I was seduced by Apple Silicon after experiencing the exceptional battery life and performance. Those things are great, as are the screens and the speakers.
But I'm still excited about the Framework 12 because I don't love macOS. I don't need an alternative to beat Apple on every line of the spec sheet. I just need them to align with my values, support Linux well, and cross a certain "good enough" threshold. The latest laptops from Framework meet all of those requirements, and I'm excited to buy one after I've saved up enough money. I've missed Plasma for a long time. At the same time, I wouldn't even consider a MacBook Neo.
I'm constantly surprised by just how bad macOS is as a Linux user. I currently have to deal with it sometimes as I run my local LLM server on it and it's painful. That said the hardware is great, I run Asahi on another M1 MBP and Linux makes it the best laptop I've ever used.
By the time something breaks, you’re so far behind in tech that you’re not buying parts for it anymore. I used to be in the “must be able to fix/upgrade” and then realized in practice it never happens.
> Until you need to repair something or change some hardware
How often does this happen, though? I have a 2013 MBP that still works perfectly. And I'm not even talking about the screen, which is ridiculously better than most new pc laptops. And then, of course, there's the touchpad, which, for some reason, is still unmatched in pc land.
It has 512 GB of SSD and 16 of RAM. This is basically what the new "upgraded" PCs people get at my office. In 2026, 13 years later.
Yeah, I'd use my decade-old mac any day rather than the crappy HPs at work.
in my day job doing enterprise web apps at a mac shop 16G became unusable for the engineers 3-5 yeas ago. i managed to weasel into them getting me a 64G M1 Pro in 2022 (now they won't buy us any higher than 32G). i'll probably still be using this thing in six years!
to be fair, given the choice between a decade-old macbook and basically any current windows box with same specs, i'd take the macbook every time. but, if i could put linux on it...
What web stuff are you guys working on that 16GB didn’t cut it a few years ago? I’m not questioning your statement, it’s just completely different world from my day-to-day and I’m curious.
In my case, the corporate MDM solution consumed so much resources that a 16GB MacBook was basically unusable for dev work (my personal Mac, also with 16GB in those days, was fine)
Indeed. I have an M1 Pro from work, but I honestly can't stand macOS anymore. The machine itself is great, especially the touchpad. And I love the aluminum body. But I hate that empty window chrome eats up half the screen.
But now I'm typing this on a Lenovo P14 something-or-other, under Linux (I run Arch, by the way), and it's an all-around nicer experience than the Mac. The touchpad is somewhat inferior, but good enough. And the screen is actually better: it has a slightly higher resolution, but, most importantly, it's matte. It's not as bright as the Mac, but it's bright enough that I rarely set it above 20-30%. The machine is overall very snappy and quiet, but this is probably more due to my DE not going crazy with animations.
> Until you need to repair something or change some hardware
The overwhelming majority of people would just go buy a new one. The downtime for ordering parts and waiting repairs has a price tag, likely greater than the laptop's price. Maybe that will change with how the prices of everything have been soaring lately.
> The Framework is more expensive, slower (in most cases), louder (its fan ramps up quite often), has a pretty poor display, but it is a touchscreen, has a 360° hinge, and is more repairable and upgradeable.
> While the Neo is probably one of the easiest Mac laptops to repair in recent memory, the Framework 12 allows you to upgrade components including a DDR5 SODIMM, 2230-sized NVMe SSD, WiFi card, and even four modular ports around the sides. I outfitted mine with 2x USB-C, 1x USB-A, and 1x full-size HDMI.
The author does mention it, they just don't deeply analyze it. Frankly, it goes without saying. If you are considering a framework and reading articles about it, you almost certainly understand the tradeoff and it was mentioned in the article. Given the build quality of Apple and the option to lock in Apple care vs. the insane cost of computer parts, it isn't that important. Especially for an entry level laptop.
I’ve had MacBook Pros for as long as they’ve existed and, honestly, I’ve never needed a repair.
The only real issue I’ve had was when I dropped one and destroyed the screen. It was covered by AppleCare, and Apple replaced it.
I usually get a new laptop every 3 to 4 years and pass the old one to family members. My dad is still using one that’s about 10 years old and it works fine for what he needs. No issues.
So the repair argument is a bit hard for me to relate to. I understand things break. But I also think taking reasonable care of your stuff goes a long way. “A stitch in time saves nine,” right?
I guess I’ve replaced the feet on a few of them but that’s a $5 dollar kit from Amazon and a screwdriver and a little bit of glue…
And for normal wear and tear, like battery life, Apple laptops can get a battery replacement through the Apple Store for a pretty reasonable cost.
Anyway, Apple makes good product products that don’t really break from me or my family. I’ve been really happy with all their stuff.
I had way worse luck, for example, building a PC to game on. Two or three years and I had to replace the power supply and I think four years and I had to replace the SSD. Like those things were annoying. I’ve never had hardware from Apple go bad on me.
(Not since I had a Performa 5200 and they had to send somebody out to fix the logic board.)
Consider that maybe you've just gotten lucky? Laptop components do break. I haven't had Mac laptops in a bunch of years, but just off the top of my head I've had a keyboard key break (MacBook Air), and a mainboard die (MacBook Pro).
But if you don't need repairs, you might want upgrades. I have a Framework 13 from 2022 and I expect I won't be buying a full new laptop for many many years. It's great that you've been able to repurpose your old laptops for other family members, but every new laptop manufactured eventually becomes e-waste.
It's not that uncommon experience with Apple hardware. I hand my old Macs off to family members, and currently in the house are 2, 4, 8 and 10 year-old MacBooks.
Only thing wrong with any of them is that the 10 year old one only runs about 20 minutes off the charger.
That said, I do skip all the problem models (no butterfly keyboard switches, etc), and ~12 years ago I did need a logicboard replacement under AppleCare
The whole selling point of the Framework is easy upgrades, thanks to modularity. It is a laptop that’s designed to be your laptop for at least two or three upgrade cycles, which, for Apple, implies a new laptop.
> "It is a laptop that’s designed to be your laptop for at least two or three upgrade cycles, which, for Apple, implies a new laptop."
In all fairness, most Apple users are technically illiterate (hardware-wise). And running upgradeable machines to optimum efficiency necessitates running a redundant setup, e. g. the main bird and a compatible support unit, usually an older one, but capable enough to take over relatively seamlessly for a while, enable diagnostics, facilitate maintenance, and so on.
Most Apple users have only one computer, with their secondary machine the iPhone, itself a neutered simulacrum of a pocket computer, just good enough to do some basic outsourcing of troubleshooting, and to place an order for the next computer of course.
People who gravitate to Frameworks offerings, or similar machines, are just of a completely different mindset than the typical Apple customer. As evidenced by threads like this one. That's also one of the reasons why the F-12 was a misfire. You don't "half-ass" machines built for long-term support. And in this climate, an entry-level LTS machine that's supposed to become popular needed and needs a different approach. Which begins with the form factor.
Apple's upgrade cycle (for me) has moved from 4 years to ~6 years.
Maybe upgrading the RAM or HD could be useful, but wear and tear on all components is a bigger concern for me than just one. My laptop is a critical part of my life. I can't risk being out of service for a week while parts arrive.
Its like buying a car... you can repair and maintain it to 200k miles, but the reliability will go down as more things break. Or you can buy a brand new machine to reclaim your time.
I'm in the same category as dbg31415. I've owned mbps since 2007. Never had any serious issues with them. I kept them for about 4 years each, before upgrading. My 2021 m1 has at least another year left in it.
Certainly if you're in the 0.01% of Apple purchasers that just have a terrible experience (broken device, out of warranty, etc) and one of your largest purchases doesn't work the way you want it, then that is terrible.
but I think the vast majority of Apple users have a stellar experience.
In a roughly 50 person company with refresh every 3 years, we send a macbook back for repair/replacement roughly three times a year. I would estimate that as a 2% hardware problem rate, 200x higher than what you quote.
Funny it’s the opposite for me. What if I want to switch between desktops of multiple users; easy with fast user switching, not really a thing in Linux (yeah I’m sure it can be hacked up, but bleh).
The biggest papercut preventing me from being productive on macOS is it's horrible window management which cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts like one does in WMs like bspwm and others on Linux and that absolutely insane ~500 ms delay in setting the focused window when moving between virtual desktops.
For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.
I'm stuck with macOS at work and these have also been the most painful parts of the experience for me. Luckily, I recently found Rectangle[0] and InstantSpaceSwitcher[1]. The former gives keyboard based arranging (though not focus; still just use cmd+tab for that) while the latter gives instant transitions between virtual desktops (including shortcuts for navigating directly to a target, rather than sliding over sequentially).
> For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.
This is a very weird-sounding take to someone who has used Macs for three decades and recalls that for most of that time they never even had a full-screen mode.
Apple's desktop experience DNA is still, for better or worse, deeply anchored to spatial arrangement of partially-overlapping windows (or non-overlapping, if screen is big enough and window small enough), driven by mouse (Expose hot corners back in 2004 were basically the end-game after which they haven't made any new significant changes to this, and haven't had to). Their full-screen/single-app modes are IMO a weird half-baked Windows-maximize alternative.
But yes, it's a very mouse-oriented, single-desktop spatially-organized-and-layered world.
>> For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.
> This is a very weird-sounding take to someone who has used Macs for three decades and recalls that for most of that time they never even had a full-screen mode.
Sorry about that. I should've clarified better. What I meant was that Apple's opinion of an ideal desktop is closely matching a cluttered desk where only the owner knows the position of something and the focus shifts back and forth from one primary task to another task/interruption.
Not sure I agree with this considering they have the double whammy of maximising giving you a new desktop, and also their default behaviour of shuffling your desktops to make sure you're disoriented.
The ideal desktop is a cluttered desk, where only the desk knows where it has stuck your tasks.
It is bizarro. With multi monitor sometimes I click windows and things don’t show. Dragging when more than one dialog is open is unpredictable. The corners are huge, even when maximized. Even the vaunted application bar is so weird - and windows is trying to copy it! Why can’t we use the entire bottom of the screen? Apps don’t show there anyway! You can’t get rid of it and replace it with something else? Just not allowed.
Stretch an app across two monitors? Not with that config! Display port? Oh no! Scaling cleanly? Never heard of it.
Seriously bad stuff. I’ve thought about writing a book with everything wrong with it. It’s bonkers.
Interesting. I used to daily drive <https://github.com/asmvik/yabai> for almost a year until a major macOS update broke it and I just didn't have it in me to diagnose the issue. I'll bookmark this for future adventures, thanks!
The first link is about arranging/tiling the windows. There are zero keyboard shortcuts to move the focus from the window on left to the window on right. It looks like someone used the equivalent of monitor codenames for keyboard shortcuts. Some operations don't even have a keyboard shortcut.
Additionally, while it does show how tiling is performed on macOS, tiling is not treated as a serious feature of the desktop. When "tiling" is used in context of window managers on Linux and BSDs, it implies that the windows are tiled automatically by the WM. It is done for several purposes, but ones that are important to me are:
1. Determinism (for the lack of a better word) of window placement. When I open n^th window, I know where to move my eyes. At the moment, this is arbitrary-ish on macOS.
2. Not having to tile every window manually. I only do this when I have a specific layout in mind. Default tiling behaviour can be configured by the WM's config file(s). At the moment, on macOS, I need to be explicit in tiling every window.
3. Keyboard oriented traversal between tiled windows. This is an extremely important part of a tiling WM. I can move my window or just the focus anywhere, without ever needing to reach for my mouse. Granted, I'm not a superhuman who can take advantage of this speed but I like control over my navigation of the desktop I am interacting with.
None of these are satisfied by macOS natively. Unless some app/plugin is used, which has no guarantee of working in future if Apple wishes to break something. On Linux, this is not the case, the WM is part of the desktop, even more so on Wayland.
This is about setting keyboard shortcuts for custom actions for applications, not window traversal on the desktop. Something like Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right which moves the focus between virtual desktops, but for the current desktop, moving the focus between the windows. I am not aware of this being possible at the moment.
> This is about setting keyboard shortcuts for custom actions for applications, not window traversal on the desktop.
The "All Applications" section lets you define global shortcuts. As long as there is a menu bar item for it (in this case, one from the Window menu) you can define a shortcut for it.
Wow, this feature is so broken on macOS (I have a family shared Air M2) since at least a full decade that it's really not what I would have take as an example.
OTOH, switching users on Gnome or KDE login managers is flawless.
It's funny how Apple has come full circle. Back in the 90s, when they were in deep crisis (before the second coming of Jobs), it was almost conventional wisdom that they should just stop selling hardware, and focus on their superior software. And here we are today when a lot of people lust for the hardware, but just can't deal with MacOS.
I'm a "Linux on Desktop" person, and the reason I use macOS on laptops is it's the best non-Linux OS which works great with Linux and comes with great hardware.
The funny thing is, I'm using macOS for ~20 years now, and there are "still" things which are way better on Linux. As a result, macOS is a laptop-only secondary OS for me.
I have a couple of Desktop computers both for work and personal use, and they run Linux exclusively, for 20+ years.
I'm sure a lot of the crowd that's using Windows as more than a browser OS would also find things to complain about. There's a ton of differences in how to do things at OS level, having to find other software, from time to time poor hardware support, different security mechanisms, being locked out of 80% of PC gaming by OS more than ARM... I guess the list could go on.
I switch between Linux and MacOS on a daily basis, and have been running Linux since Ubuntu Warty Warthog, and I don't get why people don't like MacOS. It's a fine OS and in some ways superior to Linux. And the Mac hardware is second to none. Power management alone is much better than Linux.
The thing about the framework 12 is that they are giving you an open device that is meant to be upgraded. The value of that is different to everyone, but to place it side by side hardware wise and try to compare it as if it is equivalent on the software side to the closed source bullshit Apple has on offer feels at the very least a false equivalency
I don't believe that they have (yet) released a new display for the 12. But the 13 has gotten several upgrades, and I think the 16 just got it's first. So, most likely eventually yes.
battery life is not only factor of the laptop. having moved from Linux (ran gentoo quite minimal...) to freeBSD default install makes my laptop last about twice or thrice as long.
the art of idle software and efficient energy consumption is not landed in windows and Linux takes too much work..
mac does it not too bad + having good batteries, but thats not to say a laptop with a lesser battery should be trashed by a bad OS.
mobile operating systems are usually much more tuned to being good with battery life. I suppose Linux and perhaps windows do not seem to have laptops as main target even for 'desktop' distros or versions.
i am not sure why btw but i read some articles on here about software not being idle on background properly a lot of times (fancy terminals etc.). for me tho 'it just happens' because im unsure how to measure it precisely..
maybe my linux had a big or wrong setup u know, but it was running very lean. Freebsd runs about as lean tho.
cannot be bothered ofc to go back and measure
it is some hp-elitebook withh a ryzen and iGPU in there.
If i run things like Claude it sucks my battery. But if i just run my editors code all day myself its all gd..use firefox as browser on both. other then that its x,i3,hx,rg,fd,fzf. thats about all i use..(so u see i hate it when any laptop empties soon.... i hardly use anything of it). usually i dont even open x/i3.
I run openbsd on an old latitude and that tracks. I mostly have only application active at a time. The others are idling. I believe on Linux, especially with DE, there’s always some polling or scanning going on.
I think the Framework 13 is something that completes reasonably with a MacBook Pro.
I don't have one but would consider a Ryzen AI based one instead of a MBP. The Intel based ones have upgradable RAM and Mac-competetive battery life on Linux. The shared RAM on the Ryzen is useful for local AI though.
Is it feasible to run Linux on the Apple hardware? Seems like that could meet your requirements, except possibly "align with my values." I saw https://asahilinux.org/ but don't know how usable it is, or whether the long battery life and hardware support is preserved.
I love the Asahi project and I'll probably keep my oldest M-series Mac around to continue to play with Asahi. But even for the oldest Macs it supports, the feature list is not quite complete. The way Apple does a lot of things is bespoke and involves a different division of labor between firmware and operating system than conventional UEFI systems. It's hard to support. I don't want to be required to wait years for features like full support for Thunderbolt docks, and I also want to give my money to a company that proactively supports Linux (e.g., sending hardware to kernel developers, FreeDesktop graphics driver developers, DE maintainers, and distro maintainers in advance of the release of new products) rather than always buying used or giving my money to a company that merely tolerates Linux support.
Again, I love the ambition of the Asahi project and what they've done. They're impressive hackers, and thousands of people will doubtless get years of happy Linux life out of their work— maybe including me! I have no complaints for them, and no wishlist I want to bring to them. In fact, I think maybe I should send them a donation or a kind email or both upon their next release.
But I want to give the bulk of my financial support to a computer vendor who offers me first-class, day-1 support for software environments that make me feel happy and respected. The Asahi team can't turn Apple into that by themselves.
Every generation of Mac has its own requirements that Asahi has to support through a painstaking process of reverse-engineering, so it lags behind quite a bit. Realistically it will probably be 2030 before you can use it on any current-generation Mac.
The current leadership team at Asahi decided to prioritize upstreaming their existing work over reverse engineering on newer systems.
Given that you can score a used M1 Air for half the price of a new Macbook Neo (and have Linux be supported), it's an even better value compared to the Framework, for those who prefer Linux.
"Hey can you remove MDM from this Macbook so I can install Linux?"
Is there no MDM for Linux clients? How do the big tech companies with Linux developer machines (Google, Facebook, etc) manage their inventory? Do they roll their own MDM?
IT departments can mandate tools like ninjaone and kolide, which let them run queries across the fleet of devices, and (as I understand it) basically gives them root-level remote code execution.
The corporate VPN (or equivalent) can then perform 'posture checking' requiring that the tools be installed and working before connecting to the corporate network.
Obviously, 99% of Linux users have root on their device so nothing stops them wiping it and installing something new from scratch. But then they'll fail the posture checks until the device is returned to the approved setup.
Kolide admin provides a web UI for osquery so you can query things. It allows remote osquery queries but not remote code execution. You generally pair it with CrowdStrike Falcon.
Kolide does a spot check like "is falcon sensor running" but if the user logs in, has the session token created, and then disables whatever the session token would still be valid.
Also Kolide doesn't actually count as an MDM. Has a bunch of missing features. I recently evaluated it.
Many people prefer to get new devices so that they can be covered by Apple Care. That completely removes Linux as an option because Asahi Linux never supports any of the recent models.
"Buy this computer, it's several generations behind and a bunch of stuff doesn't work" is not a ringing endorsement, even if it does work well enough for you.
Just to add, I also do my work from an M1 MacBook that I crammed Asahi onto. I got it used for a few hundred dollars last year and it's a perfectly fine experience (for me).
We’re already almost halfway through this year. A demo half a year ago isn’t shipped. This is like when Apple demos something at WWDC that doesn’t ship until 9 months later in spring the following year.
"On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. It's something I've been waiting for for a _loong_ time, and it's finally reality, thanks to the Asahi team. We've had arm64 hardware around running Linux for a long time, but none of it has really been usable as a development platform until now."
i've tried getting linux to run on a 2018 MB Pro (intel/nvidia based). Even after a ton of research and installing a couple "compatible-ish" distros, I couldn't get it to work, and gave up. And then further reading suggested I was always going to live with a semi-bricked machine. I just wanted a simple writing and couch surfing laptop. But the version of MacOs running on that old hardware is so slugish, it's painful.
A Fedora live USB should just boot on an Intel MBP (maybe you have to hold Alt? Don't remember). Then you can install it to disk. I was happily running Linux on a 2015 model until recently, still a good machine for most things.
I would happily jump ship for any competitor that offers solid AI inference benchmarks at a competitive power efficiency, but as far as I can tell Apple owns that market by a pretty big margin. I’m sure someone will point out if I’m wrong.
Owning a human is much more problematic, and anyway a human’s peak efficiency might be higher, but humans have to sleep and take breaks so overall probably not.
Humans also tend to hallucinate a lot, but it’s not polite to use that word for them. With humans we say they were wrong, because offending a human reduces performance and you can’t reset their contexts.
I just have a desktop at home that I run inference off of. It is a great setup and I don't find myself wanting to inference models directly on my laptop.
That’s what I would do too, but I haven’t found a desktop build that can rival a Mac Mini or Mac Studio on performance per watt. I haven’t looked super hard, but it seems like Mac is in a different ballpark.
I mean, once it's a desktop, watts are pretty cheap, so it's a bit strange to optimize on that factor for the desktop form factor. For laptops it makes a ton of sense.
I love Windows Arm. My latest machine, an Asus Zenbook A16 is great. 18 core Snapdragon X2 extreme, 48 GB of memory, and OLED screen--all for $1699. It feels very fast, faster than my 24-core Xeon desktop (though benchmarks would put my Xeon ahead) and has great "all-day" battery life.
You can remove the screws on the bottom and replace the battery (which is screwed in, too, no glue to peel) or the M.2 NVME which is enough "servicability" for me....
You should try Linux on it someday, to really see what the CPU can do, night and day difference :)
With that said, I'd probably prefer a Windows laptop over a MacBook too, their hardware is great, but the software is just so awful. But whatever you do, don't get Microsoft's hardware, I got a Surface Pro 8 some years ago and throughout my ~25 years of computing I've never had a worse laptop, and just 2-3 weeks after the warranty went out, the entire machine bricked itself during an update and it no longer boots at all, basically threw 1500 EUR into the sea with nothing to show for it.
I got a Surface Pro 7 soon after it was released and it was really great for the price. A good size to work on, decent battery, and actually worked well as a 2-in-1 device. The keyboard was a bit flimsy but still good enough for on-the-go work. Ran Windows on it for a few years then installed Linux and made it be a manager for my media setup, still working fine today.
>I was seduced by Apple Silicon after experiencing the exceptional battery life and performance.
DHH showed the Framework laptops with latest Intel Panther Lake SoCs having similar battery life to AS Macs (~14 hours) under Omarchy linux while gaming benchmarks put their iGPUs in line or better than AMD's Ryzne SoCs at gaming.
The era of long battery life being the USP feature exclusive to Macbooks is slowly going away, especially if AMD pulls a similar move and heats up the competition.
Once the chip shortage from AI datacenters bubble pops, we could see even better SoCs from Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm and Nvidia could join the ARM laptop battle in a serious way.
The (memory) chip shortage saga is not going away for a few years. Most fabs are going to be capacity starved. Apple will happily pony up billions to TSMC to set up a new plant in exchange for exclusive capacity. No other laptop manufacturer can do this. This will put them in an even more advantageous position. In all honesty, the Neo couldn’t have arrived at a better time for them.
> Once the chip shortage from AI datacenters bubble pops, we could see even better SoCs from Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm and Nvidia could join the ARM laptop battle in a serious way.
EPYC (the 2nm AMD chip being produced at TSMC Arizona) is still going to support the datacenter demand, not consumer devices. You and I are still screwed. Apple is the only behemoth, IMO, that wields significant power against other trillion dollar companies. Not Acer, not HP, not even Dell (I don’t think). This is my personal opinion, I don’t have specific facts at hand to back it. Just a strong intuition.
But hey, govts might step in at some point and say - we need to put a cap on how much supply data-centres can buy. Since computers and phones are the backbone of modern society. There may be some rationing happening down the line.
Also, a completely new fab takes up to five years to come online. The best bet is investing in increasing throughput of existing RAM plants, but that isn’t fast either. The other is buying RAM from Chinese suppliers which are less oversold (but not much, and not for long anyway).
That, in the x86 universe, has some heavy penalties in performance terms. I got myself a fanless “student” laptop (another name for “rugged”, but sells for less) and, while performance is acceptable, it ain’t fast - like a 10 year old i3.
As nice as Apple's hardware is it's all undermined by who they are as a company, intentionally limiting their devices more and more while they relentlessly argue in courts and to regulators that we owe them more and more for using our devices.
Rosetta 2's retirement announcement was when I realized I won't buy another Mac, I'm not interested in a computer that is preoccupied with stopping me from running software. Work can buy them for me but I won't spend my money on a platform like that anymore.
Depending on how their Supreme Court argument goes in a few weeks I will stop buying an iPhone too, if they establish the precedent that any method of paying for Netflix deserves a $5/month fee then they will leverage that to extract the same fee everywhere else.
That is all true but even as a hardcore Linux and Thinkpad user, I have to admit it is a hard sell when no one can offer the quality of Apple.
Apple is the only hardware company where you can buy a product and it is good hardware wise. Sure other companies have flagship offerings but with apple you get a really good base model.
And that is where it breaks down for me. Pay 20% more for freedom? Yes, absolutely. But pay more for much worse? Yeah, not many people are going to be so idealistic.
I don't know why no one else can produce a laptop with decent battery life with an near silent fan and good display and overall great production quality. Yes, it is much easier when you are as big as apple and can rely on economics of scale but that doesn't totally explain the lack of quality when it comes to the competition.
I think that people aren't seeing what Apple is doing through the lens of efficiency, and the wider impact that has on their software and hardware.
Them not having to support 30+ year old software means that they can be more nimble and make better hardware choices.
Look at the mess that Microsoft has made for itself by setting the requirement that software made in the 90s must still run on modern OSs and hardware. It's bonkers and is slowly killing the company.
> Look at the mess that Microsoft has made for itself by setting the requirement that software made in the 90s must still run on modern OSs and hardware. It's bonkers and is slowly killing the company.
Forcing people to create a MS account to log in their Windows computer, that's because of backward compatibility?
Pushing Copilot absolutely everywhere, that's because of backward compatibility?
GitHub being down almost daily, that's because of backward compatibility?
As a counter-point, look at WINE on Linux and Crostini's containerized software on ChromeOS, clearly it is possible to support varied software without over-complicating the OS. And that's what Rosetta 2 does as well, if it's held Apple back the last 6 years it hasn't shown at all.
It will be very surprising if we see any benefits from cutting Rosetta 2, especially worth gutting all the games and software this has empowered via Steam/WINE/CrossOver.
The way Windows implements backwards compatibility is not sustainable in the long term, as it increases both maintenance costs and attack surface, but the current state of Windows and its dwindling appeal has little to do with it and more with poor design decisions, and a competition that has made better design choices. Linux has been a viable desktop for years, and Macs have been the gold standard against which everyone is judged since the 1980s.
Windows still owns the corporate drone desktop, but, oddly enough, that’s now being served as a VDI through a Linux thin client.
I disagree completely. Backwards compatibility has precisely nothing to do with why Windows is terrible nowadays.
And that's also entirely orthogonal to hardware - the hardware battle between ARM Mac and ARM PC is really a battle between Apple and Qualcomm (Apple won).
In hindsight, rather than relying on Snapdragon, Microsoft should have started designing their own high-efficiency ARM SoCs 15 years ago like Apple did. But I mean, everything is clear in hindsight isn't it.
I've been using an asus zenbook 14 OLED with linux. Compatibility is great.
The screen blows apple out completely. It's clearly, obviously better. The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple. The keyboard feels better to type on, the trackpad is slightly worse, but not enough to annoy me.
The new Pop OS cosmic is a very fun OS concept for laptops with the autotiling workspaces as a fundamental primitive.
From my research on Macbook alternatives only the Zenbooks looked like almost-an-even-match to me. Curious what's your experience with day-to-day fan noise and heat.
From a quick search online, the max brightness of your laptop is 400 nits SDR and 500 HDR. My M5 MacBook Pro is 1000 and 1500 nits.
Screen brightness is not something I will compromise on after having a taste of greatness.
I personally wouldn't mind spending 30-40% more for a Linux laptop with similar qualities + repairability. But I will not settle for something much more expensive and worst in some aspects.
There are also arguments agains repairability in Framework's laptop. I did the calculations and for the Framework 16, it would be cheaper to buy a gaming Asus laptop and throw it out in a couple years to replace it versus buying a framework and upgrading it. Utter insanity.
The Macbook Neo is about 500 nits but I'd bet the Asus laptop was more than $600 base.
Looks like the Framework laptops depend on model/screen, between 4-500 but with the new 13 pro hitting 700 nits. For a user replaceable screen, and backwards compatibility (I think), that's pretty solid.
> The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple.
That's the main issue for me. I am on M1 Max 32GB RAM. Except for local LLMs, there is absolutely nothing that gets even close to the performance limits of this device. As a result, all the work I do is performed in perfect silence. Very occasionally the device would get warm, never hot. Based on my usage, I could probably go for an Air model, except for how many external screens it supports.
Zero-noise is non-negotiable for me. It's lamentable how absolutely no-one comes even close.
> I don't know why no one else can produce a laptop with decent battery life with an near silent fan and good display and overall great production quality.
Isn't that the whole reason why Apple is the company it is? Steve Jobs wanted to control the software AND the hardware. That hasn't changed, they're still the only one really. That does get you some benefits
Why does it matter to _you_ in particular that the base model is good ?
For a decade buying macs I never got the base model, I switched to the Asus ROG series and a Surface Pro, and again I'mm not on the base model of either.
I get that MacBooks are very good volume purchases and excellent value for those right in the target, but IMHO that's not the people writing in this thread.
I'm also not a fan of the "winner takes it all" view, customers should care about their very specific needs and do their research, it shouldn't matter that some product matches 80% of other people's needs if it doesn't fit them.
Base model used to mean glorified toy with severely compromised fundamentals. The Macbook Neo is not that. It is an excellent screen, excellent keyboard, and excellent silicon, encased in an excellent chassis.
As a remote work terminal / casual computing system, the compromises are IMHO almost entirely psychological.
ThinkPad X1 from 2 years ago was very solid and under Fedora everything but camera worked out of the box. And for camera issue I had to blame myself for not checking details of a specific model as Lenovo was offering at that time fully-Linux compatible model. It took about one and halve year before Linux fully supported it. And I already upgraded SSD on it which took less than 10 minutes.
The only complain is bad battery life. With several VMs running mostly idle it doesn’t lasts even two hours. But then I used beefy MacBook M2 at my previous work and with VMs it lasted only 4 hours.
Apple's phones and laptop are 100 % the best in the market, but Apple is a terrible evil company - the walled garden stuff, the "you don't really own your device" stuff, the normalization of enshittification (removing headphone jack, nonreplaceable glued batteries, not giving charger with $1000 laptop, ...) that other manufacturers followed, the gold statue Cook gave Trump as a bribe.
But not just Apple. Teslas are the best electric cars on the market - but Musk got Trump elected, literally killed millions of people with his DOGE and did Sieg Heil on stage (twice, so we don't miss it). Or Garmin - objectively the best sport and adventure watches on the market, but evil anti-consumer planned obsolescence policies. You could go on.
I guess the choice is, am I willing to "suffer" (as much as using inferior product is suffering anyway) to not support these people? Or is my comfort mire important than doing the right thing?
And I'm not just being preachy - I have aging M1 macbook, aging Garmin watch and an aging ICE car and I spend few last months pondering. It's easy to prioritize comfort. Or I'm just being a whiny bitch.
(Funnily enough, for phones the dilemma really isn't there - you have just choice of Apple or Google having all your data and no matter how bad Apple is, Google is orders of magnitude worse.)
And that device is the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 OLED. The paper specs are great, all that's required is to turn it into a fully fleged Linux laptop and get rid of ChromeOS and core boot entirely. I just got hibernate working on it last night, wifi, sleep and sound and the fingerprint sensor works. There's some more polish and tuning to be done, but this'll be the machine I move off my apple silicon laptop for.
Apple hardware is only perfect when looked at through rose tinted glasses. The whole butterfly keyboard issue should be enough to indight them from being seen as perfect with hardware. There's a reason Applecare exists, and it's not just because of accidental spills.
But Rosetta was always meant to be just a temporary compatibility bridge. Surely you too would consider it kind of crazy if they were today, still, pouring time into maintaining Rosetta 1 for people wanting to run PPC software on macOS/x86. The first Arm build of macOS is now 6 years old, and when Rosetta 2 is ultimately removed from macOS in late 2027 it will have been available to us for close to 8 years. That's a pretty generous amount of time given to us to move forward.
Microsoft maintains backward compatibility seemingly forever and it means a lot more complexity, more surface area for vulnerabilities, and critically that they are unable to ever get developers to buy-in to any new ideas. Developers know their current app will keep working, so why bother with the re-write? Then due to the lack of adoption, they kill the project and try something else. I believe this to be one of the core reasons why Apple is able to successfully launch in areas that Microsoft has routinely failed.
It’s been 6 years. If anything hasn’t been updated by now, it’s either been abandoned or the developer needs a hard deadline. There are various programs out there where I question if it’s been abandoned. Periodic exercises like this help make it clear.
Maintenance ain't free and letting one of the core elements of OS to be developed by community could lead to undesirable outcomes (ranging from battery/perf impact to introduction of some new bugs or esoteric workarounds). Consistency in codebase and software is important, especially for bigger companies.
Far too many companies aren't willing to embrace newer paradigms/toolchains/software on the principle - if it works don't touch it or inventing some wild workarounds. I think in the end it's for good
Apple wants everything to be consistent. I have mixed feelings on it, because I do greatly despise windows, partly because of how inconsistent everything is. It’s chock full of half finished “migrations”. Like, programs still installing to “Programs Files (x86)” Which doesn’t matter but adds the tiniest bit of friction.
I think only 32bit apps install there. Ideally there is a 64bit version that continues forward. This is mostly an issue for me with enterprise/etc software I support at work. A key system I just moved to Server 2022 (on prem and Azure VMs) is 32-bit and still uses 32bit ODBC. It's a great app for our need. Just, still 32bit...
The intent is only 32 bit apps get installed there, but there are a few problems in practice. Dunno why you're currently downvoted about it though.
The first is needing to know whether the app was 32 bit or not is sort of the main annoyance with that itself.
The second is not every app follows this rule correctly, for whatever reason.
The third is there isn't a clear path for mixed apps, e.g. Steam. On Windows, Steam is still a mix of 32 bit and 64 bit components, so there isn't really a "clean place for it to go. You could have one option of putting Steam in one or the other and then mixing 32/64 bit apps in that folder & you have the other option of duplicating things, moving the initial problem an extra directory level deeper. 3b is that Steam installs the games under its folder, and the games you can install can be 32 bit, 64 bit, or a mix - duplicating the problem yet again. Until the start of this year, Steam still supported 32 bit Windows and, therefore, you could also have 16 bit games be installed.
There were reasons to do the split in the early 2000s but holding on to each decision like this for decades after seems to cause more pain than it ends up avoiding.
Forcing developers off of Rosetta 2 is a pro-consumer move because it gives the ultimate incentive for developers to modernize. I don’t want to use Lightroom (replace with whatever app is part of your workflow) through x86 emulation, I want Apple to bitch slap Adobe into porting it to native. Microsoft will be forced to expend resources to support x86 emulation for all of eternity.
Apple throwing their weight around in a pro-consumer way (Rosetta, ask app not to track) is why I use their devices
> I want Apple to bitch slap Adobe into porting it to native. Microsoft will be forced to expend resources to support x86 emulation for all of eternity.
I don't understand how you can say that Apple is more pro-consumer than Microsoft here, considering that Microsoft guarantees that no matter whether the vendor is unwilling, out of business, dead, or otherwise unavailable, you can still run your software. Apple says you need to go find someone to put tens to hundreds of man-hours into updating software from god-knows-when, and if you can't do that, you can just go fuck yourself.
You say yourself, Microsoft is willing to put in the work to ensure that their customers will be able to run their binaries forever. Apple spits in your face and you thank them for it.
1. A ton of software won't get updated even with customers losing access to stuff they bought in the Apple app store. I've been through this multiple times with Apple where existing software is just suddenly unavailable to those who’d installed it.
2. Consumers losing the choice to use apps they bought or downloaded is not pro-consumer (if they want to continue getting OS security patches etc). As you said, it's a conscious choice by Apple to cause customers to lose access to software they'd bought etc, as Microsoft’s approach allows us to still use software from multiple decades ago.
