros was a premium price 10 years ago, today it is closer to mid range
Uhh... What?
Not sure why you’re being downvoted, that’s a ridiculous statement. 2000€ for a laptop is definitely premium pricing, not mid range.
I wouldn’t call anything with less than 64gb of memory premium, and if we look at macbooks were already looking above 3000
I think they are saying you sound like:
"It's One Banana, Michael. What Could It Cost, $10?" - Lucille Bluth
MacBooks are premium, no matter how much memory they have
Absolutely not, they are nothing more than their specs
99% of laptop users will notice no difference between 64G of RAM and 16GB of RAM. For example, I am a software engineer with an M1 MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM for work and a personal M4 MacBook Pro with 24GB of RAM. There is no noticeable performance difference for my workloads.
'Premium' means things like build quality, speaker and microphone quality, camera quality, display quality, etc. etc. These are all things that are much more important to most people than raw specs.
You're not calling out the upgrade ability enough.
Most people comparing the price of a Framework seem to miss the long view. After the initial purchase, every upgrade is cheap compared to buying an entire laptop over and over again. Bonus that you can repurpose or sell the old mainboard.
There are better laptops than Framework when compared as one-to-one at a certain point in time, but that's missing the point of Framework's approach.
The point is that a laptop is a tool that you use every day. It needed to be reliable and very usable. Framework is compromising on usability in the service of upgradeability. It seems like you can have refined tool, or a repairable one.
Framework 13 11th gen has been my daily driver for years. It's reliable and very usable. Is it a $4k MBP? No. But compared to the bulk of laptops out there, one might even say it's refined I suppose. It's a sleek 3lb aluminum laptop. Like I said, there nicer laptops out there, but the Framework is a very capable tool.
Happy Framework 13 user here to say this.
I recently realized the 32Gb I had originally spec'd isn't enough for work lately. Easy fix, I just ordered more RAM.
Pretty straightforward value prop here. If that's not why you want, buy a different device.
You can do this on virtually every non-soldered laptop why is this presented as some unique feature?
I'm starting to realise that many of Framework's strongest soldiers have probably never touched a laptop other than a MacBook or similar in decades. The ability to upgrade the motherboard is niche yet genuinely cool, but instead I keep seeing breathless announcements of RAM and SSD upgrades as if no-one has ever heard of those before.
Direct counterpoint: I've been a Dell XPS 13 stan for years (owned 3), and my other laptop today is a System 76. I've run IT for labs at a major university (Georgia Tech), across Windows, RHEL, and MacOS. I've been a desktop Linux user since 2006, both personally and professionally.
Across those, I've repaired plenty of laptops. I mentioned the RAM above because it's recent, and because it's easy. And I don't just mean physically easy - I mean I can find the part with a quick search, and it's just like any other ecommerce thing. That's a big shift from figuring out how to upgrade most laptops, where your top search result is a forum post or pushing you to talk to a tech.
Not breathless, but it is a breath of fresh air.
> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience
This mindset is pretty new. No, i don't want to pay for "the ability to repair or upgrade my machine".
I for one am delighted with my Framework laptop that started out as an Intel, is now an AMD, and has seen 3 rounds of in life upgrades. Zero regrets.
The author should have just bought a MacBook.
Is 2000 eur even a lot of money? I think that gets you into better than dogshit laptop territory but I'd hesitate to claim that a 2000 eur purchase every >5 years puts you in "luxury" territory.
>Is 2000 eur even a lot of money?
It’s my entire professional life’s computer investment - a MacBook Pro in 2013 and an m1 MacBook on 2020.
2000 euros gets you a 5070ti, i7 , 240hz screen, 32gb ram and 2tb storage. And with some left over.... That's a pretty nice laptop.
https://www.scan.co.uk/products/16-3xs-gamer-5070-ti-qhdplus...
For a good laptop it wouldn't be too bad, i.e. my X1 Carbon cost me about the same back in 2019 if I remember correctly. But it's ultimately about the price/quality trade-off, and this is where I feel Framework has some work to do, at least with the 16 inch model.
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Out of curiosity - which laptop did you buy then? If "one of the open source projects supported by this company has lead who says controversial things on Twitter" is too much, I'm afraid you may have troubles finding one.
A Framework 13. I haven't replaced it yet.
And you missed the point. I believed in the "mission" of Framework. That was my primary motivation to buy one. But their stance here is not compatible with that. So I may as well buy a product that has more practical upsides for me. You know, when I actually have to replace my 7840U. Probably not anytime soon.
Honestly I don't think I did. I think I understand you. I would like to buy "perfect" product for me. But I'm small niche. There won't be one.
I don't think we should cancel people that want to do something good over a few mistakes, while Microsoft gets to be openly hostile to users, Google does developer verification bullshit and Apple does blatant corruption right in the oval office. Don't even get me started on Zuck running servers on your personal hardware to get around private mode.
I may or may not agree with DHH views, but all that is just one guy's opinion which really doesn't matter that much, against one of the few companies that did something good with hardware in recent years.
Keep everyone to the same standard.
I am not going to be an advocate for any company in that way if they willingly work with people that want to stomp out my rights or even my existence. I did recommend Framework Laptops to my work colleagues, friends and family. I wouldn't be doing that. You are of course correct that other companies are also bad, but Framework positions themselves as an explicit outsider to that system and they provide me with less direct value. It's not solely transactional to support them, it's a political stance. And it is unfit for me to position myself to support them. So I'll just go with the lowest bidder instead.
I would've been fine with it had there been a correction, but Nirav didn't even acknowledge the issue. His posts in the big megathread (for which they purposefully chose to merge into the one with the most incendiary name to make the entire point look bad) only address general sponsorships and Hyprland, a community that, from what I hear, has improved a lot. No word on their biggest sponsor check ever going to RubyCon. No word on Omarchy, a distro Nirav seems to have a personal stakes in (filed bugs, keeps interacting with DHH, keeps glazing them on social media).
My existence (in a literal way, in an access to HRT way, in a not being declaring as "inherently sexual" to be ejected from public life way... pick something) depends on enough people taking a strong stance against fascist rhetoric, and conversely not shrugging it off as "just some opinion". Of course I will prioritize that.
I feel the same.
When I learned that Framework started sponsoring DHH's distro, my immediate thought was that I'm not going to buy anything from them ever again.
On the other hand, you can boycott only so many companies before you start boycotting yourself out of existence. One has to draw the line somewhere.
I just hope Framework is going to come to its senses and eventually stop supporting distros that are controlled by an openly racist individual.
I actually agree with boycotts not being effective. I'm not exactly boycotting Framework - but I will not accept getting less value than I could get elsewhere for the signaling power for repairability anymore. I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now, and Nirav wouldn't even address these concerns head-on (there is a thread; he posted in it; he hasn't mentioned Omarchy, RubyCon or DHH with one word).
It's unfortunate I feel similarly (though less strong) about Louis Rossman/FUTO, because I like it when right to repair has strong advocates.
> I'm clearly very misaligned with their politics now
Are you? Or is it just that they are capable of working with people who have different political views to them? DHH is clearly right wing but I don't think it's abhorrent to work with right wing people full stop.
And yeah I've read the supposedly awful things he's written. I don't agree with them but they aren't that bad. I am centre-left for what it's worth (in the UK, which is probably just left in the US). But I also have the ability to understand other people's viewpoints.
I am not fucking around when I say incompatible with my existence. Of course I don't mean getting murdered, but advocating conversion therapy gets pretty close.
https://world.hey.com/dhh/bad-therapy-08849dc9
I wouldn't be around if this was policy where I live (Let's put aside that the UK is in fact pretty fucked on that)
See at this point you're boycotting a company for supporting a developer who wrote a favourable book review of someone that has unproven and controversial but absolutely not fringe views about transgender issues that you disagree with.
> I wouldn't be around if this was policy where I live
If what was policy? Higher thresholds for mental health diagnoses?
Cancel culture isn't a good thing, left or right.
"favourable book review of someone that has unproven and controversial but absolutely not fringe views" imagine saying this in 1930 and suddenly it doesn't sound as innocent.
Leave trans people alone.
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You can believe whatever bioessentialist crap you want as long as you leave us alone.
That advice would be much better directed toward the activists trying to force "gender identity" nonsense into law and policy.
Name a law that fits this category that'd personally affect you.
Section 51 of the California Civil Code, for example.
Personally. Not extrapolating from whatever toxic waste you consume online.
My bet is that you're not even in California. But even if you are. What hardship has an open definition of sex to include gender identity and expression inflicted upon you. Please, be specific.
My local gym has men in the locker room and it's illegal for the gym to kick them out as these men say they are women. I changed gyms because of this but this only avoids the problem. Many women quietly self-exclude.
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> The Framework 16 weights about 2.2 kg according to my kitchen scale. For comparison, my X1 Carbon weights 1.3 kg. That may not seem like a big difference, but the extra kilogram makes carrying around the Framework 16 more difficult. In particular, I don't feel comfortable carrying it with just one hand while this isn't a problem with the X1.
The author wanted a bigger laptop but the straight goes and compares it to x1 carbon.
Modular ports
> Like the keyboard area the design is a bit janky though, with visible lines/space between the adapters and the case, though this at least is something you won't notice unless you're explicitly looking for it.
Not sure how you can make things like this not to have any lines for what its worth. So not sure what author is going for.
The author doesnt know what he wants and doesn't know what framework provides.
Yeah I never get this complaint about 16" laptops. Hell, I don't really get 16" laptops at all: they're huge! You're making a very strange trade off: they're only barely portable, and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop.
> they're only barely portable,
Maybe for a very small person or someone who strictly travels light? But I’ve never had any problem with 15” or 16” laptops even while traveling internationally.
> and you lose a lot of the power and flexibility you'd get with a desktop
This isn’t really true any more unless your desktop is a gaming monster or full of multiple drives or something. I can have a 128GB RAM laptop with ultra fast CPU on the go now and it’s not a problem.
You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
Laptops are thermally inefficient and require throttling even with active cooling, meaning mobile chipsets are programmed to emit less heat over time. You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
Then there's the fact that mobile chips are TDP capped at much lower rates than desktops, both to save power and to limit heat.
Theoretically, your mobile chipset has a better $/Wh rate, but you leave some performance on the table compared to desktops.
> You lose a lot of potential performance that comes with both efficient cooling and maintaining throughput in sustained loads.
So? I can’t carry a full desktop or even Mini ITX build around just in case I need to run a very long sustained load at absolute peak performance.
My 16” MacBook Pro has no problem consuming 80W or more at a time. The fans spin up, but it’s fine. It’s basically near desktop level performance for everything I’m actually doing on the go.
I think people talking about the sacrifices of laptops are either comparing to extreme high end builds or they’re stuck thinking about laptops from 6 years ago.
A 16” MacBook Pro is basically a high end Mac Mini or a base Mac Studio with a battery and screen built in. They only really start to diverge from the bigger machines when you get into the really expensive Mac Studio builds.
> You might hit advertised boost speeds for a little bit, but you can sustain them on properly cooled desktops.
If you’re looking for sustained high performance computing then a laptop is a bad choice, I agree. But what are we even talking about here? Even for compiling large codebases or exporting a YouTube length video project, you don’t need the full thermal solution of a desktop anymore.
Throttling also isn’t a hard stop where the system comes to a halt any more. It just means the system is 60-80% as fast as it could be, which is still very fast. Throttling has become a bogeyman but really, it’s fine. I’ll take the boost for compiling that big project for several minutes. It’s great.
I’m guessing some of these comments are coming from people who haven’t experienced modern MacBook Pro level laptops?
My vision gets worse as I age. A larger screen lets me continue working with the same amount of code, etc. as when I was younger with a smaller screen.
Agree with you. I am always interested in threads about how to make the best of this. I recently read a blog post by someone who tried a mini pc and battery pack and vr headset as a portable workstation. Short answer was the vr display still isn't there yet.
I have one. It's my main computer. I can use it on a desk, on my lap, at a cafe.
I find smaller laptops much harder to understand because they compromise the coding experience so much.
I don't understand what people mean when they say "barely portable" about a device that weighs less than 10 pounds. You can't use a big laptop one handed in midair, but that's not "portability". And it can't be a weight hauling problem when small children can handle that much. What is the issue?
