My nephew just graduated high school, and wants a laptop. When he decides what computer to buy, price (or more precisely, value) is the most important attribute.
Apple's MacBook Neo upended the 'value laptop' equation—Apple's not supposed to be both the cheapest option and the best value... but it seems like that's squarely where the Neo landed for the good-but-cheap laptop category.
My nephew is also my godson, and to kick off his computing journey, I thought I'd let him choose from a Framework 12 I bought to test, or the MacBook Neo I bought a couple months ago to use around the studio.
Then Framework isn’t a great option, as their hardware isn’t particularly new or fast. It’s not really their fault, but just a function of the modularity (which restricts space for cooling/PCB), the small company size (so they don’t get/integrate new chips as quickly).
This is true even if you upgrade it over time, as other laptops might be a generation ahead with higher end chips.
The one exception might be the Desktop. And that’s fairly niche.
Don’t get me wrong, I like Framework. But it’s not a great brand if you really need all the CPU/GPU you can get in a particular size.