(I’d gotten a piece of paid software from the iOS + iPad app store in 2011. I lost access a few years later during another Apple change.)
3. However, I think you're right that we will see more and more companies cause customers to lose access to existing software, features, etc that customers had bought, but similarly frame it as a good thing, forcing ‘modernization’, etc.
If you’re worried about OS security patches, shouldn’t using software that hasn’t been updated in 6 years be of similar concern?
I’m not arguing that software needs to be updated every 2 weeks, as is the trend now. However, 6 years, when there have been major architectural changes and UI changes. At some point the software should be deemed abandoned and it’s time to find something new.
Even a simple update to support the M-series chips means the dev is still around and can release updates, even if there have been no other feature updates in 6 years as its finished software. The occasional sign of life on finished projects is helpful.
Apple dropping 32-bit support resulted in me losing access to 3/4 of my Mac Steam library. Not every piece of software is built with an endless update treadmill in mind, no matter how much Apple would like to force the developers into one with their breaking changes and developer program subscription.
This would result in people losing access to a bunch of software just so Apple could shrug and shift the blame elsewhere. Because in the mind of an Apple fan, nothing is ever Apple’s fault.
> Rosetta 2's retirement announcement was when I realized I won't buy another Mac, I'm not interested in a computer that is preoccupied with stopping me from running software.
This is the 3rd time this has happened in roughly 2 decades by the way.
ppc/ppc64 -> x86_64
x86_64 -> x64 only
x64 -> arm64
I much prefer Apple just forcing the developers to update their apps. Perhaps it’s just me though.
Continue to support obsolete hardware just cause doesn’t make any sense. Apple had to move on just like they had to move away from Motorola, IBM and Intel. Apple also had to move away from AMD and Nvidia, Broadcom, and probably Qualcomm, and with the current memory crisis, Apple may have to take memory in house too. Many of the moves were done not because they wanted to, but because they had to.
When is reasonable to stop supporting a platform that only hinders the user experience? Should they have supported PPC emulation forever? x86 is on the way out in for most consumer devices. Apple is usually a bit early to drop technologies, but still acknowledges and fixes real mistakes (USB-C-only laptops and the associated keyboards) when they impact customer experience.
> When is reasonable to stop supporting a platform that only hinders the user experience?
When people who care about it can carry on the torch.
Dropping support wouldn't matter if anyone outside of Apple could keep it alive instead, or if Rosetta 2 users could stay on the last supported OS and keep their devices secured through community patches etc.
To be fair, they were criticized a lot for dropping the 30-pin connector and going to Lightning too. At the time they said they designed Lightning to last 10 years (about how long 30-pin lasted), because they knew how disruptive a port change is with all the accessories people have. It lasted from 2012-2023, 11 years. So they made good on their promise.
Here I was thinking the problem with Windows was the dog-slow RAM hogs the team replaced most of the core applications with so they could serve web ads in the launcher and OS chrome. Silly me, the real problem with Windows is that it can run old apps if you still have the exe kicking around.
Windows did not even support Final Fantasy 7 between two versions due to their broken Direct X design. Let's bury that turkey; just because there are compelling blog posts doesn't mean they are a legitimate reflection of Microsoft.
As a customer I expect my software to work, permanently. Don't expect me to cry for the richest companies in the world.
They had the classic environment. They could have kept that going.
Business decision, pure and simple. Value added and risk of people not moving forward was not worth the cost to them. They were also way smaller at the time than today, though the iPod had taken off.
I’m fine with them eventually dropping support for things. Some things I think they do too early.
Microsoft HAS to keep supporting stuff forever. That’s their bread and butter. Line of business apps. If they drop support businesses lose THE reason to stay with them.
It’s far less of an issue for Apple. And people do leave because of it. But not enough. It’s also one of the reasons (of many) they’re not very popular in business.
> They had the classic environment. They could have kept that going.
Not for long. The Classic environment depended on the system having a PowerPC CPU - it would not have run on Intel systems. (Rosetta translation would not have been applicable.)
For essentially the same reason that Rosetta 2 can't be used to run Windows - they're userspace JIT translators, not system-level emulators. The Classic Environment was, for all intents and purposes, an entire virtualized PowerPC system running Mac OS 9, and allowed software running inside it to do some pretty wild things like patching system "trap" routines, writing graphics directly to the framebuffer, or even setting breakpoints in and handling exceptions from other applications.
Not really, Apple was doing something right at that point they got almost everything from classic to OSX, ppc to Intel, from 32bit to 64bit, x86 to ARM.
I used it through all of that and really at no point was it feeling forced and the only one with real friction was classic mode the rest felt seamless.
They must have just been doing something right with dev relations and community.
Although I will say now a lot of people don’t seem to care with keeping up with far less extreme random iOS hurdles.
Apple moved ahead with thunderbolt five should they keep thunderbolt four? Moving to thunderbolt five is necessary if you want to drive more information to a 5K or 6k monitor or any other peripheral.
> x86 is on the way out in for most consumer devices.
Define "consumer devices"? I am holding on to my AMD Ryzen machines until they literally fall dead. I have no complaints from them. Maybe some modern or even next-gen ARM CPUs will be even better on Linux but I don't think we are quite there yet.
x86_64 is here to stay for a long time still.
But maybe you literally meant x86 as in the 32-bit CPU arch? If so, I'd mostly agree but not quite; they could be used in low-power micro-PCs for a long time still as well.
Right, I mean, like Jeff's content but it sort of felt like he was metaphorically "punching down" in this video.
Of course Apple can make a relatively cheap mass produced device that can outcompete on price / spec -- they've been making iPads for almost two decades now. They just threw a keyboard on one and changed the bootloader to boot OSX. Good for them. 20 years of R&D paid off for one of the largest and most valued and profitable companies in the world.
If I want a relatively cheap machine I can actually run Linux (or for other people, Windows) on, or can upgrade or repair... Apple is not in the running.
The other day i saw a slick scifi movie and really liked the interface in one of the random background terminals. I thought id recreate a working version of it. I snapped a screenshot on my iphone where i was watching, but lo it was blacked out? Same after several attempts. Ugh fine, go to my macbook, fire up netflix in a browser there,
screenshot from desktop. Nope. Still blacked out.
Its not just older architecture we are losing out on.
That's a bit disingenuous isn't it? Being unable to use any screenshot tool to capture an image on my laptop's browser was surprising to me, yes. Or are you arguing that Apple's implementations are no more restrictive than on any linux machine, so as such there is no case to be made for anything DRM related that a non-Apple device is superior (less limiting) in any way? Or... I suppose what is your actual argument here?
No I don't think it's disingenuous – indeed, it seemed to me that you were being disingenuous. My actual argument is that you're confusing Netflix's use of DRM for "Apple's implementation," without acknowledging that you'd have this exact same problem on Windows and Android devices. That Linux doesn't have it is just testament to the fact that hardly anyone, comparatively speaking, actually uses Linux as a daily driver (and, notably, Netflix doesn't let you watch high definition video on Linux anyway).
My Pixel 8a also blocks screenshots of DRM content. The analog hole remains gaping: pause the movie on your MacBook, and take a picture of the screen with your iPhone.
Bought the Framework 12 as my personal daily driver (limited hobby projects, Obsidian, light browsing) and for the hardware to grow with my use cases.
So even if I could get more bang for my buck with a Neo (yeah, I could), the tinkerability and repairability win over raw specs for what I actually use it for. Did I pay more for a less polished, less powerful machine? Yep. Is it enjoyable to use and fully capable of meeting my requirements? Yep.
Came to bikeshed but the video was more nuanced and fair than this title.
> Came to bikeshed but the video was more nuanced and fair than this title.
Same here. It isn't hard to justify buying something like the Framework 12 in principle.
I have bought multiple Framework computers and I continue to be a fan, not because it is the best in any single category. It is because I want computers to be bought and sold in the vision that the Framework folks seem to have.
When I purchase a Framework I'm not purchasing a single computer. I'm buying a laptop-of-Theseus that I can continue to use throughout the future. When parts get broken, or a fancy new part is better, I buy the parts and upgrade it rather than buy a whole new device.
I also run an operating system that is publicly developed and available.
You won't see these things on a spec sheet or influencer demo.
I've never bought a new laptop in my life, and I have a Framework 13 Pro on preorder because it's the only new laptop I will ever need to buy.
When I did my research, I found that Framework costs more than the competition across the entire stack, but it's by a fixed amount, $150 give or take. That's maybe a 7% premium for a high-end laptop, but a 30% premium at the low end. Obviously the price gap vs a Neo is even wider.
The question is whether that price gap arises from a fixed cost inherent to better product design, or if it's just the cost of Framework's smaller scale. I tend to think it's the latter.
Precisely this. It's not the fastest machine, but it's not the slowest, and that's more than adequate for other factors to tip the scale.
And I VERY much want to encourage this approach. Laptops COULD be as modular as desktops, and they've proven it with a real machine, not a toy, not a gimmick, not a compliance-car. A genuinely useful piece of hardware that I've been daily-driving for almost 2 years now.
I very much believe in putting my money where my mouth is.
Would I go back to another laptop? Well, if someone else starts making motherboards that'll drop into this chassis, I'd consider it...
I would actually rate Neo having higher repairability. It is simply much better design and built even from a repair point of view. Speaker, Keyboard and Battery are the most common thing for repairing. It is only RAM and SSD that is better, but that is a different set of trade offs with performance and battery usage compromise.
This is the same reason I bought my Framework 13. For the same price/less could I have bought a nice MacBook? Yes, but Framework's mission is something I wanted to support and it's an exciting product. I'm still very happy with my purchase.
The point of the Framework is to run Linux, and not to be part of Apple's ecosystem. I don't want my computer to update itself without my permission, report telemetry to Apple, upload anything to any "cloud" or request that I log into something. If you don't think this is a big deal, wait until an age or identity verification law is passed somewhere, and Apple will enforce it against your will, on the computer that you bought and thought that you owned.
Absolutely, and this is also a big deal for longevity of your purchase. I have an iMac from 2012 and it's a beautiful piece of reliable hardware, with a beautiful screen. However, the software is stuck on some version of macOS from years ago and so more and more applications are refusing to install. It's on life support with Firefox ESR and MacPorts (just recently — was on Homebrew). And it works fine for browsing and some light FOSS gaming. Not if Apple had their way though! They think it ought to be in the dump and I should have bought something else by now.
Well, I have a Framework 13 also, running Linux, and despite the hardware being from 2022, it's all current software. And it will continue to be, practically as long as I wish it.
So, yes, if we want to talk about value (like the author of the article), where is the value when some capricious corporation decides when you are done with your computer?
While I don't dispute that Apple might or might not exploit its users via software, I believe some more credit is due to a company that can produce a piece of hardware like a personal computer that runs so smoothly after 14 years that its owner complains that more software updates should still be shipped to the device. I do not know of any other device that I could but as a consumer that would last that long. The framework laptops might be an exception, but they most definitely still need to prove it.
That iMac should easily run Linux, why not install it? Also I don’t know what else to call hardware that’s still working great 14 years later except for longevity…
Until recently they've been almost as second-class-Linux-to-Windows as say Dell, but perhaps you just meant 'non-macOS'?
(For example, I'm currently struggling to get my early-days pre-ordered 11th gen Intel BIOS updated from v3.07 without a) the official Windows updater; b) modifying the supplied firmware on the instruction of AI or stranger third-parties in unmerged PRs/GH issues.)
I'm just one datapoint, but my Framework 16 (bought a little over a year ago with no OS, has only ever had Linux installed on it) has never given me trouble with firmware updates. I've updated the BIOS twice, and other firmware, all through `fwupdmgr` with no issues. I bought the AMD chip rather than Intel, it's possible that that was why I had no issues, but I don't actually know.
I'd call that pretty recent :) – fwupdmgr wasn't supported (not as in 'you're on your own', but 'blobs not published to registry') until a few years ago. EFI shell update wasn't available early on. When I say I'm trying to, I'm actually struggling to establish if it's even possible without at least using Windows to jump to a certain version after which I can use EFI/fwupdmgr.
This happened to me. I was able to notice it from network activity lights and stop it by disconnecting the network. Other people I know weren't so lucky.
It’s most likely about the severity of the bugs they are fixing. I’m OK for my laptop to save my work and self upgrade if that closes a browser drive-by RCE vulnerability that could have hit me.
For an MDM managed computer (JAMF I know for sure), it can be configured that way per a company policy. I am not 100% sure of the answer for a computer not managed by JAMF as I have not experienced a forced update while using a non-MDM managed Mac in ~1.5 years of using a pre-owned M1.
> The problem is, for an overall worse experience, are you willing to pay 20-40% more?
This is subjective. For me: yes. It buys me a lot, repairability and not being in the apple ecosystem are two things I value enough that it makes sense for me to go with Framework. It flips it to an overall better experience.
Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer.
They offer free trials which you can’t cancel without immediately ending the trial. (E.g., you can’t turn off auto-renewing without forfeiting the trial)
A device that has ads and/or behavioral pushes to subscription services and costs $500 doesn’t really cost $500.
I just switched to an iPhone and I don’t know how this could possibly be the case for you. I get them from a bunch of Apple apps and even in the settings app.
When you buy a new Apple device it comes with a trial for Apple subscription services. My iPhone 17 Pro came with a News+ trial.
If I didn’t cancel it it would charge me.
There was no way to turn off auto-renew without forfeiting the remaining trial period, which is a dark pattern to encourage accidental payments.
Mac devices also encourage things like documents in iCloud directly in settings which encourage migration to paid services.
By default, Apple apps like Music have notifications for subscriptions.
It’s not at the level of Windows 11 but it’s there when you’re really looking for it. Notifications in the system settings are not always critical update type of stuff, they are often semi-promotional.
I explained poorly. What I mean is that if you accept the free trial, you’ll be billed if you forget to cancel.
That’s fine and normal, but what’s not as normal is that there’s no way to turn off auto-renew and keep your trial period. You either decide to cancel now and lose the rest of the trial or you’ve got to set a reminder to cancel.
The thing is, at different points Apple has offered free subscriptions between 3-12 months depending on their promotion. So it’s a pretty enticing trial depending on what’s being offered.
I love that Framework exists and I hope they succeed.
I have been recommending them to friends and family who are looking for Windows or Linux laptops, though with some reservations due to the problems with a couple of their models.
However I don't see the value in the Framework 12 over a MacBook Neo if someone isn't choosing by OS first. The $499 MacBook Neo is just so good for the price and so well built. The $499 price is the education price, which is relevant for the student in the story.
The upgradeability is a benefit of the Framework 12, but look at the premium you pay for that option: $799 versus $499 is a 60% premium paid up front. You could sell the MacBook Neo for $200 in a couple years and buy a next-generation MacBook Neo for probably a very similar financial to buying the Framework 12 and not upgrading it.
What a surprising idea! I have always and only ever chosen by OS first. Are there really a significant number of people willing to buy a computer with no concern for the type of software it will be able to run?
> Are there really a significant number of people willing to buy a computer with no concern for the type of software it will be able to run?
Most common software that typical buyers use is available on Mac or Windows: Web browsers, office software, maybe an e-mail client.
This is why Chromebooks are a viable option, too.
Even my software development workflows are mostly cross-platform when I think about it. I can run all of my IDEs and text editors on my Mac, Windows, and Linux computers.
> Most common software that typical buyers use is available on Mac or Windows
That's not how most people think. Most non-techies are either fluent with "how to use a Mac" or "how to use Windows" and they will just stick with that inertia.
For a lot of people, learning a new OS is an ordeal.
Also possible that people have paid for licenses / apps and thus want to stay with the OS those will run on, instead of having to pay again (if it's even an option).
Depends on how much control you want over the hardware. I find that laptop/desktop windows installs tend to force reboots when it might not be convenient and of course there the issue of unreliable software updates.
I'd much rather have Linux be in control of the hardware and run Windows as a VM on it.
It’s 2026 and what people don’t do in an app, they mostly do in a browser. An entire generation of “digital native” people are now adults who don’t even understand what a file system is, don’t understand folder structures, and don’t care what OS they run.
That said, having a computer that seamlessly integrates with their mobile device is a huge feature. So the MacBook neo not only being so affordable but fitting into the Apple ecosystem is a slam dunk for normal people
Most regular users do everything via the web, where there is little difference between the OSes. Gaming is the only thing that comes to mind where regular users notice a dramatic difference.
What type of software will you not be able to run? Your browser will work just the same, and your dev env and devtools will be just the same, and it's a posix environment. If that's what I need most and it runs just about the same on macos/linux then why not prioritize the hardware?
I think their only advantage in the business is pricing somewhat lower than comparable MacBooks and also having the option of replacing individual parts. But I think MacBooks, especially with AppleCare, are an irreplaceable deal. They cost a bit higher, but then their resale value is also quite high and they are pretty damn reliable. They even survive drops and abuse. The hardware components like speakers, camera, Wi-Fi chip, etc. are all top notch. I am happy to spend $500 extra just for peace of mind and the option to not have to deal with headaches alone. This is coming after my experience with Linux desktop and several distros on my custom-built PC that I ran for many years.
And M5 and M5 Pro are kicking the hell out of comparable ARM processors, and even their own predecessors for that matter.
And high quality software in modern computing and options only exist on the macOS platform. Windows is full of junk, otherwise it would have had some chance there. But the entire platform is far too mismanaged and it is very predatory that using the platform, the OS itself, feels like a fucking pain in the ass. I would put Linux above Windows, and while it is very complete and has a billion options and customizability, there are some pain points for me in terms of upgrades and also available software tools that I use from day to day. Many of them just don't exist for this platform.
And I am not even talking about the privacy aspect here. Obviously, macOS is more friendly in that sense, and that gives them another vote on top of these existing votes already.
This. People really underestimate or straight up ignore resale value of Apple products. Just because you can upgrade a Framework laptop it doesn't make it a better value over the long term.
Can't believe the cost of the trash can mac pros. I always wanted one and put it on my long term to-do list, but they're still $500+. Even if they can be had for less, I won't buy one because my tolerance for tinkering has since dwindled. But it's quite a testament that they are still that expensive.
Framework has it's value for ppl that are afraid dropping their laptops/ breaking the screen. Personally i still prefer macs, but I have friends that do value such "features". For the same reason they are willing to buy the Fairphone despite inferior specs/higher per spec price
In the last 18 months I tried a Framework twice and both times ended up returning it. I was running Arch both times and had too many low level issues.
I couldn’t get hibernation or sleep to work reliably. And about once a week I’d get a random freeze or crash that required me to reboot and lose all the windows I had open. I spent dozens of hours with Claude chasing things down, disabling various power management features, trying different kernels.
I really appreciate how much Apple computers just work. I’ve since invested heavily in Karabiner, Aerospace, Superkey, and a few other utilities to get close to the level of customization I had in hyprland. I still miss the polish I used to have, but I can close my laptop lid, walk out the door, and 100% trust I’ll open the lid and resume work. That counts for a lot.
I’m keeping an eye on Omarchy and Framework to see if they eventually solve all issues. Maybe in a couple years I’ll try again…
In my experience, Arch and the AUR are not very reliable for identifying and respecting your system config. I've got a number of laptops that handle Arch very poorly but sing on Fedora or NixOS.
What Framework is trying to do feels like something that would've made more sense 10 years ago.
And the reason for that is b/c of Moore's Law approaching its end.
The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU. The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors. There are also latency and bandwidth benefits how they setup their RAM just from pure physics. And chip manufacturing is moving towards chiplets where you have cores manufactured separately and then wired together at nanoscale level on top of a silicon interposer.
The current best-practice unfortunately is closer to Apple's "hemetically sealed appliance" philosophy, and not the "I build my own PC" philosophy.
When you have CPU, GPU, and even DRAM sitting on the same "die" the only things you're going to be swapping out on your Framework laptop are going to be relatively trivial.
> CPU, GPU, and even DRAM sitting on the same "die"
This is actually great. The laptop body stays the same and you swap out a small mini circuit board that has the CPU + GPU + DRAM on it.
This is the point of the Framework laptops. They are just unfortunately stuck with non-Apple parts and thus are slow / inefficient.
Maybe Qualcomm can make a motherboard for Framework high end laptops with their Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme ARM-based CPUs that are supposedly competitive with Apple's M4 offerings?
And then offer a cut down Qualcomm mobile phone CPU + GPU + DRAM offering for the Framework 12 so that it can compete on price/performance with the MacBook Neo?
I think you need to complete with Apple with the right equivalents.
Funny thing is, the circuit board on the Neo is barely smaller than that of the lowest end iPhone. The only remaining big cost item swappable item at that point is the display.
The benefits of modularity begin to get outweighed by the costs when 85% of the cost of the machine needs to be swapped out with each upgrade. For consumers, why would they not simply opt to spend the rest of the 15% to get a whole new computer?
You underestimate how much of the cost is the chassis, hinges, screen, speakers, keyboard, which add up. Sure the CPU is the single most expensive component, but CPU + mainboard for the fw13 is less than half the price of a new fw13. And of course part of the idea is that you don't know what you'll have to replace first, when you're staring out. You might bust the hinge, or get excited about their touchpad upgrade, or decide you need a higher resolution screen, long before you need the new mainboard. The flexibility, in other words.
> spend the rest of the 15% to get a whole new computer?
I can see why the manufacturer would want this. As a user though why would you? If the rest of the body is familiar and works well, why toss it?
Maybe the sentiment springs from the general culture of consumerism and new-is-better thinking, and historically that's been warranted in the consumer electronics space. Most things aren't really like that though. Humans have long built tools, clothing, furniture, and infrastructure designed to last a long time. You commit resources up front to make sure the thing is of high quality and then benefit for anywhere between decades to centuries. Replacement carries the risk of downgrading. Again, rapid technological advancement has blown this way of doing things away, but at some point parts of the tech plateau and this will need to be rediscovered. For things like keyboards, trackpads, and laptop cases, I don't see how "new" will beat "good" from this point on. Even displays are starting to reach limits. This seems like the right time to be working on "here is your reliable human interface device, drop in whatever crazy magic chip fabs have cooked up every X years to keep it capable."
From a humanist perspective there's another reason to move this way. People like to grow attached to objects and tools. Something has been lost in the shuffle of swapping out our most personal objects every few years.
Yeah, I think this is the right idea (or the most optimistic path towards M-series power/performance). If you wanted something fully/aggressively open you could do something like build a mainboard compatible with one of MNT's fully open SOMs like [1].
Qualcomm is basically at heart a patent troll company. They give nothing away and they double dip on their Frand patents they won’t support anything if they don’t have to good luck if you think Apple is bad Qualcomm is on a whole different level…
> The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU. The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors.
> When you have CPU, GPU, and even DRAM sitting on the same "die
Apple has been really successful convincing people they've done something special here. Given how many people are so horribly misinformed about this I'd go so far as to call it false advertising.
No, the DRAM is not on the same die. It's on package. They're literally standard SK Hynix memory chips.
Yes technically there's a latency advantage, but comparing M1 to DDR5 desktop chips Apple actually has worse overall memory latency.
Every integrated graphics chip from Intel and AMD has had unified memory for the last 10+ years.
Compute itself is also not what makes the Apple chips get long battery life. Looking at tests under full load the M1 is significantly worse than the latest Intel or AMD, yet it still gets better battery life under normal usage. The efficiency does not come from compute but from a whole host of idle consumption optimisations Apple brought over from their phone chips.
Indeed, on an HP Elitebook with a Ryzen 8840U I get about 20 hours of battery life on CachyOS (but downclocking a bit, with TLP) and the speed tests claim this is like a M2-3. For like $500 (before RAM went up...)
> The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU.
People have been hyping things like this for decades, but then it turns out the number of applications that need to frequently share data between a CPU and GPU at a faster speed than PCIe can handle are pretty uncommon. Meanwhile putting them closer together has some pretty significant real disadvantages, because then you're trying to deliver more power and dissipate more heat over a smaller area instead of putting more physical separation between the two largest loads in the machine.
Notice that high end PC GPUs are significantly faster than any of Apple's integrated GPUs, and that's why.
> There are also latency and bandwidth benefits how they setup their RAM just from pure physics.
Soldering RAM has a modest latency advantage over SODIMMs at the most extreme timings and CAMM turns even that into basically nothing.
> And chip manufacturing is moving towards chiplets where you have cores manufactured separately and then wired together at nanoscale level on top of a silicon interposer.
You're describing a move to less integration. They were originally on the same die, and the change has no real effect on modularity. The user doesn't even have to know that some Ryzen CPUs have a separate I/O die or more than one compute die, they all still fit into the same socket and are even interchangeable with the ones that have only a single die.
- For high end AI inference chips, DRAM already goes onto the interposer right next to the GPU to bring the bandwidth as high as possible. Apple will eventually do this for the exact same reasons. It's not just soldering RAM to a PCB
- The chiplet technique and putting everything on an interposer is less integrated from the perspective of the chip manufacturer, but for the consumer -- folks who are going to buy Framework laptops, this is a far less integrated package. CPU, GPU and RAM will sit on the same interposer and purchased together as a unit with no upgrade or swap path for any component. This is not the same as simply soldering everything together on one PCB. The level of intergration is far higher
> For high end AI inference chips, DRAM already goes onto the interposer right next to the GPU to bring the bandwidth as high as possible.
The high end AI inference chips use HBM and cost tens of thousands of dollars. HBM uses 1024 data pins instead of 64, which is crazy expensive, which means that to the extent that consumer devices get it at all, it would be in addition to rather than instead of ordinary DRAM, e.g. you might have 12GB of HBM on the CPU package but then 64GB of less expensive DRAM. Increasing the number of cache hierarchy levels is a long-term trend. HBM as L4 cache is pretty plausible for high end CPUs as a supplement rather than replacement for DRAM.
There are already servers that work like this, e.g. Xeon Max has 64GB of HBM but then further supports up to 4TB of DDR5.
Moreover, the AI inference hardware integrates the CPU into the GPU because it's really just a giant GPU. They're not getting some major advantage from that, they just know nobody is going to want to swap out the CPU on a system where the CPU is mostly irrelevant. If you wanted that level of inference performance on a normal PC which is used for other purposes where the CPU actually matters then you would drop the AI accelerator with the HBM or GDDR into a PCIe slot.
I think the long term trend is typically the high end technology of today will be the mid to low tier technology of the future.
If putting 1024 data pins all connected via a nanoscale manufactured silicon interposer right now seems complicated and expensive, that doesn't mean we won't see it in tomorrow's consumer devices. If anything we will be MORE likely to see this one day. Apple and other companies are gradually working towards moving AI models to be more local which means memory bandwidth has a real killer app use case right now. Witness Liquid AI and their partnership with Mercedes Benz to put 8B param LLM models into vehicles.
Both Desktop PCs and the CPU are becoming less and less relevant as we move further in the decade to be honest...
> I think the long term trend is typically the high end technology of today will be the mid to low tier technology of the future.
The trend doesn't look like that. The PCI bus from 1992 had 124 pins. PCIe 5.0 x16 has 164 pins; x8 has even fewer pins than the slots from decades ago. Guess how many pins Thunderbolt has. DDR1 DIMMs from the year 2000 had 184 pins; DDR5 has 288. The number of pins goes up very slowly if at all, because it's one of the most expensive ways to increase performance, despite being effective.
Which is why the enterprise hardware has always done it and the consumer hardware hasn't.
> Apple and other companies are gradually working towards moving AI models to be more local which means memory bandwidth has a real killer app use case right now.
The real problem is that ordinary consumers don't want to pay for 128GB of GDDR or HBM, and if they did then you would attach it to the GPU rather than the CPU anyway.
What they might want is the less expensive ordinary DRAM with a wider bus, which is what Apple does, but then you're not using 1024 pins and have no need to solder it instead of using CAMM.
> Witness Liquid AI and their partnership with Mercedes Benz to put 8B param LLM models into vehicles.
8B param models don't need exotic hardware, those run on existing consumer GPUs.
> Both Desktop PCs and the CPU are becoming less and less relevant as we move further in the decade to be honest...
Less relevant to what? Making up for the inefficiency of bad JavaScript with fast hardware? Running the less parallelizable parts of PC games? Databases and other branchy server workloads? They're as relevant as ever to the things they've always been relevant to.
> The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors.
Lots of laptops have integrated graphics. And many recent CPUs have strong integrated graphics. They're not doing anything special there. I don't understand why that gets so much attention.
The special thing they do is having very wide bandwidth on the higher end models, to a CPU with integrated graphics. That doesn't affect the Neo though.
Shorter PCB traces because of insane timing requirements for DDR5, GDDR7, and beyond; GPUs put the memory chips as close as possible surrounding the CPU die to reduce the latency and prevent timing/signaling issues.
But even there, the fastest AI accelerator GPUs are putting memory on die, and using chiplet designs, to get the memory closer and closer to the cores.
Simply physically moving the RAM closer to compute can make communication faster.
Ideally, RAM and compute should be combined. That's kind of what our brains do. We'll probably need more mature memristor technology to achieve that one day.
Zen 5 has 8.3 billion transistors in a chiplet, Zen 1 had 4.8 billion per chiplet. If we add on some more to compensate for the separate I/O die then we're looking at basically one doubling over several generations and 7 years.
There's still significant gains to be had, but the exponential growth is really petering out.
> that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors
It can be an advantage, it also has downsides though. LPDDR5 is fairly slow as far as GPU memory goes, and on Apple Silicon it splits the bandwidth across the entire chipset. Many recent Macbooks have dGPU-tier hardware constrained by Wintel-laptop memory bandwidth.
And if Apple uses DDR5, why not CAMM? If Apple uses NVMe, why not M.2? Many of the advantages you've listed are marginal compared to the real-world constraints of the hardware, and cover up some boneheaded decisions that don't significantly impact the laptop's efficiency.
Right now, at this point in time, for applications like local AI and certain types of gaming, I would argue for most people having more VRAM is more useful than having faster VRAM.
I personally now do more AI stuff and gaming on my M5 mac with its 24 GB shared (300 GB/s) RAM pool than my 12 GB 5070 Ti (900 GB/s).
Apple still lives in its walled garden and defends it vociferously, but I would argue they have made the correct design tradeoffs for their business.
> Right now, at this point in time, for applications like local AI and certain types of gaming, I would argue for most people having more VRAM is more useful than having faster VRAM. I personally now do more AI stuff and gaming on my M5 mac with its 24 GB shared (300 GB/s) RAM pool than my 12 GB 5070 Ti (900 GB/s).
The issue is that this in no way requires soldered memory. CAMM2 supports speeds up to 9600 MT/s. You can get over 300 GB/s from two CAMM2 sockets.
For applications like local AI and the majority of PC video games, you are not expected to have DDR5-level GPU bandwidth. It is a constraint, there is no "good enough" when you're selling a desktop-grade M5 Max that is bandwidth-constrained in practice. Modern gaming at native resolution is pretty much impossible on most Macbook Pros.
It's an acceptable approach for iPad-level stuff, but for professional workstations and desktops it's not competitive.
This is a brutal (but polite -- classic US Midwestern Geerling 'kill them with kindness'!) side-by-side comparison. My heart goes out to the Framework Computer team. Any team trying to compete in this product space against the surprise from Mac Neo must feel crushed. That said, I am still very optimistic for Framework Computer. It seems like nerds are going wild for them.
I didn't watch the video but isn't the main selling point of the Framework line (from their website) "Designed for easy customization, upgrades, and repairs."
I would imagine the Mac Neo is a sealed unit that you use as-is until it's e-waste.
It's actually not bad? "The most repairable MacBook in years" means practically nothing. And for someone who might be comparing with a Framework, it's probably an insult.
What's your universal "value for money" index that should apply to everyone ?
For instance why should a touch support or better port selection be less valuable to me than let's say battery life ? Does supporting multiple OSes have a defined value to money ratio that I'm not aware of ?
Framework is and will always be a statement device. Like modern 4x4 suvs that only haul groceries and may never see dirt roads, the upgradability of a laptop is something few will ever exercise. Most people are buying the idea.
Maybe. My wife is non tech and after dropping her XPS and breaking the screen she was real interested in something that can have a replacement display installed in about half an hour. She wishes her F13 were a little slimmer like her XPS, but she gets a lot of peace of mind knowing that repairs something that "even" she could do.
I'd also say that Linux support basically from day 1 is their hidden killer feature. Literally zero fuss. That's mattering to a lot more people these days even if they don't daily drive Linux, it's a good plan B in case Windows manages to get even worse.
Most people who want a user-replaceable screen just buy a Thinkpad. I've replaced the screen on all two of the thinkpads i've owned over the last 16 years. I still have my X series from 2010; it still works, only an ant crawled between two layers of the screen and died near the center and after 7 years it was time for an upgrade. It also ran (still runs) linux just fine due to that one guy at RedHat (who very recently retired) who maintained so many of the drivers for the world. I never needed anything more complicated than a philips head screwdriver to replace the screen, ram, keyboard, hard disk, or battery. And you can get parts for a thinkpad in most countries you're likely to visit.
my partner is a non-tech woodworker and fucking brutal on hardware, so she was addicted to Chromebooks. they cost nearly nothing, they came in weird small form factors, and they had a knack for lasting forever.
she had a day job that required her to use an older Mac and it was a relative pain in her ass that put her off Macs at home. I had a pile of retired laptops and kept trying to find one that would sway her off google.
she expressed interest in drawing functions so I started with a Lenovo Yoga. Windows wasn't an issue as soon as she figured out that she could sign into Chrome and just stay in it like a chromebook. but it was too big, too heavy, too glossy, and crashed too often. she also ended up cracking the screen in 2 months, and while the display was replaceable, the stylus digitizer part never worked again, which eliminated the one compelling feature.
next one we tried was an M1 MBA, which had all the things she hated about her work laptop. she also destroyed one of its USBC ports after 3 days, despite getting a protective cover for it, and it never consistently charged again after that. got donated in the end.
during this time I decided to upgrade my FW13 mainboard and instead picked up another full DIY kit to get the updated hinge, screen, and bottom chassis. The old Ryzen mainboard got the SSD and 2 x 8GB RAM pulled from the Yoga, and I offered it to her as an interim until she found something she liked.
she was mixed on it, but it stood up to her. what sold her on it was that when she dropped it on a concrete floor and bent the bottom chassis near the expansion ports, I just bought her a new bottom chassis and linked her to the replacement video. She had it swapped out in an hour and a half, her first solo computer repair.
so now her top two laptops of all time are:
- that shitty 10" Acer chromebook, still, because it was 10" and matte and about $60
- the FW13, which she's since added about 2 pounds of stickers to and also upgraded the hinge and battery on herself
most people are buying the idea, yeah. we have to, in order to show other people what the idea means in practice
Every single one of them has seen repairs like screen replacement and hinge improvement. Every single one has had upgrades to storage, RAM, and CPU -- and at least one battery replacement. Ye olde Thinkpad is presently one hairy-looking BIOS flash away from a wifi upgrade.
I usually buy these machines inexpensively on the used market. And I'd love to buy an inexpensive Framework. Except... The supply/demand ratio seems to be in favor of the seller, as they seem to hold their value surprisingly well compared to many other machines.
Anyway, I don't want one for style points. I want one so I can keep it even longer than the Thinkpads and Dells of yore.
You're probably right for most people. But in laptops I've owned, I've done stuff like upgrade storage, upgrade/add RAM, swap out the WiFi module for one that has better OS driver support, replace batteries.
How would one know though by just looking at the device? I have chassis that came with Intel 11th gen, but the brainboxery, keyboard, battery, touchpad -- all have been swapped over time.