There's a difference between carrying ten pounds small distances for short durations, and carrying an extra two pounds over twenty hours of travel, across multiple connecting international flights in a single day. It's also not just an extra two pounds, it's an additional proprietary power cord, bulk, more mass moving in and out under an airliner seat, it all adds up. Especially when you're sleep deprived and physically exhausted.
Any amount of weight is annoying after that long, but if the extra laptop weight is reduced to 10% of your 25 pound bag then it's even less able to be the deciding factor between "portable" and "barely portable".
The majority of 16"+ machines are being made specifically as portable desktops. The target audience is college kids. If you live in a dorm that you have to move in and out of yearly, it is leagues easier to travel with a bulky laptop than even a small form factor desktop machine, because of all the peripherals needed to run it.
They are perfectly portable, if you would compare them with PC tower + display + UPS.
I have a 17" XPS and it's great as a computer for that floor of the house. Ie: for sitting at the kitchen table or the couch. I have a 13" for portability which is great because it's so small and light.
MacBook pros these days are really heavy. Having a MBP and an Air is actually a fair inventory but the MBP is just so expensive.
I do like the desktop form factor of keyboard and monitor but the 17"er is nice to use while I'm up making coffee in the morning or while sitting on the couch at night
My Lenovo P17 saw 5 continents and tens of countries. And it's useful to have 128GBs of RAM (i use VMs a lot).
im an average guy and carrying a 2.2kg laptop is no issue. Its well worth it for the days where I work a full day from the laptop.
> The author doesnt know what he wants and doesn't know what framework provides.
Indeed, I just pressed a "Buy now" button without a moment's thought. Clearly the fault is all mine.
So basically this article is 50/50 insightful and helpful feedback from a Framework customer, mixed with gripes by someone who bought the wrong laptop for them. Part of the reason this is getting a sour response is that most laptop companies don't even offer the choice of a larger, more expandable model. Framework does, and you bought it despite not actually wanting that, then dinged it for the compromises inherent in the design you chose. It seems like the 13.5" Framework was the obvious fit for your needs?
To use a silly food analogy, imagine there's a popular salsa company. The customer base has been clamoring for them to release an extra-hot salsa that also has corn in it, though that's a polarizing combination. A purchaser gives it a bad review because, in addition to some very legitimate critiques of the spice flavors, it's too hot and corn doesn't belong in salsa. People who wanted the extra-hot salsa with corn have a point when they say that person should have reviewed the medium salsa without corn.
All of the complaints you had are extremely reasonable reasons to not want the Framework 16 (or any Framework). While I personally am quite happy with mine, I very much believe that it is not for everyone, and in fact has quite a niche audience. That being said, most of your complaints should have been obvious from viewing images or reading any of the numerous reviews. So yes, I agree with the GP comment that you seem to have bought the computer without knowing what you wanted and/or what the Framework offered/was.
Being more expensive, heavier, and worse "fit and finish" is pretty much the tradeoff for upgradeability and repairability. Not everyone values those things to the same degree, and deciding that those tradeoffs are not worth it is completely reasonable. I just don't understand how you could get wind up buying one without knowing those were the tradeoffs you were making. I've read almost every one of these complaints in previous reviews. It's not exactly a secret.
> Not sure how you can make things like this not to have any lines for what its worth. So not sure what author is going for.
Machine them with wire EDM, like these executive desktop toys? Yes, I know the seamless effect is achieved by polishing the two parts together afterwards, but you can still achieve a practically gapless fit.
One bump in your laptop and you are shit out of luck then though. Removable parts imply that there needs to be extremely slight wiggle room (not to the level rightly criticized by the blog post author, but it cannot completely go away).
My macbook pro 16'' is very heavy too at ~2.2kg
I don't recommended getting a Framework to anyone who isn't interested specifically in repairability, as it has its quirks and doesn't feel like something which should cost this much. I've broken something in every laptop I've ever owned (+the butterfly keyboard in a company 2019 MBP), so to me it's an important feature.
That being said my previous device - a "gaming" laptop - was essentially e-waste two years after purchase because firmware updates stopped despite there being unresolved issues and the official parts store didn't even have basic items like fans, which I had to get from AliExpress instead. Eventually it was the cheapo Intel SSD which did it in, as it slowed to a crawl from being 80% full for too long.
I think there's a problem with my 1yo FW16's keyboard as during intense gaming the "D" key temporarily just stops responding, but if it ever fails completely I can order a new keyboard and once it arrives replace it literally within a minute.
Other parts take longer, but the general idea is that any sort of malfunction is manageable.
> This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't sitting in the bottom right corner of your eye when you look at the display.
This is about the power LED and it makes me wonder how dark is the author's environment? Is that healthy?
The thing about macbooks is:
- dead silence
- unbelievably good battery life
- tank sturdiness
- great performance
- amazing screen
- amazing speakers
- god-tier trackpad
- repairability in a sense you’ll always find parts (albeit not cheap) and someone to service it
—
It is basically uncontested in a laptop space.
I would only consider windows / linux on a desktop pc
The only downside is that you have to run macOS
It’s ok.
I’m even very content with Windows in desktop using komorebi tiling manager. And macos compared to windows is still far ahead regardless of recent constant shittification.
The thing about Macbooks is people tend to compare them with all of the regular laptops, of which 95% are in entirely another market segment. Even worse, some regular laptops can vary from "cheap shit" to "good machine" under one name, depending on the options selection (looking at you Lenovo). Hats off to Apple, having very narrow selection of models with very limited customization options helps them greatly.
There are models from Dell, Lenovo, and ASUS which have better screens than Macs, better design and build quality (subjectively), on-par performance and just slightly worse battery life. It just takes time and effort to find them.
(also, am I the only one who finds Apple trackpads _uncomfortable_ to touch?)
Name me premium one, I dare you.
Take screens for example. Sure OLED is nice (if it won’t burn in or have terrible PWM on low brightness), but most of them in past years couldn’t afford custom resolution with great DPI: 220-250.
No, those fuckers will install you either full hd or 4k resolution which is only good for movies.
In every other case you’ll need to use fractional scaling that will make your UI, fonts, what have you look like blurry shit.
—
The list goes on for battery life (google how many milliwatts apple consume during sleep), performance (full regardless whether they are plugged-in), etc.
Mind you, I would love to see apple-quality hardware with linux on it.
It just doesn’t exist yet. Geohot lamented this recently: https://youtu.be/M96O0Sn1LXA
> repairability in a sense you’ll always find parts (albeit not cheap) and someone to service it
I'm sorry but that is just false. Various organisations assessing repairability consistently give MacBooks poor scores for having soldered components, glue everywhere and complicated assembly.
Meanwhile I have one screwdriver for my Framework, which came with the laptop and I can use it to replace any part, including those which are soldered on the MacBook.
That’s why I specifically told what I meant: it is not about being able to swap SSD, but that for at least 5-7 years you will be able to repair it (expensively).
Moreover in basically every corner of the earth there will be either authorised service or local one that will help you if soak your laptop in thailand or what have you.
You can't swap the SSD on a macbook?
Only with a heat gun and some lead :-)
You forgot:
- inadequate cooling
- fried NAND chips
- screens spontaneously cracking
- flexgate (not to be confused with bendgate)
And that’s only a subset of the engineering failures with MacBooks. You even bring it up in your post: the only reason they have “dead silence” is because Apple is literally baking your laptop and leaving you to pay the bill.
I’ll give Apple that their custom chips are pretty great for power and efficiency, but their actual product design is bad. I mean, who designs a laptop with the fan pointing the wrong way?[0] Or a power bus alongside a data bus?[1] These are literally basic errors that go into production for a company that is far too big for this to be happening.
[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiCBYAP_Sgg [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cNg_ifibCQ
The things you are pointing out are 6+ years old.
Cooling is the reason intel was ditched: intel promised for years new nodes, and apple designed for new power consumption that never came.
You don’t fuck with apple this way unpunished. That’s why nvidia was ditched circa 2013 to never come back.
—
As for something-gate: engineering is hard, especially on this scale. Still they were (and are) the best option overall.
= to be good doesn’t mean to be perfect; you just need to be better than competition.
And they are crushing it even in low-cost space. I mean m1 air for $800-900 is uncontested even today for what kind of solid machine you get.
They’re not. The MacBook Air can easily thermal throttle under any sustained load because they went with a fanless design. It may work for casual usage, but it also negates at least half of your claims.
Screen cracking was ~4 years ago for M1 laptops, which also included Apple making screen repairs far more difficult, exacerbating the problems they’re currently being sued over.
They did separate NAND from the rest of the board in recent models, but NAND on the board was only a problem because A) bad engineering & B) greed. Thay’s not even getting into MacOS overwriting to NAND and wearing it out.
“Engineering is hard” is not an excuse for a company that’s worth $4 trillion. With flexgate they cheaped out on shorter flex cables. Anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of flex cables knows that’s a recipe for disaster. And while Flexgate itself is an older case, it’s a clear example of their profits-at-all-costs approach.
For that ~$900 M1 Macbook Air, you’d get:
- an old laptop, nearing its end-of-life, with:
- a fragile, expensive-to-repair screen, plus:
- thermal throttling on any decent load
All for $1,000, which by the way is not “low-cost”. That same $1,000 can buy you far better machines. Genuinely, it doesn’t fit any realistic use case. Casual users? A Chromebook or cheaper Windows laptop suffices. Productivity? It can’t sustain loads, so heavy workloads are out of the picture (and can be handled more effectively by newer hardware). Its only clear benefit is the battery life, but that’s not enough to spend $900 on a 5yo laptop with known issues.
I don’t know what “fragile” things you are talking about.
I have both air m1 and 16 m1 pro.
Neither me nor anyone I know have issues with these laptops.
Of course air is for your average Joe. And even then I transcode videos on air.
M1 macbooks are known to have fragile screens, there are multiple class action lawsuits over it. Just because you, anecdotally, have not had issues does not mean they don’t exist.
And the average Joe is far better off with a newer laptop with the same performance for 1/3rd the price. The M1 Air will be out of updates in 2 years, requiring whoever’s listening to your advice to either suffer with an insecure laptop or to spend another grand or more on a new laptop.
Apple has no unique benefits for the average person, and in fact a Chromebook fulfills the average user’s needs perfectly fine.
You should stop watching youtube channels.
Consider the number of m1 laptops manufactured and then the number of claims.
Regarding, the “fragile screens” — find me one that ended at least with a settlement and not dismissed.
> You should stop watching youtube channels.
Why? Because they say things you don’t like?
> Consider the number of m1 laptops manufactured and then the number of claims.
Consider the fact that most consumers wouldn‘t file a claim even if they were eligible—the FTC finds that only about 5-10% of affected consumers actually participate in class actions. And considering there‘s multiple class actions over different models of the laptops, that signifies a decent chunk of users.
> Regarding, the “fragile screens” — find me one that ended at least with a settlement and not dismissed.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/vancouver/article/apple-ordered-to-pa...
This is not class-action. It’s a single case.
> the FTC finds that only about 5-10% of affected consumers actually participate in class actions
So if ballpark is at least 15-20 million macbooks per year, what is your estimate of defected units per year? :-)
As a long time Linux user I only recently tried my first framework (12), and shortly after got the 13 too because I realized that this is the laptop for me.
I wish I had realized it earlier.
But it's so refreshing as a linux user to use a laptop actually designed for linux, and have everything work so great out of box like battery and wifi.
Sure I've always used Laptops famously Linux-friendly, but it was still hit or miss, especially with new releases, and you always felt like you were breaking warranty somehow.
The entire experience buying a Framework, and using it, has been amazing. I'm hooked.
I've been using ThinkPads with Linux since the T410, T420, T430, T480s, and several others. For me, they've consistently delivered an "everything works out of the box" experience with Ubuntu and/or Fedora, including things like SmartCard readers. I'm currently on a Lenovo X13 Gen 6 (AMD), and the only component that required any tinkering was the 5G WWAN due to FCC unlock issues (see: https://github.com/lenovo/lenovo-wwan-unlock/issues/68 ).
One thing many people don't realize is that some Lenovo models can be ordered with Fedora pre-installed. That's a pretty strong signal for Linux compatibility.
I've been watching Framework for years, and among my Linux-using colleagues we have ThinkPads, Frameworks, and Tuxedo machines, so comparisons are easy. I really want to like Framework, but recurring firmware issues, noise (!!), and the lack of built-in 4G/5G antennas have pushed me toward Lenovo every time. That said, I do like the modular idea. I even use a small USB-C adapter permanently to protect the port from wear, almost all docking/monitor issues I've seen over the years came down to worn cables or ports. In that sense, Framework's modules are genuinely appealing.