It may be less valuable now because of RAM/SSD prices, but I was able to benefit from my framework's modularity on Day 1 by saving hundreds of dollars by buying those components a la carte Instead of paying the heavily marked up prices some vendors charge for upgrades.
Bought the Framework 13 in March 2022 with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for about $1000. Later, I upgraded RAM and SSD to 32GB/2TB (for about $180), which made it a breeze to run multiple VMs and Docker containers in parallel. Meanwhile, the Macbook M1 Pro I got from work half a year earlier cost more than $2500 for 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD and crashes when I dare to open Docker or the Android Simulator and keep a browser open for too long. I really like the M1, but it is unusable for my current workloads, and there is no way to adapt it.
> Framework (and windows flavour laptops) will need to respond to the neo.
Framework doesn't even sell in half markets Apple is in (They only manage 40 or so countries [0]), they can't afford to fight race to the bottom battles.
The Neo exists because Apple has crazy economy of scale and a stranglehold on chip supply, smaller makers should be fighting on other grounds.
There is a segment of Framework's customer base which is ride-or-die for Linux, but it's not their entire customer base: they still exist in a market where they need to compete on features and cost. Before the Neo, that wasn't too bad because they were more-or-less at parity with Apple on cost, close enough on polish, and better on repairability. But the Neo is just so cheap, and with Apple's level of polish it's really tough to compete with.
The Neo costs the same as an on-sale Macbook Air, but doesn't support Asahi Linux. If any Framework customers were tempted by Apple hardware, they would have bought the Air a year ago and probably look at the Neo like it's a Fischer-Price laptop. Cost and polish aren't going to push sales for this market segment.
Why do people keep comparing Apples to Bananas (pun intended)?
To be clear: These two are based on completely different system architectures. Ofcourse performance is different, and probably in favor of Apple. Especially because everything running on top of Apple Silicon is heavily optimized from the get-go to do so (due to hardcore system level optimization by the build chain and kernel engineering groups at Apple).
If you want a excellent quasi open and self repairable/modifiable laptop running Linux there's probably nothing better on the market than a Framework laptop. But I might be a little bit biased because my main system is a Framework 16 running Gentoo with OpenRC.
I can do everything I want with it including local AI, since the 6.x kernel series - including AMD NPU support - was released to stable, and AMD creating a excellent runtime to serve local AI models through AMD NPUs and GPUs called Lemonade (https://lemonade-server.ai/) a little while back.
Well, if Apple killed it, Lenovo killed it even more. I recently was looking for a laptop for a student. The Lenovo E14 Gen7 is 800 Euros here in Germany (where prices are always higher, the MacBook Neo is 700 Euros), it has 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, a 2.8k IPS display, a Intel Ultra5 12core CPU, and it has a repairability score of 9/10 from ifixit. Framework doesn't even come close to that package.
Framework is definitely premium-priced, but I don't think most people are cross-shopping the Framework 12 (a 12" convertible tablet) and the Thinkpad E14 (a 14" dedicated laptop).
No such model exists. The Framework 13 comes closest, but a 13" screen and a premium shell would compete more directly with the Thinkpad X13.
Direct price comparisons get tricky because different buyers care about different details. I really like the Thinkpad's Trackpoint, for example, but I also like the Framework's 3:2 aspect ratio. I'd have a hard time choosing.
Dammit. I got an IdeaPad of similar price in december 2024. It didn't have one of the fancier displays from the era but still a decent option, it has 16Gb and I thought I'd try a Ryzen mobile thing that time. Wish I'd gone for the Thinkpad E series had I known about it then : that lower-end IdeaPad feels like trash.
SSD IO is sluggish, fans always spin when plugged in, audio crackles if I so much as scroll a page while a youtube video is playing, the keyboard might be the worst I've touched in many, many years, the 3.5mm audio jack wore out into intermittent connectivity within a couple of months. At least the display still looks good.
Went through the windows optimization motions with it too. My x230 with an i5 still has lower and more stable DPC latency and has remained my DJ laptop.
Same thought, as an owner of a similar Lenovo, that's top bang for the buck. Also, matte screen and hinge that opens 180 degrees is something the Neo and most Macs doesn't have.
Though I assume the Apple clientele is always different than those shopping for PCs, and doesn't care about specs, they just want MacOS and the Apple ecosystem, most likely they already have an iPhone or are planning to get one anyway so then a Macbook is the only thing on their radar. Those people aren't really shopping for PCs anyway unless they need some Windows/Linux exclusive apps like CAD/CAE.
But if you want to run linux and game then that Lenovo would be a good deal.
Similar to the Framework, it has its own niche clientele who values the company motto, tinkering and repairability aspects way more than the value proposition. Most likely they run Linux too.
It is funny how Mac OS is a draw for some, when it is the main reason I don't use a Mac. Their hardware is excellent, but when I've tried using a Mac as my main machine, my productivity suffered. The only part of the Apple ecosystem I wish I could get on Windows is iMessage, and maybe FaceTime.
> The only part of the Apple ecosystem I wish I could get on Windows is iMessage, and maybe FaceTime.
It annoys me that these are such a draw. There are a dozen other viable messaging and video call apps, but there's always someone who feels like spending two minutes to install and activate one is a major imposition.
I like Apple hardware. I like the Apple integration. I like the hardware quality. I LOVE the silence of the M series machines.
But for me you’re right. More than anything, I’m not giving up Mac OS. Despite Tahoe, which I do severely dislike, I’m still far happier using it daily than Windows or Linux.
Until that changes, or the hardware gets bad enough (it’s going in the other direction), I’m not leaving. I don’t even look at other options for my real computers.
“Toy” computers that I want to throw Linux or BSD or something on just to play with, yeah of course. But not what I want to use all day every day.
Uncles don’t let relatives buy less than 16gb ram. That has been my standard since ~2010 and our 2013 mbp is still running fine because I insisted on it.
I prefer FW for freedom reasons, that’s worth a few hundred as well as the ram. Would also wait for the new intel chipset that is more efficient however.
Finally I think the FW 12 is weirdly positioned, as the 13 is already thin and light. For a tablet, I recommend the Star Labs Starlite instead. Both in same package? Clunky.
Guess I’d recommend a used FW 13 and Starlite instead. That’s what I have now and no real reason to upgrade, and freedom to tinker is off the charts, perfect for a student.
> Uncles don’t let relatives buy less than 16gb ram. That has been my standard since ~2010 and our 2013 mbp is still running fine because I insisted on it.
Just last weekend I bought 8gb ram thinkpad t14 for an elderly relative. 240 EUR.
It replaces his thinkpad x220 where the fan and ssd slowly dies.
I doubt it becomes an issue, and if it does then I can upgrade it later.
Someone has to buy that (presumably second-hand) laptop to prevent it from becoming e-waste. 8GB can be plenty for a student, most don't need much beyond a browser and PowerPoint. Many of my university colleagues were using new $5,000+ MacBook Pros exclusively for Google Docs, that seems more wasteful to me.
Do you use Firefox? I have a theory that there's some kind of Firefox-aarch64-linux-specific memory leak but I haven't been able to track it down. I have a 16GB x86-64 Thinkpad and I rarely get OOM issues, whereas my 32GB M1 MBP running Asahi is always on the brink of OOM.
Zram and Zsawp are mutually exclusive on Linux. On macOS, both concepts coexist – except macOS is able to compress individual memory pages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300432) on the fly. Zram is a compressed RAM block device with a hard capacity limit.
There is really no comparison here at this point. macOS is vastly superior in that regard.
zswap works well in my experience. Don't need both. Combined with systemd-oomd I haven't had a swapping or memory issue in many years. 16gb here with VMs and lots going on. This doc clears some things up:
If you're ideologically willing to use a Mac, you're really not the market that the Framework is targeting. Apple has always had some of the best hardware. Where they really struggle is in respecting user choice and allowing power users to alter their systems. The Neo is an appliance. The Framework is a tool. They're fundamentally intended for different people.
If your choice of platform is driven by hardware instead of software, and you really like tablet mode, check out a Surface Pro. They're decent tablets that run full Windows/Linux instead of some neutered tablet OS, with a keyboard you can attach to use like a laptop.
> The Neo is an appliance. The Framework is a tool.
I get where you're coming from in principle, but I'm not sure to what audience this actually applies. If you just want a laptop that can run the software you use, both are adequate as tools. The Framework's greater flexibility only applies to making changes to the tool itself, which doesn't matter if you didn't need to change it to suit your purposes. (And I say that as someone who has built their own Linux & Windows PCs from parts since high school, because I know I'm not the target audience for a Neo)
It's like I consider my Dewalt power drill a very decent tool because it has exactly the modularity I need -- it even has interchangeable batteries -- and it wouldn't even occur to me to call it an outright appliance even if another power drill offered more customization for some niche use case. The Neo is an adequate tool for many people even if other tools do offer more customization or maintainability.
This would be a much stronger argument against using an iPad for productivity, because many people simply cannot run the software they need, or only at a significant expense to productivity and quality of life. I use iOS devices only as communication and media terminals, and even then I would struggle to call them appliances, they're still tools for their particular tasks.
It's a bizarre distinction, because "tool" does not imply "highly customizable" or even "repairable." In fact, even the distinction between "appliance" and "tool" is odd, since those are nearly synonymous in everyday usage, and both strongly imply a device designed for a narrow use case.
True, I was being a bit loose with my terminology. Some tools reward customization more than others. Machine tools and 3d printers are often used to produce parts, mods, and upgrades for themselves, for example. Screwdrivers aren't usually used to work on themselves though.
The principle I was trying to express is that a Framework (and Linux, for that matter) is a tool more like a mill or an older 3d printer from the RepRap era. You will get the most out of it if you spend time customizing it, altering it, upgrading it, understanding it, etc. A MacBook Neo is a tool more like a screwdriver or a power drill. It is immediately fit for its purpose, even if that purpose isn't quite as wide ranging.
It feels a bit odd to compare them directly across categories. The MacBook Neo feels like it should be compared to a Chromebook or a cheap Windows laptop, not a high-end Linux-first upgradable machine. That's like comparing a Dewalt power drill to a 1930s drill press. They can both drill a hole... but they're just not the same tool, and I (personally) wouldn't expect to use them in the same way.
Framework's hero image when you build the laptop is someone removing the keyboard to tinker with the machine.[1] If you don't intend to do that, then yeah, it's probably not the choice for you. If you are indifferent between macOS and Linux, then it's probably not the choice for you.
One thing I miss from when I mained workstation-class Linux laptops is indeed just how tinkerable they were, in a way that didn't feel like a compromise because no other workstation-class laptop was smaller, and smaller laptops had limited performance. You could upgrade RAM and replace a HDD with an SSD, you could drop in a PCMCIA card, you could bring interchangeable batteries, etc.
I appreciate that Framework has not only brought that back but expanded on it further, but they've done it at a very different time in the market. Now that maintainability and customizability does come at a compromise to at least one of cost, bulk, or performance. That's not only the case when compared to the Neo, as far as I know it's also the case at the high end compared to a MacBook Pro.
They've set out to do something that would be difficult in any case, but they're also doing it against Apple's advantages of vertical integration and economy of scale. I'm sure I'm not the only person that can deeply respect that while still not feeling any interest in buying any of their available products.
They might disagree with that framing, but it does seem to be the majority of folks I see who are interested in them.
And I'm not saying that as a negative - my Framework 13 is my favorite laptop by a fairly wide margin, but it's clearly not at the hardware level of my work issued mac.
Apple produces fantastic hardware. It's a shame I can't stand them as a company, and that they cripple that hardware with their OS.
Prior to framework, I'd be buying something along the lines of a Dell XPS (developer edition for linux compatibility) because a mac is just a non-starter for me. But a mac hands-down the best hardware you can get for a personal laptop right now. Turns out that's not the main driver of what laptop I want.
> But a mac hands-down the best hardware you can get for a personal laptop right now
That's pretty much almost always been the case with Mac laptops though. Last Intel gen(s) aside for heat at the top end.
I find that Apple's overall build quality, display and touchpads have pretty much always been second to none... I like the keyboards on most Thinkpads, especially historically, more than Apple's though. That said, being able to run Linux proper has become a higher priority... I plan to continue using my M1 air until it dies or I can't stand it anymore... but I bought it with 16gb ram and a bigger drive, so it does what I need and then some.
I don't "work" on it, so that isn't a big deal and I can remote edit in VS Code to my desktop via wireguard+ssh wherever I am with internet access. That could be a differentiator, but my vision is so bad, I probably won't be able to get away with the maxed out display on any laptop eventually.
> That's pretty much almost always been the case with Mac laptops though
I think that's a Rosy take. I remember the macs from before the intel generation, and they were hardware garbage (there's a reason they finally gave up and went to intel)
Then the intel macs were nice looking exteriors with very lackluster internals.
So for a long time it genuinely was an overpriced laptop from a performance point of view.
I'd say it really wasn't until the M1 that Apple has been at the top on both sides of the hardware equation.
But they are there now. I'm waiting to see if we get some real competition opening up in that space (hopefully).
I guess it's hard for me to judge, I never really used Macs during the PowerPC era... I used the prior generation when I was at school sometimes, but not much. Mostly a PC user most of the time until well after the Intel transition.
But even if the performance wasn't great, they did have very good displays, and touchpads with good keyboards and better than most speakers. A lot of laptops didn't come close to that portion of the experience at least at the base pricing, which IMO matters. That physical level of interface is what has had me use Apple more than most other factors.
I'd say there's definitely a lot of competition from Apple... I'd even say the Neo is a surprisingly good option for a lot of people... too many compromises, imo, for anyone doing technical work though. But even a base model M1 Air is also pretty good value.
Dell just announced an XPS 13 that is $699 (with a $599 education pricing) and fairly nice CNC machined body (1 kg) and nice screen (2560x1600 30-120 Hz 500 nit 100% DCI-P3). That could be a tempting alternative to the Macbook Neo for people who don't want to use macOS. Unfortunately for the Framework, it is no longer competitive even with other PC laptops.
This is sort of the brilliance of Apple's supply chain moves here, they get to use binned iphone chips to sell higher performance computers in the lower cost bracket at margins impossible for the competition, and this is just an A18. When they upgrade it to the A19, it'll have 12GB of memory out of the box, giving it even more of an edge in this category. I don't see how others are going to be able to compete here, outside of just being "not apple", which in the entry level market is not enough.
I have a Framework 12 and I absolutely love it. It's cute and super portable, and the 12-inch form factor is just perfect.
Sure, the hardware might not be the newest, but it's more than enough for me since I mostly do remote development. Plus, it has 48 GB of RAM, which lets me load the entire system into memory, making it feel super responsive.
But what I love most is how durable it is, which matters a lot because I'm honestly pretty careless with my stuff. Just yesterday, I grabbed my backpack off the table without realizing it was open. My Framework went flying across the entire room and slammed into the wall, and there wasn't even a single scratch on it. An aluminum laptop would've had a nasty dent at the very least.
And even if the whole frame had shattered, I could just order a new one for 55 dollars. Same story with the keyboard. One of the keys was making this annoying clicking sound, so I just detached it, stuck a little piece of tape underneath, and it was good as new. I only felt comfortable doing that because I knew that worst case, I could get a whole new keyboard for 55 dollars.
Honestly, not having to handle my laptop carefully is worth so much to me. I also don't stress about battery care, whatever to preserve long-term battery life, because replacing the battery costs, you guessed it, 55 dollars.
The repair ability is why I went with a Framework. My last two laptops had keyboards that lasted until a few months after the warranty. Rest of the laptop works, but I can't find replacement keyboards at a reasonable price. So a framework, and I bought a spare keyboard upfront on the off chance they go bankrupt.
Framework needs an audience bigger than that because mostly people don't think in terms of ecosystem, they think in terms of 'does it do what I want for a cost I want to pay' and Apple wins on this.
That statement doesn't stand on its own. For example, the most popular OS for laptops at my place of work is Windows. It has very little to do with what people want or price. It has almost everything to do with ecosystem lock in.
A significant portion of windows laptop market share comes from corporate purchases.
Is this totally true? There is advertising, marketing spend and retail shelf space. Surely it's more complex than "solves users problem at price point."
Advertising and marketing spend exist to make people aware of the device's capabilities and its price. I would be surprised to find that any consumer chooses a device because of its marketing spend and retail shelf space.
You wrote “I would be surprised to find that any consumer chooses a device because of its marketing spend”. But advertising does skew consumer choice by its presentation, and the success correlates with marketing spend. It’s far from merely informational. Otherwise we’d just have black on white listings of “this product exists” with spec sheets.
I regularly follow Jeff Geerling's blog and I value his opinion (usually), and I understand his points - he does make very good points in this article.
However, the conclusion really irked me:
> As I mention in my video, the Framework 12 isn't a bad laptop, it's just a bad value, especially in comparison to the Neo.
Saying it is bad *value* is off the mark completely. There is, unless you are willing to use MacOS (which is a knock-out criteria for me: I love Apple hardware, but I cannot stand the OS and its artificial restrictions it imposes on the user).
I own a FW12 and for me the main driver was a light laptop with good battery life[1], that I can install my own Linux on it, and the drivers all work from day one on a new laptop. The last bit is not taken for granted, I have been bitten many times by this (as I'm sure many of you did). On top of that, I decided I will not have any more android devices if I can choose otherwise[2] - and the FW12 is a good tablet replacement. It's great to watch videos with (tent mode).
So for me, personally, it is great value, and the Neo would just become a secondary device I would very rarely use. Low utility means for me low value, YMMV.
[1] The battery itself is great. I get real 10-12 hours of work on it regularly! But obviously intel CPU cannot rival Apple on power consumption, as you can see in the benchmarks in the article.
[2] Android or iPhone are unfortunately a requirement for modern life. That's just so sad and I wish it would be legislated that apps that are needed (banking, civil services, etc.) *must* work on an alternate OS without the user hostility (I'd mention here: https://keepandroidopen.org/)
What you’re saying is valid, but it doesn’t take away from the “bad value” statement. Jeff was speaking value for money, you’re talking subjective utility value. Reviews cannot, and should not even try, to include that in their assessment. Sure, mention the limitation (and he did), but to assign a value to it for comparison is called “personal bias” and it’s no different than saying “it’s twice the hardware for half the price, but gloss black is a boring color, so 1 star.” Reviewers should always state value as “dollars per pound” and $1 for 10lbs is a better value than $1 for 5lbs; that you personally can’t fit 10lbs in your vault doesn’t change the assessment.
The real problem is that “value” is an ambiguous word, so everyone is right and wrong while talking about the same thing entirely differently. Yeesh.
> I had already put both laptops through my benchmark gauntlet
Who needs to justify it? I make good money, fell in love with the Framework 12 at first sight, maxed it out with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD, and never even thought about “comparing” it to other companies' machines before buying. Something about that being a thief of joy? :p
It is such a shame, too, because what Framework has achieved at this pricepoint should be commended. The fact that their business can sustain a lower-margin SKU like the Framework 12 is nothing short of extraordinary! But wow, the MacBook Neo threw a bomb into the low-end market.
> the Mac is faster (in most cases), more efficient, quieter, built better, has a much nicer display, and costs much less.
The Framework is more expensive, slower (in most cases), louder (its fan ramps up quite often), has a pretty poor display, but it is a touchscreen, has a 360° hinge, and is more repairable and upgradeable.
I have a 12 and the screen is fine. It's no OLED but I have no complaints for what it is. I love it as a secondary tablet-laptop for drawing and reading comics (primary laptop is a Framework 16 which I'm also in love with for Unity3D game dev and similar tasks, that one needs Windows for Visual Studio but I'm enjoying Gentoo on the 12)
There have been a few screen revisions on the 13, so there's a decent chance that a better screen will be available eventually on the 12 as an upgrade.
Framework 13 is close to 100% sRGB which is important for any kind of creative work or photo editing.
Framework 12 screen is only 66% which is pretty terrible color reproduction. You edit something and it ends up looking like something else on the gold standard consumer devices.
I wish Framework had released a gamepad or a printer instead of a keyboard. I get that they need to expand their ecosystem and revenue stream, but keyboard just wasn't it for me. There are so many good reliable cheap keyboards already, though I guess none with the touchpad, but again just not for me.
The gamepad I think would have been the killer device. Look at how much attention the steam gamepad gets. Sure, I have two gamepads already and I use them to play games on a dedicated (framework) computer hooked up to the living room TV. But guess what doesn't work? Turning the computer/TV on with the gamepad. It's so small, but so frustrating, also anytime the screens go off or sleep. So I have to keep a little $10 wireless keyboard there to turn the TV on / wake the computer.
You can see he's actually using a 8bitDo controller like you shared, but it doesn't have the firmware to talk directly to his computer, which then needs to have the correct CEC codes for HDMI to tell the different TVs to turn on/wake up/turn off.
So to make it a media center / steam machine you need to manufacture + firmware both the controller and the PC, which is the GH ticket above (i think!). But since they didn't make the controller, it would then be on users for each third party to figure out how to connect to whatever Framework exposes. Overall, just much better to make and ship the controllers & computer together, which is why Steam is going to do so well.
edit: Half that was directed towards the person who shared the controller, ;)
How much of the hardware cost of the Neo and other Apple Silicon machines is subsidized by their other income streams? If Apple was simply selling computers, I highly doubt they would be as affordable as the Framework.
I in contrast highly doubt that Apple would release a potentially super popular product that doesn't create a profit. My personal assumption is that the profit margin for the MB Neo is quite low, but it still exists.
Their advantage is that they have long running, very tight contracts with their suppliers, and extremely high vertical integration. They don't have to share a part of the profit margin with Intel or Microsoft. Also, they have a simple product range with comparatively few SKUs, and produce an extremely high volume of units, taking advantage of the economies of scale.
> But there's one performance-related area where the Framework pulls ahead—a little—and that's sustained performance. When running a heavy workload like HPL (a FP64 HPC task, that taxes the CPU and RAM constantly for many minutes), the Framework's fans allow it to throttle less than the Neo.
People are seeing big gains in sustained performance on MacBook Neo with a simple thermal pad mod. The disadvantage is the underside of the Neo can get hot, but that's not an issue if it's sitting on a desk instead of your lap.
I think this is an unfair comparison. We are comparing a company valued on the order of trillion dollars with a very small company that is trying to put something different on the market.
And yes sure, Apple is going to do way better than probably lots of manufacturers out there.
From an OS standpoint is also a comparison that cannot be done. We are comparing MacOS with a Linux/Windows machine, which are all completely different beasts.
One last and not minor point. By choosing Apple you're choosing not only to be locked down at the OS level but also on the hardware, which at least for me is a huge "no".
Framework in general is focused on developers. I think the general target audience is different. So the customization and OS makes a huge difference for a developer. I was excited about the Neo. But the 8GB and storage felt too limiting for development.
For daily / home/office this is where the competition is. And it’s not against the Framework.
In raw experience even with latest Swift Air, Apple has a great device benefiting from their optimized and existing production line.
We’re 5-6 years now from Apple silicon and yet the industry didn’t catch up completely.
Battery life, heat, performance and even arm64 isn’t yet a first class citizen on Linux* or Windows.
(* Linux is mostly power management assuming mobility experience is needed)
> I think Framework's in a hard place with the Framework 12. Because it's an odd dimension, and because they wanted a full 360° hinge for tablet mode, they had to compromise on the display.
Seems a bit weird that framework went with a 360 hinge w/ sub-par display & sub-par stylus. I wonder if there's any demand for that and what's the use case?
I bought one because as far as I could find it is basically one of two 2-in-1's on the market that officially support Linux. (It replaced an old Android tablet and one of the original FW13's, both of which were getting old.)
I recently got a FW12 and, for a random data point, my kids love it: the color, the ability to do art on the touchscreen, the foldability. And I love all those things too, in addition to getting to play with various flavors of Linux on it. (Now running Fedora with Cosmic, but keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on.) It is just a fun computer, and I appreciate that playfulness about it every day.
Saw this and does seem the screen tipped the balance here, which is understandable. Maybe if framework had a better screen without the touch overheads as an option(which I'm sure they could do being modular and upgradable)
I really want a Framework 12, but not in current incarnation. Hoping for an upgrade with aluminum body. I don't mind the pricepoint. But didn't want a plastic notebook at this point. Want a great couch computer for surfing the net, ssh'ing to machines, writing, etc....
What I surprisingly really miss, is my macbook air 11".
But probably won't be surprised if I end up with a Framework 13 Pro once they're caught up on delivery. I'm really hoping they have an announced 12 revision by then, though.
I had a MacBook Air 11" back in the day. 2nd or 3rd generation, I can't remember. The one that didn't stutter on YouTube. Amazing machine! I had always wished the screen was slightly bigger though. The insanely large bezel was a waste of space.
I have both the Framework 12 and the Framework 13. While I agree that the 12's display is not the best in class, it has one of the nicest touchpads I've ever used. It's hard to describe what makes the difference, but your fingers can glide nearly effortlessly across it. Both my Macbook and the FW13 have touchpads that feel a bit more "sticky".
It is really annoying how the x64 CPU's seem to constantly ramp up and down seemingly at random. I've been trying to tweak the fan curves on my Ryzen 9950x to avoid this but haven't been successful yet. Next stop is lowering the voltage once I figure out how to do it on my motherboard.
Try making the fan speed curve mostly flat in the middle at whatever fan speed keeps the system from hitting the far end of the temperature range under moderate usage. Let it ramp all the way down at idle and all the way up at all-core full load but anything in the middle gets a fixed medium speed. If that medium speed is too loud then what you need is a larger fan that provides that amount of cooling at a lower fan speed.
A question to all developers working on 12 and 13 inches laptops. Do you spend most of your time connected to an external monitor or do you use the laptop one? My instinct is that there isn't enough space for two side by side windows of code but of course people working on 24" monitors would say the same about my 15.6" screen.
I had a smaller 13 inch laptop before that packed a punch but almost exclusively on the docking station and connected to screens, if I would on the sofa and thought I needed to do something really quick, I would grab it but it was painful. People just get used to things though, there are stories of people writing detailed packages on their phone sure!
Even now on 17 inches, I still use it exlusively on the dock with screens!
I still use a 2019 MBP and I can't work on just the laptop screen. My laptop screen usually has one fullscreen window at all times; tmux, or a browser window; all the main work gets done on the big screen.
- The Framework is more expensive : Kind of care, but not really if it's worth the money.
- slower (in most cases) : I care about this. Blender needs to render.
- louder (its fan ramps up quite often) : I care about this, it needs to be silent.
- has a pretty poor display : I care about this, I don't want poor screen quality, poor color quality, poor text rendering.
- but it is a touchscreen: could care less about this.
- has a 360° hinge : care even less about this.
- and is more repairable and upgradeable : really don't care about this at all, by the time this laptop needs to be upgraded, i'll just buy a new one anyways since the new parts probably won't work in the old machine.
I'm thinking Apple might just be better at figuring out what specs actually matter, and which specs just make nerds happy but don't actually sell. (except liquid glass, they failed on that.)
> I'm thinking Apple might just be better at figuring out what specs actually matter, and which specs just make nerds happy but don't actually sell. (except liquid glass, they failed on that.)
Or maybe this is just a totally different product?
I'd also call out, anecdotally, of the people in my life the non-technical people are interested in touch screens, don't care about speed as long as it runs a few Chrome tabs without feeling slow, and have literally never mentioned noise except to complain about some absolutely absurd "gaming" laptops. I've only ever heard the "nerds" talking about this stuff you're saying actually matters to the non-nerds. Maybe you're one of the nerds?
> by the time this laptop needs to be upgraded, i'll just buy a new one anyways since the new parts probably won't work in the old machine.
It's only been 5 years since their first laptop, but yes they sold motherboards for 5 different CPU generations that all fit in the same chassis. They've also released a Pro chassis that uses the same parts as well.
Whether most people want to keep the old beat up chassis/keyboard/trackpad/battery when they're ready to upgrade is another question.
But they have lived to their promises, despite your claim that they wouldn't.
Quite possibly yes. The level of upgradeability they've given their Framework 13 line over the years has been very impressive, and you can still put the latest CPU in the original chassis if you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSxgCEpkiKM
You can get a lot of laptop in the ~$700 range if you look beyond Apple and Framework.
I picked up a Nimo N155 for $570 back in September 2025. Today it's $700 due to RAM prices. Its specs are:
15" 1080p IPS display, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (8 cores / 16 threads), 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, 1 TB NVME SSD with an iGPU Radeon 680M that can use up to 8 GB of memory all wrapped up into a metal case that weighs less than a MBP. It has a nice feeling backlight keyboard and a pretty good track pad. It comes with Windows 11 but it's all compatible with Linux too. Also it comes with a 2 year manufacturer's warranty.
I've been using it quite a bit since I picked it up. Been running Arch Linux on it since day 1 with niri. It's really solid IMO.
I'm not sure that there's a lot of overlap between the target markets. Most schools near me require windows and require a stylus capable touch screen, so the mac is out of the running immediately.
Even if it weren't, the fact that if you're giving a computer to a teen as their first machine to take to class and use every single day, you really, really, really want to be able to separately repair the screen and the ports.
As always, you're paying a premium for the repairability, but if your teen cracks the screen a single time in three years of carrying it to class every day, then you've already saved money.
I consider the Framework 12 a conceptually flawed machine (especially given the setup of its maker) but, as a general computing option, it would still be of much better value to me than anything Apple had or has on offer; every hardware feature I value in general purpose mobile computers is implemented better in the machines of other builders. And the less said about the OS and the backing platform and company, the better.
So with the Framework you're paying a premium for maintainability. When the specs fall behind you can upgrade easily. With Apple you have a good laptop that will last awhile assuming you take very good care of it. And, of course, you can't upgrade or maintain it easily.
I can't say I agree with the thesis at all. With unstable hardware prices and leveling performance improvements, flexibility is becoming a far more important goal.
A truck will always be a worse car than a car, the question is do you need a car or a truck? If you need a car, get a Neo, if you need a truck, get a Framework. They’re not competing past that initial question.
Bad timing. Not only MB Neo, but also the memory price hike. Whole selling point is vanishing, plus other makers are getting momentum reacting to Neo, further shadowing the FW12's existence.
I hope they can come back with some update with newer chipset, either from Intel or Qualcomm. They were picking the worst Intel generation and I think it was mostly bad luck.
For most of 2024, my main daily driver laptop was a little pink chinese laptop from 2019 I bought on amazon for roughly $200. It was marketed toward communication students. I put arch with cinnamon on it and it was pretty damn adequate for my needs, serviceable for browsing, watching videos, and even some dinky games, and of course fine for development, able to run tiny prototype code locally and ssh into more powerful servers (or cloud vms, whatever) when work was to be done for people paying for the compute
You really don't need that much computer for most things, but most operating systems shove a lot of extras on there by default. Leaving windows on the thing obviously would have been untenable, but even ubuntu would probably chug on such a device. I think if the supply crunch continues this logic will make sense to more and more people
I use a macbook for work now because I'm required to. It's just at every level an obnoxious operating system to work with, its permission model is a mess, every program on it is an ad and keeps trying to vie for my attention and I can't remove half of them. It bugs out often, including maxing out its application memory opening programs I didn't ask to open. It updates itself in an obnoxious way without my permission. It would be unusable if it didn't have a unix shell, and not everything on it is accessible from shell commands. Apple makes fundamentally incredible hardware, even if they're not perfect, but I would never intentionally buy something from them that didn't support getting out of their godawful software ecosystem
I would be interested in hearing from framework users who have gone through upgrade cycles on their laptops. General experiences with the process but also the costs.
I had the first gen framework but had to return it to my old employer so I never went through an upgrade cycle.
Also, this may be specific to the first generation but I had terrible battery life and overheating issues. If that carried over through upgrade cycles I would be pretty bummed out.
I don't understand the whole Framework thing (not 12, but in general):
1. For why would everyone want to use their laptop longer than MacBook lifespan? I'm typing this on a 5+ year old MacBook, which I expect will work for 3 more years. At this lifespan, it will be outdated by all means. I can replace it with a new one at the cost of $1-1.5k. If I had a Framework, I would gradually replace this with new parts? Well, only the mainboard takes a huge portion, or even more, of that. Screens became outdated too, by the way!
2. Repairability. Apple has bad repairability, in terms it glues the laptop from three parts. That means you can't do anything by yourself, but you can get a repair in a day or two in any point of the world. Can you fix your Framework in Tbilisi, Georgia? Last time I replaced the screen on a Mac, it cost me $300 including human work, the same as a Framework display costs.
3. MacBooks are just better in terms of performance and battery life per buck. They also tend to have the best screens, sound, and input. All of these are quite important for a laptop.
I like the Framework premise; I would like to own a Framework as a Linux machine. But we should remember that these are hobbyist laptops with a product/cost ratio, and gimmicky features.
All this discussion, amplified by voices of Apple-quarreled people like DHH, is stupid and kind of harmful – unexperienced people are ending up with expensive enthusiast devices (...or worse, with Dell XPS, you know).
P.S. Please don't bring "computer ideology" into this – there is no walled garden on MacBooks like on other Apple devices. There are no services actively sold to you. I don't know where this argument is coming from. It is just a Unix-based computer, with good hardware and a nice-looking GUI.
That said, I would definitely like to see comments of peope who actually used a MacBook and switched to Framework.
One factor I never see anyone talking about is that, for Framework laptops, the webcam is easily physically removable and the laptop will continue to function without it.
That's the reason Framework is one of the only laptops I'll ever recommend to parents who ask about devices for children under the age of 15-16. No Internet-connected computing device before that age with an integrated, un-removable webcam. Sorry... You either know people who've been hurt by online manipulation or you don't, and the harm it's possible to do is much worse when a webcam is involved.
Especially when parents aren't particularly computer savvy, kids should either have a mobile device without a camera or a desktop computer placed in a public part of the home. I know why most manufacturers don't make devices without integrated webcams anymore, but it really shouldn't be an auto-add feature to a mobile computer.
it remains my pet peeve that the 12 and 13 didn't find a clever way to share a mainboard by ditching the expansion cards on one side and just exposing the USBC ports. I would've sacrificed a lot to be able to just move my mainboard intact to another chassis if I needed the features. (which is exactly what I'll be doing with the 13 Pro, and IMO should've been a top goal of the 12)
The framework 12 is the ideal couch device for a developer, in ultra power saving mode it’s good enough for most websites, and it having a quickly getting hot 13th gen intel cpu means you also got a dev machine on the low end spectrum, not a vm, but an actual piece of hardware a typical user might have and not some 32 thread 64 gb monster
Macbook Neo is manufactured with leftover / binned A18 Pro iPhone chips, these chips have a defective GPU Core and Apple was sitting on millions of these. Apple does not have an easy way to dispose of these chips, the base iPads use 2 generations old A16 chips & the iPad pros use M series chips. So they created a new product line.
The Macbook Neo is cheap because the CPU/GPU/Memory chip is sold below cost. The Neo line exists to dispose of / repurpose binned A18 Pro chips and when these run out Apple will significantly raise prices.
This is the identical situation to what happened with the original Raspberry Pi, the Pi company acquired leftover Broadcom BCM2835 chips for almost nothing, and were able to sell Raspberry Pis for an impossibly cheap price of $35.
All of these, and more. Macbook Neos benefit from all the hardware that Apple makes in-house, reusing CPUs that they already make for iPhones but didn't make the cut, have zero upgradeability, benefit from massive economies of scale, contracts are already signed in advance, the delivery and logistics of an existing chain...
Framework has to go talk to Intel and AMD, get parts shipped, assembled onto a motherboard that they have to make themselves and ordered in very low amounts then shipped all to their fulfillment center, then fedexed, have to source components... Even not taking into account the fact that Apple already has all of the hardware made or available in-house, just the supply and logistics chain is an easy 10% of the final price.