Yes, that does sound good, but if someone wants an inexpensive laptop that is also “actually designed for Linux”, they should keep in mind Chromebooks. I don’t think of these as competitors to the framework, but as a lower end alternative that is usually overlooked.
kinda similar experience with my thinkpad t14s gen 2 amd (what a name.) I like framework's philosophy, but there's so many refurbished business laptops out there (many unused) that I like upgrading every few years to a 3-4 yr old laptop.
Getting a laptop that's linux certified has been better than I thought, things like sleep and power management "Just Work" whereas on other laptops I'd spend more time configuring TLP or even just hibernating every time because I couldn't get a good sleep experience. Hope this inspires the other manufacturers to work on getting this working out of the box.
I have two Framework 13 DIY, top of the line (Ryzen AI 9 HX 370, 96 GB of RAM, 2TB WD BLACK SN850X). Well, TBH just one, the other one was stolen with less than one month, but that's a different story.
Can't be happier with this choice.
First of all, now I feel confident I can easily tinker with my laptop, open it and replace any components. No, I'm not repeating their Marketing, I'm truly confident now. Some months ago my previous Lenovo X1 Carbon stopped charging and I was scared as hell. Sure, I have everything in version control and cloud drives blah blah blah but if it doesn't charge, it's dead. Sure, I can extract the NVMe (is it easy at all?) and rsync the data (for a faster recovery) but is that easy, feasible, can I do it on the go (X1 stopped charging while I was on a trip).
The Framework 13 DIY I built it in less than 10 minutes. I can easily disassemble again in a heartbeat. This is priceless.
Other than this, build quality is higher than expected, and several other people said exactly the same when I showed my unit. Powerful? Most than any desktop out there. Perfectly portable. Works well OOB with Linux. What else do I need? Nothing, it's my laptop and will be the next one.
(Actually the next one may be cheaper, as I may only need to replace the motherboard, we will see)
Writing this on a first-gen 13 DIY, so it's already a bit dated. I've already added additional RAM and swapped in a much bigger SSD (really underestimated how much space you need if you heavily use docker and VMs).
The 1st year was a bit bumpy with 4k monitors over a USB-C hub being somewhat flaky. Ever since a clean Ubuntu reinstall, I'm very happy, no complaints whatsoever.
Sure, it costs more, but the combo of perfectly running Linux, giving me the piece of mind of repairability and easy upgrades for me justifies a higher price.
On the other hand, I'm not willing to pay the kind of premium you have with Apple products, where for incremental steps in more RAM or SSD you pay a multiple of the off-the-shelf price of the added space.
You do realise you can upgrade RAM and SSDs, as well as replace most components on ThinkPads too, right ?
"Most components" seems a bit of an understatement when compared with the Framework.
Sure, some components can be replaced. And not at the same cost (opening and manipulating the Framework vs the ThinkPad). But not all, like the motherboard.
I may have built multiple dozens of computers in my life, so it's not that I'm new to this world.
Replacing the motherboard is just not an important thing, and that's demonstrated by how Framework has remained a very niche product.
I've been a very happy FW16 user, so much so that I got my partner an FW13 to replace her very old and very bulky gaming laptop. Similar specs to yours + AMD dGPU module. Recently cleaned the innards and upgraded my mainboard to the HX 370 in ~20min with zero issues. Compared to what I've been reading on various forums/threads, my experience as a whole has been virtually free of problems! FW + NixOS is a potent combo that squarely satisfies the kind of configurability/overall experience I need/want in the tech I use. (And perhaps more importantly, it handily assuages my paranoid mind.)
What's the battery life you're getting out of the Ryzen AI 9?
TBH I haven't deeply tested it yet. Laptop is a few days old and I'm still "automating the install" (Ubuntu autoinstall + Ansible tasks for post-installation including BIOS upgrade and install Nix + Nix and home manager to install everything else; post(s) upcoming), so I haven't done "production use" yet.
Anyway, and while I love long battery life, it's not my main concern. Most of the time I have a power socket available and/or a nice portable battery pack that does the job. Laptop feels so much faster than my X1 Carbon that everything else seems to be a distant second feature.
P.S. Hi, Yorick, again, not the first time we cross paths ;)
> One option is the Framework 13 given that it solves at least some issues I have with the Framework 16 (e.g. it's bulkiness and inability to lower the brightness further), but it also seems to share many of the other issues such as poor speaker quality and (at least from hat I could find) worse heat regulation, and a (possibly) worse battery.
The speakers are bad, but as a 13 owner I don't see or understand the heat or battery complaints specifically vs. the 16, it's considerably better on both fronts in the current iterations of the 13.
Unless you're comparing them to a Mac running macOS? It isn't clear, but in which case yeah, obviously it's worse than a Mac.
What I don't understand is why you bought the 16 instead of the 13. You didn't seem to need or use the discrete GPU, which is arguably the entire reason it exists. The only other feature you mention as useful that the 13 doesn't have is QMK support.
I literally mention the reason in the article in the "Configuration" section (https://yorickpeterse.com/articles/im-returning-my-framework...)...
Yeah, and as others have noted here in the comments, it doesn't make sense.
You don't want bulk, but you chose the bulkiest option. You want a display with more even brightness and colors, but you chose the model intentionally built around a more refresh-performant but uneven display. You either don't care about or didn't bother measuring GPU performance, but you chose the model designed entirely around novel GPU features.
You cite unsourced reports of 13s having anti-properties, but it reads like you didn't research either newer 13s or the 16 at all.
I dual boot Asahi and Mac OS X on my Macbook Air, and haven't had any problems with suspend. IMO the two biggest problems are lack of USB-C display output (although this is less of a problem with the Macbook Pro since you can use HDMI) and having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop).
It seems like he's looking for a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't many options there. I'm not sure why he even considered the Framework, it's pretty obvious from looking at it that the downside for the configurability is the laptop not being as solidly built as less configurable/repairable alternatives. I would have suggested a Dell XPS if he's ruled out the X1 Carbon, but it looks like Dell still hasn't backtracked from their decision to ruin the XPS keyboard by replacing the function keys with an even less functional ripoff of the Apple touchbar from 10 years ago. I guess the best move is to suck it up and go with the X1 Carbon and deal with the screen resolution for the IPS version being 1200p.
It makes me wonder, does Apple have some insane patent on unibody construction? The pre-Retina unibody MacBook Pros were easily upgradable and very solid. They had a ton of room in the chassis, and hell, the first year of them the battery was toollessly removable. Aside from the keyboard and the screen, it was all latches and a few common Phillips #00's.
Why have no manufacturers copied this obviously great construction technique? It's not like a Framework is wildly cheaper than a MacBook, we're already paying a premium, so the costs of subtractive CNC can't be it.
I think the costs of milling a solid piece of aluminum that precisely and in those quantities can be “it”.
https://youtu.be/lJx6cF-H__I
I am not an expert, but it seems to be an engineering achievement, given that no one else does it. I doubt milling methods are patent protected, but rather Apple can use its volume and vertical integration to drive costs down and spend more on the chassis than other laptop designers.
Apple is #4 in laptop sales. Lenovo, Dell and HP each have at least as much volume. Apple also has higher margins than those companies, implying that any cost savings they make on other components aren't making it into the price anyway.
It's probably just that it costs a little more to do it and most customers wouldn't pay a premium to have it.
>Apple is #4 in laptop sales. Lenovo, Dell and HP each have at least as much volume.
True but they divide their sales among several models. Gaming models, 2-in-1s, 13" to 17" and so on. Apple not only has fewer models they often keep the same case design between generations which also benefits economies of scale.
Just curious in case somebody knows. Are OLED displays in laptops bad at low light? He cites that as a reason he doesn’t want OLED, but I’ve never noticed such a problem on OLED phones.
I'd say the inverse is true: OLEDs are the best in low light, as they generally dim well and black means zero illumination of the pixel. Author is ill-informed. Also, OLED burn-in is a non-issue with current displays in any normal situation (e.g. not a kiosk or arcade or other sort of always-on static dashboard).
> always-on static dashboard)
Like the taskbar, dock, menu bar, etc.?
No, those are generally not always-on in normal use. People let screens shut off, open up fullscreen apps, etc. Most OLED firmwares also have subtle pixel shifting and pixel refresh on shutdown routines, as well as very conservative brightness settings. OLEDs in normal use are actually less susceptible to color shift deterioration than LCDs in normal use.
I'm using an OLED X1 Carbon right now in the UK. I use it all the time in low light.
I just turned all the lights off (even the Christmas tree) and ran through a handful of usage situations and couldn't see any issues. I turned some lights on and did the same, I couldn't see any issues. I asked Claude, and got told to do the finger test, and that is barely perceptible. I then used my phone to record the screen and yes - I can confirm that there is an effect that my pixel 9a's camera picks up, barely noticeable at 240Hz, and definitely noticeable at 480Hz.
Maybe the guy is particularly sensitive, but from the framing of the rest of the article I think he's blowing a few things out of proportion.
I probably should've done a better job at clarifying this, but my issue with OLEDs isn't just that (at least historically) they tend to be too bright even at lower brightness, but also the other issues they come with such as burn-in and text potentially looking less pleasant compared to IPSs displays. Burn-in is probably my biggest concern here, especially since it really seems to be a case of winning the lottery or not (i.e. for some it's fine for years, others get burn-in after just a few months).
Basically I just trust IPS more than any other technology :)
Burn-out probably depends on the model, not a lottery, but shouldn't be a major concern for typical usage patterns in recent models. The text issue is caused by a pentile subpixel layout which are no longer common. I love OLED for low-light evening usage because IPS displays always have some backlight bleed, whereas OLEDs can display true blacks/pure warm tones which I find much more pleasant in the evenings. IMO power consumption is the only major downside of OLED displays for general-purpose laptops and phones.
I've only recently bought OLED laptops so I can't speak to burn-in but out of the three I've tested, they have a lower minimum brightness than my other IPS laptops.
In terms of text clarity, "2k" OLEDs (1920x1200) are a bit blurry. IPSs and 3k OLEDs are noticeably sharper, with not much difference between each other.
For the brightness issue, if you are running X:
allow dimming display beyond normal max dimming:
restore to normal brightness range: (substitute the actual output name for your display instead of eDP; run xrandr without args to list)nice! didn't know about that. Thanks!
Someone was upset about it. The comment was down voted?
Try to be helpful.
Maybe they're upset you're not using Wayland?
Then again, every Wayland compositor family has their own tools...
A lot of computers with OLED displays use PWM for the low brightness levels, and he seems like the type of person who would be sensitive to that sort of thing.
PWM is the only useful way to drive an LED and the people who deny this are, to me, hilarious. In fact for the author's stated use case of low light conditions PWM really is the only way to do it without wrecking accuracy (and efficiency).
My no PWM laptops look fine to me for watching movies. Sure, less efficient. But if I can't look at it for more than 30 seconds without my eyes burning then what's the point?
OLED phones are bad because of flicker
On iPhones at least you can disable PWM dimming at lower brightness level at the expense of color accuracy. It's in Accessibility/Display settings.
Now tell me a model which has this given that OLEDs are here since iPhone X
Hint: the only one was released in a year that ends with 25
Only if you’re sensitive to that flicker, which most aren’t. Otherwise they’re pretty great.
> a PC laptop with Apple build quality and display quality, and there definitely aren't many options
There’s been a bunch of Windows ARM laptops that aim to directly compete with the M series Macs. Linux compatibility will depend on make on model.
As far as I'm aware, all of the Snapdragon ARM laptops are existing chassis designs with different motherboards. I'm not sure how ARM affects build quality. Moreover, Snapdragon X support on Linux is still heavily a work in progress with issues with sound, power management, webcam support, and video acceleration. I don't know why anyone would go with a Snapdragon laptop today when Intel Lunar Lake excels at the exact same workloads Snapdragon X does, has similar battery life, and Intel actually works on getting device support upstreamed in a timely manner.
> having to deal with x86 emulation (inherent to an ARM laptop)
How so? Is this because some proprietary software that isn't available on ARM on Linux?
Most server and embedded oriented software has been compiled for ARM 7 & 8 for a while now, but in my experience, software you'd use on a desktop might not have ARM builds unless it's popular with RPi or handheld gaming enthusiasts.
But what do you mean by having builds? You should hardly ever need to download a pre built software from the Internet, outside of the repositories, unless it's proprietary software?
Repos don't always have everything, and if software is offered via AppImage, Flatpak, etc, you're likely to be working with x86-64 compiled images.
Author doesn't cite how they decided that only MacBook or Framework would fit their needs. I've never had trouble with Dell laptops with any Linux distro I cared about. If I wanted a powerful Linux laptop, I'd probably look at something like Dell's premium model:
https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/laptops-ultrabooks/dell-16-p...
I bought a few refurbished Dell laptops/desktops in recent years, and while older models hold fine, more recent models broke down quite easily within a year. Sure all of them are refurbished models (purchased through official website) that cost from $400 CAD to $800 CAD but I'm sketchy of the build quality of recent models.
Good to know. My most recent is from 2021 and it holds up quite well.
What model did you buy? Was it a new one? I'm looking for anything that can live up to 5+ years. I have seen all kinds of issues, and the most frustrating thing is, most of the issues are small but deal-breaking.
The XPS 13". I like highly portable laptops. The hardware has held up quite well.
Thanks. I always bought workstations, maybe I should try XPS instead.
My first laptop back in 2005ish or so was a Dell Latitude. Ran XP until Vista came out and I switch to Linux which it ran for a couple years until it was stolen from my car. I recall unimaginable pain and suffering due to wifi, which, IIRC, I side-stepped by buying replacing the stock Broadcom card with an Atheros card and I'm certain is not nearly much of an issue as it used to be.
2005 is a really long time ago.
Yeah, 2 decades!
I was just enjoying a bit of nostalgia for that old clunky grey laptop.
I regularly installed debian back then, and it would take me a week to get things working pretty much every time.
Reminds me of how the MC in Pantheon uses an old clunker :)
When it comes to WiFi on Linux, 2005 experiences are irrelevant to today.
Things have come a long way!
For years after I would only buy Atheros WiFi cards, these days its usually Intel ones.
I've had two Dell XPS laptops (a 13" 2015 model and a 15" 2-in-1 2018 model). Both had significant touchpad issues: not sure if that's a driver thing or a hardware thing, but both would sometimes act as if there was a phantom touch somewhere on the trackpad which messed with my actual input. One of them had a keyboard where key caps of frequently used keys (super, shift, ctrl) would split in two after a ~year of use; this was not fixed under warranty, I paid out of pocket after a year of ownership, another year later it happened again.
After those two Dell XPS laptops, I got a MacBook Pro 2021 with an M1 Pro instead of getting the keyboard fixed again. No issues. Linux support isn't great, but at least macOS is a relatively competent UNIX so it's fine.
I might consider another non-Mac laptop in the future. But it's not gonna be a Dell.
I think I may have the same 2015 13" model you are describing. Which distro were you running out of curiosity?
Mostly Arch Linux at the time, though I've had Elementary OS on it as well. I used to run i3 (and eventually Sway) on it, which worked well since I could have a keyboard-centric workflow and not rely o bc the trackpad.
Huh. I wonder if they were both hardware issues. I've run arch on my laptop with no issues.
I have had many Dells that have been great with FreeBSD and with Linux. You do have to do your research though.
Frankly, I wouldn't expect any touchscreen to work with Linux. That's not a Dell issue though.
The XPS I bought in 2018 has a Wacom digitiser for touch/pen and I believe those are very well supported.
A clean install of Ubuntu and the touchscreen and all pen features worked perfectly and never had a hiccup since.
Interestingly, the touch screen of the 2-in-1 worked really well! I often relied on the touch screen to do light web browsing when the trackpad was acting up.
Dell build quality and longevity vary wildly.
My XPS 15 had a host of issues, all of which occurred commmonly but weren’t knowable at the time of purchase since it was early.
1. Battery swelling which wrecks the touchpad
2. Sleep issues so it would turn into a furnace in a backpack
3. Screen and keys randomly stops responding
4. Creaky body
5. Screen gets weird temporary burn in.
I did briefly look into the XPS series but it seems this series isn't really a thing anymore? I also found a lot of comments describing recurring issues with the trackpad (or was it the keyboard? I can't remember). Basically it seemed like too much of a gamble.
I'm not a massive fan of the hardware or anything, but most Dell laptops (including this premium one I linked) are tested to work with Ubuntu. If you're ok to use an Ubuntu-derivative as your distro, you should almost always have that as an option. Much like the Framework, it should be easily returnable if you have an issue.
Please don't trigger my Dell PTSD. This is garbage tier hardware designed to harass employees.
If your company demands/keeps buying the shittiest, cheapest plastic Dell laptops instead of XPSes or higher end Latitudes/Precisions, that's not Dell's fault.
My company uses XPSes and Precisions. They work great.
XPS are pretty mediocre build quality in my experience. Precisions are better.
Nothing says quality like a display option with a picture comparable to a cheap portable DVD player from 2007.
This is a good call.
I wonder what this means:
> featuring up to 80W of performance
Probably marketing reading the power adapter
Yeah but why is marketing regarding the power adapter in the headline?
Ok
How is Dell's firmware security story?
I can't think of many things I care less about than firmware security, so I am personally not sure.
Sure, it's only a place for permanent rootkits and bootkits to proliferate, why care about it at all?
OP wrote:
"My current laptop is an aging X1 Carbon generation 7... A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working. I decided it was time to look for a replacement."
Isn't that like deciding to replace your bike because some of the cables are rusted? Like a new set of cables, a new keyboard is a small expense compared to a whole new laptop.
Like replacing bike cables, swapping in a new Carbon X7 keyboard might be slightly challenging for an amateur. iFixit calls the keyboard replacement "moderate" in difficulty [1] taking about an hour with a new keyboard running about a hundred bucks. But it would be a simple job for a repair shop. So it seems hard to justify the expense of a whole new one rather than just the new part.
Of course, sometimes you just want a new laptop, because the bike analogy breaks down a little: unlike bikes, newer ones are inherently faster.
[1] https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+X1+Carbon+7th+G...
Generation 7. I realize you acknowledged the hardware age, but it's really the difference in my own workflows and experience.
I'm still on a Gen 8 i7 (with 40 GB RAM, to boot) T480s. I take pretty good care of my machine, so it's still in superb physical shape.
But, given today's massive webapps and video calls while having my workspace programs open, I'm in Hell. A failing keyboard would probably push me to repurpose the current machine and upgrade as well (and still replace the keyboard for kicks).
If I wasn't strapped for cash, I would have bought an AMD Framework eons ago.
Your analogy won’t hold scrutiny with a competitive cyclist: newer bikes are also faster given the same rider, even if not as meaningfully as a new CPU.
And modern bikes do make with the need for cable replacement or breakage (hydro lines and electric shifting, while more expensive to service, also require much less of it).
Life tip: Noone appreciates and there's no utility in nitpicking analogies. They're never the actual point of the message and it's incredibly rude and socially inept to lock onto a side quest like that.
idk, the OP is all about the author misunderstanding what they bought. Hence a comment about bikes not understanding bikes deserves just as much scrutiny.
My own life tip: there are plenty of good analogies, so no need to choose use an example you are not familiar with.
With this comment you completely validate izacus (shaky) judgement call: when you write "a comment about bikes not understanding bikes" you are clearly more interested in being rude than pointing out a flaw in the analogy.
We all see that OP does understand bikes in the general sense, indeed the fact you are nitpicking instead of trying to explain one of the many fundamental difference means you think that as well.
To me, it suggests that analogies aren't as useful as we'd like them to be. Either the analogy is perfect, in which case nothing is any simpler, or it's imperfect, in which case you're now distracted by the differences.
They're not totally without value but I find that it's generally better to avoid a analogies. Look for some other route to make the point.
Analogies are a simplification. The problem is not that they can’t capture the whole thing in detail. But that they just don’t stand up to any adversity (because that isn’t what they are for). They are only good for explaining things, not for arguing.
They rely on the recipient going along with the analogy and trying to make it work, not trying to find problems with it. If someone understands the concept well enough to needle the analogy, they probably have a better understanding than the analogy can provide anyway, so it is fine to give it up.
In this case it is neither used for arguing, nor for explanation really, I think, but as a bit of rhetorical flair. The analogy is to an obviously stupid thing to do, throw away your bike because of some easy to fix cabling issue.
People really should stop pretending that you're getting a Macbook out of a Framework. You're not. You're getting a PC laptop with all the advantages of a self-build PC desktop.
When you compare apples to apples (lol) - PCs to PCs - the current gen higher end Framework 13 and 16 are beasts. They contain the fastest mobile AMD chips on the market today, the Ryzen AI HX 370 aka "Strix Point". The only thing faster than that is the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 aka "Strix Halo", which would probably have some issues in a laptop with this size if you want to make full use of it because of thermals. Just look at the kind of cooler which sits on the mainboard of Framework Desktop (which does contain the AI Max+ 395) to get an idea what I am talking about.
You can choose between no discrete GPU, AMD RX7700S or NVIDIA 5070M; or just purchase them all and swap them around if you want to. (and who knows what dGPU will be for sale in the (near) future... and all it takes for them is to make that thing fit into the Expansion Shell)
Due to the included AMD mainboard you get USB4 instead of Thunderbolt 4, which means little to no protocol overhead when you hook up a EGPU and can run a docked 5070Ti or 9070XT at ~100fps @ 1440p.
You get up to six (on the 16) expansion bays which enable you to swap external ports to any configuration you like. They even have created 2 external SSDs you can slot in on these ports and blend in with the laptop (which come in sizes of 256G and 1T), and released everything required to allow people in the community to create their own ports as open source.
And I could rave on and on...
But again: Is it a Apple quality laptop? No. Is it a beast of a PC laptop? Yes.
PS: If you think Lenovo is the Apple of the PC world due to the fact that they could purchase some branding and design from IBM back in the day you are in for a very nasty surprise. I have all the hands on experience with a so called "premium" Thinkpad worth a pretty cool 3500 EUR back then to write this.
The Framework Laptop 16 has worse performance than other laptops that have the same chips, due to thermal and power constraints. Upgrading to the fastest option Framework sells might not have much value when the power budget for it is so low.
PC Magazine thinks otherwise:
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/framework-laptop-16-2025
I quote: "A DIY Desktop Replacement Dream Machine"
It also outperformed the Asus Zenbook S 16 in their benchmarks, which also has a HX 370 SoC.
The only thing they didnt like was the battery.
I've had a Framework 13 for nearly a year, been very happy with it, I've taken it on international work trips but it mostly sits on my desk with external displays attached. I ran Windows on it until I switched jobs, now its Ubuntu.
I also have an X1 Nano, which I love too, its the around-the-house laptop and a great little machine but whenever it dies, if I replace it at all, it will likely be with another Framework (perhaps the 12")
The real test will be in 2-3 years when I'm itching for an upgrade, assuming Framework is still around, I'll be able to swap out the MoBo and leave everything else as-is. We'll see.
Same. I'm very happy with my FW13 too. It replaces the MBA for my purposes -- dev on linux (mostly webdev on this machine, have a remote machine for gpu/heavy work), web browsing, streaming, some very light gaming (portal 2 on steam).
I'm waiting on that test too :) a few more cpu generations and I'll be itching to upgrade. I'm excited to for that to happen.
Why would an OLED display not make sense in a low light livingroom situation? I really don’t understand it, what is the issue in this specific scenario?
I think the author is confused here. Low-light conditions are one of the important use cases for OLED, due to the vastly better blacks.
Yeah doesn't make sense, if anything its the opposite.
Burn in is probably a valid concern though.
My brother has a 16, and it’s been good for him. It is big and chunky, more so with the GPU module; only a few paragraphs into the blog post I felt the author was trying to fit a big square peg in a round hole, and then blaming the square peg for being big and square.
That is to say, it’s a big, heavy, expensive laptop. My brother works shifts in a remote location and from what I can tell, the 16 is great for that: you wouldn’t bring a desktop, but once the laptop comes out of the bag, it’s going to stay set up on the desk for the duration of the hitch. He tried leaving the GPU module at home, and found the AMD APU quite capable (he plays Tarkov and BF6, among others).
I support Framework’s vision and ethos and am willing to pay a premium for them. My sister uses my 11th gen Intel FW13 for school and is happy with it (only she wishes it was better for gaming), and the AMD 13 I bought was a massive upgrade in gaming capability and speed – I’m able to play Arc Raiders with my brother, one of the few online shooters who’s anti-cheat works on Linux.