Efficiencies of scale and experience, on multiple levels.
Component sourcing is the most obvious thing - Apple is known to buy up inventory years in advance for example and at insane quantities. TSMC's last new node? Apple paid billions to be the initial and, most importantly, exclusive customer. With hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and liquid assets, Apple can afford to sit on "dead money" for years - a small shop like Framework can't.
As for the Neo specifically, this thing shouldn't even exist, but Apple found themselves sitting on a stash of half defective iPhone SoCs. But instead of trashing them, they effectively recreated the netbook market segment...
The MacBook Neo is just the response to the question of "what do we do with all these binned iPhone chips without making yet another even lower cost iPhone?"
The title should read 'it's hard to justify buying any other laptop than the Neo in the sub $1000 space'. It's an absolute unit of a computer; the only more revolutionary box would be the M1 Air (or the original Air. maybe. my vote is on the M1.)
I haven't used the Framework 12, but I got a Framework 13. It really is modular and easy to repair, and they give great instructions and all the tools you need. For example, I dropped mine and bent the screen while carrying it. I ordered a new screen and when it arrived, it took maybe 15 minutes to replace. But the reason I dropped the laptop was because the hinge really sucked. It swings freely. So as I was carrying it, it suddenly swung wide open and threw off my balance.
The caps lock key, which I remapped to control, got a crack in it because I use it a lot. Worst of all, it doesn't stay pressed, depending on its mood. So maybe I'm pressing ctrl-a to get to the beginning of a line and it decides to type the letter a instead.
I really wanted to like it, but alas, the quality was too bad and I won't buy another one.
If Apple could give away a macbook neo to students, locked to the one individual student somehow, for free! they would still make money on it in the long run through the subsequent purchases over the person’s lifetime.
Tiny screens. Imagine running a browser on a 13" screen, where part of screen space is used by taskbar, tab headers, address bar, sticky site header, cookie bar and you get less than 50% left for content. And of course site designer will use the largest font available so that you can fit only one paragraph of text into remaining space. Obviously you cannot fit VS Code or KDEnlive (it has so many panels!) into this small screen as well.
I would prefer to buy 17" but sadly such laptops are considered "professional" and therefore overpriced so I had to settle with smaller screen size and cope with it. Small screens are only good for browsing social networks with post character limits and not for work.
You could buy a monitor, but monitors aren't free and you cannot take it with you when travel (to the couch).
They tend to use the most expensive CPUs which do not have the best cost/performance ratio. Mid-range, mid-low CPUs are better.
Standard US-style keyboard. Doesn't have layout switch keys and extra keys for languages which have more than 26 letters which is like half of the world? To be fair, Macs or PCs don't have them either. PC manufacturers would rather add useless numpad than keys for foreign languages. Also, it doesn't have large arrow keys, and page up/page down and how do you scroll the code without them.
I also do not like an idea with expansion cards for ports. Just add 6-8 USB ports, video and audio and you do not need any expansion modules which could save lot of money for the customers. Having 8 USB ports for free is better than having to buy 4 expansion modules.
Also there is no need to customize color, it is waste of money
Obviously it has lot of good features but currently it is more reasonable to buy a standard laptops for ⅓ price of 1 framework and install Linux.
By the way, Macs seem to have no replaceable parts, like RAM or SSD. I wonder what Mac owners do when keys start falling out from keyboard, do they buy a new Mac, or keys on Macs never fall out? On PCs, I replace the keyboard every 2-3 years.
You know they have a framework 16" ? And the keyboard of the 16 is running customizable firmware so you can have your layout switch key and whatever else you want ? It has 6 usb-c ports, that are the other end of the extension modules
I bought it two years ago, I like it, but I still think it's too expensive for the actual hardware, but I liked funding the mission as well as receiving a product that I liked.
> so you can have your layout switch key and whatever else you want ?
I do not think so. Many languages have more than 26 letters but Framework doesn't seem to provide the keyboards with extra keys. They use the same keyboards as PCs, and for languages that have many letters PCs just use punctuation keys for extra letters, and move punctuation to inconvenient places. Some languages like Czech have so many extra letters that they have to use keys with digits for extra letters and type digits with Shift. And the root of the problem is that manufacturers try to fit all these letters into standard US keyboard instead of adding extra keys and adapting the keyboard for foreign languages.
The Framework 16 lets you put a pad with twenty-four additional buttons on it next to the keyboard. These 24 buttons can be programmed to do whatever you want with reprogrammable firmware.
Also, there are twenty-three different keyboard layouts available (IN ADDITION TO the 24-key macropad).
I think there are legitimate arguments against Framework, but this one clearly isn't cogent.
I understand Jeff's argument, but he is missing the fact that one of the features of the Framework 12 is the modularity of the components. So if that is not a valued feature in this scenario, sure it's hard to justify.
I love building and upgrading stuff as well as paying (much) more for tools that will last. But this is a laptop not a socket set, paying (a lot) more for worse performance up front makes absolutely no sense. Seems like the argument should be the Framework 12 just shouldn’t exist.
I think what makes the perspective in the article interesting is that buying individual components a la carte isn't a good value in today's market. Sure you can upgrade the RAM and SSD in the Framework, but 16 GB of laptop DDR5 is $200 and a 1 TB 2230 SSD is another $200. The question becomes, is it worth it to spend 40% more for a laptop with 40% less performance (as well as worse build quality, a worse screen, worse speakers, worse battery life, and running hotter) so you can have the potential to spend half the price of the laptop to upgrade it in the future?
I don't like MacOS. Everytime I talk about setting up a custom PC, people say - buy Mac Mini. No. I don't want MacOS. It's soooo slow workflow wise. I was literally behind my manager for 2 whole years to get him to move me from Macbook Air 11 inch to a linux laptop. He was ready to give me Macbook Pro 2016. But not a Linux laptop, in an org which had them. And I went over his head to get a Linux laptop there. The slow workflow MacOS had. My goodness.
But people always argued that I used a subpar Mac device as slow as Macbook Air 11. So you didn't have the full experience. blah blah blah. Guess what? I use a M3 Macbook Air with 24GB now. It is still is as bad as it was back then. And after the glass update, I has become abysmal. So no. I'll just get another Linux computer. Not a Mac. The only time I will voluntarily choose MacOs is if I had to choose between Windows and Mac. Then I will choose Mac 100% of the time. Or if I had to ever develop for Apple ecosystem as well.
It's not the hardware's fault. It's the software that I don't like. This was the case before and after Apple silicon.From the window management to how I need to setup my computer, everything is slow in MacOS. The UI interactions, how the apps needs to be managed. Everything. I am trying to make it faster. It's not customisable the way Linux is. Maybe I need to be a bit more clear, it is slow FOR ME. Not to mention, after the glass update, I find it very hard to use with respect to UI.
It's annoying how short-term people think sometimes.
With the Framework 12, sure, you're paying $750 up-front, but if you actually buy into the repairability/upgradeability angle (and if you don't, you maybe shouldn't be buying Framework), then in 3-4 years you might spend $200 or $300 on upgrades, and then in another 3-4 years another $200 or $300, and so on.
Meanwhile, with the Neo, you might be buying a whole new one at $600 every 3-4 years.
(Yes, I know how everyone says they've been using their Mac laptop for 15 years and it's still going strong, but if you're that person, then you don't care about upgradeability, so, again, you're probably not in Framework's target market. I also know lots of people who get a new Mac laptop every 3-4 years. And even a few who get one every 2 years, and that makes me sad.)
If people like us who understand the long term value of having these things[1] available don't buy (and encourage others to buy), then we can't have nice things. I would always recommend students to buy anything other than apple (most Windows machines can now run Linux), run Linux on it and learn how to make it work. Todays students will be distributed all over the world and they have the skills to run Linux on the desktop, but far more importantly, make it work in the workplace ecosystem. Remember our governments are spending massive amounts of money buying Microsoft services and Apple products.
In fact, we should also highly encourage students to use Linux phones. It is important to get the next generation ready to get out of all these locked in extractive ecosystems.
[1] A standardized commodified market place of parts, available to assemble as new or as replacements for long term repair. There is no compelling reason modern machines (phones/laptops/desktops) can't have second and third lives. Remember how much Apple fights against repairability laws.
It's funny how people talk about macbook neo being the cheapest option that gives you access to macos (If my brain isn't fried that was one of the points mentioned in the video) cause when I was checking macbook neo's price a couple of weeks ago I almost did hit the purchase button then I remembered I can't use macbook and I'm too used to my arch config to change.
Linux can run games better than both Windows and Mac. Steam's Proton derived from Steam now runs Windows games on Linux with better performance than Windows.
The problem with Apple laptop is few years into the future - it's what will happen when Apple drop support for this hardware in OS X. Even if Asahi Linux or similar will be in a good enough state, you will still have to go through pain of adjusting to new system, moving data, figuring out how to access your iCloud/time machine/etc...
Unfortunately for Framework, people who think this way make poor customers - can't justify buying Framework while my Lenovo X230 is working fine.
I tried using refurb'd Thinkpads as my travel machine for a long time - they're very brittle hard to fix laptops - kinda like Macbooks.
The Framework on the other hand is so easy to work on and get parts for - I know this isn't probably a main selling point for most users, but if you need this, Framework is like the only game in town.
I'm sorry but sometimes performance is not everything. Apple silicon - great except you are now in the Apple walled garden with all the consequences of it. Not to mention perpetually subpar developer experience without the rich Linux/Docker ecosystem. Yes, I know it is getting better but for developers there are still many warts. We just retired the last OSX laptops from my dev team because they were unproductive trying to work around some Docker limitations on OSX/Apple silicon.
I sincerely don't get the point of a post like this. You buy a Framework for repairability, flawless Linux support, ability to tinker, etc. Yes it would be extra nice if on top of everything it also had a faster CPU and a higher-density screen for cheaper than the aggressively priced entry model of corporation with the literal deepest pockets in the world. But is that a realistic complaint? I swear I don't get it.
If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!
The Neo is an example of how this tradeoff should work: You lose flexibility but gain a lower price. For other Apple laptops, the price is on the high end and also you lose flexibility. This seeming contradiction is what helped open up the market opportunity for Framework.
(To complicate my argument a bit, it happens to be the case that the Neo is actually, for a Macbook, highly repairable, but the original article doesn't actually mention this so presumably they didn't think much about that. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r... )
(Also, I'm not putting down the overall value of pricier Macbooks. You get other things in return for those prices, they are still a good value and I own some Macbooks, I'm just looking at the price <-> repairability axis here... The Neo is a particularly clear example of price vs repairability)
> If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!
$799 versus $499 is a 60% premium.
The best case numbers are buying used RAM and SSD for the Framework like Jeff did in the article ($749 total, if you can find the RAM at those prices) and comparing against the non-EDU MacBook Neo at $599. That's still a 25% premium.
> and actually want the extended warranty/applecare
The Framework warranty is only 1 year, same as the MacBook Neo.
If you add AppleCare+ to the MacBook Neo you could get a 3-year warranty laptop for $739 that performs better than the $799 Framework 12
> Now pretend you want to bump up to 16gb of ram so you can run a VM.
I don't think the students shopping for a MacBook Neo are going to be heavy VM users on their little laptop, but if I do this on their website the price bumps to $1049
$1049 is within $50 of a MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and much better CPU, display, build quality, and battery life.
But bumping to 16gb ram means buying new hardware, moving over your profile/configuration and then trying to sell your old hardware, losing money on the trade... vs just upgrading the ram.
I'm not saying don't buy a Neo... I'm just saying there are objective reasons why you might not want to... for me, it's that I would prefer to run a Linux distro on whatever I buy. I might just go for a Lenovo IdeaPad and save a little over the Framework and the Neo at that point... they aren't the only two options on the market.
> If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!
This is a completely sensible take, but many on this forum believe upgradability/fixability should be mandated by law in spite of posts like this where consumers choose against this option in spite of what the repairability activists say. It's likely that the EU will in fact pass some laws to mandate this because of this vocal minority and because it's popular to stand up to Big Tech.
If a “repairable” laptop is in any way comparable to a high-volume model from the most successful laptop maker in history; one that is currently upending the whole industry and backed by an extra-generous education discount funded by huge cash reserves and a long-term strategy; then Framework has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.
I agree, that the Framework 12 is too expensive - especially in comparison to the MacBook Neo.
However, not everything can be a huge success. I think that the Framework 13 Pro shows that they are very capable in the premium segment and evolving as a company. I can't even imagine taking such a huge risk just to make a difference while still providing relatively small quantities (in comparison to the big players) of repairable devices... So in my opinion the money is not wasted. It's the price for being part of a change.
In times of AI Slop, privacy nightmares and ads everywhere, I'm saving money for the Framework 13 Pro with Linux freedom right now and can't wait to get my hands on it.
Eh, I think the framing isn't quite right here. The Neo is a wonderful machine but if you want to upgrade it you're out of luck, the damn thing is sealed shut. By comparison the Framework lets you upgrade individual components over time to keep your system up to date without buying a whole new one.
Maybe that doesn't matter for the godson. But it's an important differentiator: the Framework is a (semi) premium product with premium features. If you don't intend to use those features, paying the premium rarely makes sense.
I think this model works for the 13 and 16, because you're already buying a good laptop that you can keep longer by upgrading. The 12's base specs and more than that the experience is pretty bad. The screen and speakers are terrible.
The 13 also targets people buying it for themselves and who value ownership. The 12 targets the education market and how many 14 year olds are sensitive to ownership, repairability and e-waste? If they are they would probably get something better second hand. You'd have to have a parent that is sensitive to this issue and is also willing to force down this bad laptop onto their children instead of whatever they prefer.
I love Framework, and the bet to try to win over the education market was worth making but the execution is so poor that I don't think it works out.
The MacBook Neo will happily last you the 4 years of highschool and maybe your bachelor.
The 12 for me has a very strong appeal as a smartphone / tablet replacement.
I've had smartphones and/or tablets for approaching 20 years now, and they've always struck me as very frustrating compromises. Mostly Android, but some use of iOS as well, and yes, the OS (in both cases) is fundamental to the limitations.
I've also used MacOS heavily (I'm on it now), and I don't like it, relative to Linux.
The Framework Laptop 12 is smaller than my most recent tablet (a 13.3" e-ink), though somewhat more massive. It frees myself from a plethora of Android limitations, crapware, inconsistencies, and the non-repairability of the hardware itself (presently an issue). It gives a real-computer experience, with some compromises for size, but I'm pretty sure that's a net win.
Paired with a limited-feature phone and possibly a few dedicated devices for specific uses (camera, audio recorder), I'm good.
And the 12 should provide an easy decade of service.
> The Neo is a wonderful machine but if you want to upgrade it you're out of luck, the damn thing is sealed shut. By comparison the Framework lets you upgrade individual components over time to keep your system up to date
The Framework 12 in the story costs $799, a $300 premium over the $499 MacBook Neo.
So you're paying an extra $300 up front for the option of spending more to upgrade it in the future, and getting a slower computer during that time.
That's a 60% premium to have the ability to upgrade a slower laptop.
Alternatively, they could sell the MacBook Neo for $200 in a couple years and buy a next-gen MacBook Neo and they'd still come out ahead.
Some people value upgradeability to an extreme, but I can't see a justification for spending a 60% premium to buy a worse product just to be able to maybe upgrade it in a few years. This is a starter laptop.
That might be true to some extent but what about the current product? It's nice to tell yourself that you can upgrade it in the future but the best of what the product is today isn't a great value, will the future upgrade make it better? Should we purchase a product today on what it might be tomorrow?
I think Jeff is correct when he says, "for an overall worse experience, are you willing to pay 20-40% more?". That's a tough sell. I think the only reason for me to take the Framework 12 over the Neo would be because I want to advocate for a world where upgradability and repairability are common things.
I don't think the idea is that the upgrade will take it from decent to stellar compared to other things you might be able to buy for the same money, it's about paying a bit extra now to be able to go from decent-in-2026 to decent-in-2031 while paying a fraction of the cost that you would buying a full replacement in 2031, not to mention saving a bunch of waste. And then in 2036, and 2041, and 2046... They haven't been around long enough to be confident it'll work out that way, but that's the bet in my mind.
For lots of things, yeah. Don't try to fold proteins or open Facebook or whatever, but if you want to run a 3d printer or make some drawings or organize a bunch of notes and docs it would be way more than enough.
The neo isn't upgradeable, but it also isn't sealed shut. It's actually one of Apple's most repairable devices. If I were in the market for this class of device, I personally would still go with Framework for a variety of reasons, but I still think it's important to give apple praise for the pro-consumer choices they made (and probably could have gotten away without) in the Neo.
I'd guess the problem with the display is software, not hardware, and it just goes to show that the model of slapping parts together and using random downloadable software doesn't always turn out right.
It seems like they had two issues (both hardware) related to display quality: one is they couldn't have a custom display made to their specs, so they had to pick something off the shelf to meet requirements. Two is they used a 30 pin display connector (see https://community.frame.work/t/does-fl12-have-a-40-pin-edp-c...), so certain resolutions and refresh rates probably can't work.
Never understood the people who keep saying Macbooks are expensive. They make it sound like unreasonably expensive. Sure maybe before the Intel Macs in 2006. But for the last 20 years they've been not the cheapest but not the most expensive either.
And when you factor all the time you waste on Windows, especially at the time Windows Vista, which had insane memory requirements, and compared them to Mac Os (X at the time) which ran pretty good on the cheapest models, and factored in the fact that OS upgrades were free, it ended up being on par if not better proposition. (Assuming you're not trying to run some exclusively Windows software on it or gaming).
And with the MacBook Neo. Forget it about it. It's almost, just almost a foregone conclusion for an entry machine that it is a much better proposition.
Does Apple have a lot of overpriced products. Yes, yes they do. But they it also doesn't mean you had to buy it either.
They get pretty expensive when you bump the ram and storage... I mean, it's less noticeable in today's market, but it was pretty rough... IIRC my M1 Air cost close to $3k with the extra memory, storage and 3 years of apple care, vs something like $1300 base price iirc. Similar for prior Macbook Pros I've had.
If you can get by with a base model, they've been an okay deal.. and as mentioned a lot of the build features, display, touchpad, etc. are top of the line, best in class. But before the Neo, I'd still often pick a Lenovo Ideapad or similar for ~$500 or so first, and still might for more ram/storage.
Mac is really good and the ram performance is generally better than slotted ram, so that helps a lot. It doesn't help, however if you want to run a VM/Docker or things that allocate/isolate memory usage away from native apps.
I haven't even had a system with less than 16gb ram since before 2009... I've used as much as 70gb of memory with certain workloads on my desktop (though usually not nearly that much), but it's nice to have if/when you do need it without thrashing the storage drive.
Oh no, that didn't matter to anyone[1], who would've thought!
Meanwhile AAPL goes brrr ...
It's sad because by the time other laptop manufacturers understand what people really want, Apple will have a 20 year lead on them. Hard to catch up with that.
1: Ok, 0.01% of consumers is not exactly "anyone" but close.
Anyone who has held or used a 12" Macbook Retina knows this. Right about 2 LB, and very thin. They make amazing second or primary laptops depending on how mobile/flexible you want to be.
The piece the Framework 12 and Neo are missing is the weight and thickness, but they will be able to get there. If the Framework 12 had been thin and light, I would likely be holding one
From the screen prints of the display, I like the colors better on the framework. But I would agree that it could be due to some very minor issues with my eyes if more people like the Apple display colors better :)
To be honest, I am currently living with major Schadenfreude regarding ram costs.
For literally years, SV companies have had a "ship fast, fuck the users" mentality when it comes to resource usage, as if software is written more often than it's run.
Finally having some constrained supply of memory will force people to actually build software that can be reasonably used on 5 year old hardware (which would otherwise be perfectly servicable).
Slack from 2015 doesn't meaningfully add anything over Slack from 2025 yet I need 3x the RAM to run it.
Maybe... While less than perfect, I think even moving to shared browser runtimes like Tauri and similar are a boost over Electron. Not to mention shifting backend work to Rust over JS/TS. There's a lot of performance on the table to gain without even dramatically changing most of the application UI/UX.
It's insane we've somehow come back to 8GB RAM laptops in 2026.
I have an old circa ~2012 era Dell Latitude Laptop with 16GB in it. While it may not be powerful enough to play modern games or anything and may not run Win 11 (although why would you?), it's certainly served me well for at least a full decade.
I think that there’s a little bit of pointlessness in comparing the Framework 12 to essentially the best laptop value of all time, a laptop that was basically unthinkable by the industry as a whole 6 months ago.
The framework 12 is also oriented toward the kind of person who will not be happy with macOS. At least for the 13, over half of framework’s customers use Linux. More of their users are on Linux than on Windows.
macOS is a commercial operating system that advertises paid subscriptions for you. Even my Apple TV started opening the TV app recently upon wake up which is new behavior. Apple is starting their subscription enshittification just like Windows 11. They see the end of hardware profitability and they like serving and and subscriptions more than building innovative hardware.
Framed this way, the framework 12 is perhaps the best convertible Linux laptop in its price range. And in that sense, it’s not hard to justify.
That said, framework’s clearly most competitive piece of hardware is the 13 Pro.
I hate this talk of "justify". Does everybody think they've become an accountant now? Buy your nephew both computers. Or buy the one he prefers. Or buy the one you prefer.
People are allowed to own several computers. They are allowed to own several phones. They are allowed to install several web browsers and several text editors.
Why are hackers agonizing so much about small and meaningless decisions, which they don't even have to take? You don't have to pick one or the other.
This is, if crude, the correct take. You always choose your applications first, then the operating system best suited for them, then the hardware platform.
I was seduced by Apple Silicon after experiencing the exceptional battery life and performance. Those things are great, as are the screens and the speakers.
But I'm still excited about the Framework 12 because I don't love macOS. I don't need an alternative to beat Apple on every line of the spec sheet. I just need them to align with my values, support Linux well, and cross a certain "good enough" threshold. The latest laptops from Framework meet all of those requirements, and I'm excited to buy one after I've saved up enough money. I've missed Plasma for a long time. At the same time, I wouldn't even consider a MacBook Neo.
I'm constantly surprised by just how bad macOS is as a Linux user. I currently have to deal with it sometimes as I run my local LLM server on it and it's painful. That said the hardware is great, I run Asahi on another M1 MBP and Linux makes it the best laptop I've ever used.
> I run Asahi on another M1 MBP and Linux makes it the best laptop I've ever used.
Until you need to repair something or change some hardware ... Which is something the author of the article totally neglects, IMHO.
By the time something breaks, you’re so far behind in tech that you’re not buying parts for it anymore. I used to be in the “must be able to fix/upgrade” and then realized in practice it never happens.
> Until you need to repair something or change some hardware
How often does this happen, though? I have a 2013 MBP that still works perfectly. And I'm not even talking about the screen, which is ridiculously better than most new pc laptops. And then, of course, there's the touchpad, which, for some reason, is still unmatched in pc land.
It has 512 GB of SSD and 16 of RAM. This is basically what the new "upgraded" PCs people get at my office. In 2026, 13 years later.
Yeah, I'd use my decade-old mac any day rather than the crappy HPs at work.
in my day job doing enterprise web apps at a mac shop 16G became unusable for the engineers 3-5 yeas ago. i managed to weasel into them getting me a 64G M1 Pro in 2022 (now they won't buy us any higher than 32G). i'll probably still be using this thing in six years!
to be fair, given the choice between a decade-old macbook and basically any current windows box with same specs, i'd take the macbook every time. but, if i could put linux on it...
What web stuff are you guys working on that 16GB didn’t cut it a few years ago? I’m not questioning your statement, it’s just completely different world from my day-to-day and I’m curious.
In my case, the corporate MDM solution consumed so much resources that a 16GB MacBook was basically unusable for dev work (my personal Mac, also with 16GB in those days, was fine)
Indeed. I have an M1 Pro from work, but I honestly can't stand macOS anymore. The machine itself is great, especially the touchpad. And I love the aluminum body. But I hate that empty window chrome eats up half the screen.
But now I'm typing this on a Lenovo P14 something-or-other, under Linux (I run Arch, by the way), and it's an all-around nicer experience than the Mac. The touchpad is somewhat inferior, but good enough. And the screen is actually better: it has a slightly higher resolution, but, most importantly, it's matte. It's not as bright as the Mac, but it's bright enough that I rarely set it above 20-30%. The machine is overall very snappy and quiet, but this is probably more due to my DE not going crazy with animations.
Thanks for mentioning you use Arch. I would have had to ask otherwise. I’m jk of course
> Until you need to repair something or change some hardware
The overwhelming majority of people would just go buy a new one. The downtime for ordering parts and waiting repairs has a price tag, likely greater than the laptop's price. Maybe that will change with how the prices of everything have been soaring lately.
Totally neglects? FTA:
> The Framework is more expensive, slower (in most cases), louder (its fan ramps up quite often), has a pretty poor display, but it is a touchscreen, has a 360° hinge, and is more repairable and upgradeable.
> While the Neo is probably one of the easiest Mac laptops to repair in recent memory, the Framework 12 allows you to upgrade components including a DDR5 SODIMM, 2230-sized NVMe SSD, WiFi card, and even four modular ports around the sides. I outfitted mine with 2x USB-C, 1x USB-A, and 1x full-size HDMI.
The author does mention it, they just don't deeply analyze it. Frankly, it goes without saying. If you are considering a framework and reading articles about it, you almost certainly understand the tradeoff and it was mentioned in the article. Given the build quality of Apple and the option to lock in Apple care vs. the insane cost of computer parts, it isn't that important. Especially for an entry level laptop.
I’ve had MacBook Pros for as long as they’ve existed and, honestly, I’ve never needed a repair.
The only real issue I’ve had was when I dropped one and destroyed the screen. It was covered by AppleCare, and Apple replaced it.
I usually get a new laptop every 3 to 4 years and pass the old one to family members. My dad is still using one that’s about 10 years old and it works fine for what he needs. No issues.
So the repair argument is a bit hard for me to relate to. I understand things break. But I also think taking reasonable care of your stuff goes a long way. “A stitch in time saves nine,” right?
I guess I’ve replaced the feet on a few of them but that’s a $5 dollar kit from Amazon and a screwdriver and a little bit of glue…
And for normal wear and tear, like battery life, Apple laptops can get a battery replacement through the Apple Store for a pretty reasonable cost.
Anyway, Apple makes good product products that don’t really break from me or my family. I’ve been really happy with all their stuff.
I had way worse luck, for example, building a PC to game on. Two or three years and I had to replace the power supply and I think four years and I had to replace the SSD. Like those things were annoying. I’ve never had hardware from Apple go bad on me.
(Not since I had a Performa 5200 and they had to send somebody out to fix the logic board.)
Consider that maybe you've just gotten lucky? Laptop components do break. I haven't had Mac laptops in a bunch of years, but just off the top of my head I've had a keyboard key break (MacBook Air), and a mainboard die (MacBook Pro).
But if you don't need repairs, you might want upgrades. I have a Framework 13 from 2022 and I expect I won't be buying a full new laptop for many many years. It's great that you've been able to repurpose your old laptops for other family members, but every new laptop manufactured eventually becomes e-waste.
> Consider that maybe you've just gotten lucky?
It's not that uncommon experience with Apple hardware. I hand my old Macs off to family members, and currently in the house are 2, 4, 8 and 10 year-old MacBooks.
Only thing wrong with any of them is that the 10 year old one only runs about 20 minutes off the charger.
That said, I do skip all the problem models (no butterfly keyboard switches, etc), and ~12 years ago I did need a logicboard replacement under AppleCare
The whole selling point of the Framework is easy upgrades, thanks to modularity. It is a laptop that’s designed to be your laptop for at least two or three upgrade cycles, which, for Apple, implies a new laptop.
> "It is a laptop that’s designed to be your laptop for at least two or three upgrade cycles, which, for Apple, implies a new laptop."
In all fairness, most Apple users are technically illiterate (hardware-wise). And running upgradeable machines to optimum efficiency necessitates running a redundant setup, e. g. the main bird and a compatible support unit, usually an older one, but capable enough to take over relatively seamlessly for a while, enable diagnostics, facilitate maintenance, and so on.
Most Apple users have only one computer, with their secondary machine the iPhone, itself a neutered simulacrum of a pocket computer, just good enough to do some basic outsourcing of troubleshooting, and to place an order for the next computer of course.
People who gravitate to Frameworks offerings, or similar machines, are just of a completely different mindset than the typical Apple customer. As evidenced by threads like this one. That's also one of the reasons why the F-12 was a misfire. You don't "half-ass" machines built for long-term support. And in this climate, an entry-level LTS machine that's supposed to become popular needed and needs a different approach. Which begins with the form factor.
Apple's upgrade cycle (for me) has moved from 4 years to ~6 years.
Maybe upgrading the RAM or HD could be useful, but wear and tear on all components is a bigger concern for me than just one. My laptop is a critical part of my life. I can't risk being out of service for a week while parts arrive.
Its like buying a car... you can repair and maintain it to 200k miles, but the reliability will go down as more things break. Or you can buy a brand new machine to reclaim your time.
Off topic but I think many models of cars, when properly maintained, have very predictable and good reliability.
I'm in the same category as dbg31415. I've owned mbps since 2007. Never had any serious issues with them. I kept them for about 4 years each, before upgrading. My 2021 m1 has at least another year left in it.
Certainly if you're in the 0.01% of Apple purchasers that just have a terrible experience (broken device, out of warranty, etc) and one of your largest purchases doesn't work the way you want it, then that is terrible.
but I think the vast majority of Apple users have a stellar experience.
The 0.01% number is a ridiculous exaggeration.
In a roughly 50 person company with refresh every 3 years, we send a macbook back for repair/replacement roughly three times a year. I would estimate that as a 2% hardware problem rate, 200x higher than what you quote.
2% is satisfactory for corporate use, by the way.
> That said the hardware is great, I run Asahi on another M1 MBP and Linux makes it the best laptop I've ever used.
I'm considering going this way on my M1 MBP. Is there anything you miss wrt. hardware compatibility?
Pro motion and battery life for me
+1 on battery life, though it has been improving: my idle battery usage is a lot better than a year ago.
Pro motion has been working for a while, you can get 120Hz now.
Is it possible to use M1's efficiency on Linux, i.e. is battery life comparable for you on Linux vs Mac?
Funny it’s the opposite for me. What if I want to switch between desktops of multiple users; easy with fast user switching, not really a thing in Linux (yeah I’m sure it can be hacked up, but bleh).
The biggest papercut preventing me from being productive on macOS is it's horrible window management which cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts like one does in WMs like bspwm and others on Linux and that absolutely insane ~500 ms delay in setting the focused window when moving between virtual desktops.
For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.
I'm stuck with macOS at work and these have also been the most painful parts of the experience for me. Luckily, I recently found Rectangle[0] and InstantSpaceSwitcher[1]. The former gives keyboard based arranging (though not focus; still just use cmd+tab for that) while the latter gives instant transitions between virtual desktops (including shortcuts for navigating directly to a target, rather than sliding over sequentially).
[0]: https://github.com/rxhanson/Rectangle
[1]: https://github.com/jurplel/InstantSpaceSwitcher
Recent discussion on the latter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47708818
> For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.
This is a very weird-sounding take to someone who has used Macs for three decades and recalls that for most of that time they never even had a full-screen mode.
Apple's desktop experience DNA is still, for better or worse, deeply anchored to spatial arrangement of partially-overlapping windows (or non-overlapping, if screen is big enough and window small enough), driven by mouse (Expose hot corners back in 2004 were basically the end-game after which they haven't made any new significant changes to this, and haven't had to). Their full-screen/single-app modes are IMO a weird half-baked Windows-maximize alternative.
But yes, it's a very mouse-oriented, single-desktop spatially-organized-and-layered world.
>> For some reason, Apple's ideal desktop experience is tailored around focusing on one application at a time. Which is certainly true for some workflows, but that's not me.
> This is a very weird-sounding take to someone who has used Macs for three decades and recalls that for most of that time they never even had a full-screen mode.
Sorry about that. I should've clarified better. What I meant was that Apple's opinion of an ideal desktop is closely matching a cluttered desk where only the owner knows the position of something and the focus shifts back and forth from one primary task to another task/interruption.
Edit: typos
Not sure I agree with this considering they have the double whammy of maximising giving you a new desktop, and also their default behaviour of shuffling your desktops to make sure you're disoriented.
The ideal desktop is a cluttered desk, where only the desk knows where it has stuck your tasks.
Not one window, but one application. Which is, yeah, about the worst of both worlds.
It is bizarro. With multi monitor sometimes I click windows and things don’t show. Dragging when more than one dialog is open is unpredictable. The corners are huge, even when maximized. Even the vaunted application bar is so weird - and windows is trying to copy it! Why can’t we use the entire bottom of the screen? Apps don’t show there anyway! You can’t get rid of it and replace it with something else? Just not allowed.
Stretch an app across two monitors? Not with that config! Display port? Oh no! Scaling cleanly? Never heard of it.
Seriously bad stuff. I’ve thought about writing a book with everything wrong with it. It’s bonkers.
>You can’t get rid of it and replace it with something else?
You can hide it. I rarely use it as I use a launcher.
> The corners are huge, even when maximized.
Upgraded to Mac OS 26?
> You can hide it. I rarely use it as I use a launcher.
Cmd+Space, type first letters of application name, enter.
I definitely use this, but if you want to navigate to specific window on an app, prepare to be annoyed.
MacOS doesn't really have a window manager, it has an app switcher, and a really inconvenient way to pick the context of your workspace.
Aerospace is excellent: https://github.com/nikitabobko/AeroSpace
Can’t imagine going back.
Interesting. I used to daily drive <https://github.com/asmvik/yabai> for almost a year until a major macOS update broke it and I just didn't have it in me to diagnose the issue. I'll bookmark this for future adventures, thanks!
> cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts
Yes, it can: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mac-window-tiling-i...
You can define additional shortcuts in Keyboard settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-keyboard-sho...
>> > cannot be traversed with keyboard shortcuts > Yes, it can: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/mac-window-tiling-i...
The first link is about arranging/tiling the windows. There are zero keyboard shortcuts to move the focus from the window on left to the window on right. It looks like someone used the equivalent of monitor codenames for keyboard shortcuts. Some operations don't even have a keyboard shortcut.
Additionally, while it does show how tiling is performed on macOS, tiling is not treated as a serious feature of the desktop. When "tiling" is used in context of window managers on Linux and BSDs, it implies that the windows are tiled automatically by the WM. It is done for several purposes, but ones that are important to me are:
1. Determinism (for the lack of a better word) of window placement. When I open n^th window, I know where to move my eyes. At the moment, this is arbitrary-ish on macOS. 2. Not having to tile every window manually. I only do this when I have a specific layout in mind. Default tiling behaviour can be configured by the WM's config file(s). At the moment, on macOS, I need to be explicit in tiling every window. 3. Keyboard oriented traversal between tiled windows. This is an extremely important part of a tiling WM. I can move my window or just the focus anywhere, without ever needing to reach for my mouse. Granted, I'm not a superhuman who can take advantage of this speed but I like control over my navigation of the desktop I am interacting with.
None of these are satisfied by macOS natively. Unless some app/plugin is used, which has no guarantee of working in future if Apple wishes to break something. On Linux, this is not the case, the WM is part of the desktop, even more so on Wayland.
> You can define additional shortcuts in Keyboard settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/create-keyboard-sho...
This is about setting keyboard shortcuts for custom actions for applications, not window traversal on the desktop. Something like Ctrl+Left and Ctrl+Right which moves the focus between virtual desktops, but for the current desktop, moving the focus between the windows. I am not aware of this being possible at the moment.