Another big plus is that FWs play very well with Linux. The Wayland window manager Niri is amazing – so smooth and fast, now with alt-tab in the latest release. And I see there’s Dank Material Shell (1), which bundles things like a bar, launcher, and control center that one normally has to assemble piece by piece in WMs like Niri and Sway (which I used before).
1: https://github.com/AvengeMedia/DankMaterialShell
I ordered a framework desktop and got it "by accident" - in that I forgot that I had put down a deposit on a fully maxed out Ai MAX395+. After a few days of using it, I decided to keep it, and given how incredibly expensive 8tb NVMe drives and DDR5-8000 has beocme since then (even if you could get DDR-8000 on desktop form factor) - I don't regret that decision at all. It's a great little box - and AI is getting closer to colser to being a good experience.
That said, I have run into a set of frustrations with it: 1) The PCIEx is completely useless on the board. Forget about room for the slot - it's not exposed, there isn't enough exposure inside of the case. This is a real miss - It seems perfect for a occulink port or another USB4 port. 2) USB4 + PCIe tunneling was a mess. Seems to be working better now. 3) There are some real thermal envelopes that are resulting in similar systems with the exact same architecture running 10% faster then this box. That's a big bummer - apparently it's tunable in their bios, but framework really limits the bios settings. 4) Randomly right now, the latest kernel on Ubuntu seems to freeze on boot. No idea why - I can move to the older .5 kernel, and it;s working.
All that said, for what it offers - Framework offers a lot. I really honestly believe that either Mac or Framework is the way to go if you need significant compute power on the desktop.
I feel ya on the PCIe slot. And the on-board NICs are sub-par Realtek garbage, unacceptable both on features and quality. However, you can fit a small SFP+ card inside if you (a) cut out a correctly shaped hole in your case, and (b) turn the fan on at 40% instead of letting it turn off. The card will sit at a small angle but work fine, and with some 3D printing I even got a mounting bracket in to keep it stable. A lower profile connector, like USB 4, might fit outright.
Yeah, I was thinking of running a Occulink connector to the side of the case, the problem is that this would need a riser, and I don't think that occulink - even with a redriver, would do well with two additional physical connectors.
On the 5GB realtek - i think their 5G is far better then their 1g or 2.5g devices where.
It may appear to work, but it uses a lot more CPU than a decent 10G network card, despite being half the speed. I shudder to think what their 2.5G must've been if this is better.
> the Framework 16 feels more like a €1200-€1500 laptop at best… but two thousand Euros for this kind of laptop is just absurd.
You are literally buying a whole new laptop because the keyboard is broken and too difficult to replace, instead of a €65 euro replacement part with framework.
With framework, you are paying a 30% premium for the modularity and upgrade potential.
If that’s not important to you then why would you even buy a framework laptop?
This summer I bought and returned a FW 13, the newer AMD variety. Specs and performance were top notch, albeit a bit pricey I'd say (I brought my own 96GB of RAM and 2TB NVMe and the laptop was still 2200 EUR). Tinkered with it for a few days, tried Windows 11. The Mediatek Wifi card was horrible and it took a few hours of driver hunting to finally get it working in a stable fashion.
Reading the FW subreddit, a lot of said 'just drop in an Intel wifi card instead.' Well, yeah, that would surely have worked, but, again, I had already paid a lot for the machine itself. Battery life was subpar for it to be of much use as a laptop, but I didn't really mind. The screen was quite okay.
But what really put me off was how HOT and, consequently, LOUD it would get by merely watching YouTube at 1080p. Hot means really uncomfortable to touch and definitely not something you'd want sitting on your lap. People heard the fan from another room more than 10 meters away. That's when I decided that the little fan inside it would never be enough. With proper cooling, it would've been great as a workstation, though not as laptop meant to be carried.
tl;dr FW has a lot to work on noise, cooling and battery life. I don't suppose there will ever be a huge market willing to overlook these aspects just for the sake of repairability.
I can't speak to the rest of the text or the laptops themselves, but as someone who works with color reproducibility in video and print, those photos comparing colors of two different screens are worse than useless.
Uncalibrated screens photographed at different angles in different lighting conditions are not a valid basis for comparison. If you want properly calibrated displays, you need to purchase hardware (datacolor makes one such device) and calibrate them.
Even "factory-calibrated" monitors will benefit from this, because the quality of that calibration varies widely and your color reproduction is going to vary based on ambient lighting conditions etc.
The photos are just meant to illustrate the difference to the reader, not to be anything scientific. Of course manual calibration is ideal, but having a somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine.
Problem is, display profile support for Wayland has been, at best, spotty until recently - and, there should be multiple accurate targets available on any good display panel.
My factory-seconds F13 (using 11th-gen Intel, still the best in terms of power savings) shipped with the older glossy display, which had a known, disclosed-as-cheaper LUT issue at lower brightness settings. After a couple of calibration rounds, it is spot-on and my go-to PC laptop.
Decent keyboard, too.
Of course, things are often more expensive in Europe (compared to the US) for zero good reason, so the F16 will always be at a proportional disadvantage compared to the F13. You may find that a much better fit.
I am aware that most people don't have any idea of what "display calibration" is actually about (which is primarily about display profiling), but the observation that the "The colors of the display are overly saturated, with reds in particular looking more intense than they should." seems to be to be a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening here.
The framework 16 has a screen that is more capable of displaying reds than either of your two comparison screens (X1 Carbon 2019 seems to have a sub-sRGB gamut, while the Eizo CS2740 seems to be designed to match AdobeRGB [which has a red primary that matches sRGB]). This is by design, as framework claims 100% DCI-P3 gamut coverage (which has a more saturated red primary than sRGB/AdobeRGB).
In terms of red saturation, the framework monitor is literally displaying superiority over the other two by demonstrating the capability to show more colours, yet it is being framed in a negative light here as being something that is "over saturated".
The responsibility to dictate how much of the display's capabilities (i.e. red saturation) to use to lies squarely in the software (and their associated colour-management systems), which require a display profile (ICC) that accurately models the display's capabilities (profiling), and thus allows colour-managed applications to appropriately scale their source colourspace values into the target display colourspace values. These display profiles are generated via colorimeters or spectrophotometers using specialized software.
Once an appropriate profile is loaded (for each screen), the output image should look identical on all screens that are capable of displaying the colours in the image (e.g. in an sRGB case, all three screens show show the same image, save for maybe the X1 Carbon being slightly desaturated). Correspondingly, attempting to display an image with a DCI-P3 space (that fully utilizes that space) will cause undersaturation on both your X1 Carbon and the Eizo CS2740 (i.e. the ability to show more red saturation is strictly a plus).
If your critique lies in the fact that framework laptop does not ship an appropriate ICC profile for their monitor, then fair enough. But I don't agreement with the statement that "somewhat sensible default calibration isn't much to ask for and is in fact something many other laptops do just fine." I don't believe many laptop manufacturer's ship reasonable ICC profiles at all, and mostly just rely on either the consumer liking the oversaturated look or by having their panels only be rated for around sRGB where implicit colour management (i.e. doing absolutely no colour management and having it work merely because the source and the target are the same space).
It is entirely possible that you do understand all of this and I'm making assumptions about potential misconceptions where none exist. However, you seem to have alluded to using Firefox as your main browser (which is not colour-managed by default) and your Eizo CS2740 being "properly calibrated (at the hardware level at least)," which to be suggests that you might be susceptible the misconception that I have pointed out. If this is not the case, then I deeply apologize.
Thank you for mansplaining what color calibration and accuracy means, but I'm well aware of how it works due to my background in photography and having spent plenty of time calibration displays in the past.
In particular, there's a big difference between "can show more colors" and "shows the same colors but overly saturated".
The Framework 16 suffers from this by default, something that's quite obvious when comparing it by looking at photos for which you know what the actual colors look like, something I did do but didn't cover in the article.
Whether this is because the display operates in a different colorspace by default (e.g AdobeRGB) or not I don't know, but there's at least no option for it anywhere in the BIOS that I could find.
Claiming the Framework is superior over a monitor literally meant for color grading and photography is laughable to be honest, and seems to suggest you interpret display quality as "more intense is better".
I can add anecdata for the factory profile being very over-red - it's quite obvious out of the box. Not as bad as many Samsung OLED phones you see in stores (typically set to some crazy "enhanced" mode), but it's certainly closer to them than a calibrated screen.
One thing that has bugged me for a while though: why isn't it possible to make my own color profile by hand? Everything seems to imply that you can only get a profile definition file from a calibration device, and I don't have one... but I can eyeball it significantly better than the default profile. Is there something software out there that will let me adjust my curves, like the OS already does with night-mode color balance changes?
I too would be interested in such a tool. I've had some luck finding close-enough ICC profiles, but it would be great to dial it in.
Contra the author, the extra vertical space you gain with the 3:2 ratio on the 13' version makes up for the small form factor, especially it makes you realize that what you are often missing on a laptop is extra vertical space.
Exactly, this is why he should have got the 13' version. Sometimes you feel you want something "just slightly larger" (sic) than 14' but if you are not ready to pay the price for it, what's I am pretty the issue comes from people wanting to work on two windows side-by-side but for that to be comfortable you really need at least 16' if not 17'
The way I go around this issue is that instead of having a subpar side-by-side windows experience I just optimized for fast window switching: I just have mod + j/k mapped in my windows manager (can't do that in Gnome ofc) and I can just put the two window in their own workspace so that it's only cycling through those two if needed
My main gripe with the framework 13' is that it doesn't feel sturdy for some reason. Don't get me wrong, it is not flimsy either but if you get your hands or a macbook or even some other laptop in the same price range of the fw, it will feel better. I thing it has to do with the partly recycled aluminum, it's a material that's just not as hard as it seems.
On the other hand not having to throw out your laptop because you stupidly broke the screen is a great feeling.
Sorry your product experience was sub-par. We have four of the various revisions and the quality is on par with the other laptops in the price bracket. Framework versus MacBook - Not even a comparison - One of them you can do whatever you want with, and the other not so much. Linux is the best option for these computers, as with Windozers the battery life is worse. Baseline CPU idle on a clean linux install is like 0.5% - this results in a low power use battery life of about 7 hours on the 13" model under web browsing/audio playing loads.
My Framework seems to get worse battery life on Linux than Windows. Different tools like powertop help close the gap, but inevitably if I put the framework in a bag for a week, it'll be dead when I take it out
If your laptop is using a recent AMD Ryzen based SoC:
ACPI C4 power state (for powering down more of the SoC during S0ix suspend) is not supported on Linux yet, for recent (last couple years) AMD processors.
Patches submitted for 6.18 were described as "laying the foundation for AMD C4 support". So, maybe won't be fully supported until 6.19 or even later; Sorry, I haven't followed up to see what has actually landed.
I have one of the older ones. I think there's a way to set up "real" hibernation on Linux but it seems like a pain in the ass
Thank you - Good info
I shut mine down completely and haven't had the battery drain issue, but on "modern standby," yes these don't last very long. Probably 2-3% per hour on standby and worse than that if anything is plugged into the expansion slots.
If you're going to put it in a bag for a week, why not use some kind of hibernation feature?
You have to muck around with your disk partitions on Linux (although windows I think supports it out of the box)... I haven't spent enough time researching it to feel confident I can do it without borking my system
Nothing beats a MacBook Air if you’re not chasing raw performance.
I ended up with two machines:
- MacBook Air (16GB)
- MINISFORUM UM870 with 48GB RAM
The Air is unbeatable for portability and battery life. The MinisForum is still “portable enough” and gives me real horsepower when I need it.
I flew SF -> NY -> SF with the MinisForum and a portable monitor as carry-on. Everything fit in a Trader Joe’s tote bag. I even presented a conference talk using that setup.
For ~$2k total, you can buy:
- a MacBook Air
- a small PC + one or two portable monitors
- and still have money left
IMO the era of $2-3–4k “do-everything” laptops is over. I don't see how and why they're competitive.
> two thousand Euros
There is a lot of weight put into this number...and it seems that everyone forgot why US makers prices have inflated to this point. It's not to polish the "premium" experience, it's tariffs spread on the whole customer base.
Laptops are compared to other laptops availiable on market. Apple sells a entry line of their premium laptops at 1000$. And these are VERY good laptops.
Setting aside opinions about the product, the first 16" mac is around 2849 euros in the EU
https://www.apple.com/be-fr/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/16-pouc...
The MacBook Air 15” costs €1399, doesn’t sound too economical to pay double the price for the extra 0.9”
My point was more that throwing around the lowest price point (in a different currency...) of a differently positionned product line helps nothing.
Comparing Macs to Framework laptops is also an exercise in frustration in that nobody's seriously looking at the two for the exact same task. The price point discussion was already a distraction IMHO.
Can you imagine someone thinking "I'm gonna buy an officially supported fully user repairable Linux dev machine, should I get a MacBook Air 15?" or "I own everything in the Apple ecosystem and just need 'a laptop', how does that 100% incompatible machine fit my needs ?"
How much of an overlap is there really ? I totally understand the article author getting mad when he was looking for a completely different thing in the first place.
I think it depends. At least on $dayjob’s stack (webdev/Go) both are interchangeable and I’m fine using either. Ofc they aren’t the same thing, but depending on your task and constraints, both a MacBook or a Framework can attend your needs.
I can agree with you that they don’t have the same position, but users are going to see a Framework laptop on mainstream media and are going to compare options. A few might try out, and even though they’ll get frustrated, they might now understand the ideology around open hardware.
Yes. I think jobs where any laptop would do will get better ROI from the most run of the mill machine, whichever it is.
Back in the day it was the Dell XPS and Thinkpad lines, right now I see the MBA and Surface added to those. Economies of scale just work that way, and these machine will be aimed at perfectly doing the 20% that cover 80% of the requirements, Pareto style.
Does Framework get mainstream media treatment ? I thought they weren't even sold in stores, and only got press from TheVerge and other tech focused media. So the target market ends up being people dedicated enough to pay thousands sight unseen from a smallish company that will deliver in batches months after the order.
> Does Framework get mainstream media treatment?
I automatically bundle Linus Tech Tips into mainstream, mainly because how much people with no hands-on experience (i.e.: bring their laptops to a shopping center’s IT shop to upgrade RAM/SSD) around me watch it. I hope that eventually they are encouraged enough to try stuff on their own, and if they are in that mindset, framework is the best brand they can buy.
I think if you compare on price alone, yeah there are quality tradeoffs when you purchase a Framework. They don't get everything right, and often an equivalent model from Lenovo or HP is going to feel superior. But... buying Framework is putting a stake into having somewhat open laptops that you can service and upgrade yourself. Lenovo laptops have become less and less reparable (following the MacBook formula) and it's very important a company like Framework continues to exist.
At the same time, this kind of user feedback is very important, to help Framework identify the areas where they can or have to improve. Framework is a very reactive company and while hardware takes time, they typically address issues in their next models.
TL;dr Framework isn't worth the price. If you put it apples to apples with a great product like the M1, Framework loses everywhere.
I had the same conclusion after daily driving both for 2 years; until yesterday, when my water bottle opened in my backpack and soaked them.
When I got home, I ripped apart my Framework and dried each piece. I left the M1 by my heater and tried to dry it out. This morning, I put the Framework back together, and everything except the keyboard works. The M1 won't boot.
While I did pay a ridiculous amount for my Framework, the keyboard is 50$ to replace. After the M1 design had me feeling it was more premium, it ultimately failed first.
To be fair I once spilled water all over my Macbook's keyboard. It wouldn't boot for weeks afterward. I got a new computer and then checked back a few months later and my Macbook was magically able to boot.
1 day is way too little time. make sure the room’s humidity is low, and consider unscrewing the back part of the body to let it dry more quickly.
I’d try again in 2-3 days. Water doesn’t leave any (or much) residue after it dries. Unlike other drinks.
Any repair shops specialized in saving devices from water in your area?
Haven't had a laptop rescued yet, but there was a phone simply dropped in water in my family. I put it in a 1 kg rice bag, drove to the repair shop. I don't know what magic they did but it worked for 2 more years until we upgraded it.
As the multiple siblings say, let it sit. Some desiccant next to it to suck moisture out of the air will help - rice is famously OK for this - no need to put it in the desiccant. A little bit of airflow is also good.
You may also find that rotating it into different positions accelerates it.
As the sibling says, it’s definitely worth waiting at least a week or two to see if the M1 recovers. I’ve had the same experience.
>A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working
For a couple decades I was running exclusively Thinkpads, and always loved replacing the keyboard because it made it feel like an entirely new laptop. It also usually was quite easy and inexpensive. Probably worth doing in this case if there are no good alternatives.
Unfortunately, the X1 Carbon is, due to the form factor, a bit tricky, but probably won't take more than an hour or two depending on your skill level. You have to go in through the back, and there are around 100 screws that need to be removed and reinstalled.
Could be worse though, I replaced a friends daughter's keyboard in her Dell, and that was a similar remove-the-motherboard operation, but the keyboard was plastic welded in place.
I think what would be my biggest issue with the Framework 16 is mentioned... the spacers next to the touchpad... I really wish they'd offer a standard single-deck option for the touchpad that didn't have spacer/relocation options at all. The speakers would also be something I would regularly notice.
I'd probably go for the 13" myself... hardware wise, IMO Apple is really hard to beat all around. For what you interact with, it's absolutely the best model(s) around... the air and pro are both really good and solid. Displays, keyboard, touchpads, speakers are all well above average, and I don't think I've seen a combination I feel is better all around... that said, I'm less inclined to want to lock myself in. I'm going to use my M1 air until it dies, but I don't think I'll ever buy Apple hardware again though.
I probably should have returned mine. I still love the idea of the device, but the speakers, display, and trackpad are subpar. I get that I'm spoiled by the quality of a MacBook Pro in those areas, but they still feel worse than other laptops I've tried.
Also he says he's never heard the fans spin up but I've had the system spin the fans up very high and they get loud. And the spin-up was definitely valid the times when I checked because the device was extremely hot, I think from charging.
Now the laptop is being used as a server. Ended up being good for Jellyfin because I can have the GPU handle transcoding and tonemapping of 4K HDR movies.
Would be cool if Framework would sell speakers, a display, trackpad and housing comparable in quality to a MacBook Pro. It would have a high pricetag but you could slowly upgrade your machine. Especially since swapping out speakers or a trackpad is so easy.
Right now the Laptop 13 speaker kit is €20 but they could offer a €150 option that performs similar to a MacBook Pro for people who value sound.
It's not only a matter of having better hardware (though it certainly helps a lot). For example, Apple does a lot of software tuning and tweaking to make the Macbook speakers sound as good as they do. And it's been fascinating to read the extent of work Asahi Linux had to do to recreate the software portion of Macbook's audio stack.
https://asahilinux.org/docs/sw/audio-userspace/ https://github.com/AsahiLinux/asahi-audio
The problem is you need correction EQ built into to the drivers tuned to the enclosure (in addition to loudspeakers that are also designed accounting for their directionality, position, and the volume of the enclosure).
you also need a lid angle sensor instead of a open/closed detector to account for the acoustic reflections off of the screen
They should be able to offer a better trackpad module (and I've been hoping that they eventually do). The speakers seem like a harder problem to solve. The acoustic engineering that goes into designing a good speaker involves every element that can interact with the sound waves, not just the driver itself.
Tbh I just bought a 250€ refurb laptop, it has 14k cpu benchmark and 16gb ram, 256gb ssd.
Honestly do you need more to do terminal emulation? No, you don't.
Ok I won't play bg3 on this but that's good, it means I'll be productive !
What's is the deal with Linux and suspend? It seems only a select few combinations of hardware and software can handle suspend and resume. AMD is commonly praised for their Linux drivers but my all-AMD system crumbles down on power state transitions and especially suspend-resume. I never though words "data", "fabric", "sync" and "flood" can be used together, but now they are a common sight in my logs.
I'd return my Framework laptop if that was still an option. First they sent me bad RAM, and left me on my own to sort it out with Crucial, which never went anywhere. The mainboard has some weird power issue that prevents the modular ports, which are otherwise a cool idea, from working properly, and I went back and forth with support about that for two years before they finally told me it was out of warranty so I was SoL.
Then there's the screen that falls backwards.
Should've bought an old Thinkpad, instead.
They replaced the hinges on a batch 5 this year for free when I finally complained about it. I just asked nicely and showed them a video of a fan blowing the screen down. New ones are tuned as expected.
The 14" MacBook Pro is unequaled as a daily driver. You can compile some things in a pinch, but let's face it, if you're writing compiled code professionally, someone in management owes your team build resources. Your laptop is your canvas, your easel, your blank page, your sketch pad, and your research library and research notebook. In 2025 and in 2026, your laptop is not for compiling.
Framework 16 owner here, had mine for a year and a half. While most of this post is also true in my experience, I just don’t care. These are largely small cosmetic nitpicks that you need to look for to notice. The only complaints here that I really share are the jankiness of the spacers (a little jarring at first, but now I’m used to it), and the speakers really are noticeably worse than any of my other devices. So? I don’t watch movies on it, or listen to music, that’s what I have a TV and headphones for.
Seems inarguable that you can get a much more “premium” laptop for about the same cost. But I didn’t buy a framework for a “premium” feel… I was hoping to buy the last laptop I’ll ever need. And so far I’m happy with the result!
PS: the battery life is by far the best of any laptop I’ve owned. Maybe that just shows that my previous ones were junk, but I’m quite happy with it
PPS: I should note my employer was willing to buy it for me, so price was much less of a concern. Not everyone is so lucky ofc
Maybe the FrameWork company wants to build something out of the clutches of proprietary software and big corp hardware. And that's fine. Since they don't have the volumes to make enough money they may have to charge more per laptop, which is fine.
But if they want to have me as a customer on these core values (which I'm pretty much aligned with), then they need an additional core value: they need to convince me their higher price is justified. So I want transparency on the way they use my money (and the one of their other customers).
Without that, I'm left wondering if it is not some "green washing".
IOW I'm sure Apple is expensive because it's luxury, I'm sure other laptops are not expensive because they're cheap/sold by millions. But FrameWork, I don't know why their expensive. And repairability doesn't count, design for repairability doesn't make things inherently more expensive I guess.
I don't find framework appealing for upgradability, but I do think it's great for repairability. Being able to extend the life of a machine easily by replacing a cracked screen or degraded battery is so much better than going to the fruit store and being upsold a new machine and spending more. Obviously you pay extra in upfront costs and sacrifice build quality for a framework.
Also I think framework will excel in the SMB market where companies may have diverse requirements for different employees. Some just need a machine for email/browser and others for dev or video editing. But they can share parts, and upgrading a dev machine might have the benefit of upgrading other employees machines with the extra parts.
I'm currently in China, pondering whether Framework's approach to promoting repairability is feasible locally. I can easily purchase parts for nearly any retail laptop (yes, nearly any) on online shopping sites, sometimes even including the motherboard. Repairing electronic hardware isn't easy for non-professionals, but Framework's parts aren't just "parts" anymore—they're modules designed for easy repair. They clearly aren't manufactured and sold as individual components. This reminds me of LG's modular phones. For a time, their market lifecycle was so short that some of LG's premium modules ended up circulating at prices higher than the devices themselves.
I'm quite happy with mine, and like the keyboard in general though I can see why a coming from a decent Thinkpad would feel like a downgrade. I like it a lot better than the "butterfly" keyboards Apple insisted on, however, and have used quite a few more-expensive laptops with much worse keyboards. And I have gotten WAY more use out of the swappable ports than I expected, that's a killer feature imo.
The price is a "put your money where your mouth is" purchase for me on repairability - it's absolutely not competitive with a same-priced machine. But it's not too crazy if you upgrade or replace damaged parts, the significantly lower costs there add up extremely quickly.
The speakers though. Holy cow. They're truly awful and I think they drag down the entire product - put them over 50% and they blow out the sound and distort extremely badly. They really need to change them, I'd happily pay a premium to get something more usable.
So basically the same price as an already decently upgradable Thinkpad P1 G8 on sale, but with a terrible screen and janky chassis. Plus it costs about the same to upgrade as getting a new machine, but then you no longer have the ability to throw Linux on the old one and donate it to a school or less fortune person. Tough sell.
Beyond Apple, I think the state of laptop quality is absolutely abysmal. I haven’t tried Framework, but it is disappointing to hear their products suffer many of the same issues as other PC builders. I guess there just isn’t a market.