You can use Rectangle to get all that what you want in terms of tiling.
Moving between windows of the same app is cmd+~. Cmd-tab moves to another app, remaining on the same desktop if that has a window there.
The delay in focus can be reduced by turning off animations in “accessibility”.
Regardless, I’m with you on that everything is way more snappy on my Linux machine. Even if it’s running a “full” WM/DM like KDE.
> This is about setting keyboard shortcuts for custom actions for applications, not window traversal on the desktop.
The "All Applications" section lets you define global shortcuts. As long as there is a menu bar item for it (in this case, one from the Window menu) you can define a shortcut for it.
I've recently been given a MacBook for work for the first time and this was driving me crazy, thank you!
Now I just need to figure out how to make Word stick to these commands and not decide that right half of the screen means the right 3/4 of the screen.
I don't see moving a window to another desktop which, for a multi-desktop environment, seems far more basic than setting to the left or right.
I've always had to use 3rd party tools to achieve this.
Check spectacle app
Wow, this feature is so broken on macOS (I have a family shared Air M2) since at least a full decade that it's really not what I would have take as an example.
OTOH, switching users on Gnome or KDE login managers is flawless.
Pretty sure Linux has had this capability since the 90s.
Linux had this well before OS X
Does it still or was it another of the things cut in Wayland?
Do you and OP even know what you are referring to?
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Display_manager
Still does. On gnome you can switch via the lock screen.
I miss the 3D cube and the wobbly windows.
Install the plasma add-ons package if you're on KDE, I'm sure there's still something around for gnome too.
Burning windows away on close is my favorite
I’m so sad that Apple continues to push out excellent hardware with mediocre software.
Wish Asahi to be more successful.
It's funny how Apple has come full circle. Back in the 90s, when they were in deep crisis (before the second coming of Jobs), it was almost conventional wisdom that they should just stop selling hardware, and focus on their superior software. And here we are today when a lot of people lust for the hardware, but just can't deal with MacOS.
> And here we are today when a lot of people lust for the hardware, but just can't deal with MacOS
Are there actually a lot of such people? Linux-on-desktop users are certainly loud, but also extremely uncommon.
I'm a "Linux on Desktop" person, and the reason I use macOS on laptops is it's the best non-Linux OS which works great with Linux and comes with great hardware.
The funny thing is, I'm using macOS for ~20 years now, and there are "still" things which are way better on Linux. As a result, macOS is a laptop-only secondary OS for me.
I have a couple of Desktop computers both for work and personal use, and they run Linux exclusively, for 20+ years.
I'm sure a lot of the crowd that's using Windows as more than a browser OS would also find things to complain about. There's a ton of differences in how to do things at OS level, having to find other software, from time to time poor hardware support, different security mechanisms, being locked out of 80% of PC gaming by OS more than ARM... I guess the list could go on.
They're very loud online. If you hang out in any technology forum online, it feels like everyone is running Linux on their mac/Lenovo/Framework/etc.
No, but they are all on HN. And before that, Slashdot.
I switch between Linux and MacOS on a daily basis, and have been running Linux since Ubuntu Warty Warthog, and I don't get why people don't like MacOS. It's a fine OS and in some ways superior to Linux. And the Mac hardware is second to none. Power management alone is much better than Linux.
The thing about the framework 12 is that they are giving you an open device that is meant to be upgraded. The value of that is different to everyone, but to place it side by side hardware wise and try to compare it as if it is equivalent on the software side to the closed source bullshit Apple has on offer feels at the very least a false equivalency
That's cool. Can I upgrade the display? That seemed to be a very weak point for the Framework 12 (for me anyway).
I don't believe that they have (yet) released a new display for the 12. But the 13 has gotten several upgrades, and I think the 16 just got it's first. So, most likely eventually yes.
battery life is not only factor of the laptop. having moved from Linux (ran gentoo quite minimal...) to freeBSD default install makes my laptop last about twice or thrice as long.
the art of idle software and efficient energy consumption is not landed in windows and Linux takes too much work..
mac does it not too bad + having good batteries, but thats not to say a laptop with a lesser battery should be trashed by a bad OS.
mobile operating systems are usually much more tuned to being good with battery life. I suppose Linux and perhaps windows do not seem to have laptops as main target even for 'desktop' distros or versions.
> having moved from Linux ... to freeBSD default install makes my laptop last about twice or thrice as long.
I’ve literally never heard this from anyone before, and I have to admit, I’m curious enough to try it for myself.
The last time I tried FreeBSD was 2001.
i am not sure why btw but i read some articles on here about software not being idle on background properly a lot of times (fancy terminals etc.). for me tho 'it just happens' because im unsure how to measure it precisely..
maybe my linux had a big or wrong setup u know, but it was running very lean. Freebsd runs about as lean tho.
cannot be bothered ofc to go back and measure it is some hp-elitebook withh a ryzen and iGPU in there.
If i run things like Claude it sucks my battery. But if i just run my editors code all day myself its all gd..use firefox as browser on both. other then that its x,i3,hx,rg,fd,fzf. thats about all i use..(so u see i hate it when any laptop empties soon.... i hardly use anything of it). usually i dont even open x/i3.
I run openbsd on an old latitude and that tracks. I mostly have only application active at a time. The others are idling. I believe on Linux, especially with DE, there’s always some polling or scanning going on.
I think the Framework 13 is something that completes reasonably with a MacBook Pro.
I don't have one but would consider a Ryzen AI based one instead of a MBP. The Intel based ones have upgradable RAM and Mac-competetive battery life on Linux. The shared RAM on the Ryzen is useful for local AI though.
Is it feasible to run Linux on the Apple hardware? Seems like that could meet your requirements, except possibly "align with my values." I saw https://asahilinux.org/ but don't know how usable it is, or whether the long battery life and hardware support is preserved.
I love the Asahi project and I'll probably keep my oldest M-series Mac around to continue to play with Asahi. But even for the oldest Macs it supports, the feature list is not quite complete. The way Apple does a lot of things is bespoke and involves a different division of labor between firmware and operating system than conventional UEFI systems. It's hard to support. I don't want to be required to wait years for features like full support for Thunderbolt docks, and I also want to give my money to a company that proactively supports Linux (e.g., sending hardware to kernel developers, FreeDesktop graphics driver developers, DE maintainers, and distro maintainers in advance of the release of new products) rather than always buying used or giving my money to a company that merely tolerates Linux support.
Again, I love the ambition of the Asahi project and what they've done. They're impressive hackers, and thousands of people will doubtless get years of happy Linux life out of their work— maybe including me! I have no complaints for them, and no wishlist I want to bring to them. In fact, I think maybe I should send them a donation or a kind email or both upon their next release.
But I want to give the bulk of my financial support to a computer vendor who offers me first-class, day-1 support for software environments that make me feel happy and respected. The Asahi team can't turn Apple into that by themselves.
Every generation of Mac has its own requirements that Asahi has to support through a painstaking process of reverse-engineering, so it lags behind quite a bit. Realistically it will probably be 2030 before you can use it on any current-generation Mac.
The current leadership team at Asahi decided to prioritize upstreaming their existing work over reverse engineering on newer systems.
Given that you can score a used M1 Air for half the price of a new Macbook Neo (and have Linux be supported), it's an even better value compared to the Framework, for those who prefer Linux.
It's irritating to see it constantly recommended as a real option.
I think it's a feasible option I just can't use it for work because here's how that goes:
> "Hey can you remove MDM from this Macbook so I can install Linux?"
No.
> "Hey can I get a linux laptop for a hardware refresh?"
Sure.
Asahi on an M2 Macbook Pro supports almost everything https://asahilinux.org/fedora/#device-support
"Hey can you remove MDM from this Macbook so I can install Linux?"
Is there no MDM for Linux clients? How do the big tech companies with Linux developer machines (Google, Facebook, etc) manage their inventory? Do they roll their own MDM?
IT departments can mandate tools like ninjaone and kolide, which let them run queries across the fleet of devices, and (as I understand it) basically gives them root-level remote code execution.
The corporate VPN (or equivalent) can then perform 'posture checking' requiring that the tools be installed and working before connecting to the corporate network.
Obviously, 99% of Linux users have root on their device so nothing stops them wiping it and installing something new from scratch. But then they'll fail the posture checks until the device is returned to the approved setup.
Kolide admin provides a web UI for osquery so you can query things. It allows remote osquery queries but not remote code execution. You generally pair it with CrowdStrike Falcon.
Kolide does a spot check like "is falcon sensor running" but if the user logs in, has the session token created, and then disables whatever the session token would still be valid.
Also Kolide doesn't actually count as an MDM. Has a bunch of missing features. I recently evaluated it.
Almost everything, and that's already three generations behind.
I don't really need USB-C displays or Thunderbolt for my use case. The touch ID is easily replaced with a Yubikey.
Everything else just works. What is the problem?
Sounds great for you! What about everyone else?
Many people prefer to get new devices so that they can be covered by Apple Care. That completely removes Linux as an option because Asahi Linux never supports any of the recent models.
Many people don't care about Linux support in the first place. Generally these two groups are overlapping.
"Buy this computer, it's several generations behind and a bunch of stuff doesn't work" is not a ringing endorsement, even if it does work well enough for you.
I still do all my work on an M1 MBP ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That’s wonderful for you and apple.
What does Apple gain from this scenario?
Just to add, I also do my work from an M1 MacBook that I crammed Asahi onto. I got it used for a few hundred dollars last year and it's a perfectly fine experience (for me).
Same. If not for the required hardware refresh in our company I would have used it until it broke.
USB display support was demoed at a conference at the end of last year.
We’re already almost halfway through this year. A demo half a year ago isn’t shipped. This is like when Apple demos something at WWDC that doesn’t ship until 9 months later in spring the following year.
A patch set landed shortly there after.
https://asahilinux.org/2026/02/progress-report-6-19/
I believe it's what Linus Torvalds uses.
Fedora
https://www.reddit.com/r/Fedora/comments/1pb8lgz/linus_torva...
My info might be a few years old, but I think he uses it on his laptop machine.
https://lwn.net/Articles/903023/
"On a personal note, the most interesting part here is that I did the release (and am writing this) on an arm64 laptop. It's something I've been waiting for for a _loong_ time, and it's finally reality, thanks to the Asahi team. We've had arm64 hardware around running Linux for a long time, but none of it has really been usable as a development platform until now."
i've tried getting linux to run on a 2018 MB Pro (intel/nvidia based). Even after a ton of research and installing a couple "compatible-ish" distros, I couldn't get it to work, and gave up. And then further reading suggested I was always going to live with a semi-bricked machine. I just wanted a simple writing and couch surfing laptop. But the version of MacOs running on that old hardware is so slugish, it's painful.
A Fedora live USB should just boot on an Intel MBP (maybe you have to hold Alt? Don't remember). Then you can install it to disk. I was happily running Linux on a 2015 model until recently, still a good machine for most things.
You may have more luck with Omarchy - apparently they test against most Intel Mac based models.
I would happily jump ship for any competitor that offers solid AI inference benchmarks at a competitive power efficiency, but as far as I can tell Apple owns that market by a pretty big margin. I’m sure someone will point out if I’m wrong.
Ryzen AI are competitive with Macs in absolute and power efficiency terms. There is a Framework 13 with them I believe.
Humans own inference power efficiency by a much bigger margin
Owning a human is much more problematic, and anyway a human’s peak efficiency might be higher, but humans have to sleep and take breaks so overall probably not.
Humans also tend to hallucinate a lot, but it’s not polite to use that word for them. With humans we say they were wrong, because offending a human reduces performance and you can’t reset their contexts.
I just have a desktop at home that I run inference off of. It is a great setup and I don't find myself wanting to inference models directly on my laptop.
That’s what I would do too, but I haven’t found a desktop build that can rival a Mac Mini or Mac Studio on performance per watt. I haven’t looked super hard, but it seems like Mac is in a different ballpark.
I mean, once it's a desktop, watts are pretty cheap, so it's a bit strange to optimize on that factor for the desktop form factor. For laptops it makes a ton of sense.
I love Windows Arm. My latest machine, an Asus Zenbook A16 is great. 18 core Snapdragon X2 extreme, 48 GB of memory, and OLED screen--all for $1699. It feels very fast, faster than my 24-core Xeon desktop (though benchmarks would put my Xeon ahead) and has great "all-day" battery life.
You can remove the screws on the bottom and replace the battery (which is screwed in, too, no glue to peel) or the M.2 NVME which is enough "servicability" for me....
You should try Linux on it someday, to really see what the CPU can do, night and day difference :)
With that said, I'd probably prefer a Windows laptop over a MacBook too, their hardware is great, but the software is just so awful. But whatever you do, don't get Microsoft's hardware, I got a Surface Pro 8 some years ago and throughout my ~25 years of computing I've never had a worse laptop, and just 2-3 weeks after the warranty went out, the entire machine bricked itself during an update and it no longer boots at all, basically threw 1500 EUR into the sea with nothing to show for it.
last time I tried Linux on ARM (a month ago) nothing worked.
No sound, no webcam, no USB-C(iirc) and no video hardware acceleration.
It was a Thinkpad T14s with Snapdragon Elite X-2 if it matters.
Had a similar issue and just pointed codex at my laptop and it got everything working.
Same. By the time I got back it had even upstreamed a few device drivers to mainline Linux, all on its own.
how'd you do that when wifi and USB wasn't working?
I got a Surface Pro 7 soon after it was released and it was really great for the price. A good size to work on, decent battery, and actually worked well as a 2-in-1 device. The keyboard was a bit flimsy but still good enough for on-the-go work. Ran Windows on it for a few years then installed Linux and made it be a manager for my media setup, still working fine today.
Unfortubately Qualcomm killed open source support efforts for Snapdragon X*
When did that happen?
In March on Github and their Discord server.
https://github.com/qualcomm/fastrpc/issues/193
https://www.reddit.com/r/linux_gaming/comments/1ryv59a/qualc...
This is not super popular Macbook hardware so chances that someone will reverse engineer their firmware are very small.
>I was seduced by Apple Silicon after experiencing the exceptional battery life and performance.
DHH showed the Framework laptops with latest Intel Panther Lake SoCs having similar battery life to AS Macs (~14 hours) under Omarchy linux while gaming benchmarks put their iGPUs in line or better than AMD's Ryzne SoCs at gaming.
The era of long battery life being the USP feature exclusive to Macbooks is slowly going away, especially if AMD pulls a similar move and heats up the competition.
Once the chip shortage from AI datacenters bubble pops, we could see even better SoCs from Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm and Nvidia could join the ARM laptop battle in a serious way.
X86_amd64 + Linux let's goooo!
The (memory) chip shortage saga is not going away for a few years. Most fabs are going to be capacity starved. Apple will happily pony up billions to TSMC to set up a new plant in exchange for exclusive capacity. No other laptop manufacturer can do this. This will put them in an even more advantageous position. In all honesty, the Neo couldn’t have arrived at a better time for them.
TSMC doesn't do memory.
AMD actually got access to TSMC 2nm before Apple: https://www.amd.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2025-4-14-amd...
I was commenting specifically on this bit:
> Once the chip shortage from AI datacenters bubble pops, we could see even better SoCs from Intel, AMD, and even Qualcomm and Nvidia could join the ARM laptop battle in a serious way.
EPYC (the 2nm AMD chip being produced at TSMC Arizona) is still going to support the datacenter demand, not consumer devices. You and I are still screwed. Apple is the only behemoth, IMO, that wields significant power against other trillion dollar companies. Not Acer, not HP, not even Dell (I don’t think). This is my personal opinion, I don’t have specific facts at hand to back it. Just a strong intuition.
But hey, govts might step in at some point and say - we need to put a cap on how much supply data-centres can buy. Since computers and phones are the backbone of modern society. There may be some rationing happening down the line.
Also, a completely new fab takes up to five years to come online. The best bet is investing in increasing throughput of existing RAM plants, but that isn’t fast either. The other is buying RAM from Chinese suppliers which are less oversold (but not much, and not for long anyway).
Now they need to work on a fanless option. It would be nice to have at least one SKU be a silent machine with no moving parts.
That, in the x86 universe, has some heavy penalties in performance terms. I got myself a fanless “student” laptop (another name for “rugged”, but sells for less) and, while performance is acceptable, it ain’t fast - like a 10 year old i3.
I don’t think performance matters much to a lot of people. Look at how well the Neo is selling and it’s running what is essentially a phone SOC.
Forget about raw FLOPs and focus on performance per watt. Computers have been fast enough for most people for a decade now.
As nice as Apple's hardware is it's all undermined by who they are as a company, intentionally limiting their devices more and more while they relentlessly argue in courts and to regulators that we owe them more and more for using our devices.
Rosetta 2's retirement announcement was when I realized I won't buy another Mac, I'm not interested in a computer that is preoccupied with stopping me from running software. Work can buy them for me but I won't spend my money on a platform like that anymore.
Depending on how their Supreme Court argument goes in a few weeks I will stop buying an iPhone too, if they establish the precedent that any method of paying for Netflix deserves a $5/month fee then they will leverage that to extract the same fee everywhere else.
That is all true but even as a hardcore Linux and Thinkpad user, I have to admit it is a hard sell when no one can offer the quality of Apple.
Apple is the only hardware company where you can buy a product and it is good hardware wise. Sure other companies have flagship offerings but with apple you get a really good base model.
And that is where it breaks down for me. Pay 20% more for freedom? Yes, absolutely. But pay more for much worse? Yeah, not many people are going to be so idealistic.
I don't know why no one else can produce a laptop with decent battery life with an near silent fan and good display and overall great production quality. Yes, it is much easier when you are as big as apple and can rely on economics of scale but that doesn't totally explain the lack of quality when it comes to the competition.
I think that people aren't seeing what Apple is doing through the lens of efficiency, and the wider impact that has on their software and hardware.
Them not having to support 30+ year old software means that they can be more nimble and make better hardware choices.
Look at the mess that Microsoft has made for itself by setting the requirement that software made in the 90s must still run on modern OSs and hardware. It's bonkers and is slowly killing the company.
> Look at the mess that Microsoft has made for itself by setting the requirement that software made in the 90s must still run on modern OSs and hardware. It's bonkers and is slowly killing the company.
Forcing people to create a MS account to log in their Windows computer, that's because of backward compatibility?
Pushing Copilot absolutely everywhere, that's because of backward compatibility?
GitHub being down almost daily, that's because of backward compatibility?
As a counter-point, look at WINE on Linux and Crostini's containerized software on ChromeOS, clearly it is possible to support varied software without over-complicating the OS. And that's what Rosetta 2 does as well, if it's held Apple back the last 6 years it hasn't shown at all.
It will be very surprising if we see any benefits from cutting Rosetta 2, especially worth gutting all the games and software this has empowered via Steam/WINE/CrossOver.
At this point cutting Rossetta 2 is probably to force the laggards like Sonos to start supporting Apple Silicon.
The way Windows implements backwards compatibility is not sustainable in the long term, as it increases both maintenance costs and attack surface, but the current state of Windows and its dwindling appeal has little to do with it and more with poor design decisions, and a competition that has made better design choices. Linux has been a viable desktop for years, and Macs have been the gold standard against which everyone is judged since the 1980s.
Windows still owns the corporate drone desktop, but, oddly enough, that’s now being served as a VDI through a Linux thin client.
I disagree completely. Backwards compatibility has precisely nothing to do with why Windows is terrible nowadays.
And that's also entirely orthogonal to hardware - the hardware battle between ARM Mac and ARM PC is really a battle between Apple and Qualcomm (Apple won).
In hindsight, rather than relying on Snapdragon, Microsoft should have started designing their own high-efficiency ARM SoCs 15 years ago like Apple did. But I mean, everything is clear in hindsight isn't it.
I've been using an asus zenbook 14 OLED with linux. Compatibility is great.
The screen blows apple out completely. It's clearly, obviously better. The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple. The keyboard feels better to type on, the trackpad is slightly worse, but not enough to annoy me.
The new Pop OS cosmic is a very fun OS concept for laptops with the autotiling workspaces as a fundamental primitive.
Is the fan turning on often? Is it very loud?
From my research on Macbook alternatives only the Zenbooks looked like almost-an-even-match to me. Curious what's your experience with day-to-day fan noise and heat.
I know someone with a modern Zenbook and it sounds like a jet engine at all times, battery life is awful too.
From a quick search online, the max brightness of your laptop is 400 nits SDR and 500 HDR. My M5 MacBook Pro is 1000 and 1500 nits.
Screen brightness is not something I will compromise on after having a taste of greatness.
I personally wouldn't mind spending 30-40% more for a Linux laptop with similar qualities + repairability. But I will not settle for something much more expensive and worst in some aspects.
There are also arguments agains repairability in Framework's laptop. I did the calculations and for the Framework 16, it would be cheaper to buy a gaming Asus laptop and throw it out in a couple years to replace it versus buying a framework and upgrading it. Utter insanity.
The Framework philosophy was never that it was going to be cheaper.
The Macbook Neo is about 500 nits but I'd bet the Asus laptop was more than $600 base.
Looks like the Framework laptops depend on model/screen, between 4-500 but with the new 13 pro hitting 700 nits. For a user replaceable screen, and backwards compatibility (I think), that's pretty solid.
> The fan noise and battery life are worse than Apple.
That's the main issue for me. I am on M1 Max 32GB RAM. Except for local LLMs, there is absolutely nothing that gets even close to the performance limits of this device. As a result, all the work I do is performed in perfect silence. Very occasionally the device would get warm, never hot. Based on my usage, I could probably go for an Air model, except for how many external screens it supports.
Zero-noise is non-negotiable for me. It's lamentable how absolutely no-one comes even close.
> I don't know why no one else can produce a laptop with decent battery life with an near silent fan and good display and overall great production quality.
Isn't that the whole reason why Apple is the company it is? Steve Jobs wanted to control the software AND the hardware. That hasn't changed, they're still the only one really. That does get you some benefits
> you get a really good base model.
Why does it matter to _you_ in particular that the base model is good ?
For a decade buying macs I never got the base model, I switched to the Asus ROG series and a Surface Pro, and again I'mm not on the base model of either.
I get that MacBooks are very good volume purchases and excellent value for those right in the target, but IMHO that's not the people writing in this thread.
I'm also not a fan of the "winner takes it all" view, customers should care about their very specific needs and do their research, it shouldn't matter that some product matches 80% of other people's needs if it doesn't fit them.
Base model used to mean glorified toy with severely compromised fundamentals. The Macbook Neo is not that. It is an excellent screen, excellent keyboard, and excellent silicon, encased in an excellent chassis.
As a remote work terminal / casual computing system, the compromises are IMHO almost entirely psychological.
> glorified toy
> remote work terminal / casual computing
I'm having a hard time grasping the difference
ThinkPad X1 from 2 years ago was very solid and under Fedora everything but camera worked out of the box. And for camera issue I had to blame myself for not checking details of a specific model as Lenovo was offering at that time fully-Linux compatible model. It took about one and halve year before Linux fully supported it. And I already upgraded SSD on it which took less than 10 minutes.
The only complain is bad battery life. With several VMs running mostly idle it doesn’t lasts even two hours. But then I used beefy MacBook M2 at my previous work and with VMs it lasted only 4 hours.
This is a common dilemma.
Apple's phones and laptop are 100 % the best in the market, but Apple is a terrible evil company - the walled garden stuff, the "you don't really own your device" stuff, the normalization of enshittification (removing headphone jack, nonreplaceable glued batteries, not giving charger with $1000 laptop, ...) that other manufacturers followed, the gold statue Cook gave Trump as a bribe.
But not just Apple. Teslas are the best electric cars on the market - but Musk got Trump elected, literally killed millions of people with his DOGE and did Sieg Heil on stage (twice, so we don't miss it). Or Garmin - objectively the best sport and adventure watches on the market, but evil anti-consumer planned obsolescence policies. You could go on.
I guess the choice is, am I willing to "suffer" (as much as using inferior product is suffering anyway) to not support these people? Or is my comfort mire important than doing the right thing?
And I'm not just being preachy - I have aging M1 macbook, aging Garmin watch and an aging ICE car and I spend few last months pondering. It's easy to prioritize comfort. Or I'm just being a whiny bitch.
(Funnily enough, for phones the dilemma really isn't there - you have just choice of Apple or Google having all your data and no matter how bad Apple is, Google is orders of magnitude worse.)
And that device is the Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 OLED. The paper specs are great, all that's required is to turn it into a fully fleged Linux laptop and get rid of ChromeOS and core boot entirely. I just got hibernate working on it last night, wifi, sleep and sound and the fingerprint sensor works. There's some more polish and tuning to be done, but this'll be the machine I move off my apple silicon laptop for.
Apple hardware is only perfect when looked at through rose tinted glasses. The whole butterfly keyboard issue should be enough to indight them from being seen as perfect with hardware. There's a reason Applecare exists, and it's not just because of accidental spills.
But Rosetta was always meant to be just a temporary compatibility bridge. Surely you too would consider it kind of crazy if they were today, still, pouring time into maintaining Rosetta 1 for people wanting to run PPC software on macOS/x86. The first Arm build of macOS is now 6 years old, and when Rosetta 2 is ultimately removed from macOS in late 2027 it will have been available to us for close to 8 years. That's a pretty generous amount of time given to us to move forward.
The work is done. Why not just leave it in? Or FOSS it so the community maintains it, like WINE?
Microsoft maintains backward compatibility seemingly forever and it means a lot more complexity, more surface area for vulnerabilities, and critically that they are unable to ever get developers to buy-in to any new ideas. Developers know their current app will keep working, so why bother with the re-write? Then due to the lack of adoption, they kill the project and try something else. I believe this to be one of the core reasons why Apple is able to successfully launch in areas that Microsoft has routinely failed.
It’s been 6 years. If anything hasn’t been updated by now, it’s either been abandoned or the developer needs a hard deadline. There are various programs out there where I question if it’s been abandoned. Periodic exercises like this help make it clear.
Maintenance ain't free and letting one of the core elements of OS to be developed by community could lead to undesirable outcomes (ranging from battery/perf impact to introduction of some new bugs or esoteric workarounds). Consistency in codebase and software is important, especially for bigger companies.
Far too many companies aren't willing to embrace newer paradigms/toolchains/software on the principle - if it works don't touch it or inventing some wild workarounds. I think in the end it's for good
Apple wants everything to be consistent. I have mixed feelings on it, because I do greatly despise windows, partly because of how inconsistent everything is. It’s chock full of half finished “migrations”. Like, programs still installing to “Programs Files (x86)” Which doesn’t matter but adds the tiniest bit of friction.
I think only 32bit apps install there. Ideally there is a 64bit version that continues forward. This is mostly an issue for me with enterprise/etc software I support at work. A key system I just moved to Server 2022 (on prem and Azure VMs) is 32-bit and still uses 32bit ODBC. It's a great app for our need. Just, still 32bit...
The intent is only 32 bit apps get installed there, but there are a few problems in practice. Dunno why you're currently downvoted about it though.
The first is needing to know whether the app was 32 bit or not is sort of the main annoyance with that itself.
The second is not every app follows this rule correctly, for whatever reason.
The third is there isn't a clear path for mixed apps, e.g. Steam. On Windows, Steam is still a mix of 32 bit and 64 bit components, so there isn't really a "clean place for it to go. You could have one option of putting Steam in one or the other and then mixing 32/64 bit apps in that folder & you have the other option of duplicating things, moving the initial problem an extra directory level deeper. 3b is that Steam installs the games under its folder, and the games you can install can be 32 bit, 64 bit, or a mix - duplicating the problem yet again. Until the start of this year, Steam still supported 32 bit Windows and, therefore, you could also have 16 bit games be installed.
There were reasons to do the split in the early 2000s but holding on to each decision like this for decades after seems to cause more pain than it ends up avoiding.
... and this is how Apple proves it doesn't give a shit about gaming on their platform again ...
Forcing developers off of Rosetta 2 is a pro-consumer move because it gives the ultimate incentive for developers to modernize. I don’t want to use Lightroom (replace with whatever app is part of your workflow) through x86 emulation, I want Apple to bitch slap Adobe into porting it to native. Microsoft will be forced to expend resources to support x86 emulation for all of eternity.
Apple throwing their weight around in a pro-consumer way (Rosetta, ask app not to track) is why I use their devices
> I want Apple to bitch slap Adobe into porting it to native. Microsoft will be forced to expend resources to support x86 emulation for all of eternity.
I don't understand how you can say that Apple is more pro-consumer than Microsoft here, considering that Microsoft guarantees that no matter whether the vendor is unwilling, out of business, dead, or otherwise unavailable, you can still run your software. Apple says you need to go find someone to put tens to hundreds of man-hours into updating software from god-knows-when, and if you can't do that, you can just go fuck yourself.
You say yourself, Microsoft is willing to put in the work to ensure that their customers will be able to run their binaries forever. Apple spits in your face and you thank them for it.
1. A ton of software won't get updated even with customers losing access to stuff they bought in the Apple app store. I've been through this multiple times with Apple where existing software is just suddenly unavailable to those who’d installed it.
2. Consumers losing the choice to use apps they bought or downloaded is not pro-consumer (if they want to continue getting OS security patches etc). As you said, it's a conscious choice by Apple to cause customers to lose access to software they'd bought etc, as Microsoft’s approach allows us to still use software from multiple decades ago.
(I’d gotten a piece of paid software from the iOS + iPad app store in 2011. I lost access a few years later during another Apple change.)
3. However, I think you're right that we will see more and more companies cause customers to lose access to existing software, features, etc that customers had bought, but similarly frame it as a good thing, forcing ‘modernization’, etc.
If you’re worried about OS security patches, shouldn’t using software that hasn’t been updated in 6 years be of similar concern?
I’m not arguing that software needs to be updated every 2 weeks, as is the trend now. However, 6 years, when there have been major architectural changes and UI changes. At some point the software should be deemed abandoned and it’s time to find something new.
Even a simple update to support the M-series chips means the dev is still around and can release updates, even if there have been no other feature updates in 6 years as its finished software. The occasional sign of life on finished projects is helpful.
Apple dropping 32-bit support resulted in me losing access to 3/4 of my Mac Steam library. Not every piece of software is built with an endless update treadmill in mind, no matter how much Apple would like to force the developers into one with their breaking changes and developer program subscription.
This would result in people losing access to a bunch of software just so Apple could shrug and shift the blame elsewhere. Because in the mind of an Apple fan, nothing is ever Apple’s fault.
> Rosetta 2's retirement announcement was when I realized I won't buy another Mac, I'm not interested in a computer that is preoccupied with stopping me from running software.
This is the 3rd time this has happened in roughly 2 decades by the way.
ppc/ppc64 -> x86_64 x86_64 -> x64 only x64 -> arm64
I much prefer Apple just forcing the developers to update their apps. Perhaps it’s just me though.
Continue to support obsolete hardware just cause doesn’t make any sense. Apple had to move on just like they had to move away from Motorola, IBM and Intel. Apple also had to move away from AMD and Nvidia, Broadcom, and probably Qualcomm, and with the current memory crisis, Apple may have to take memory in house too. Many of the moves were done not because they wanted to, but because they had to.
When is reasonable to stop supporting a platform that only hinders the user experience? Should they have supported PPC emulation forever? x86 is on the way out in for most consumer devices. Apple is usually a bit early to drop technologies, but still acknowledges and fixes real mistakes (USB-C-only laptops and the associated keyboards) when they impact customer experience.
> When is reasonable to stop supporting a platform that only hinders the user experience?
When people who care about it can carry on the torch.
Dropping support wouldn't matter if anyone outside of Apple could keep it alive instead, or if Rosetta 2 users could stay on the last supported OS and keep their devices secured through community patches etc.
> USB-C-only laptops
I think it's hilarious that Apple managed to get criticised for being both too early AND too late with USB-C.
To be fair, they were criticized a lot for dropping the 30-pin connector and going to Lightning too. At the time they said they designed Lightning to last 10 years (about how long 30-pin lasted), because they knew how disruptive a port change is with all the accessories people have. It lasted from 2012-2023, 11 years. So they made good on their promise.
> Should they have supported PPC emulation forever
Yes.
Linux hasn't even bothered continuing supporting processors in the same family, dropping support for 386:
* https://www.zdnet.com/article/good-bye-386-linux-to-drop-sup...
and more recently, 486:
* https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/linux-devs-start...
and here we are expecting support for completely different CPU classes. :)
Supporting very old hardwares and supporting less than a decade old softwares are two very different things.
Supporting everything forever is how you end up with Windows
Here I was thinking the problem with Windows was the dog-slow RAM hogs the team replaced most of the core applications with so they could serve web ads in the launcher and OS chrome. Silly me, the real problem with Windows is that it can run old apps if you still have the exe kicking around.
Windows did not even support Final Fantasy 7 between two versions due to their broken Direct X design. Let's bury that turkey; just because there are compelling blog posts doesn't mean they are a legitimate reflection of Microsoft.
As a customer I expect my software to work, permanently. Don't expect me to cry for the richest companies in the world.
Windows has many flaws, being able to run any binary made in the past 30 years is not one of them.
They had the classic environment. They could have kept that going.
Business decision, pure and simple. Value added and risk of people not moving forward was not worth the cost to them. They were also way smaller at the time than today, though the iPod had taken off.
I’m fine with them eventually dropping support for things. Some things I think they do too early.
Microsoft HAS to keep supporting stuff forever. That’s their bread and butter. Line of business apps. If they drop support businesses lose THE reason to stay with them.
It’s far less of an issue for Apple. And people do leave because of it. But not enough. It’s also one of the reasons (of many) they’re not very popular in business.
> They had the classic environment. They could have kept that going.
Not for long. The Classic environment depended on the system having a PowerPC CPU - it would not have run on Intel systems. (Rosetta translation would not have been applicable.)
I know it didn’t last long. But why do you say Rosetta wouldn’t have worked?
For essentially the same reason that Rosetta 2 can't be used to run Windows - they're userspace JIT translators, not system-level emulators. The Classic Environment was, for all intents and purposes, an entire virtualized PowerPC system running Mac OS 9, and allowed software running inside it to do some pretty wild things like patching system "trap" routines, writing graphics directly to the framebuffer, or even setting breakpoints in and handling exceptions from other applications.
The Classic environment depended on the system having a PowerPC CPU.
You think the worst thing about windows is one ofnthe best things about windows?
Not really, Apple was doing something right at that point they got almost everything from classic to OSX, ppc to Intel, from 32bit to 64bit, x86 to ARM.
I used it through all of that and really at no point was it feeling forced and the only one with real friction was classic mode the rest felt seamless.
They must have just been doing something right with dev relations and community.
Although I will say now a lot of people don’t seem to care with keeping up with far less extreme random iOS hurdles.
You mean, being able to run binaries from 25 years ago? Yes, please!
Apple moved ahead with thunderbolt five should they keep thunderbolt four? Moving to thunderbolt five is necessary if you want to drive more information to a 5K or 6k monitor or any other peripheral.
> x86 is on the way out in for most consumer devices.
Define "consumer devices"? I am holding on to my AMD Ryzen machines until they literally fall dead. I have no complaints from them. Maybe some modern or even next-gen ARM CPUs will be even better on Linux but I don't think we are quite there yet.
x86_64 is here to stay for a long time still.
But maybe you literally meant x86 as in the 32-bit CPU arch? If so, I'd mostly agree but not quite; they could be used in low-power micro-PCs for a long time still as well.
Right, I mean, like Jeff's content but it sort of felt like he was metaphorically "punching down" in this video.
Of course Apple can make a relatively cheap mass produced device that can outcompete on price / spec -- they've been making iPads for almost two decades now. They just threw a keyboard on one and changed the bootloader to boot OSX. Good for them. 20 years of R&D paid off for one of the largest and most valued and profitable companies in the world.
If I want a relatively cheap machine I can actually run Linux (or for other people, Windows) on, or can upgrade or repair... Apple is not in the running.
The other day i saw a slick scifi movie and really liked the interface in one of the random background terminals. I thought id recreate a working version of it. I snapped a screenshot on my iphone where i was watching, but lo it was blacked out? Same after several attempts. Ugh fine, go to my macbook, fire up netflix in a browser there, screenshot from desktop. Nope. Still blacked out.
Its not just older architecture we are losing out on.
Is this just "Person discovers DRM, c. 2026" dressed up as a complaint about Apple?
That's a bit disingenuous isn't it? Being unable to use any screenshot tool to capture an image on my laptop's browser was surprising to me, yes. Or are you arguing that Apple's implementations are no more restrictive than on any linux machine, so as such there is no case to be made for anything DRM related that a non-Apple device is superior (less limiting) in any way? Or... I suppose what is your actual argument here?
This is the same on anything with DRM. You can watch content without DRM and you’ll be limited to 720p but you can take screenshots.
I don’t like it either but it has nothing to do with Apple.
No I don't think it's disingenuous – indeed, it seemed to me that you were being disingenuous. My actual argument is that you're confusing Netflix's use of DRM for "Apple's implementation," without acknowledging that you'd have this exact same problem on Windows and Android devices. That Linux doesn't have it is just testament to the fact that hardly anyone, comparatively speaking, actually uses Linux as a daily driver (and, notably, Netflix doesn't let you watch high definition video on Linux anyway).
No DRM on my machine. You must be holding it wrong?
Only if you are solely an Apple user, because it's literally not a problem anywhere else. I've taken tons of photos of movies with my Pixels.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AndroidQuestions/comments/5biobx/is...
My Pixel 8a also blocks screenshots of DRM content. The analog hole remains gaping: pause the movie on your MacBook, and take a picture of the screen with your iPhone.
Bought the Framework 12 as my personal daily driver (limited hobby projects, Obsidian, light browsing) and for the hardware to grow with my use cases.
So even if I could get more bang for my buck with a Neo (yeah, I could), the tinkerability and repairability win over raw specs for what I actually use it for. Did I pay more for a less polished, less powerful machine? Yep. Is it enjoyable to use and fully capable of meeting my requirements? Yep.
Came to bikeshed but the video was more nuanced and fair than this title.
> Came to bikeshed but the video was more nuanced and fair than this title.
Same here. It isn't hard to justify buying something like the Framework 12 in principle.
I have bought multiple Framework computers and I continue to be a fan, not because it is the best in any single category. It is because I want computers to be bought and sold in the vision that the Framework folks seem to have.
When I purchase a Framework I'm not purchasing a single computer. I'm buying a laptop-of-Theseus that I can continue to use throughout the future. When parts get broken, or a fancy new part is better, I buy the parts and upgrade it rather than buy a whole new device.
I also run an operating system that is publicly developed and available.
You won't see these things on a spec sheet or influencer demo.
I've never bought a new laptop in my life, and I have a Framework 13 Pro on preorder because it's the only new laptop I will ever need to buy.
When I did my research, I found that Framework costs more than the competition across the entire stack, but it's by a fixed amount, $150 give or take. That's maybe a 7% premium for a high-end laptop, but a 30% premium at the low end. Obviously the price gap vs a Neo is even wider.
The question is whether that price gap arises from a fixed cost inherent to better product design, or if it's just the cost of Framework's smaller scale. I tend to think it's the latter.
Precisely this. It's not the fastest machine, but it's not the slowest, and that's more than adequate for other factors to tip the scale.
And I VERY much want to encourage this approach. Laptops COULD be as modular as desktops, and they've proven it with a real machine, not a toy, not a gimmick, not a compliance-car. A genuinely useful piece of hardware that I've been daily-driving for almost 2 years now.
I very much believe in putting my money where my mouth is.
Would I go back to another laptop? Well, if someone else starts making motherboards that'll drop into this chassis, I'd consider it...
> repairability
I would actually rate Neo having higher repairability. It is simply much better design and built even from a repair point of view. Speaker, Keyboard and Battery are the most common thing for repairing. It is only RAM and SSD that is better, but that is a different set of trade offs with performance and battery usage compromise.
> Speaker, Keyboard and Battery are the most common thing for repairing
All of which are famously nightmarish repairs on Macbooks, and line-replacable on Frameworks.
I think you're alone in this regard, I'd trust the Framework 8 days out of the week.
This is the same reason I bought my Framework 13. For the same price/less could I have bought a nice MacBook? Yes, but Framework's mission is something I wanted to support and it's an exciting product. I'm still very happy with my purchase.
You could get 4 Lenovo X280 if you just need an overpowered notepad.
Yeah, or a Macbook Neo! No need to disparage other people's use cases.
The point of the Framework is to run Linux, and not to be part of Apple's ecosystem. I don't want my computer to update itself without my permission, report telemetry to Apple, upload anything to any "cloud" or request that I log into something. If you don't think this is a big deal, wait until an age or identity verification law is passed somewhere, and Apple will enforce it against your will, on the computer that you bought and thought that you owned.
Absolutely, and this is also a big deal for longevity of your purchase. I have an iMac from 2012 and it's a beautiful piece of reliable hardware, with a beautiful screen. However, the software is stuck on some version of macOS from years ago and so more and more applications are refusing to install. It's on life support with Firefox ESR and MacPorts (just recently — was on Homebrew). And it works fine for browsing and some light FOSS gaming. Not if Apple had their way though! They think it ought to be in the dump and I should have bought something else by now.
Well, I have a Framework 13 also, running Linux, and despite the hardware being from 2022, it's all current software. And it will continue to be, practically as long as I wish it.
So, yes, if we want to talk about value (like the author of the article), where is the value when some capricious corporation decides when you are done with your computer?
While I don't dispute that Apple might or might not exploit its users via software, I believe some more credit is due to a company that can produce a piece of hardware like a personal computer that runs so smoothly after 14 years that its owner complains that more software updates should still be shipped to the device. I do not know of any other device that I could but as a consumer that would last that long. The framework laptops might be an exception, but they most definitely still need to prove it.
> I do not know of any other device that I could but as a consumer that would last that long.
Are you serious? I literally have piles of 15+ year old x86 and PowerPC laptops that have perfectly functional hardware but no software support.
That iMac should easily run Linux, why not install it? Also I don’t know what else to call hardware that’s still working great 14 years later except for longevity…
> I have an iMac from 2012
> Well, I have a Framework 13 also, running Linux, and despite the hardware being from 2022
Please be sure to add a comment in 2036 on how your Framework/Linux experience worked out.
My thinkpad x61 from 2007 runs the latest Ubuntu and software
edit: and has the same amount of ram as the mac neo.
1024x768 low-dpi display, Core 2 Duo, etc
"Runs" doing some lifting here.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.
> The point of the Framework is to run Linux
Until recently they've been almost as second-class-Linux-to-Windows as say Dell, but perhaps you just meant 'non-macOS'?
(For example, I'm currently struggling to get my early-days pre-ordered 11th gen Intel BIOS updated from v3.07 without a) the official Windows updater; b) modifying the supplied firmware on the instruction of AI or stranger third-parties in unmerged PRs/GH issues.)
I'm just one datapoint, but my Framework 16 (bought a little over a year ago with no OS, has only ever had Linux installed on it) has never given me trouble with firmware updates. I've updated the BIOS twice, and other firmware, all through `fwupdmgr` with no issues. I bought the AMD chip rather than Intel, it's possible that that was why I had no issues, but I don't actually know.
I'd call that pretty recent :) – fwupdmgr wasn't supported (not as in 'you're on your own', but 'blobs not published to registry') until a few years ago. EFI shell update wasn't available early on. When I say I'm trying to, I'm actually struggling to establish if it's even possible without at least using Windows to jump to a certain version after which I can use EFI/fwupdmgr.
> I don't want my computer to update itself without my permission
Does this happen on MacOS? I don’t think I’ve experienced this.
They did once try forcing macOS 12 users to update to macOS 14, without asking for permission, and overriding any security prompts: https://eclecticlight.co/2024/02/12/can-you-avoid-a-forced-u...
This happened to me. I was able to notice it from network activity lights and stop it by disconnecting the network. Other people I know weren't so lucky.
I have a 2015 Air running El Capitain, never updated itself.
Just 2 days ago my MacBook closed all apps it could and tried to update from 26.3.1 to 26.5
I guess current version matters.
It’s most likely about the severity of the bugs they are fixing. I’m OK for my laptop to save my work and self upgrade if that closes a browser drive-by RCE vulnerability that could have hit me.
For an MDM managed computer (JAMF I know for sure), it can be configured that way per a company policy. I am not 100% sure of the answer for a computer not managed by JAMF as I have not experienced a forced update while using a non-MDM managed Mac in ~1.5 years of using a pre-owned M1.
An MDM device is not owned by the user. Of course you’re not going to have control over the device.
No.
They opt you in to it. Possibly repeatedly. But you’re never fully forced.
I realize that’s far from ideal, but as a home user you do have control still.
Staying updated is part of “the Apple way”. If you don’t like it, you’re in for a fight until your hardware loses update support.
Imagined issues.
That's not the only point of Framework. It also has to be a good laptop, and priced well enough that its repair/upgrade story actually makes sense.
> The problem is, for an overall worse experience, are you willing to pay 20-40% more?
This is subjective. For me: yes. It buys me a lot, repairability and not being in the apple ecosystem are two things I value enough that it makes sense for me to go with Framework. It flips it to an overall better experience.
Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer.
They offer free trials which you can’t cancel without immediately ending the trial. (E.g., you can’t turn off auto-renewing without forfeiting the trial)
A device that has ads and/or behavioral pushes to subscription services and costs $500 doesn’t really cost $500.
If they're just advertising those things when I first buy it then my annoyance is somewhere between negligible and $10.
- "Let’s not forget that Apple advertises paid subscriptions in notifications and settings pane alerts when you first buy the computer."
I've literally never seen an advert outside of a 3rd party app or website on any Apple device I've owned (many).
I just switched to an iPhone and I don’t know how this could possibly be the case for you. I get them from a bunch of Apple apps and even in the settings app.
If you mean Fitness alerts and others, you can simply turn off your notifications for them. It takes 10 seconds to disable all notifications for apps.
When you buy a new Apple device it comes with a trial for Apple subscription services. My iPhone 17 Pro came with a News+ trial.
If I didn’t cancel it it would charge me.
There was no way to turn off auto-renew without forfeiting the remaining trial period, which is a dark pattern to encourage accidental payments.
Mac devices also encourage things like documents in iCloud directly in settings which encourage migration to paid services.
By default, Apple apps like Music have notifications for subscriptions.
It’s not at the level of Windows 11 but it’s there when you’re really looking for it. Notifications in the system settings are not always critical update type of stuff, they are often semi-promotional.
> If I didn’t cancel it it would charge me.
This is absolutely, completely false. Apple devices do not come subscribed to things that will charge you if you don’t cancel. Don’t be silly.
I explained poorly. What I mean is that if you accept the free trial, you’ll be billed if you forget to cancel.
That’s fine and normal, but what’s not as normal is that there’s no way to turn off auto-renew and keep your trial period. You either decide to cancel now and lose the rest of the trial or you’ve got to set a reminder to cancel.
The thing is, at different points Apple has offered free subscriptions between 3-12 months depending on their promotion. So it’s a pretty enticing trial depending on what’s being offered.
I love that Framework exists and I hope they succeed.
I have been recommending them to friends and family who are looking for Windows or Linux laptops, though with some reservations due to the problems with a couple of their models.
However I don't see the value in the Framework 12 over a MacBook Neo if someone isn't choosing by OS first. The $499 MacBook Neo is just so good for the price and so well built. The $499 price is the education price, which is relevant for the student in the story.
The upgradeability is a benefit of the Framework 12, but look at the premium you pay for that option: $799 versus $499 is a 60% premium paid up front. You could sell the MacBook Neo for $200 in a couple years and buy a next-generation MacBook Neo for probably a very similar financial to buying the Framework 12 and not upgrading it.
> if someone isn't choosing by OS first.
What a surprising idea! I have always and only ever chosen by OS first. Are there really a significant number of people willing to buy a computer with no concern for the type of software it will be able to run?
> Are there really a significant number of people willing to buy a computer with no concern for the type of software it will be able to run?
Most common software that typical buyers use is available on Mac or Windows: Web browsers, office software, maybe an e-mail client.
This is why Chromebooks are a viable option, too.
Even my software development workflows are mostly cross-platform when I think about it. I can run all of my IDEs and text editors on my Mac, Windows, and Linux computers.
> Most common software that typical buyers use is available on Mac or Windows
That's not how most people think. Most non-techies are either fluent with "how to use a Mac" or "how to use Windows" and they will just stick with that inertia.
For a lot of people, learning a new OS is an ordeal.
IDK. Until the Neo you basically didn’t have a choice unless you were in the $1k+ bracket, which is not where most machines are sold.
You could buy Windows, or a very cheap Chromebook that felt like it.
People in that $600-700 range have never had a choice like this.
People had plenty of options in the $600-700 range. If you really wanted a Mac and price was the only thing holding back, buy used.
Also possible that people have paid for licenses / apps and thus want to stay with the OS those will run on, instead of having to pay again (if it's even an option).
Which is probably why Apple is now selling to students at what appears to be below cost.
Besides, the Linux app is available for Windows - no need to run it bare-metal: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/install
Depends on how much control you want over the hardware. I find that laptop/desktop windows installs tend to force reboots when it might not be convenient and of course there the issue of unreliable software updates.
I'd much rather have Linux be in control of the hardware and run Windows as a VM on it.
Outside of tech professionals, yes.
It’s 2026 and what people don’t do in an app, they mostly do in a browser. An entire generation of “digital native” people are now adults who don’t even understand what a file system is, don’t understand folder structures, and don’t care what OS they run.
That said, having a computer that seamlessly integrates with their mobile device is a huge feature. So the MacBook neo not only being so affordable but fitting into the Apple ecosystem is a slam dunk for normal people
Most regular users do everything via the web, where there is little difference between the OSes. Gaming is the only thing that comes to mind where regular users notice a dramatic difference.
What type of software will you not be able to run? Your browser will work just the same, and your dev env and devtools will be just the same, and it's a posix environment. If that's what I need most and it runs just about the same on macos/linux then why not prioritize the hardware?
I think their only advantage in the business is pricing somewhat lower than comparable MacBooks and also having the option of replacing individual parts. But I think MacBooks, especially with AppleCare, are an irreplaceable deal. They cost a bit higher, but then their resale value is also quite high and they are pretty damn reliable. They even survive drops and abuse. The hardware components like speakers, camera, Wi-Fi chip, etc. are all top notch. I am happy to spend $500 extra just for peace of mind and the option to not have to deal with headaches alone. This is coming after my experience with Linux desktop and several distros on my custom-built PC that I ran for many years.
And M5 and M5 Pro are kicking the hell out of comparable ARM processors, and even their own predecessors for that matter.
And high quality software in modern computing and options only exist on the macOS platform. Windows is full of junk, otherwise it would have had some chance there. But the entire platform is far too mismanaged and it is very predatory that using the platform, the OS itself, feels like a fucking pain in the ass. I would put Linux above Windows, and while it is very complete and has a billion options and customizability, there are some pain points for me in terms of upgrades and also available software tools that I use from day to day. Many of them just don't exist for this platform.
And I am not even talking about the privacy aspect here. Obviously, macOS is more friendly in that sense, and that gives them another vote on top of these existing votes already.
This. People really underestimate or straight up ignore resale value of Apple products. Just because you can upgrade a Framework laptop it doesn't make it a better value over the long term.
Can't believe the cost of the trash can mac pros. I always wanted one and put it on my long term to-do list, but they're still $500+. Even if they can be had for less, I won't buy one because my tolerance for tinkering has since dwindled. But it's quite a testament that they are still that expensive.
They’re a collectors item. And they look cool, not like some of the PPC beige boxes. There’s never been anything else on the market like it.
I doubt it will ever drop. At least not for a long long time.
I mean, you have always wanted one. Can you say the same thing about any other PC?
You understand the demand for them. It’s you.
Correct, the demand is effectively zero because the people that want them absolutely won't buy them.
Framework has it's value for ppl that are afraid dropping their laptops/ breaking the screen. Personally i still prefer macs, but I have friends that do value such "features". For the same reason they are willing to buy the Fairphone despite inferior specs/higher per spec price
It's $599, and they validate students for discounts now so for the vast majority of people $599 is the price.
https://www.theverge.com/tech/926675/apple-education-discoun...
The $599 model is also at risk: https://www.theverge.com/gadgets/925997/apple-macbook-neo-pr...
In the last 18 months I tried a Framework twice and both times ended up returning it. I was running Arch both times and had too many low level issues.
I couldn’t get hibernation or sleep to work reliably. And about once a week I’d get a random freeze or crash that required me to reboot and lose all the windows I had open. I spent dozens of hours with Claude chasing things down, disabling various power management features, trying different kernels.
I really appreciate how much Apple computers just work. I’ve since invested heavily in Karabiner, Aerospace, Superkey, and a few other utilities to get close to the level of customization I had in hyprland. I still miss the polish I used to have, but I can close my laptop lid, walk out the door, and 100% trust I’ll open the lid and resume work. That counts for a lot.
I’m keeping an eye on Omarchy and Framework to see if they eventually solve all issues. Maybe in a couple years I’ll try again…
Did you not try one of the officially supported distros first? https://knowledgebase.frame.work/en_us/officially-supported-...
In my experience, Arch and the AUR are not very reliable for identifying and respecting your system config. I've got a number of laptops that handle Arch very poorly but sing on Fedora or NixOS.
What Framework is trying to do feels like something that would've made more sense 10 years ago.
And the reason for that is b/c of Moore's Law approaching its end.
The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU. The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors. There are also latency and bandwidth benefits how they setup their RAM just from pure physics. And chip manufacturing is moving towards chiplets where you have cores manufactured separately and then wired together at nanoscale level on top of a silicon interposer.
The current best-practice unfortunately is closer to Apple's "hemetically sealed appliance" philosophy, and not the "I build my own PC" philosophy.
When you have CPU, GPU, and even DRAM sitting on the same "die" the only things you're going to be swapping out on your Framework laptop are going to be relatively trivial.
> CPU, GPU, and even DRAM sitting on the same "die"
This is actually great. The laptop body stays the same and you swap out a small mini circuit board that has the CPU + GPU + DRAM on it.
This is the point of the Framework laptops. They are just unfortunately stuck with non-Apple parts and thus are slow / inefficient.
Maybe Qualcomm can make a motherboard for Framework high end laptops with their Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme ARM-based CPUs that are supposedly competitive with Apple's M4 offerings?
And then offer a cut down Qualcomm mobile phone CPU + GPU + DRAM offering for the Framework 12 so that it can compete on price/performance with the MacBook Neo?
I think you need to complete with Apple with the right equivalents.
Funny thing is, the circuit board on the Neo is barely smaller than that of the lowest end iPhone. The only remaining big cost item swappable item at that point is the display.
The benefits of modularity begin to get outweighed by the costs when 85% of the cost of the machine needs to be swapped out with each upgrade. For consumers, why would they not simply opt to spend the rest of the 15% to get a whole new computer?
You underestimate how much of the cost is the chassis, hinges, screen, speakers, keyboard, which add up. Sure the CPU is the single most expensive component, but CPU + mainboard for the fw13 is less than half the price of a new fw13. And of course part of the idea is that you don't know what you'll have to replace first, when you're staring out. You might bust the hinge, or get excited about their touchpad upgrade, or decide you need a higher resolution screen, long before you need the new mainboard. The flexibility, in other words.
Yes, the CPU+GPU+Memory is fused but the rest of it doesn't have to be. These are still separable components and they do cost something:
- NVMe drive (or two)
- Bright, wide gamut, high resolution screen
- Aluminum case
- Great keyboard
- Wifi/ports
- Battery
> spend the rest of the 15% to get a whole new computer?
I can see why the manufacturer would want this. As a user though why would you? If the rest of the body is familiar and works well, why toss it?
Maybe the sentiment springs from the general culture of consumerism and new-is-better thinking, and historically that's been warranted in the consumer electronics space. Most things aren't really like that though. Humans have long built tools, clothing, furniture, and infrastructure designed to last a long time. You commit resources up front to make sure the thing is of high quality and then benefit for anywhere between decades to centuries. Replacement carries the risk of downgrading. Again, rapid technological advancement has blown this way of doing things away, but at some point parts of the tech plateau and this will need to be rediscovered. For things like keyboards, trackpads, and laptop cases, I don't see how "new" will beat "good" from this point on. Even displays are starting to reach limits. This seems like the right time to be working on "here is your reliable human interface device, drop in whatever crazy magic chip fabs have cooked up every X years to keep it capable."
From a humanist perspective there's another reason to move this way. People like to grow attached to objects and tools. Something has been lost in the shuffle of swapping out our most personal objects every few years.
This resonates with me. I have changed phones twice in the last 12 years. Some people look at me like I'm crazy.
Yeah, I think this is the right idea (or the most optimistic path towards M-series power/performance). If you wanted something fully/aggressively open you could do something like build a mainboard compatible with one of MNT's fully open SOMs like [1].
[1] https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform-rcore-rk3588-proc...
Qualcomm is basically at heart a patent troll company. They give nothing away and they double dip on their Frand patents they won’t support anything if they don’t have to good luck if you think Apple is bad Qualcomm is on a whole different level…
> The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU. The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors.
> When you have CPU, GPU, and even DRAM sitting on the same "die
Apple has been really successful convincing people they've done something special here. Given how many people are so horribly misinformed about this I'd go so far as to call it false advertising.
No, the DRAM is not on the same die. It's on package. They're literally standard SK Hynix memory chips.
Yes technically there's a latency advantage, but comparing M1 to DDR5 desktop chips Apple actually has worse overall memory latency.
Every integrated graphics chip from Intel and AMD has had unified memory for the last 10+ years.
Compute itself is also not what makes the Apple chips get long battery life. Looking at tests under full load the M1 is significantly worse than the latest Intel or AMD, yet it still gets better battery life under normal usage. The efficiency does not come from compute but from a whole host of idle consumption optimisations Apple brought over from their phone chips.
Indeed, on an HP Elitebook with a Ryzen 8840U I get about 20 hours of battery life on CachyOS (but downclocking a bit, with TLP) and the speed tests claim this is like a M2-3. For like $500 (before RAM went up...)
> The way to manufacture more efficient compute now is do things like put DRAM closer to the chip and even closer integration between CPU and GPU.
People have been hyping things like this for decades, but then it turns out the number of applications that need to frequently share data between a CPU and GPU at a faster speed than PCIe can handle are pretty uncommon. Meanwhile putting them closer together has some pretty significant real disadvantages, because then you're trying to deliver more power and dissipate more heat over a smaller area instead of putting more physical separation between the two largest loads in the machine.
Notice that high end PC GPUs are significantly faster than any of Apple's integrated GPUs, and that's why.
> There are also latency and bandwidth benefits how they setup their RAM just from pure physics.
Soldering RAM has a modest latency advantage over SODIMMs at the most extreme timings and CAMM turns even that into basically nothing.
> And chip manufacturing is moving towards chiplets where you have cores manufactured separately and then wired together at nanoscale level on top of a silicon interposer.
You're describing a move to less integration. They were originally on the same die, and the change has no real effect on modularity. The user doesn't even have to know that some Ryzen CPUs have a separate I/O die or more than one compute die, they all still fit into the same socket and are even interchangeable with the ones that have only a single die.
- For high end AI inference chips, DRAM already goes onto the interposer right next to the GPU to bring the bandwidth as high as possible. Apple will eventually do this for the exact same reasons. It's not just soldering RAM to a PCB - The chiplet technique and putting everything on an interposer is less integrated from the perspective of the chip manufacturer, but for the consumer -- folks who are going to buy Framework laptops, this is a far less integrated package. CPU, GPU and RAM will sit on the same interposer and purchased together as a unit with no upgrade or swap path for any component. This is not the same as simply soldering everything together on one PCB. The level of intergration is far higher
> For high end AI inference chips, DRAM already goes onto the interposer right next to the GPU to bring the bandwidth as high as possible.
The high end AI inference chips use HBM and cost tens of thousands of dollars. HBM uses 1024 data pins instead of 64, which is crazy expensive, which means that to the extent that consumer devices get it at all, it would be in addition to rather than instead of ordinary DRAM, e.g. you might have 12GB of HBM on the CPU package but then 64GB of less expensive DRAM. Increasing the number of cache hierarchy levels is a long-term trend. HBM as L4 cache is pretty plausible for high end CPUs as a supplement rather than replacement for DRAM.
There are already servers that work like this, e.g. Xeon Max has 64GB of HBM but then further supports up to 4TB of DDR5.
Moreover, the AI inference hardware integrates the CPU into the GPU because it's really just a giant GPU. They're not getting some major advantage from that, they just know nobody is going to want to swap out the CPU on a system where the CPU is mostly irrelevant. If you wanted that level of inference performance on a normal PC which is used for other purposes where the CPU actually matters then you would drop the AI accelerator with the HBM or GDDR into a PCIe slot.
I think the long term trend is typically the high end technology of today will be the mid to low tier technology of the future.
If putting 1024 data pins all connected via a nanoscale manufactured silicon interposer right now seems complicated and expensive, that doesn't mean we won't see it in tomorrow's consumer devices. If anything we will be MORE likely to see this one day. Apple and other companies are gradually working towards moving AI models to be more local which means memory bandwidth has a real killer app use case right now. Witness Liquid AI and their partnership with Mercedes Benz to put 8B param LLM models into vehicles.
Both Desktop PCs and the CPU are becoming less and less relevant as we move further in the decade to be honest...
> I think the long term trend is typically the high end technology of today will be the mid to low tier technology of the future.
The trend doesn't look like that. The PCI bus from 1992 had 124 pins. PCIe 5.0 x16 has 164 pins; x8 has even fewer pins than the slots from decades ago. Guess how many pins Thunderbolt has. DDR1 DIMMs from the year 2000 had 184 pins; DDR5 has 288. The number of pins goes up very slowly if at all, because it's one of the most expensive ways to increase performance, despite being effective.
Which is why the enterprise hardware has always done it and the consumer hardware hasn't.
> Apple and other companies are gradually working towards moving AI models to be more local which means memory bandwidth has a real killer app use case right now.
The real problem is that ordinary consumers don't want to pay for 128GB of GDDR or HBM, and if they did then you would attach it to the GPU rather than the CPU anyway.
What they might want is the less expensive ordinary DRAM with a wider bus, which is what Apple does, but then you're not using 1024 pins and have no need to solder it instead of using CAMM.
> Witness Liquid AI and their partnership with Mercedes Benz to put 8B param LLM models into vehicles.
8B param models don't need exotic hardware, those run on existing consumer GPUs.
> Both Desktop PCs and the CPU are becoming less and less relevant as we move further in the decade to be honest...
Less relevant to what? Making up for the inefficiency of bad JavaScript with fast hardware? Running the less parallelizable parts of PC games? Databases and other branchy server workloads? They're as relevant as ever to the things they've always been relevant to.
> The fact that Apple can co-design their silicon such that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors.
Lots of laptops have integrated graphics. And many recent CPUs have strong integrated graphics. They're not doing anything special there. I don't understand why that gets so much attention.
The special thing they do is having very wide bandwidth on the higher end models, to a CPU with integrated graphics. That doesn't affect the Neo though.
> There are also latency and bandwidth benefits how they setup their RAM just from pure physics
What sort of physics? Dedicated GPUs achieve massive memory bandwidth without needing to put all of their memory on-die.
Shorter PCB traces because of insane timing requirements for DDR5, GDDR7, and beyond; GPUs put the memory chips as close as possible surrounding the CPU die to reduce the latency and prevent timing/signaling issues.
But even there, the fastest AI accelerator GPUs are putting memory on die, and using chiplet designs, to get the memory closer and closer to the cores.
Simply physically moving the RAM closer to compute can make communication faster.
Ideally, RAM and compute should be combined. That's kind of what our brains do. We'll probably need more mature memristor technology to achieve that one day.
SSD is also soldered for little performance advantage.
You say "little" but the actual numbers seem to point to none. There are M.2 NVMe SSDs that are faster than Apple's soldered ones.
It might give great financial performance advantage though.
> Moore's Law approaching its end.
People have been calling the top on Moore's Law for at least as long as I've been buying computers. (~20 years). I'll believe it when I see it.
We're already seeing it if most are incapable of recognizing it. The chip folks aren't doing ridiculously complicated things like https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductor-technology-roadmap in $30 billion+ fabs for the fun of it.
People doing ridiculously complicated things to keep scaling CPUs is why it's not come to an end.
> Moore's Law approaching its end.
No it isn't. We are going more parallel and the transistor counts will continue to rise.
Zen 5 has 8.3 billion transistors in a chiplet, Zen 1 had 4.8 billion per chiplet. If we add on some more to compensate for the separate I/O die then we're looking at basically one doubling over several generations and 7 years.
There's still significant gains to be had, but the exponential growth is really petering out.
No, it ended long ago.
Moore's law or Dennard scaling?
> that the CPU and GPU can pull from the same pooled RAM is a major advantage over competitors
It can be an advantage, it also has downsides though. LPDDR5 is fairly slow as far as GPU memory goes, and on Apple Silicon it splits the bandwidth across the entire chipset. Many recent Macbooks have dGPU-tier hardware constrained by Wintel-laptop memory bandwidth.
And if Apple uses DDR5, why not CAMM? If Apple uses NVMe, why not M.2? Many of the advantages you've listed are marginal compared to the real-world constraints of the hardware, and cover up some boneheaded decisions that don't significantly impact the laptop's efficiency.
Right now, at this point in time, for applications like local AI and certain types of gaming, I would argue for most people having more VRAM is more useful than having faster VRAM. I personally now do more AI stuff and gaming on my M5 mac with its 24 GB shared (300 GB/s) RAM pool than my 12 GB 5070 Ti (900 GB/s).
Apple still lives in its walled garden and defends it vociferously, but I would argue they have made the correct design tradeoffs for their business.
> Right now, at this point in time, for applications like local AI and certain types of gaming, I would argue for most people having more VRAM is more useful than having faster VRAM. I personally now do more AI stuff and gaming on my M5 mac with its 24 GB shared (300 GB/s) RAM pool than my 12 GB 5070 Ti (900 GB/s).
The issue is that this in no way requires soldered memory. CAMM2 supports speeds up to 9600 MT/s. You can get over 300 GB/s from two CAMM2 sockets.
For applications like local AI and the majority of PC video games, you are not expected to have DDR5-level GPU bandwidth. It is a constraint, there is no "good enough" when you're selling a desktop-grade M5 Max that is bandwidth-constrained in practice. Modern gaming at native resolution is pretty much impossible on most Macbook Pros.
It's an acceptable approach for iPad-level stuff, but for professional workstations and desktops it's not competitive.
This is a brutal (but polite -- classic US Midwestern Geerling 'kill them with kindness'!) side-by-side comparison. My heart goes out to the Framework Computer team. Any team trying to compete in this product space against the surprise from Mac Neo must feel crushed. That said, I am still very optimistic for Framework Computer. It seems like nerds are going wild for them.
I didn't watch the video but isn't the main selling point of the Framework line (from their website) "Designed for easy customization, upgrades, and repairs."
I would imagine the Mac Neo is a sealed unit that you use as-is until it's e-waste.
It's actually not bad. The rhetoric has had an effect over the years.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
It's actually not bad? "The most repairable MacBook in years" means practically nothing. And for someone who might be comparing with a Framework, it's probably an insult.
You're preaching to the choir, brother. But reread the comment I replied to. "Use as-is until e-waste" the Neo is not.
> "Use as-is until e-waste" the Neo is not
That's a very low bar to clear
What would mean something to you captain?
It's still a 6 on the scale, and parts pairing, third party restrictions are still in place.
For reference, the latest Thinkpad T series is 10/10, so a better build is clearly possible.
It is actually bad. Not as bad as previous models, but still bad.
That may be true, but a MacBook is still better value for your money than any of the new Thinkpads, performance and build-quality wise.
What's your universal "value for money" index that should apply to everyone ?
For instance why should a touch support or better port selection be less valuable to me than let's say battery life ? Does supporting multiple OSes have a defined value to money ratio that I'm not aware of ?
Well, thats why I specifically mentioned “performance and build-quality wise”. If you want to run Linux, then it’s obviously not a viable option.
EU regulations have had an effect.
You will be able to drop an old Neo off at an Apple store and they'll recycle it. Same as with most of their other products.
You won't be able to upgrade it, but it is at least moderately repairable.
Framework is and will always be a statement device. Like modern 4x4 suvs that only haul groceries and may never see dirt roads, the upgradability of a laptop is something few will ever exercise. Most people are buying the idea.
Maybe. My wife is non tech and after dropping her XPS and breaking the screen she was real interested in something that can have a replacement display installed in about half an hour. She wishes her F13 were a little slimmer like her XPS, but she gets a lot of peace of mind knowing that repairs something that "even" she could do.
I'd also say that Linux support basically from day 1 is their hidden killer feature. Literally zero fuss. That's mattering to a lot more people these days even if they don't daily drive Linux, it's a good plan B in case Windows manages to get even worse.
Most people who want a user-replaceable screen just buy a Thinkpad. I've replaced the screen on all two of the thinkpads i've owned over the last 16 years. I still have my X series from 2010; it still works, only an ant crawled between two layers of the screen and died near the center and after 7 years it was time for an upgrade. It also ran (still runs) linux just fine due to that one guy at RedHat (who very recently retired) who maintained so many of the drivers for the world. I never needed anything more complicated than a philips head screwdriver to replace the screen, ram, keyboard, hard disk, or battery. And you can get parts for a thinkpad in most countries you're likely to visit.
Hans :) https://www.phoronix.com/news/Hans-de-Goede-Leaving-Red-Hat
my partner is a non-tech woodworker and fucking brutal on hardware, so she was addicted to Chromebooks. they cost nearly nothing, they came in weird small form factors, and they had a knack for lasting forever.
she had a day job that required her to use an older Mac and it was a relative pain in her ass that put her off Macs at home. I had a pile of retired laptops and kept trying to find one that would sway her off google.
she expressed interest in drawing functions so I started with a Lenovo Yoga. Windows wasn't an issue as soon as she figured out that she could sign into Chrome and just stay in it like a chromebook. but it was too big, too heavy, too glossy, and crashed too often. she also ended up cracking the screen in 2 months, and while the display was replaceable, the stylus digitizer part never worked again, which eliminated the one compelling feature.
next one we tried was an M1 MBA, which had all the things she hated about her work laptop. she also destroyed one of its USBC ports after 3 days, despite getting a protective cover for it, and it never consistently charged again after that. got donated in the end.
during this time I decided to upgrade my FW13 mainboard and instead picked up another full DIY kit to get the updated hinge, screen, and bottom chassis. The old Ryzen mainboard got the SSD and 2 x 8GB RAM pulled from the Yoga, and I offered it to her as an interim until she found something she liked.
she was mixed on it, but it stood up to her. what sold her on it was that when she dropped it on a concrete floor and bent the bottom chassis near the expansion ports, I just bought her a new bottom chassis and linked her to the replacement video. She had it swapped out in an hour and a half, her first solo computer repair.
so now her top two laptops of all time are:
- that shitty 10" Acer chromebook, still, because it was 10" and matte and about $60
- the FW13, which she's since added about 2 pounds of stickers to and also upgraded the hinge and battery on herself
most people are buying the idea, yeah. we have to, in order to show other people what the idea means in practice
I keep my laptops a very long time.