I was in a similar situation to OP: my Carbon X1 Gen 8 keys, notably `/` and some arrows keys, stopped functioning. Sometimes they did, but it was very erratic.
Luckily, when I replaced the battery (got a lot from iFixit) and tightened all other screws, the keys magically started working again.
Saved me quite a few dollars.
Rather subjective. I'm really happy with a used "16 gaming laptop, top performance, memory ssd extendable, extremely good display for ~1200€. Build quality is "ok" and creeks a bit, but magnitudes better value than a Thinkpad/Mac, even used ones.
It’s a detailed review with annoying conclusions.
While it has improved a lot over the years, the core issue is that Linux still doesn’t work well on laptops compared to other OS’s. 99.99% of the time you’re not going to get a “premium” laptop running Linux for this reason
The other reason, he’s not getting a “premium” experience is that he’s buying a laptop built for repairability and upgradability. You’re going to have a lot of tradeoffs for that.
IMO the only way to have a “premium” laptop experience with Linux, is to buy a Mac and run Linux in either a container or VM. It’s an understatement to say that the author is not being realistic.
The hidden story is the depth of work required to replace a keyboard on a newer Lenovo. The amount of work is absurd. Easily an hour or two for the casual owner plus use of multiple tools. Don't blame the author for giving up on it.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Lenovo+ThinkPad+X1+Carbon+6th+G...
"Step 26: Remove the seventy-two 0.5mm screws holding keyboard in place."
I am quite happy with my AMD 13 laptop. It replaced my Thinkpad T530 after its ~10 years of service. So far, nearly one year after buying it, everything works well. Ubuntu, Docker containers, clion+pycharm, sometimes Blender and other apps. Plus several tabs on Firefox. Camera and audio are better than my old thinkpad, so i have nothing to complain about yet.
There were issues like configuring Linux (extra monitor, logitech mouse, tablet, some software) but I found everything on Framework forums or googling a bit.
the core argument boils down to value proposition purely from an end user who does not care about the laptop's usp.
as a fairphone of laptops, it still seems like a much better deal imho. the core performance is not much worse than the competition. the user-facing hardware, while not as good as the best, it is quite in the same ballpark as other windows or linux laptops.
also a lot of quirks are starting to be solved by the community, which seems to be in a healthy state. the pixels and macbooks have enjoyed this in the past, despite their own quirks mainly due to network effects. plus rarely one could opt out parts not needed while ordering the laptop.
> I read various reports of the Framework 13 having issues with poor battery life, fan noise, heating, etc
Intriguing, I read the same but instead for the Framework 16. I ended up getting the AMD 7040 Framework 13 because of those reviews.
I don't understand the author, on the one hand he complains about the repairability of the thinkpads (which is weird in itself, they are still the most repairable laptops bar framework, especially because it's trivial to find resellers for pretty much all the parts. If finding all the screws is a problem, then you can just look at the repair manuals which are freely available. But after complaining about repairability he the looks at apples as alternative, which are like orders of magnitude less repairable than thinkpads.
My desktop PC has been constantly evolving for about 15 years now, literally the ship of Theseus. Currently, following the latest upgrade in September, it's an absolute powerhouse.
During the same time, I burned through four laptops (for travel purposes), all of which were mostly weak, with a maximum of 16 GB RAM, no real GPUs, and 14"-15" screens, expensive, and had poor resale value.
My next travel computer will be Framework 16.
I have a Framework 16, and as for it being a Linux machine I couldn't be happier with it. I still daily drive my MacBook Pro 16 instead, because it's just a more polished, more performant (and better battery life) machine, but still, I also really like my Framework 16. I eagerly await the time when Linux desktops reach the level of polish I'd like to have, and I feel like that isn't that far away anymore.
I went for a similar upgrade from X1 Carbon. I don't undestand why OP would compare the weight of a 16 to carbon which is closer to framework 13 (which I bought).
For me on Arch it's working great and has none of the issues he mentions, its the best laptop I ever owned. I bought one because the Carbon started decomposing fairly quickly (headphone jack, usb c port, keys) and think the modularity is a really great feature.
I bought a framework 16 shortly after it came out. My one gripe is around the track pad and the modules on either side of it. The fit there is not great. I really wish they would sell a full width track pad piece because the seams are imperfect. That said after the first month it hasn't bothered me. Definitely something I would change but not something that I notice or am inconvenienced by in daily use.
I have the similar ThinkPad like the author, except Gen 3, I7, 16Gb. Have Omarchy on it, works like a charm, even camera is not bad. Battery works but I can plug it in the same dock my macbook is (two usb-c dock).
While you can change keyboard or battery on your Thinkpad, they are cheap enough, around $500 that you can just get a new one. I get why he wanted Framework, they say 13" are much better and more useful deal then 16".
I wish Framework 12" is better, but it is not. Maybe Apple can dazzle us at this form factor.
The Framework 16 seems like a pretty unappealing device to me due to the bulk and cost, which is unfortunate. I have a 13 and absolutely love it, but the one thing is that I wish it had a direct PCI-e extension slot that I could use with an e-GPU. Thunderbolt is just too slow.
Im in a frustrating situation now where my laptop has a way faster CPU than my desktop, and my desktop has a way faster GPU than the laptop. I really wish I could use my big fancy GPU with my laptop without a massive performance loss.
I used to want a FW laptop. The idea is sound, instead of throwing the whole computer away when upgrading, just upgrade what needed(CPU, RAM, etc)
But the execution is, not good. The cost of new Motherboard is sometime as expensive as the new machine that has similar spec. I understand FW does not have economy of scale like Lenovo or Dell, but, the cost of upgrading is deal breaker to me.
I own 2 framework 13 laptops at this time and repairability aside I am also just happy to support a new PC hardware co.
> A few months ago a few keys of the keyboard stopped working, specifically the 5, 6, -, = and Delete keys. Sometimes I can get it working again by mashing one of them for a while, but it's not consistent.
I had the same problem on my X1 Carbon generation 6 and managed to fix it simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the keyboard ribbon cable. It's a very easy fix, the only thing you have to unscrew is the bottom cover.
I may be wrong here but IIRC at least with the 7th generation you have to disassemble the whole thing to get to the keyboard. I'll have to take a look though, because if it's really that simple then I may be able to make my life a bit easier. Thanks for the suggestion :)
I won a max spec Framework 13 at a hacking tournament a few months ago and use it as my daily driver now. I'm very happy with it. The 13 is much more clean than the 16. Framework 16 still feels like a bit of a beta product.
That being said, I probably would have gone with a Thinkpad if it had been my own money. The peicing is just really steep.
Wow had been strongly considering the framework 16 and really glad I read this. Thanks author! That keyboard space jank is not okay.
Just get a linux desktop and the cheapest MacBook Air and remote into Linux from the Mac when you need to go portable.
There's the world as you want it to be, and the world as it is. The laptop the author wants just doesn't exist.
I know, the repairability isn’t great, and they’re not upgradable at all. macOS can be annoying and restrictive. But life is short, so I just buy MacBook Pros. I wasted too many hours in my 20s getting Linux to work on the desktop (not to mention a laptop).
I'm by no means an HP fan, but EliteBooks have pretty great repairability and (unintentionally) great Linux support. Though they are a bit bulky compared to laptops that have been soldered together. So there are definitely more options.
Flex & build issues. Only 8h battery life. Display issues. Suspend issues. Trackpad issues. Speaker issues. Yup, and this is why you jut buy a MacBook. Sorry but there simply is no “option b” for laptop hardware quality.
Framework 16 has a 6 port maximum.
6.
That means if you want:
- HDMI
- Ethernet (a must if you're doing real work)
- an audio jack (why is this even an option?)
- SD reader
- USB-A port
You are allowed (1) USB-C port. This is in a > $2200 laptop.
$200 netbooks had all this (minus the Ethernet port) standard 10 years ago.
This is unacceptable. An artificial limit imposed by the mechanicals of the inefficiently large port modules - an idea that should have never left a whiteboard, let alone made it into a production laptop.
On the bright side you are forced into configuring them as all USB-C, you can reuse the man purse you used to carry all your dongles from an earlier generation Macbook.
I think they have another USB-C on the back if you get the upgraded video module. I wish all desktop replacement laptops had copious ports on the back like my Dell from ~2010 did. Who wants video cables jutting out sideways across your desk?
I don't really use ethernet, or an audio jack, or an SD card reader regularly. I just use wifi and bluetooth, and I suspect most people do as well.
You can also just keep the extra dongles in your backpack and plug them into any open USB-C ports, or just unplug the dongles to free up more USB-C ports as needed.
I bought an early framework 13. It cost a little more. I’ve since upgraded the main board to get a faster/newer experience. The overall cost has been less than 2 laptops.
Some of this depends if you’re playing the long game
On the other hand, if you'd bought two laptops... you'd have another laptop.
While that is true, it's not like I can use two laptops at once
Or just buy a MBP and use MacOS and not worry about any of these problems. I use Linux for everything but my laptop, but I’m not about to deal with a subpar experience when decent laptops are already so expensive.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
What? Low light is ideal for OLED compared to most LCDs where in low light contrast is poor due to bleed-through on the black areas via the backlight. The problem here isn't the laptop, it's between the keyboard and chair.
> I narrowed it down to two options: Buy a refurbished M1 or M2 Macbook and run Asahi Linux Buy a Framework
...or stop being a dogmatic baby about your OS and run MacOS, which is infinitely better than Linux as a desktop OS?
> I looked at some other brands but it appears that in 2025 there's just aren't many good options for Linux users
A market of less than 1% has terrible options? *gasp*
The only people still using Linux on desktop are people who think that *twenty five years* into "the year of the linux desktop" this will be the year that Linux doesn't stop being the worst option for a desktop OS.
If 2/3rds of the current linux distros hung up the hat and went to go help with other distros, there _might_ actually be progress on this front - but the nerds are too interested in fighting over asinine personal preference type things nobody else cares about, to actually make a distro that works properly and reliably. The Linux world is so hopelessly fragmented and there's thousands of people doing the same work as at least 6 other people all because they think their particular way of installing a linux package is better or their file layout is best.
Considering this customer's gripes, I might suggest the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14. It's even lighter than their X1 Carbon, has great battery life, is silent, and has a spectacular display.
kind of short sided on the laptop choices. M1/2 for Asahi or Framework. What?
Plenty of options from HP, not to mention German-assembled Tuxedo, and System76. Even moreso if going used
Apple could sell so many Macs to Linux users looking for decent machines once they'd open up the hardware just a bit...
If bad keys are the only problem with X1, why not buy external/wireless keyboard ?
A new keyboard for X1 Carbon 7th gen is available on e-bay for the price of $50-100.
A faulty keyboard is IMO not a good reason to replace a whole computer.
I'm still schlepping around with various used thinkpads. Maybe we get another HP Dev One that sells well this time.
> Knowing my luck I'd also run into OLED burn-in the moment the warranty expires.
Not being aware of the author's history of luck, that's an extraordinary claim. OLED screens are commonplace in modern devices -- phones, tablets, laptops and desktop monitors etc. If burn-in is still a real and significant concern, manufacturers would not have released so many devices, often with OLED screen as the only option. You would see videos on YouTube and TikTok warning you about OLED screens everywhere.
If anything, battery life is a bigger issue.
I really wish the author had done more research before making the decision or writing this piece.
Putting aside anything specific to Framework, this article really puts into perspective just how piss poor the laptop market is right now.
Macs have fantastic hardware, but of course only really run macOS. The future of Asahi Linux is very questionable and, like the author, is not something I'm interested in relying on. I don't hate macOS by any means but I much prefer running Arch with Hyprland.
PC laptop hardware is just shit in comparison. Like the author, my X1 Carbon (Gen 11) has keys that intermittently fail, and the cooling is pretty bad (I actually love the OLED display, though, and don't really understand the author's concerns here).
I haven't found any non-Mac laptops that beat the X1 Carbon line, though (relatively low bar that it is). Frameworks are cool if you are fine with the tradeoffs, but personally I'm just not -- I much prefer to tinker with desktops/servers, and am totally fine with laptops being a physically-closed "appliance," as long as that results in great battery life, cooling, and adequate performance (I can always offload heavy tasks to my desktop if need be).
Which is all to say: what I want is Mac equivalent hardware that can reliably run Linux.