Every single one of them has seen repairs like screen replacement and hinge improvement. Every single one has had upgrades to storage, RAM, and CPU -- and at least one battery replacement. Ye olde Thinkpad is presently one hairy-looking BIOS flash away from a wifi upgrade.
I usually buy these machines inexpensively on the used market. And I'd love to buy an inexpensive Framework. Except... The supply/demand ratio seems to be in favor of the seller, as they seem to hold their value surprisingly well compared to many other machines.
Anyway, I don't want one for style points. I want one so I can keep it even longer than the Thinkpads and Dells of yore.
You're probably right for most people. But in laptops I've owned, I've done stuff like upgrade storage, upgrade/add RAM, swap out the WiFi module for one that has better OS driver support, replace batteries.
How would one know though by just looking at the device? I have chassis that came with Intel 11th gen, but the brainboxery, keyboard, battery, touchpad -- all have been swapped over time.
It may be less valuable now because of RAM/SSD prices, but I was able to benefit from my framework's modularity on Day 1 by saving hundreds of dollars by buying those components a la carte Instead of paying the heavily marked up prices some vendors charge for upgrades.
Bought the Framework 13 in March 2022 with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for about $1000. Later, I upgraded RAM and SSD to 32GB/2TB (for about $180), which made it a breeze to run multiple VMs and Docker containers in parallel. Meanwhile, the Macbook M1 Pro I got from work half a year earlier cost more than $2500 for 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD and crashes when I dare to open Docker or the Android Simulator and keep a browser open for too long. I really like the M1, but it is unusable for my current workloads, and there is no way to adapt it.
I don't like the comparison's fundamental assumption that they're addressing the same market.
If these are both addressing the same market then yes of course the Neo wins.
But I think actually one of these is for linux nerds and one is for the masses who barely understand what OS is running on it.
If you've got a device that is both cheaper and more performant then there is very little room for "different markets" arguments.
>linux nerds
Is unfortunately not enough to carry a product
Framework (and windows flavour laptops) will need to respond to the neo. Something along qualcomm's snapdragon is probably the best bet
> Framework (and windows flavour laptops) will need to respond to the neo.
Framework doesn't even sell in half markets Apple is in (They only manage 40 or so countries [0]), they can't afford to fight race to the bottom battles.
The Neo exists because Apple has crazy economy of scale and a stranglehold on chip supply, smaller makers should be fighting on other grounds.
[0] https://knowledgebase.frame.work/what-countries-and-regions-...
There is a segment of Framework's customer base which is ride-or-die for Linux, but it's not their entire customer base: they still exist in a market where they need to compete on features and cost. Before the Neo, that wasn't too bad because they were more-or-less at parity with Apple on cost, close enough on polish, and better on repairability. But the Neo is just so cheap, and with Apple's level of polish it's really tough to compete with.
The Neo costs the same as an on-sale Macbook Air, but doesn't support Asahi Linux. If any Framework customers were tempted by Apple hardware, they would have bought the Air a year ago and probably look at the Neo like it's a Fischer-Price laptop. Cost and polish aren't going to push sales for this market segment.
Why do people keep comparing Apples to Bananas (pun intended)?
To be clear: These two are based on completely different system architectures. Ofcourse performance is different, and probably in favor of Apple. Especially because everything running on top of Apple Silicon is heavily optimized from the get-go to do so (due to hardcore system level optimization by the build chain and kernel engineering groups at Apple).
If you want a excellent quasi open and self repairable/modifiable laptop running Linux there's probably nothing better on the market than a Framework laptop. But I might be a little bit biased because my main system is a Framework 16 running Gentoo with OpenRC.
I can do everything I want with it including local AI, since the 6.x kernel series - including AMD NPU support - was released to stable, and AMD creating a excellent runtime to serve local AI models through AMD NPUs and GPUs called Lemonade (https://lemonade-server.ai/) a little while back.
Why is it unfair to compare two different CPU architectures?
Well, if Apple killed it, Lenovo killed it even more. I recently was looking for a laptop for a student. The Lenovo E14 Gen7 is 800 Euros here in Germany (where prices are always higher, the MacBook Neo is 700 Euros), it has 16GB of RAM, 1TB SSD, a 2.8k IPS display, a Intel Ultra5 12core CPU, and it has a repairability score of 9/10 from ifixit. Framework doesn't even come close to that package.
Framework is definitely premium-priced, but I don't think most people are cross-shopping the Framework 12 (a 12" convertible tablet) and the Thinkpad E14 (a 14" dedicated laptop).
so it's competing with Framework 14?
No such model exists. The Framework 13 comes closest, but a 13" screen and a premium shell would compete more directly with the Thinkpad X13.
Direct price comparisons get tricky because different buyers care about different details. I really like the Thinkpad's Trackpoint, for example, but I also like the Framework's 3:2 aspect ratio. I'd have a hard time choosing.
Ymmv but the 16:10 screen on the framework punches a bit above its weight compared to 16:9 screens with a similar diagonal measurement
The Framework 13 has an aspect ratio of 3:2, not 16:10. The Thinkpad X13 has an aspect ratio of 16:10.
Dammit. I got an IdeaPad of similar price in december 2024. It didn't have one of the fancier displays from the era but still a decent option, it has 16Gb and I thought I'd try a Ryzen mobile thing that time. Wish I'd gone for the Thinkpad E series had I known about it then : that lower-end IdeaPad feels like trash.
SSD IO is sluggish, fans always spin when plugged in, audio crackles if I so much as scroll a page while a youtube video is playing, the keyboard might be the worst I've touched in many, many years, the 3.5mm audio jack wore out into intermittent connectivity within a couple of months. At least the display still looks good. Went through the windows optimization motions with it too. My x230 with an i5 still has lower and more stable DPC latency and has remained my DJ laptop.
Same thought, as an owner of a similar Lenovo, that's top bang for the buck. Also, matte screen and hinge that opens 180 degrees is something the Neo and most Macs doesn't have.
Though I assume the Apple clientele is always different than those shopping for PCs, and doesn't care about specs, they just want MacOS and the Apple ecosystem, most likely they already have an iPhone or are planning to get one anyway so then a Macbook is the only thing on their radar. Those people aren't really shopping for PCs anyway unless they need some Windows/Linux exclusive apps like CAD/CAE.
But if you want to run linux and game then that Lenovo would be a good deal.
Similar to the Framework, it has its own niche clientele who values the company motto, tinkering and repairability aspects way more than the value proposition. Most likely they run Linux too.
There's something for everyone.
It is funny how Mac OS is a draw for some, when it is the main reason I don't use a Mac. Their hardware is excellent, but when I've tried using a Mac as my main machine, my productivity suffered. The only part of the Apple ecosystem I wish I could get on Windows is iMessage, and maybe FaceTime.
I’m way more productive on a Mac.
Different strokes.
> The only part of the Apple ecosystem I wish I could get on Windows is iMessage, and maybe FaceTime.
It annoys me that these are such a draw. There are a dozen other viable messaging and video call apps, but there's always someone who feels like spending two minutes to install and activate one is a major imposition.
I like Apple hardware. I like the Apple integration. I like the hardware quality. I LOVE the silence of the M series machines.
But for me you’re right. More than anything, I’m not giving up Mac OS. Despite Tahoe, which I do severely dislike, I’m still far happier using it daily than Windows or Linux.
Until that changes, or the hardware gets bad enough (it’s going in the other direction), I’m not leaving. I don’t even look at other options for my real computers.
“Toy” computers that I want to throw Linux or BSD or something on just to play with, yeah of course. But not what I want to use all day every day.
> and it has a repairability score of 9/10 from ifixit
Do you mean a 6/10? The only score I saw for the neo on iFixIt is here: https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
I checked the "Laptop repairability scores" page and the Neo doesn't appear to be listed. https://www.ifixit.com/repairability/laptop-repairability-sc...
They mean the Lenovo laptop has a 9/10 repairability, not the Apple Neo.
Ah, my mistake. Thanks!
16GB of RAM? Good for browsing the internet and nothing else.
Uncles don’t let relatives buy less than 16gb ram. That has been my standard since ~2010 and our 2013 mbp is still running fine because I insisted on it.
I prefer FW for freedom reasons, that’s worth a few hundred as well as the ram. Would also wait for the new intel chipset that is more efficient however.
Finally I think the FW 12 is weirdly positioned, as the 13 is already thin and light. For a tablet, I recommend the Star Labs Starlite instead. Both in same package? Clunky.
Guess I’d recommend a used FW 13 and Starlite instead. That’s what I have now and no real reason to upgrade, and freedom to tinker is off the charts, perfect for a student.
> Uncles don’t let relatives buy less than 16gb ram. That has been my standard since ~2010 and our 2013 mbp is still running fine because I insisted on it.
Just last weekend I bought 8gb ram thinkpad t14 for an elderly relative. 240 EUR.
It replaces his thinkpad x220 where the fan and ssd slowly dies.
I doubt it becomes an issue, and if it does then I can upgrade it later.
You can do it once and spend an extra hundred dollars or do it twice, including occasional restrictions to the user. Poor tradeoff imho.
This is a young person with a long life ahead, we shouldn’t buy disposable ewaste with a short life.
Someone has to buy that (presumably second-hand) laptop to prevent it from becoming e-waste. 8GB can be plenty for a student, most don't need much beyond a browser and PowerPoint. Many of my university colleagues were using new $5,000+ MacBook Pros exclusively for Google Docs, that seems more wasteful to me.
8gb ram is not enough for normal browsing if you are forced to use windows 11 which eats easily half of it.
> we shouldn’t buy disposable ewaste with a short life.
Indeed. That makes two of us.
MacBooks don't need as much ram - I have an m1 air with 8gb of ram and it's perfectly serviceable, I can even run IntelliJ on it...
I never run out of memory on macoOS on my M1 Air 16GB. Now that I use Asahi on it, I had plenty of OoM crashes.
macOS is really good at memory management, including the compression and offloading to the fast SSD.
Do you use Firefox? I have a theory that there's some kind of Firefox-aarch64-linux-specific memory leak but I haven't been able to track it down. I have a 16GB x86-64 Thinkpad and I rarely get OOM issues, whereas my 32GB M1 MBP running Asahi is always on the brink of OOM.
You have a buggy program. Zswap has been available for quite a while.
>You have a buggy program.
As in memory leak? No.
> Zswap has been available for quite a while.
Zsawp is not Zram, which is a distant relative of the macOS on-the-fly compression I was talking about. Zram is buggy and still advised against regular use (https://www.reddit.com/r/AsahiLinux/comments/1i3mdrw/comment..., https://chrisdown.name/2026/03/24/zswap-vs-zram-when-to-use-...). Zsawp itself is enabled by default in Asahi.
Zram and Zsawp are mutually exclusive on Linux. On macOS, both concepts coexist – except macOS is able to compress individual memory pages (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38300432) on the fly. Zram is a compressed RAM block device with a hard capacity limit.
There is really no comparison here at this point. macOS is vastly superior in that regard.
zswap works well in my experience. Don't need both. Combined with systemd-oomd I haven't had a swapping or memory issue in many years. 16gb here with VMs and lots going on. This doc clears some things up:
https://chrisdown.name/2026/03/24/zswap-vs-zram-when-to-use-...
I'm yet to see a linux distro with memory configured correctly out of the box. (I haven't looked too hard, but the defaults are abysmal.)
Still can't help the fact memory management on macOS is vastly better with its use of pages compression and unlimited swap.
Interesting. I'm now working on some admin scripts and will add this to the list.
Compared to what? Not really true, and hard on the swap drive. Penny-wise meet pound.
Well it's still kicking just fine years later, shrug
If you're ideologically willing to use a Mac, you're really not the market that the Framework is targeting. Apple has always had some of the best hardware. Where they really struggle is in respecting user choice and allowing power users to alter their systems. The Neo is an appliance. The Framework is a tool. They're fundamentally intended for different people.
If your choice of platform is driven by hardware instead of software, and you really like tablet mode, check out a Surface Pro. They're decent tablets that run full Windows/Linux instead of some neutered tablet OS, with a keyboard you can attach to use like a laptop.
> The Neo is an appliance. The Framework is a tool.
I get where you're coming from in principle, but I'm not sure to what audience this actually applies. If you just want a laptop that can run the software you use, both are adequate as tools. The Framework's greater flexibility only applies to making changes to the tool itself, which doesn't matter if you didn't need to change it to suit your purposes. (And I say that as someone who has built their own Linux & Windows PCs from parts since high school, because I know I'm not the target audience for a Neo)
It's like I consider my Dewalt power drill a very decent tool because it has exactly the modularity I need -- it even has interchangeable batteries -- and it wouldn't even occur to me to call it an outright appliance even if another power drill offered more customization for some niche use case. The Neo is an adequate tool for many people even if other tools do offer more customization or maintainability.
This would be a much stronger argument against using an iPad for productivity, because many people simply cannot run the software they need, or only at a significant expense to productivity and quality of life. I use iOS devices only as communication and media terminals, and even then I would struggle to call them appliances, they're still tools for their particular tasks.
It's a bizarre distinction, because "tool" does not imply "highly customizable" or even "repairable." In fact, even the distinction between "appliance" and "tool" is odd, since those are nearly synonymous in everyday usage, and both strongly imply a device designed for a narrow use case.
True, I was being a bit loose with my terminology. Some tools reward customization more than others. Machine tools and 3d printers are often used to produce parts, mods, and upgrades for themselves, for example. Screwdrivers aren't usually used to work on themselves though.
The principle I was trying to express is that a Framework (and Linux, for that matter) is a tool more like a mill or an older 3d printer from the RepRap era. You will get the most out of it if you spend time customizing it, altering it, upgrading it, understanding it, etc. A MacBook Neo is a tool more like a screwdriver or a power drill. It is immediately fit for its purpose, even if that purpose isn't quite as wide ranging.
It feels a bit odd to compare them directly across categories. The MacBook Neo feels like it should be compared to a Chromebook or a cheap Windows laptop, not a high-end Linux-first upgradable machine. That's like comparing a Dewalt power drill to a 1930s drill press. They can both drill a hole... but they're just not the same tool, and I (personally) wouldn't expect to use them in the same way.
Framework's hero image when you build the laptop is someone removing the keyboard to tinker with the machine.[1] If you don't intend to do that, then yeah, it's probably not the choice for you. If you are indifferent between macOS and Linux, then it's probably not the choice for you.
1: https://static.frame.work/8pbsbvkvt7p9nayyn32gzyg84spa
One thing I miss from when I mained workstation-class Linux laptops is indeed just how tinkerable they were, in a way that didn't feel like a compromise because no other workstation-class laptop was smaller, and smaller laptops had limited performance. You could upgrade RAM and replace a HDD with an SSD, you could drop in a PCMCIA card, you could bring interchangeable batteries, etc.
I appreciate that Framework has not only brought that back but expanded on it further, but they've done it at a very different time in the market. Now that maintainability and customizability does come at a compromise to at least one of cost, bulk, or performance. That's not only the case when compared to the Neo, as far as I know it's also the case at the high end compared to a MacBook Pro.
They've set out to do something that would be difficult in any case, but they're also doing it against Apple's advantages of vertical integration and economy of scale. I'm sure I'm not the only person that can deeply respect that while still not feeling any interest in buying any of their available products.
I think Framework would disagree that their target market consists solely of people ideologically opposed to owning Apple hardware.
They might disagree with that framing, but it does seem to be the majority of folks I see who are interested in them.
And I'm not saying that as a negative - my Framework 13 is my favorite laptop by a fairly wide margin, but it's clearly not at the hardware level of my work issued mac.
Apple produces fantastic hardware. It's a shame I can't stand them as a company, and that they cripple that hardware with their OS.
Prior to framework, I'd be buying something along the lines of a Dell XPS (developer edition for linux compatibility) because a mac is just a non-starter for me. But a mac hands-down the best hardware you can get for a personal laptop right now. Turns out that's not the main driver of what laptop I want.
> But a mac hands-down the best hardware you can get for a personal laptop right now
That's pretty much almost always been the case with Mac laptops though. Last Intel gen(s) aside for heat at the top end.
I find that Apple's overall build quality, display and touchpads have pretty much always been second to none... I like the keyboards on most Thinkpads, especially historically, more than Apple's though. That said, being able to run Linux proper has become a higher priority... I plan to continue using my M1 air until it dies or I can't stand it anymore... but I bought it with 16gb ram and a bigger drive, so it does what I need and then some.
I don't "work" on it, so that isn't a big deal and I can remote edit in VS Code to my desktop via wireguard+ssh wherever I am with internet access. That could be a differentiator, but my vision is so bad, I probably won't be able to get away with the maxed out display on any laptop eventually.
> That's pretty much almost always been the case with Mac laptops though
I think that's a Rosy take. I remember the macs from before the intel generation, and they were hardware garbage (there's a reason they finally gave up and went to intel)
Then the intel macs were nice looking exteriors with very lackluster internals.
So for a long time it genuinely was an overpriced laptop from a performance point of view.
I'd say it really wasn't until the M1 that Apple has been at the top on both sides of the hardware equation.
But they are there now. I'm waiting to see if we get some real competition opening up in that space (hopefully).
I guess it's hard for me to judge, I never really used Macs during the PowerPC era... I used the prior generation when I was at school sometimes, but not much. Mostly a PC user most of the time until well after the Intel transition.
But even if the performance wasn't great, they did have very good displays, and touchpads with good keyboards and better than most speakers. A lot of laptops didn't come close to that portion of the experience at least at the base pricing, which IMO matters. That physical level of interface is what has had me use Apple more than most other factors.
I'd say there's definitely a lot of competition from Apple... I'd even say the Neo is a surprisingly good option for a lot of people... too many compromises, imo, for anyone doing technical work though. But even a base model M1 Air is also pretty good value.
>If you're ideologically willing to use a Mac
A grouping that has substantially expanded recently. Me included.
I'd prefer to run linux, but if my usage case is browser, opencode, neovim and terminal...all of those I can make work in a mac world if need be
As an Apple user: not always. When I left Windows for PPC my PowerBook G4 was at best even with my previous (not new) PC laptop.
It looked great. Quality was great. Grunt was not.
Since the Intel era they have been fantastic, on the whole.
Dell just announced an XPS 13 that is $699 (with a $599 education pricing) and fairly nice CNC machined body (1 kg) and nice screen (2560x1600 30-120 Hz 500 nit 100% DCI-P3). That could be a tempting alternative to the Macbook Neo for people who don't want to use macOS. Unfortunately for the Framework, it is no longer competitive even with other PC laptops.
https://videocardz.com/newz/dell-unveils-xps-13-its-lightest...
Looks neat for sure. However you are sacrificing some core performance on the CPU (and likely gpu) if these benchmarks of the Core 5 320 pan out.
https://browser.geekbench.com/v6/cpu/compare/18169809?baseli...
This is sort of the brilliance of Apple's supply chain moves here, they get to use binned iphone chips to sell higher performance computers in the lower cost bracket at margins impossible for the competition, and this is just an A18. When they upgrade it to the A19, it'll have 12GB of memory out of the box, giving it even more of an edge in this category. I don't see how others are going to be able to compete here, outside of just being "not apple", which in the entry level market is not enough.
Keyboard looks pretty unpleasant.
I have a Framework 12 and I absolutely love it. It's cute and super portable, and the 12-inch form factor is just perfect.
Sure, the hardware might not be the newest, but it's more than enough for me since I mostly do remote development. Plus, it has 48 GB of RAM, which lets me load the entire system into memory, making it feel super responsive.
But what I love most is how durable it is, which matters a lot because I'm honestly pretty careless with my stuff. Just yesterday, I grabbed my backpack off the table without realizing it was open. My Framework went flying across the entire room and slammed into the wall, and there wasn't even a single scratch on it. An aluminum laptop would've had a nasty dent at the very least.
And even if the whole frame had shattered, I could just order a new one for 55 dollars. Same story with the keyboard. One of the keys was making this annoying clicking sound, so I just detached it, stuck a little piece of tape underneath, and it was good as new. I only felt comfortable doing that because I knew that worst case, I could get a whole new keyboard for 55 dollars.
Honestly, not having to handle my laptop carefully is worth so much to me. I also don't stress about battery care, whatever to preserve long-term battery life, because replacing the battery costs, you guessed it, 55 dollars.
The repair ability is why I went with a Framework. My last two laptops had keyboards that lasted until a few months after the warranty. Rest of the laptop works, but I can't find replacement keyboards at a reasonable price. So a framework, and I bought a spare keyboard upfront on the off chance they go bankrupt.
Isnt the reason to by a Framework (or similar) because you would not want to be part of Apple's ecosystem? Why would benchmarks even matter here?
Framework needs an audience bigger than that because mostly people don't think in terms of ecosystem, they think in terms of 'does it do what I want for a cost I want to pay' and Apple wins on this.
Only if they insist on expanding.
For now the audience of disgruntled former Apple customers or just repairability enthusiasts appears to be enough.
This is why no one buys Windows laptops I guess.
Windows is the most popular OS for laptops in the US precisely because it does what people want for a price they want to pay.
That statement doesn't stand on its own. For example, the most popular OS for laptops at my place of work is Windows. It has very little to do with what people want or price. It has almost everything to do with ecosystem lock in.
A significant portion of windows laptop market share comes from corporate purchases.
Is this totally true? There is advertising, marketing spend and retail shelf space. Surely it's more complex than "solves users problem at price point."
Advertising and marketing spend exist to make people aware of the device's capabilities and its price. I would be surprised to find that any consumer chooses a device because of its marketing spend and retail shelf space.
I’m pretty sure a lot of Apple devices are sold due to the image projected by Apple’s marketing.
That is, indeed, the purpose of advertising.
You wrote “I would be surprised to find that any consumer chooses a device because of its marketing spend”. But advertising does skew consumer choice by its presentation, and the success correlates with marketing spend. It’s far from merely informational. Otherwise we’d just have black on white listings of “this product exists” with spec sheets.
Then why doesn’t Samsung just spend twice as much as Apple and take over the entire market? Are they stupid?
I regularly follow Jeff Geerling's blog and I value his opinion (usually), and I understand his points - he does make very good points in this article. However, the conclusion really irked me:
> As I mention in my video, the Framework 12 isn't a bad laptop, it's just a bad value, especially in comparison to the Neo.
Saying it is bad *value* is off the mark completely. There is, unless you are willing to use MacOS (which is a knock-out criteria for me: I love Apple hardware, but I cannot stand the OS and its artificial restrictions it imposes on the user).
I own a FW12 and for me the main driver was a light laptop with good battery life[1], that I can install my own Linux on it, and the drivers all work from day one on a new laptop. The last bit is not taken for granted, I have been bitten many times by this (as I'm sure many of you did). On top of that, I decided I will not have any more android devices if I can choose otherwise[2] - and the FW12 is a good tablet replacement. It's great to watch videos with (tent mode).
So for me, personally, it is great value, and the Neo would just become a secondary device I would very rarely use. Low utility means for me low value, YMMV.
[1] The battery itself is great. I get real 10-12 hours of work on it regularly! But obviously intel CPU cannot rival Apple on power consumption, as you can see in the benchmarks in the article. [2] Android or iPhone are unfortunately a requirement for modern life. That's just so sad and I wish it would be legislated that apps that are needed (banking, civil services, etc.) *must* work on an alternate OS without the user hostility (I'd mention here: https://keepandroidopen.org/)
What you’re saying is valid, but it doesn’t take away from the “bad value” statement. Jeff was speaking value for money, you’re talking subjective utility value. Reviews cannot, and should not even try, to include that in their assessment. Sure, mention the limitation (and he did), but to assign a value to it for comparison is called “personal bias” and it’s no different than saying “it’s twice the hardware for half the price, but gloss black is a boring color, so 1 star.” Reviewers should always state value as “dollars per pound” and $1 for 10lbs is a better value than $1 for 5lbs; that you personally can’t fit 10lbs in your vault doesn’t change the assessment.
The real problem is that “value” is an ambiguous word, so everyone is right and wrong while talking about the same thing entirely differently. Yeesh.
> I had already put both laptops through my benchmark gauntlet
Who needs to justify it? I make good money, fell in love with the Framework 12 at first sight, maxed it out with 64GiB RAM and 2TB SSD, and never even thought about “comparing” it to other companies' machines before buying. Something about that being a thief of joy? :p
Peep my one-wire desk setup, and that awesome tablet mode: https://ibb.co/album/1YGRfh
Two vertical displays are awesome.
It is such a shame, too, because what Framework has achieved at this pricepoint should be commended. The fact that their business can sustain a lower-margin SKU like the Framework 12 is nothing short of extraordinary! But wow, the MacBook Neo threw a bomb into the low-end market.
> the Mac is faster (in most cases), more efficient, quieter, built better, has a much nicer display, and costs much less.
The Framework is more expensive, slower (in most cases), louder (its fan ramps up quite often), has a pretty poor display, but it is a touchscreen, has a 360° hinge, and is more repairable and upgradeable.
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/its-hard-to-justify-f...
The thing I was not expecting was that the Intel i3 was not that far ahead on sustained loads, even with the fan at 100%.
> there's one performance-related area where the Framework pulls ahead—a little
> has a pretty poor display
Framework 13 has a very good display while 12 has a crappy display.
If I was buying a new laptop the Framework 12 seems like a really nice portable form factor but the crappy screen of the 12 would hold me back.
I have a 12 and the screen is fine. It's no OLED but I have no complaints for what it is. I love it as a secondary tablet-laptop for drawing and reading comics (primary laptop is a Framework 16 which I'm also in love with for Unity3D game dev and similar tasks, that one needs Windows for Visual Studio but I'm enjoying Gentoo on the 12)
There have been a few screen revisions on the 13, so there's a decent chance that a better screen will be available eventually on the 12 as an upgrade.
Framework 13 is close to 100% sRGB which is important for any kind of creative work or photo editing.
Framework 12 screen is only 66% which is pretty terrible color reproduction. You edit something and it ends up looking like something else on the gold standard consumer devices.
I wish Framework had released a gamepad or a printer instead of a keyboard. I get that they need to expand their ecosystem and revenue stream, but keyboard just wasn't it for me. There are so many good reliable cheap keyboards already, though I guess none with the touchpad, but again just not for me.
The gamepad I think would have been the killer device. Look at how much attention the steam gamepad gets. Sure, I have two gamepads already and I use them to play games on a dedicated (framework) computer hooked up to the living room TV. But guess what doesn't work? Turning the computer/TV on with the gamepad. It's so small, but so frustrating, also anytime the screens go off or sleep. So I have to keep a little $10 wireless keyboard there to turn the TV on / wake the computer.
My understanding is this is what holds it (and all other gamepads) back: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/SoftwareFirmwareIssueTr...
Steam is going to get there by having both the gamepad + the computer which then makes it possible to workout the various TV implementations.
> or a printer
Someone else is doing that: https://www.crowdsupply.com/open-tools/open-printer
I know nothing about this, but they do seem to have a gamepad: https://frame.work/products/8bitdo-ultimate-2c-wireless-cont...
it's an 8BitDo product in the Framework store that wasn't designed or manufactured by Framework
Right, so it's the same problems as any other third party gamepad.
You can see the frustration in this LinusTechTips DIY build your own steam machine video: https://youtu.be/2psXxetNpoo?t=1250
You can see he's actually using a 8bitDo controller like you shared, but it doesn't have the firmware to talk directly to his computer, which then needs to have the correct CEC codes for HDMI to tell the different TVs to turn on/wake up/turn off.
So to make it a media center / steam machine you need to manufacture + firmware both the controller and the PC, which is the GH ticket above (i think!). But since they didn't make the controller, it would then be on users for each third party to figure out how to connect to whatever Framework exposes. Overall, just much better to make and ship the controllers & computer together, which is why Steam is going to do so well.
edit: Half that was directed towards the person who shared the controller, ;)
That's not made by Framework, they're just reselling it.
How much of the hardware cost of the Neo and other Apple Silicon machines is subsidized by their other income streams? If Apple was simply selling computers, I highly doubt they would be as affordable as the Framework.
I in contrast highly doubt that Apple would release a potentially super popular product that doesn't create a profit. My personal assumption is that the profit margin for the MB Neo is quite low, but it still exists.
Their advantage is that they have long running, very tight contracts with their suppliers, and extremely high vertical integration. They don't have to share a part of the profit margin with Intel or Microsoft. Also, they have a simple product range with comparatively few SKUs, and produce an extremely high volume of units, taking advantage of the economies of scale.
> But there's one performance-related area where the Framework pulls ahead—a little—and that's sustained performance. When running a heavy workload like HPL (a FP64 HPC task, that taxes the CPU and RAM constantly for many minutes), the Framework's fans allow it to throttle less than the Neo.
People are seeing big gains in sustained performance on MacBook Neo with a simple thermal pad mod. The disadvantage is the underside of the Neo can get hot, but that's not an issue if it's sitting on a desk instead of your lap.
I think this is an unfair comparison. We are comparing a company valued on the order of trillion dollars with a very small company that is trying to put something different on the market.
And yes sure, Apple is going to do way better than probably lots of manufacturers out there.
From an OS standpoint is also a comparison that cannot be done. We are comparing MacOS with a Linux/Windows machine, which are all completely different beasts.
One last and not minor point. By choosing Apple you're choosing not only to be locked down at the OS level but also on the hardware, which at least for me is a huge "no".
Framework in general is focused on developers. I think the general target audience is different. So the customization and OS makes a huge difference for a developer. I was excited about the Neo. But the 8GB and storage felt too limiting for development.
For daily / home/office this is where the competition is. And it’s not against the Framework.
In raw experience even with latest Swift Air, Apple has a great device benefiting from their optimized and existing production line.
We’re 5-6 years now from Apple silicon and yet the industry didn’t catch up completely.
Battery life, heat, performance and even arm64 isn’t yet a first class citizen on Linux* or Windows.
(* Linux is mostly power management assuming mobility experience is needed)
> I think Framework's in a hard place with the Framework 12. Because it's an odd dimension, and because they wanted a full 360° hinge for tablet mode, they had to compromise on the display.
Seems a bit weird that framework went with a 360 hinge w/ sub-par display & sub-par stylus. I wonder if there's any demand for that and what's the use case?
I bought one because as far as I could find it is basically one of two 2-in-1's on the market that officially support Linux. (It replaced an old Android tablet and one of the original FW13's, both of which were getting old.)
but I can't run Arch on the neo. literally unplayable
I have a fw13, best Linux laptop I've ever had, & I've bought System76 in the past
The Framework 12 look lovely, I like the design a lot, but like other Framework computers, it's just far too expensive for what it is.
The processor inside it is approaching 4 years old and wasn't a good processor at launch.
I like how it looks, but I won't spend that much money on so little computer.
I remember when Apple computers were shipping four year old CPUs not long ago... was a couple of the Pro workstations? Times have changed.
I recently got a FW12 and, for a random data point, my kids love it: the color, the ability to do art on the touchscreen, the foldability. And I love all those things too, in addition to getting to play with various flavors of Linux on it. (Now running Fedora with Cosmic, but keeping GNOME for the handful of things Cosmic glitches out on.) It is just a fun computer, and I appreciate that playfulness about it every day.
Saw this and does seem the screen tipped the balance here, which is understandable. Maybe if framework had a better screen without the touch overheads as an option(which I'm sure they could do being modular and upgradable)
Clickbait and he knows it
We all have different needs, to me any Macintosh is just as hard to justify.
I really want a Framework 12, but not in current incarnation. Hoping for an upgrade with aluminum body. I don't mind the pricepoint. But didn't want a plastic notebook at this point. Want a great couch computer for surfing the net, ssh'ing to machines, writing, etc....
What I surprisingly really miss, is my macbook air 11".
But probably won't be surprised if I end up with a Framework 13 Pro once they're caught up on delivery. I'm really hoping they have an announced 12 revision by then, though.
And Panther Lake or competitive AMD.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panther_Lake_(microprocessor)
I had a MacBook Air 11" back in the day. 2nd or 3rd generation, I can't remember. The one that didn't stutter on YouTube. Amazing machine! I had always wished the screen was slightly bigger though. The insanely large bezel was a waste of space.
MacBook Air 11" form factor with 12" retina display (with thinner bezels) and M1 or A19 would be peak portability for me.
Both of them seems suicidal, 8GB RAM is really annoying to deal with.
You can put 48GB in a Framework 12 which makes it slightly more usable.
And you can do that whenever you choose to do so, not simply at time-of-purchase.
Something worth considering with the present RAM-market madness.
I have both the Framework 12 and the Framework 13. While I agree that the 12's display is not the best in class, it has one of the nicest touchpads I've ever used. It's hard to describe what makes the difference, but your fingers can glide nearly effortlessly across it. Both my Macbook and the FW13 have touchpads that feel a bit more "sticky".
It is really annoying how the x64 CPU's seem to constantly ramp up and down seemingly at random. I've been trying to tweak the fan curves on my Ryzen 9950x to avoid this but haven't been successful yet. Next stop is lowering the voltage once I figure out how to do it on my motherboard.
Try making the fan speed curve mostly flat in the middle at whatever fan speed keeps the system from hitting the far end of the temperature range under moderate usage. Let it ramp all the way down at idle and all the way up at all-core full load but anything in the middle gets a fixed medium speed. If that medium speed is too loud then what you need is a larger fan that provides that amount of cooling at a lower fan speed.
A question to all developers working on 12 and 13 inches laptops. Do you spend most of your time connected to an external monitor or do you use the laptop one? My instinct is that there isn't enough space for two side by side windows of code but of course people working on 24" monitors would say the same about my 15.6" screen.
I had a smaller 13 inch laptop before that packed a punch but almost exclusively on the docking station and connected to screens, if I would on the sofa and thought I needed to do something really quick, I would grab it but it was painful. People just get used to things though, there are stories of people writing detailed packages on their phone sure!
Even now on 17 inches, I still use it exlusively on the dock with screens!
I still use a 2019 MBP and I can't work on just the laptop screen. My laptop screen usually has one fullscreen window at all times; tmux, or a browser window; all the main work gets done on the big screen.
I have the Framework 12".
It's hard to justify the price unless you put value to Framework's gimmicks and mission.
There's no illusion that I'm not paying extra to vote with my wallet for sustainability. And I'm on with that.
- The Framework is more expensive : Kind of care, but not really if it's worth the money.
- slower (in most cases) : I care about this. Blender needs to render.
- louder (its fan ramps up quite often) : I care about this, it needs to be silent.
- has a pretty poor display : I care about this, I don't want poor screen quality, poor color quality, poor text rendering.
- but it is a touchscreen: could care less about this.
- has a 360° hinge : care even less about this.
- and is more repairable and upgradeable : really don't care about this at all, by the time this laptop needs to be upgraded, i'll just buy a new one anyways since the new parts probably won't work in the old machine.
I'm thinking Apple might just be better at figuring out what specs actually matter, and which specs just make nerds happy but don't actually sell. (except liquid glass, they failed on that.)
> I'm thinking Apple might just be better at figuring out what specs actually matter, and which specs just make nerds happy but don't actually sell. (except liquid glass, they failed on that.)
Or maybe this is just a totally different product?
I'd also call out, anecdotally, of the people in my life the non-technical people are interested in touch screens, don't care about speed as long as it runs a few Chrome tabs without feeling slow, and have literally never mentioned noise except to complain about some absolutely absurd "gaming" laptops. I've only ever heard the "nerds" talking about this stuff you're saying actually matters to the non-nerds. Maybe you're one of the nerds?