For now, I've landed on using my extremely beefy Arch desktop when at home, and my M1 MacBook Air (which is still running great 5 years on) when mobile. Even accepting that I'll be using an Apple device when mobile, though, there's still room for improvement in this setup: I'd love LTE support (no, a hot spot isn't a good replacement), a nano-texture display (which appears to be locked to the MacBook Pro line), and either an even smaller footprint (like the old 12-inch MacBook) or a little bit of active cooling to offset the performance regressions in macOS. An iPad might make sense, but I own one and frankly hate it due to OS limitations, such as only a single stream of audio at a time (which causes lots of bugs -- watching a YouTube video while scrolling Reddit will cause the YouTube video to pause whenever you scroll past a video on Reddit, even if it's muted), a lack of terminal, etc. I want a "real" OS, so tablets are out of the question entirely.
I don't understand why absolutely zero PC manufacturers have even tried to take on Apple's laptop offerings. Sure, Apple Silicon is great, but Intel and AMD have done an admirable job at increasing battery efficiency since its release; it's not the only component that makes Mac laptops so great. I'm sure these manufacturers know what they're doing in this regard and have decided it doesn't make business sense to take on Apple. But man, I just wish someone would at least try.
1000% agree with this. Been using Macs for decades, but now prefer Linux. But Mac hardware is just so much better. Funny note: Sorta just for fun I bought an old Mac Mini ($25) and installed Mac, Windows, and Linux Mint on it. Fun device that is actually pretty useful with a KVM letting me use it seamlessly with my main Mac (also providing a shared external drive). Fingers crossed that the next leader at Apple after Tim has a Nadella-like moment deciding that Linux can be a friend not a foe.
I don't know how many laptops people own to rule out every possible model. My own experience is owning several various versions of Lenovo Legion for gaming and work, and currently an Acer Nitro 16.
None of them have given me a single issue.
Great screens, great keyboards, great performance, easy to upgrade the SSD or RAM. Short of really intense gaming, the fans aren't audible.
And they are all around $1000-1200 USD. All with AMD CPUs and Nvidia GPUs. Doesn't seem like they are unicorns.
...and battery life that is nowhere near a Mac. And consistently shit speakers.
I'm sorry but if you can't see that a $1,000 Acer doesn't compare to a Mac by any conceivable hardware metric then we don't have much to talk about.
It certainly doesn't compare which is why I've never bought a Mac....
But that's a goofy argument. Different use cases, different value proposition. My speakers are actually really nice though I alternate using them or using my HyperX headset.
Still I think you probably have zero experience with an Acer Nitro 16 if you think it's as bad as you're hinting at.
Surprised how quickly the Thinkpad died; they used to pretty much last forever.
I'm okay with spending 1000 on a screen and chassis, under the impression I upgrade the computer every 2 years. Unfortunately when a mainboard cost $1000, it's cheaper to buy a new machine every 2 years. This shouldn't be the case... Look at the chinese producing MoDT boards with full IO for $300 (likely the same shops who work with framework.
I like framework in the sense that I can ship of thesues my laptop the same way I can with a desktop, but at the end of the day, the premium is outrageous. If third parties start making framework compatible boards I'll buy into the ecosystem.
You can get a 7040 series Ryzen mainboard for $380.
https://frame.work/products/mainboard-amd-ryzen-7040-series?...
So I don't understand your $1000 complaint ... that's the most expensive mainboard they offer. You think Framework shouldn't offer the high end stuff?
The X1 Carbon is fine, not sure what is wrong with the 2k IPS display.
Do you need 4k for a 13 inch laptop?
I'm on a Framework 13. Aside from the wretched 4:3 screen size (which I knew in advance, it was a tradeoff, but my god I miss 16:10) I really do like it. No battery issues, the thing is incredibly fast. I've had the pleasure of repairing parts of it (screen, keyboard) and it has been super easy. The touchpad's button click could be a little more "tuned" (I miss physical separate buttons), but that's my only functional gripe.
But seriously, make a 14" 16:10 Framework please. I will buy a new one just for that.
The 3:2 screen on the 13" is fantastic, I disagree and won't buy another shorter screen again.
Thanks for review, the framework is a great idea in theory but in practise is still raw
Display being bright even on the lowest setting:
I wonder about rshifting the raster bytes...
He bought the last likely to be compatible and oversized option.
Of course he didn't like it.
I have a Framework 16 from one of the early batches (2023, think it was ~1000usd).
> Not only does [the spacers] look weird, you can also feel the gap and edges when resting your palm on them ... and the edges are quite sharp. If you have arm hairs you may consider shaving them off or risk getting them stuck. I also suspect gunk will build up in these edges over time. > There's also a practical problem: due to the flex of the spacers if you try to hold the laptop on its sides it will actually "wobble" a bit. Combined with the weight I suspect that unless you hold on to this laptop for dear life, you will at some point drop it.
I can confirm the spacers are raised with an edge (though sharp might be overstating it). It's even at a slightly different height than the touchpad, which is probably more defect than intentional. But I'm not picky about the aesthetics so I don't mind the lines / colors.
Can't say I've had issues with the spacers actually flexing or accumulating gunk though. And I carry it one-handed by gripping the corner with the spacer all the time.
> The keycaps are a little mushy, which isn't too bad but not great either.
Yeah this is an apt description. My biggest gripe is that the keycaps are near impossible to remove / clean without breaking something.
> The display isn't terrible, but it's not great either.
I had the chance to compare my framework (ips, 165hz, 2560x1600) with some newer laptops recently (3x oled, 2x ips). I was pretty impressed with the colors, very little difference compared to the OLEDs and much better than the shitty IPSs. Text was as sharp as the 3k OLEDs and sharper than the 2k OLEDs. But OLEDs (obviously) had the advantage for darker / high-contrast images.
> I didn't do any proper testing of battery usage, but it seems to be on par with other Linux capable laptops based on my usage thus far. This means you'll likely be looking at 6-8 hours of battery per charge for average programming usage.
Pretty much. Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life. I clocked maybe 16 hours browsing the web / watching youtube.
> For a premium price I expect a premium laptop, but the Framework 16 feels more like a €1200-€1500 laptop at best and certainly doesn't deliver a premium experience.
Yeah premium price without the specs and aesthetic to match. But I guess the premium is because of the modularity and (presumably) low production count. Plus I trust Framework's QA a hell of a lot more than any of the dozen HP / Lenovos I've owned. And it is nice that a failed keyboard / touchpad doesn't force me to buy a new machine (which has happened to me because of a spill).
> Tangent but the new intel ultra cpus (the ones that end with V) have amazing battery life.
Framework seems to offer the "H" variants only, though. Looking at specs, the "V" variants appear much lower performance and less capable. (Maybe a good trade off, but... YMMV.)
People need to realize, Framework laptops are atrociously overpriced, terrible in terms of specs, loud, unwieldy, and not robust. It's a bad company that just rides on being in vogue with the tech crowd who see the word "repairability" and go nuts over it.
for 2k euros the author could have gotten a maxed out 16 inch m5 pro with: 10-Core CPU 10-Core GPU 24GB Unified Memory 1TB SSD Storage
This setup is superior to framework in basically every conceivable way (better power efficiency, more ram, more storage, better GPU, better multithreading, better single thread perf, more durable, cheaper).
If you are buying a framework you might as well set 300$ on fire and buy a macbook instead.
What about Qualcomm's Windows ARM M1 competitor?
X Elite is mostly regarded as a dud.
I have one and I am really happy with it. YMMV of course.
I ran linux for 15 years on a range of different machines. Desktop the most successfully. For laptops I tried everything but once I switched to a mac I’ve never gone back. The hardware is at least twice as good as any other laptop.
I’ve seen framework getting a lot of mind share recently. Especially with DHH singing their praises. I have come to loathe apple software over the years but can’t get over terrible build quality.
I thought framework was supposed to be the premium linux option but after reading this it looks same quality as all those windows turned linux machines.
As a reader interested in Framework and looking for honest feedback in the wild, this was a really frustrating blog entry. It feels like at every turn you’re coming up with conflicting requirements and impossible demands that even your X1 doesn’t meet. For example: regarding the MacBook, the worry about long term support for Asahi is understandable, but one of your main criticisms is that it has the same battery life as other Linux laptops? You wanted a bigger, repairable laptop and didn’t expect it to be larger or heavier? You preferred the slightly more washed out red of your old laptop, but didn’t tell us whether you could fix it with a display setting or why having more vibrant colors or having to adjust display settings is a bad thing for your use case? Have you considered just turning on a light rather than working in a dark room (please turn on a light, I destroyed my eyesight working like that)? I’m devastated to read you found the battery life simply par and that it used a little bit of electricity after suspend for 8 hours like every other laptop on the market, and that you were able to turn the power led off but not in your preferred location.
At the end of the day, you’re not required to like a thing for any reason you see fit, but I very much hope you figure out what you actually need and that such a device actually exists on this planet before you purchase another one.
my tip to people who don't like mac os. buy a macbook pro, disable System Integrity Protection (SIP), gut the OS, live in the terminal and browser. works way better than linux (10h+ battery life, SoC with a lot of memory) and you will barely notice that you're on mac os.
It's not windows. there will be no forced updates and surprises.
Also install the GNU coreutils (or I guess uutils). If you're begrudgingly using macOS then you're going to hate the differences between BSD and GNU utilities.
Does this hack give me access to the source code?
no. but it gives you access to good hardware and software that works well on it. the only combination of this kind.
Personally I just can't, I really hate the UI and the software stack.
Sure as long as you are in the terminal you don't notice it but at some point you are going to need to open Finder (and Finder really sucks, sorry) and you are going to need to install software and homebrew is in the same category as npm.
> and homebrew is in the same category as npm.
Homebrew runs against a curated and tested package repository maintained by a dedicated team of vetted maintainers.
NPM is free-for-all with zero curation. Anyone can upload whatever they want.
If has maintainers, well it's clear by now from all the security problems which happened in homebrew first that it's nowhere as diligent as apt or rpm.
Also next problem with it, I really don't want to build everything from source, otherwise I would use Gentoo and not MacOS...
> it's clear by now from all the security problems which happened in homebrew
What kind of security problems do you mean?
> I really don't want to build everything from source
Why do you think that Homebrew forces you to build anything from source?
I hate the fact the keyboard is non-standard, the mental hoop to jump between my normal keyboard on my desktop and the macbook pro one is a no-go.
I told my job I prefered an old lenovo thinkpad than this dumb, vendor-locked, thing.
i hear you but the latency between the cpu and ram, the battery life, and the quality of software is way worth a few weird buttons to me. everything has downsides. Windows is completely ridiculous, and between Linux and Mac OS, well, I think it depends on your use case.
can't he just replace the keyboard? I'd imagine that won't be too hard?
Did you miss the following parts?
Maintaining an X1 is certainly possible, but it's incredibly frustrating and based on my past experiences with this series I strongly suspect other components will also fail in the near future.I'm still chugging along on a Dell XPS Developer Edition that came with Ubuntu 20.04 preinstalled. It's not as repairable as a Framework but it's been very reliable.
If I had to get a new laptop for personal use today I'd probably go for an X1 Carbon. Those seem to have very good luck with Linux even without OEM installs.
> Since I use my laptop for programming and often use it in low light conditions such as a living room with dimmed lights in the evening, OLED just doesn't make sense.
Huh? I thought OLED would make a lot of sense with a pure black background theme in your IDE. Less light in your eyes?
I love my x1 extreme, I dual boot Linux (i3wm) and windows. I hate macOS with passion.
My next laptop will be 16” MacBook Pro, when m5 version will arrive. I looked at reviews, I tried “deep research” with llms… there is just nothing even remotely comparable.
Welcome to Apple, enjoy your M1/M2 :)
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Variety is great, but idk why anyone would buy anything other than MacBook for programming or media work in the age of Apple Silicon. Unless they specifically need CUDA or a particular version of Linux or some Windows features, or actually want to tinker with/ tweak the computer continuously.
I'm a programmer but I can't stand macOS, so a MacBook isn't an option, as much as I like the hardware. I've looked at Asahi Linux, but, while they've done an amazing job with no documentation, it doesn't meet my needs.
So Debian on a Framework 13 it is. And it's fine! I'd agree that Apple hardware is probably the best, but the difference doesn't really matter to me all that much in practice.
It's true, they're unbeatable as consumer products now, especially after Intel dropped the ball so hard