I don't play D&D, but I do play with computers, so I'm more of a geek than a nerd.
> by the time this laptop needs to be upgraded, i'll just buy a new one anyways since the new parts probably won't work in the old machine.
It's only been 5 years since their first laptop, but yes they sold motherboards for 5 different CPU generations that all fit in the same chassis. They've also released a Pro chassis that uses the same parts as well.
Whether most people want to keep the old beat up chassis/keyboard/trackpad/battery when they're ready to upgrade is another question.
But they have lived to their promises, despite your claim that they wouldn't.
> the new parts probably won't work in the old machine
Except with framework, where you can actually upgrade it piecewise. The CEO had a video showing of them doing it in like 10 minutes, part by part
so in 8 years, I'll be able to buy a new CPU and it'll work in that old laptop?
Quite possibly yes. The level of upgradeability they've given their Framework 13 line over the years has been very impressive, and you can still put the latest CPU in the original chassis if you want. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSxgCEpkiKM
You can get a lot of laptop in the ~$700 range if you look beyond Apple and Framework.
I picked up a Nimo N155 for $570 back in September 2025. Today it's $700 due to RAM prices. Its specs are:
15" 1080p IPS display, AMD Ryzen 7 6800H (8 cores / 16 threads), 32 GB of DDR5 RAM, 1 TB NVME SSD with an iGPU Radeon 680M that can use up to 8 GB of memory all wrapped up into a metal case that weighs less than a MBP. It has a nice feeling backlight keyboard and a pretty good track pad. It comes with Windows 11 but it's all compatible with Linux too. Also it comes with a 2 year manufacturer's warranty.
I've been using it quite a bit since I picked it up. Been running Arch Linux on it since day 1 with niri. It's really solid IMO.
I'm not sure that there's a lot of overlap between the target markets. Most schools near me require windows and require a stylus capable touch screen, so the mac is out of the running immediately.
Even if it weren't, the fact that if you're giving a computer to a teen as their first machine to take to class and use every single day, you really, really, really want to be able to separately repair the screen and the ports.
As always, you're paying a premium for the repairability, but if your teen cracks the screen a single time in three years of carrying it to class every day, then you've already saved money.
Framework was never the best hardware given a fixed budget, but it is true that Apple prices have become more competitive in the latest releases.
Still, few do the math of upgrading just the motherboard after a couple of years, vs buying a new laptop.
Framework laptops have been retrocompatible for the last 6 years.
Oh man I couldn't imagine comparing Framework / 12 to Apple / Neo: apples and oranges
I would never bother with Apple's locked down proprietary software / hardware "ecosystem"
For me it's hard justifying buying an Apple Neo ever basically as a contrary article
I consider the Framework 12 a conceptually flawed machine (especially given the setup of its maker) but, as a general computing option, it would still be of much better value to me than anything Apple had or has on offer; every hardware feature I value in general purpose mobile computers is implemented better in the machines of other builders. And the less said about the OS and the backing platform and company, the better.
So with the Framework you're paying a premium for maintainability. When the specs fall behind you can upgrade easily. With Apple you have a good laptop that will last awhile assuming you take very good care of it. And, of course, you can't upgrade or maintain it easily.
I can't say I agree with the thesis at all. With unstable hardware prices and leveling performance improvements, flexibility is becoming a far more important goal.
A truck will always be a worse car than a car, the question is do you need a car or a truck? If you need a car, get a Neo, if you need a truck, get a Framework. They’re not competing past that initial question.
Bad timing. Not only MB Neo, but also the memory price hike. Whole selling point is vanishing, plus other makers are getting momentum reacting to Neo, further shadowing the FW12's existence.
I hope they can come back with some update with newer chipset, either from Intel or Qualcomm. They were picking the worst Intel generation and I think it was mostly bad luck.
For most of 2024, my main daily driver laptop was a little pink chinese laptop from 2019 I bought on amazon for roughly $200. It was marketed toward communication students. I put arch with cinnamon on it and it was pretty damn adequate for my needs, serviceable for browsing, watching videos, and even some dinky games, and of course fine for development, able to run tiny prototype code locally and ssh into more powerful servers (or cloud vms, whatever) when work was to be done for people paying for the compute
You really don't need that much computer for most things, but most operating systems shove a lot of extras on there by default. Leaving windows on the thing obviously would have been untenable, but even ubuntu would probably chug on such a device. I think if the supply crunch continues this logic will make sense to more and more people
I use a macbook for work now because I'm required to. It's just at every level an obnoxious operating system to work with, its permission model is a mess, every program on it is an ad and keeps trying to vie for my attention and I can't remove half of them. It bugs out often, including maxing out its application memory opening programs I didn't ask to open. It updates itself in an obnoxious way without my permission. It would be unusable if it didn't have a unix shell, and not everything on it is accessible from shell commands. Apple makes fundamentally incredible hardware, even if they're not perfect, but I would never intentionally buy something from them that didn't support getting out of their godawful software ecosystem
I would be interested in hearing from framework users who have gone through upgrade cycles on their laptops. General experiences with the process but also the costs.
I had the first gen framework but had to return it to my old employer so I never went through an upgrade cycle.
Also, this may be specific to the first generation but I had terrible battery life and overheating issues. If that carried over through upgrade cycles I would be pretty bummed out.
I don't understand the whole Framework thing (not 12, but in general):
1. For why would everyone want to use their laptop longer than MacBook lifespan? I'm typing this on a 5+ year old MacBook, which I expect will work for 3 more years. At this lifespan, it will be outdated by all means. I can replace it with a new one at the cost of $1-1.5k. If I had a Framework, I would gradually replace this with new parts? Well, only the mainboard takes a huge portion, or even more, of that. Screens became outdated too, by the way!
2. Repairability. Apple has bad repairability, in terms it glues the laptop from three parts. That means you can't do anything by yourself, but you can get a repair in a day or two in any point of the world. Can you fix your Framework in Tbilisi, Georgia? Last time I replaced the screen on a Mac, it cost me $300 including human work, the same as a Framework display costs.
3. MacBooks are just better in terms of performance and battery life per buck. They also tend to have the best screens, sound, and input. All of these are quite important for a laptop.
I like the Framework premise; I would like to own a Framework as a Linux machine. But we should remember that these are hobbyist laptops with a product/cost ratio, and gimmicky features.
All this discussion, amplified by voices of Apple-quarreled people like DHH, is stupid and kind of harmful – unexperienced people are ending up with expensive enthusiast devices (...or worse, with Dell XPS, you know).
P.S. Please don't bring "computer ideology" into this – there is no walled garden on MacBooks like on other Apple devices. There are no services actively sold to you. I don't know where this argument is coming from. It is just a Unix-based computer, with good hardware and a nice-looking GUI.
That said, I would definitely like to see comments of peope who actually used a MacBook and switched to Framework.
It depends what OS you need/want.
Some people don't want macos.
I can install Windows or Linux on Framework.
One factor I never see anyone talking about is that, for Framework laptops, the webcam is easily physically removable and the laptop will continue to function without it.
That's the reason Framework is one of the only laptops I'll ever recommend to parents who ask about devices for children under the age of 15-16. No Internet-connected computing device before that age with an integrated, un-removable webcam. Sorry... You either know people who've been hurt by online manipulation or you don't, and the harm it's possible to do is much worse when a webcam is involved.
Especially when parents aren't particularly computer savvy, kids should either have a mobile device without a camera or a desktop computer placed in a public part of the home. I know why most manufacturers don't make devices without integrated webcams anymore, but it really shouldn't be an auto-add feature to a mobile computer.
it remains my pet peeve that the 12 and 13 didn't find a clever way to share a mainboard by ditching the expansion cards on one side and just exposing the USBC ports. I would've sacrificed a lot to be able to just move my mainboard intact to another chassis if I needed the features. (which is exactly what I'll be doing with the 13 Pro, and IMO should've been a top goal of the 12)
The framework 12 is the ideal couch device for a developer, in ultra power saving mode it’s good enough for most websites, and it having a quickly getting hot 13th gen intel cpu means you also got a dev machine on the low end spectrum, not a vm, but an actual piece of hardware a typical user might have and not some 32 thread 64 gb monster
> The GPU fares poorly on Intel's side
'Twas ever thus. I really wish we had a better baseline default without having to reach for NVidia/AMD.
Intel's iGPU has gotten better over the years, but an external is always going to have vastly more capability than an internal one.
That being said, for retro gaming or even playing games from the mid 2010's, the iGPU in a modern intel chip should do well enough.
Apple mac vs a premium Intel-based laptop is a choice between bad and worst.
Why not AMD-based something like Thinkpad E- or L-series? It has solid linux support and no shitty Intel inside.
This is a values misalignment. Or a purchaser misalignment.
Corvette is a much better performer than a Toyota pickup because it is has better performance and weighs 100 lbs less.
on the other hand, how much would a macbook neo with 48gb of memory and 2tb of ssd work out?
What's the real cause of them being unable to price competitively?
Is it DRAM, NAND flash storage, SoC cost, simply scale?
Macbook Neo is manufactured with leftover / binned A18 Pro iPhone chips, these chips have a defective GPU Core and Apple was sitting on millions of these. Apple does not have an easy way to dispose of these chips, the base iPads use 2 generations old A16 chips & the iPad pros use M series chips. So they created a new product line.
The Macbook Neo is cheap because the CPU/GPU/Memory chip is sold below cost. The Neo line exists to dispose of / repurpose binned A18 Pro chips and when these run out Apple will significantly raise prices.
This is the identical situation to what happened with the original Raspberry Pi, the Pi company acquired leftover Broadcom BCM2835 chips for almost nothing, and were able to sell Raspberry Pis for an impossibly cheap price of $35.
All of these, and more. Macbook Neos benefit from all the hardware that Apple makes in-house, reusing CPUs that they already make for iPhones but didn't make the cut, have zero upgradeability, benefit from massive economies of scale, contracts are already signed in advance, the delivery and logistics of an existing chain...
Framework has to go talk to Intel and AMD, get parts shipped, assembled onto a motherboard that they have to make themselves and ordered in very low amounts then shipped all to their fulfillment center, then fedexed, have to source components... Even not taking into account the fact that Apple already has all of the hardware made or available in-house, just the supply and logistics chain is an easy 10% of the final price.
Efficiencies of scale and experience, on multiple levels.
Component sourcing is the most obvious thing - Apple is known to buy up inventory years in advance for example and at insane quantities. TSMC's last new node? Apple paid billions to be the initial and, most importantly, exclusive customer. With hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and liquid assets, Apple can afford to sit on "dead money" for years - a small shop like Framework can't.
As for the Neo specifically, this thing shouldn't even exist, but Apple found themselves sitting on a stash of half defective iPhone SoCs. But instead of trashing them, they effectively recreated the netbook market segment...
The MacBook Neo is just the response to the question of "what do we do with all these binned iPhone chips without making yet another even lower cost iPhone?"
It's literally recycling Apple's garbage.
> It's literally recycling Apple's garbage.
…and still blows the doors off anything in its market.
The title should read 'it's hard to justify buying any other laptop than the Neo in the sub $1000 space'. It's an absolute unit of a computer; the only more revolutionary box would be the M1 Air (or the original Air. maybe. my vote is on the M1.)
The original Air was not good.
I think you mean the second gen Air (SSD-only, c2010), which was an incredible combination of price, performance, and usability.
I haven't used the Framework 12, but I got a Framework 13. It really is modular and easy to repair, and they give great instructions and all the tools you need. For example, I dropped mine and bent the screen while carrying it. I ordered a new screen and when it arrived, it took maybe 15 minutes to replace. But the reason I dropped the laptop was because the hinge really sucked. It swings freely. So as I was carrying it, it suddenly swung wide open and threw off my balance.
The caps lock key, which I remapped to control, got a crack in it because I use it a lot. Worst of all, it doesn't stay pressed, depending on its mood. So maybe I'm pressing ctrl-a to get to the beginning of a line and it decides to type the letter a instead.
I really wanted to like it, but alas, the quality was too bad and I won't buy another one.
If Apple could give away a macbook neo to students, locked to the one individual student somehow, for free! they would still make money on it in the long run through the subsequent purchases over the person’s lifetime.
What I don't like in Frameworks:
Tiny screens. Imagine running a browser on a 13" screen, where part of screen space is used by taskbar, tab headers, address bar, sticky site header, cookie bar and you get less than 50% left for content. And of course site designer will use the largest font available so that you can fit only one paragraph of text into remaining space. Obviously you cannot fit VS Code or KDEnlive (it has so many panels!) into this small screen as well.
I would prefer to buy 17" but sadly such laptops are considered "professional" and therefore overpriced so I had to settle with smaller screen size and cope with it. Small screens are only good for browsing social networks with post character limits and not for work.
You could buy a monitor, but monitors aren't free and you cannot take it with you when travel (to the couch).
They tend to use the most expensive CPUs which do not have the best cost/performance ratio. Mid-range, mid-low CPUs are better.
Standard US-style keyboard. Doesn't have layout switch keys and extra keys for languages which have more than 26 letters which is like half of the world? To be fair, Macs or PCs don't have them either. PC manufacturers would rather add useless numpad than keys for foreign languages. Also, it doesn't have large arrow keys, and page up/page down and how do you scroll the code without them.
I also do not like an idea with expansion cards for ports. Just add 6-8 USB ports, video and audio and you do not need any expansion modules which could save lot of money for the customers. Having 8 USB ports for free is better than having to buy 4 expansion modules.
Also there is no need to customize color, it is waste of money
Obviously it has lot of good features but currently it is more reasonable to buy a standard laptops for ⅓ price of 1 framework and install Linux.
By the way, Macs seem to have no replaceable parts, like RAM or SSD. I wonder what Mac owners do when keys start falling out from keyboard, do they buy a new Mac, or keys on Macs never fall out? On PCs, I replace the keyboard every 2-3 years.
You know they have a framework 16" ? And the keyboard of the 16 is running customizable firmware so you can have your layout switch key and whatever else you want ? It has 6 usb-c ports, that are the other end of the extension modules
I bought it two years ago, I like it, but I still think it's too expensive for the actual hardware, but I liked funding the mission as well as receiving a product that I liked.
> so you can have your layout switch key and whatever else you want ?
I do not think so. Many languages have more than 26 letters but Framework doesn't seem to provide the keyboards with extra keys. They use the same keyboards as PCs, and for languages that have many letters PCs just use punctuation keys for extra letters, and move punctuation to inconvenient places. Some languages like Czech have so many extra letters that they have to use keys with digits for extra letters and type digits with Shift. And the root of the problem is that manufacturers try to fit all these letters into standard US keyboard instead of adding extra keys and adapting the keyboard for foreign languages.
The Framework 16 lets you put a pad with twenty-four additional buttons on it next to the keyboard. These 24 buttons can be programmed to do whatever you want with reprogrammable firmware.
Also, there are twenty-three different keyboard layouts available (IN ADDITION TO the 24-key macropad).
I think there are legitimate arguments against Framework, but this one clearly isn't cogent.
I wait for the day that Linux runs on newer Apple Silicon Hardware.
I understand Jeff's argument, but he is missing the fact that one of the features of the Framework 12 is the modularity of the components. So if that is not a valued feature in this scenario, sure it's hard to justify.
I love building and upgrading stuff as well as paying (much) more for tools that will last. But this is a laptop not a socket set, paying (a lot) more for worse performance up front makes absolutely no sense. Seems like the argument should be the Framework 12 just shouldn’t exist.
> he is missing the fact that one of the features of the Framework 12 is the modularity of the components
He does explicitly make that point.
> The biggest win is the modular ports.
I think what makes the perspective in the article interesting is that buying individual components a la carte isn't a good value in today's market. Sure you can upgrade the RAM and SSD in the Framework, but 16 GB of laptop DDR5 is $200 and a 1 TB 2230 SSD is another $200. The question becomes, is it worth it to spend 40% more for a laptop with 40% less performance (as well as worse build quality, a worse screen, worse speakers, worse battery life, and running hotter) so you can have the potential to spend half the price of the laptop to upgrade it in the future?
Never understood these comparisons.
If you want to run OS X, buy the mac. If not buy absolutely anything else. It is that simple.
Though with 8GB of ram both of these machines are lemons.
If you are on the fence, do not buy the mac. Because by god why would you want to trap yourself in that ecosystem.
I don't like MacOS. Everytime I talk about setting up a custom PC, people say - buy Mac Mini. No. I don't want MacOS. It's soooo slow workflow wise. I was literally behind my manager for 2 whole years to get him to move me from Macbook Air 11 inch to a linux laptop. He was ready to give me Macbook Pro 2016. But not a Linux laptop, in an org which had them. And I went over his head to get a Linux laptop there. The slow workflow MacOS had. My goodness.
But people always argued that I used a subpar Mac device as slow as Macbook Air 11. So you didn't have the full experience. blah blah blah. Guess what? I use a M3 Macbook Air with 24GB now. It is still is as bad as it was back then. And after the glass update, I has become abysmal. So no. I'll just get another Linux computer. Not a Mac. The only time I will voluntarily choose MacOs is if I had to choose between Windows and Mac. Then I will choose Mac 100% of the time. Or if I had to ever develop for Apple ecosystem as well.
Sorry for ignorance, but what workflows do you have that an M3 24gb mac feels slow? I got the basic M1 air and it still works fine
It's not the hardware's fault. It's the software that I don't like. This was the case before and after Apple silicon.From the window management to how I need to setup my computer, everything is slow in MacOS. The UI interactions, how the apps needs to be managed. Everything. I am trying to make it faster. It's not customisable the way Linux is. Maybe I need to be a bit more clear, it is slow FOR ME. Not to mention, after the glass update, I find it very hard to use with respect to UI.
It's annoying how short-term people think sometimes.
With the Framework 12, sure, you're paying $750 up-front, but if you actually buy into the repairability/upgradeability angle (and if you don't, you maybe shouldn't be buying Framework), then in 3-4 years you might spend $200 or $300 on upgrades, and then in another 3-4 years another $200 or $300, and so on.
Meanwhile, with the Neo, you might be buying a whole new one at $600 every 3-4 years.
(Yes, I know how everyone says they've been using their Mac laptop for 15 years and it's still going strong, but if you're that person, then you don't care about upgradeability, so, again, you're probably not in Framework's target market. I also know lots of people who get a new Mac laptop every 3-4 years. And even a few who get one every 2 years, and that makes me sad.)
Add to the price calculation some part that may break, or you want to upgrade after a year or two.
They are different types of innovations, but Framework will be recurring excitment when your Godson gets to switch to a brand spanking new component.
I would like Framework to have a keyboard with normal size arrow keys. That is all.
If people like us who understand the long term value of having these things[1] available don't buy (and encourage others to buy), then we can't have nice things. I would always recommend students to buy anything other than apple (most Windows machines can now run Linux), run Linux on it and learn how to make it work. Todays students will be distributed all over the world and they have the skills to run Linux on the desktop, but far more importantly, make it work in the workplace ecosystem. Remember our governments are spending massive amounts of money buying Microsoft services and Apple products.
In fact, we should also highly encourage students to use Linux phones. It is important to get the next generation ready to get out of all these locked in extractive ecosystems.
[1] A standardized commodified market place of parts, available to assemble as new or as replacements for long term repair. There is no compelling reason modern machines (phones/laptops/desktops) can't have second and third lives. Remember how much Apple fights against repairability laws.
You can replace Framework with Dell, HP, Lenovo in the title. Why pick on Framework?
More views.
It's funny how people talk about macbook neo being the cheapest option that gives you access to macos (If my brain isn't fried that was one of the points mentioned in the video) cause when I was checking macbook neo's price a couple of weeks ago I almost did hit the purchase button then I remembered I can't use macbook and I'm too used to my arch config to change.
Don't buy macbooks for young people. They want to be able to play games.
Linux can run games better than both Windows and Mac. Steam's Proton derived from Steam now runs Windows games on Linux with better performance than Windows.
The problem with Apple laptop is few years into the future - it's what will happen when Apple drop support for this hardware in OS X. Even if Asahi Linux or similar will be in a good enough state, you will still have to go through pain of adjusting to new system, moving data, figuring out how to access your iCloud/time machine/etc...
Unfortunately for Framework, people who think this way make poor customers - can't justify buying Framework while my Lenovo X230 is working fine.
I tried using refurb'd Thinkpads as my travel machine for a long time - they're very brittle hard to fix laptops - kinda like Macbooks.
The Framework on the other hand is so easy to work on and get parts for - I know this isn't probably a main selling point for most users, but if you need this, Framework is like the only game in town.
I'm sorry but sometimes performance is not everything. Apple silicon - great except you are now in the Apple walled garden with all the consequences of it. Not to mention perpetually subpar developer experience without the rich Linux/Docker ecosystem. Yes, I know it is getting better but for developers there are still many warts. We just retired the last OSX laptops from my dev team because they were unproductive trying to work around some Docker limitations on OSX/Apple silicon.
I would love a way to mute particular domains on this website
You really don't choose a Framework based on raw performance. You coose it because your values align with their philosophy.
Same goes for a Fairphone
I sincerely don't get the point of a post like this. You buy a Framework for repairability, flawless Linux support, ability to tinker, etc. Yes it would be extra nice if on top of everything it also had a faster CPU and a higher-density screen for cheaper than the aggressively priced entry model of corporation with the literal deepest pockets in the world. But is that a realistic complaint? I swear I don't get it.
I was shopping for a Linux machine recently and the offerings are awful. >$2000 machines with DDR4, 16 or even 8 GB, integrated GPU, no usb C.
Apple is so far ahead right now in hardware.
If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!
The Neo is an example of how this tradeoff should work: You lose flexibility but gain a lower price. For other Apple laptops, the price is on the high end and also you lose flexibility. This seeming contradiction is what helped open up the market opportunity for Framework.
(To complicate my argument a bit, it happens to be the case that the Neo is actually, for a Macbook, highly repairable, but the original article doesn't actually mention this so presumably they didn't think much about that. https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r... )
(Also, I'm not putting down the overall value of pricier Macbooks. You get other things in return for those prices, they are still a good value and I own some Macbooks, I'm just looking at the price <-> repairability axis here... The Neo is a particularly clear example of price vs repairability)
> If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!
$799 versus $499 is a 60% premium.
The best case numbers are buying used RAM and SSD for the Framework like Jeff did in the article ($749 total, if you can find the RAM at those prices) and comparing against the non-EDU MacBook Neo at $599. That's still a 25% premium.
Now pretend you can't get the student discount and actually want the extended warranty/applecare and compare the final result.
Now pretend you want to bump up to 16gb of ram so you can run a VM.
> Now pretend you can't get the student discount
Okay it's $599 vs $799 now. 33% premium.
> and actually want the extended warranty/applecare
The Framework warranty is only 1 year, same as the MacBook Neo.
If you add AppleCare+ to the MacBook Neo you could get a 3-year warranty laptop for $739 that performs better than the $799 Framework 12
> Now pretend you want to bump up to 16gb of ram so you can run a VM.
I don't think the students shopping for a MacBook Neo are going to be heavy VM users on their little laptop, but if I do this on their website the price bumps to $1049
$1049 is within $50 of a MacBook Air with 16GB of RAM and much better CPU, display, build quality, and battery life.
So I still don't see the value, sorry.
But bumping to 16gb ram means buying new hardware, moving over your profile/configuration and then trying to sell your old hardware, losing money on the trade... vs just upgrading the ram.
I'm not saying don't buy a Neo... I'm just saying there are objective reasons why you might not want to... for me, it's that I would prefer to run a Linux distro on whatever I buy. I might just go for a Lenovo IdeaPad and save a little over the Framework and the Neo at that point... they aren't the only two options on the market.
> If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!
This is a completely sensible take, but many on this forum believe upgradability/fixability should be mandated by law in spite of posts like this where consumers choose against this option in spite of what the repairability activists say. It's likely that the EU will in fact pass some laws to mandate this because of this vocal minority and because it's popular to stand up to Big Tech.
If a “repairable” laptop is in any way comparable to a high-volume model from the most successful laptop maker in history; one that is currently upending the whole industry and backed by an extra-generous education discount funded by huge cash reserves and a long-term strategy; then Framework has succeeded beyond its wildest dreams.
I agree, that the Framework 12 is too expensive - especially in comparison to the MacBook Neo.
However, not everything can be a huge success. I think that the Framework 13 Pro shows that they are very capable in the premium segment and evolving as a company. I can't even imagine taking such a huge risk just to make a difference while still providing relatively small quantities (in comparison to the big players) of repairable devices... So in my opinion the money is not wasted. It's the price for being part of a change.
In times of AI Slop, privacy nightmares and ads everywhere, I'm saving money for the Framework 13 Pro with Linux freedom right now and can't wait to get my hands on it.
FW13 Pro is where it’s at.
Eh, I think the framing isn't quite right here. The Neo is a wonderful machine but if you want to upgrade it you're out of luck, the damn thing is sealed shut. By comparison the Framework lets you upgrade individual components over time to keep your system up to date without buying a whole new one.
Maybe that doesn't matter for the godson. But it's an important differentiator: the Framework is a (semi) premium product with premium features. If you don't intend to use those features, paying the premium rarely makes sense.
I think this model works for the 13 and 16, because you're already buying a good laptop that you can keep longer by upgrading. The 12's base specs and more than that the experience is pretty bad. The screen and speakers are terrible.
The 13 also targets people buying it for themselves and who value ownership. The 12 targets the education market and how many 14 year olds are sensitive to ownership, repairability and e-waste? If they are they would probably get something better second hand. You'd have to have a parent that is sensitive to this issue and is also willing to force down this bad laptop onto their children instead of whatever they prefer.
I love Framework, and the bet to try to win over the education market was worth making but the execution is so poor that I don't think it works out.
The MacBook Neo will happily last you the 4 years of highschool and maybe your bachelor.
The 12 for me has a very strong appeal as a smartphone / tablet replacement.
I've had smartphones and/or tablets for approaching 20 years now, and they've always struck me as very frustrating compromises. Mostly Android, but some use of iOS as well, and yes, the OS (in both cases) is fundamental to the limitations.
I've also used MacOS heavily (I'm on it now), and I don't like it, relative to Linux.
The Framework Laptop 12 is smaller than my most recent tablet (a 13.3" e-ink), though somewhat more massive. It frees myself from a plethora of Android limitations, crapware, inconsistencies, and the non-repairability of the hardware itself (presently an issue). It gives a real-computer experience, with some compromises for size, but I'm pretty sure that's a net win.
Paired with a limited-feature phone and possibly a few dedicated devices for specific uses (camera, audio recorder), I'm good.
And the 12 should provide an easy decade of service.
> The Neo is a wonderful machine but if you want to upgrade it you're out of luck, the damn thing is sealed shut. By comparison the Framework lets you upgrade individual components over time to keep your system up to date
The Framework 12 in the story costs $799, a $300 premium over the $499 MacBook Neo.
So you're paying an extra $300 up front for the option of spending more to upgrade it in the future, and getting a slower computer during that time.
That's a 60% premium to have the ability to upgrade a slower laptop.
Alternatively, they could sell the MacBook Neo for $200 in a couple years and buy a next-gen MacBook Neo and they'd still come out ahead.
Some people value upgradeability to an extreme, but I can't see a justification for spending a 60% premium to buy a worse product just to be able to maybe upgrade it in a few years. This is a starter laptop.
That might be true to some extent but what about the current product? It's nice to tell yourself that you can upgrade it in the future but the best of what the product is today isn't a great value, will the future upgrade make it better? Should we purchase a product today on what it might be tomorrow?
I think Jeff is correct when he says, "for an overall worse experience, are you willing to pay 20-40% more?". That's a tough sell. I think the only reason for me to take the Framework 12 over the Neo would be because I want to advocate for a world where upgradability and repairability are common things.
I don't think the idea is that the upgrade will take it from decent to stellar compared to other things you might be able to buy for the same money, it's about paying a bit extra now to be able to go from decent-in-2026 to decent-in-2031 while paying a fraction of the cost that you would buying a full replacement in 2031, not to mention saving a bunch of waste. And then in 2036, and 2041, and 2046... They haven't been around long enough to be confident it'll work out that way, but that's the bet in my mind.
> it's about paying a bit extra now to be able to go from decent-in-2026
Does "slower than an iPhone chip from a couple of years ago" meet that bar?
The CPU is specifically one of the upgradable components. Should a faster CPU be available in future there's the option to swap it in.
For lots of things, yeah. Don't try to fold proteins or open Facebook or whatever, but if you want to run a 3d printer or make some drawings or organize a bunch of notes and docs it would be way more than enough.
The neo isn't upgradeable, but it also isn't sealed shut. It's actually one of Apple's most repairable devices. If I were in the market for this class of device, I personally would still go with Framework for a variety of reasons, but I still think it's important to give apple praise for the pro-consumer choices they made (and probably could have gotten away without) in the Neo.
the apple way to upgrade is to sell your old neo and buy neo 2. I wonder if the math changes when we take long term use into account
I'd guess the problem with the display is software, not hardware, and it just goes to show that the model of slapping parts together and using random downloadable software doesn't always turn out right.
It seems like they had two issues (both hardware) related to display quality: one is they couldn't have a custom display made to their specs, so they had to pick something off the shelf to meet requirements. Two is they used a 30 pin display connector (see https://community.frame.work/t/does-fl12-have-a-40-pin-edp-c...), so certain resolutions and refresh rates probably can't work.
Next up...It's hard to justify buying a refundable airline ticket.
Never understood the people who keep saying Macbooks are expensive. They make it sound like unreasonably expensive. Sure maybe before the Intel Macs in 2006. But for the last 20 years they've been not the cheapest but not the most expensive either.
And when you factor all the time you waste on Windows, especially at the time Windows Vista, which had insane memory requirements, and compared them to Mac Os (X at the time) which ran pretty good on the cheapest models, and factored in the fact that OS upgrades were free, it ended up being on par if not better proposition. (Assuming you're not trying to run some exclusively Windows software on it or gaming).
And with the MacBook Neo. Forget it about it. It's almost, just almost a foregone conclusion for an entry machine that it is a much better proposition.
Does Apple have a lot of overpriced products. Yes, yes they do. But they it also doesn't mean you had to buy it either.
They get pretty expensive when you bump the ram and storage... I mean, it's less noticeable in today's market, but it was pretty rough... IIRC my M1 Air cost close to $3k with the extra memory, storage and 3 years of apple care, vs something like $1300 base price iirc. Similar for prior Macbook Pros I've had.
If you can get by with a base model, they've been an okay deal.. and as mentioned a lot of the build features, display, touchpad, etc. are top of the line, best in class. But before the Neo, I'd still often pick a Lenovo Ideapad or similar for ~$500 or so first, and still might for more ram/storage.
Mac is really good and the ram performance is generally better than slotted ram, so that helps a lot. It doesn't help, however if you want to run a VM/Docker or things that allocate/isolate memory usage away from native apps.
I haven't even had a system with less than 16gb ram since before 2009... I've used as much as 70gb of memory with certain workloads on my desktop (though usually not nearly that much), but it's nice to have if/when you do need it without thrashing the storage drive.
MacBooks are only expensive when you need performance upgrades, the base models are really not that bad for what you get.
But if you want to add a little more to your spec sheet, you might as well go somewhere else.
That's true. Even a slight memory or storage bump up is more than if you were to DIY. I guess convenience is where they get you.
i mean the apple hardware might be better but the closed down software is a reason for me to never chose apple.
framework is terrible value. you can buy something far better significantly cheaper: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=7840u&_sacat=0&_from=R4...
>and is more repairable and upgradeable
Oh no, that didn't matter to anyone[1], who would've thought!
Meanwhile AAPL goes brrr ...
It's sad because by the time other laptop manufacturers understand what people really want, Apple will have a 20 year lead on them. Hard to catch up with that.
1: Ok, 0.01% of consumers is not exactly "anyone" but close.
Try upgrading your macbook neo..
The 12" footprint is really unique and useful.
Anyone who has held or used a 12" Macbook Retina knows this. Right about 2 LB, and very thin. They make amazing second or primary laptops depending on how mobile/flexible you want to be.
The piece the Framework 12 and Neo are missing is the weight and thickness, but they will be able to get there. If the Framework 12 had been thin and light, I would likely be holding one
From the screen prints of the display, I like the colors better on the framework. But I would agree that it could be due to some very minor issues with my eyes if more people like the Apple display colors better :)
What's next, in 2027 will they release laptops with 4GB RAM? Are we going backwards?
To be honest, I am currently living with major Schadenfreude regarding ram costs.
For literally years, SV companies have had a "ship fast, fuck the users" mentality when it comes to resource usage, as if software is written more often than it's run.
Finally having some constrained supply of memory will force people to actually build software that can be reasonably used on 5 year old hardware (which would otherwise be perfectly servicable).
Slack from 2015 doesn't meaningfully add anything over Slack from 2025 yet I need 3x the RAM to run it.
Teams is worse somehow.
Let's hope software gets enough less bloated to make that workable.
Maybe... While less than perfect, I think even moving to shared browser runtimes like Tauri and similar are a boost over Electron. Not to mention shifting backend work to Rust over JS/TS. There's a lot of performance on the table to gain without even dramatically changing most of the application UI/UX.
That’s a marketing myth.
https://github.com/tauri-apps/tauri/issues/5889
Imagine Neo running Linux. Maybe I should contribute to Asahi Linux.
Now upgrade both options to 16gb of ram so you can run Docker or a VM. Oops.
It's insane we've somehow come back to 8GB RAM laptops in 2026.
I have an old circa ~2012 era Dell Latitude Laptop with 16GB in it. While it may not be powerful enough to play modern games or anything and may not run Win 11 (although why would you?), it's certainly served me well for at least a full decade.
I think that there’s a little bit of pointlessness in comparing the Framework 12 to essentially the best laptop value of all time, a laptop that was basically unthinkable by the industry as a whole 6 months ago.
The framework 12 is also oriented toward the kind of person who will not be happy with macOS. At least for the 13, over half of framework’s customers use Linux. More of their users are on Linux than on Windows.
macOS is a commercial operating system that advertises paid subscriptions for you. Even my Apple TV started opening the TV app recently upon wake up which is new behavior. Apple is starting their subscription enshittification just like Windows 11. They see the end of hardware profitability and they like serving and and subscriptions more than building innovative hardware.
Framed this way, the framework 12 is perhaps the best convertible Linux laptop in its price range. And in that sense, it’s not hard to justify.
That said, framework’s clearly most competitive piece of hardware is the 13 Pro.
I hate this talk of "justify". Does everybody think they've become an accountant now? Buy your nephew both computers. Or buy the one he prefers. Or buy the one you prefer.
People are allowed to own several computers. They are allowed to own several phones. They are allowed to install several web browsers and several text editors.
Why are hackers agonizing so much about small and meaningless decisions, which they don't even have to take? You don't have to pick one or the other.
Because it costs money? Believe it or not, most places don't pay you 6 digit salaries for shuffling around YAML.
"6 digit salaries" is the second most common hacker trope after "having to justify". You don't need a six digit salary to purchase two laptops.
I don't give a shit how fast and cheap the Neo is because I can't install the software I want/need on it or use it how I want.
Such as?
Feels like the Neo covers pretty much all the bases:
browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and alternatives
IDEs like VSCode, IntelliJ, Eclipse
open source heavy hitters like QGIS, Blender, Ghostty, even Gimp
unix command line tools via HomeBrew, etc
commercial suites like MS Office and Adobe
For me it'd be EXWM. I can't run my normal X11 window manager on MacOS.
This is, if crude, the correct take. You always choose your applications first, then the operating system best suited for them, then the hardware platform.