I was looking for a new laptop recently and considered framework, exactly because of repairability/upgradeability. They are just too expensive for what you get, buying used enterprise model is a lot more economical and powerful. I ended with thinkpad p1 gen 5 that was essentially new with 64 RAM, rtx 3080 ti laptop for ~$1100. And you can replace everything easily but the motherboard.
I got a Framework 13 that originally came with an 11th Gen Intel mainboard in it for free.
Swapped the mainboard with a Ryzen board, installed some used DDR5 from eBay and reused all of the other components. Now I have a Framework 12 for around $500 and it’s likely the last laptop I’ll ever need to own, if I can keep upgrading it every few years.
I want one real, real bad. But buying anything with RAM and SSDs in it right now is off the table.
I also want a Steam Machine and an AM5 based desktop. Also not gonna happen.
I want one too
That’s the thing: it’s one of the few laptops you can buy without RAM and disk (of course only usable if you have these parts already)
Yeah. I get it. I don’t have any spare DDR5 SODIMMS or Samsung EVO m.2s laying around.
The point is that I won’t be upgrading anything anytime soon, and probably a lot of other people are in the same boat. I would love a Framework 16.
Unless you’re in the top right branch of our current K shaped economy, most people won’t be buying a Framework or a Steam Machine or upgrading their gaming rig right now.
It do be like that
I have a framework 13. Last week I noticed my battery had gone spicy pillow. Screwed it open, removed the battery and ordered a new one. A few days later I got the new battery, put it in and screwed everything back together. Took me less than 30 minutes in total, got original parts and not some sketchy Amazon crap, was less complicated than repairing my desktop PC. This is how you do repairable tech.
I’m increasingly comfortable being in n the almost nobody category. You should be too, after all almost nobody uses Lemmy.
Real talk. I fixed laptops for years. I’m not sure that I can justify the price with these.
A nucish box and portable monitor is cheaper.
I’m real interested in this as I’m currently shopping.
Check out your local 2nd hand listings. You might get lucky with someone selling a used one at half price. At which point their lack of ram or storage becomes a much more palatable upgrade problem rather than a deal breaker.
The real thing to consider here is upgradability. Thinkpads are pretty OK to repair but no upgrades. For that I’d consider Framework.
Unfortunately I don’t want an x86 laptop. x86 desktops only beat apple silicon laptops when GPU becomes involved, x86 laptops are nowhere near as good as apple silicon laptops.
Are people still using x86?
Realistically, an actual laptop form factor is really important for some folks (including me).
I legit used to carry my mini PC back and fourth from office to home. Brix 4770r, when loaded it sounded like a vacuum, all office guys were making fun of me. Good times.
But legit, I’m surprised noone builds laptops from desktop components. I don’t care if it’s huge. Just give me that
did you have a padded lunch pail to carry it in? that would’ve been such a sight. a little bento server.
They’re building desktops with laptop components.
Most laptop failure is physical damage to the enclosure or the board pops and the only thing that matters is getting OEM. Plus you can have a nice keyboard.
It would be very wasteful to get rid of my current laptop to replace it with a Framework.
So it’s not serving the bottom-feeder market for effectively disposable Windows laptops.
Why should it need to? Serving a niche interest is perfectly valid as long as you’re making enough money at it to be self-supporting. Despite what the line-go-up-at-all-costs advocates think.
They also have a 12" laptop for the lower end market.
When friends or family ask my opinion on what computer to buy, I have two recommendations.
1 - Frame.work with Linux on it
2 - MacbookUnless you’re tight on cash, those are the two best options. Heck, even if you are tight on cash, get a used version of either of the above, you’ll probably do just fine.
Unless you’re REALLY tight on cash, then get an ebay thinkpad and load linux.
Was recently asked for hardware preferences for a new job and my list was basically that. Framework with Linux -> MacBook -> Some other Linux Laptop - Windows.
Used Thinkpad is also a solid alternative if the power of apple silicon is not needed
I’M nobody!!!
I literally found out about these today. If the price isn’t astronomical, and they have a model that suits my needs, I’ll look into purchasing one
Unfortunately tariffs make them much more expensive in the US. I bought my barebones (no ram/ssd) framework 16 in 2024 for roughly $1800, but now a comparable 16 is well over $2100. Still worth it imo, but damn does that price hurt. As an aside, I love my 16, but had I realized how difficult it is to travel with it I would have gotten the 13
Almost nobody is willing to buy one
repairability enthusiasts have bought Framework laptops in the hundreds of thousands
Pick a lane there, XDA…
They even mention how the point is to buy the whole laptop once and then upgrade or repair it, instead of buying an entirely new laptop. Of course they’re selling fewer laptops than anyone making mediocre netbooks
But that’s not that easily quantifiable so it’s bad /s
MBAs in a nutshell
I didn’t know they existed, so that might be a factor too. Need some better advertising
Advertising is expensive as hell. Probably not a huge budget. The products kinda sell themselves in the right circles.
Their argument is that only enthusiasts want these laptops, but an average customer doesn’t care about them.
Why does everything need to cater to the average consumer? The average consumer is a fucking idiot, especially when it comes to technology. They don’t need to sell to everyone, they just need to sell enough to keep their company running and their people paid.
And I don’t see why that is a problem. If a company is doing good thing and sustaining itself, I don’t see why they will need to be the next dell, hp, or lenovo. That feels like the toxicity of “endless growth” in the capitalistic view of the world.
Not to mention in most of the place I go to, these are the most popular laptops only behind macbooks. In many situations, they are even more popular than macbooks.
I have never seen a Framework in the wild, however I applaud their approach, but even when taking repair costs in consideration, Frameworks are more expensive than simply upgrading to a newer laptop and using the old laptop for some other purpose. I can’t imagine with the rampocalypse that they easily survive, but I hope they do, I wish other manufacturers would make repair a higher priority.
My anecdotal experience - my Asus gaming laptop died about 6 months ago. with a lot of trouble shooting, I determined it was most likely the mobo. I decided to go with a framework, and was able to bring over my hard drive and ram, saving me like $400.
You also likely don’t need to reinstall/resetup everything, which is absolutely painful.
I would like to offer a slightly different perspective: I believe framework is uniquely positioned to survive the ram apocalypse (at least respect to their scale).
In the sense that, framework user can keep purchasing and upgrading components without needing to worry about ram prices, and framework can profit from these component without needing to subsidize ram prices.
That being said, as a smaller company, they certainly don’t have the same amount of bargaining power on ram as most big players, and the launch of LPCAM2 is a bit risky, since that pervents people from purchasing new ram/board/laptops given the current ram prices.
Does a new generation mobo/chip combination generally still support the older generation of RAM?
It may be, but that doesn’t resemble what they said. Presumably that is a less clickbaity headline.
Exactly
Well, what is hundreds of thousands as a percentage of the overall market? Like if they sold hundreds of thousands of grains of rice, that’s “almost nothing” compared to the rest of the rice that got sold
“Most of the market” includes the segments of commercial support contracts for office laptops which Framework doesn’t even target. Then you have the next biggest which is "go to Costco/Walmary/bestbuy and get what is on sale. So Framework simply cannot be a majority brand without those.
Among the remaining segment, e.g., developers that get to shop around and buy whatever they want? Its fairly popular.
In no context is hundreds of thousands of people “almost nobody”.
I mean, Dell is the #3 in laptop sales and sells roughly 30 million laptops per year. So yeah, Framework is roughly 0% of market share. I know this is a very tech enthusiast heavy website, but there are certain realities that people should face. It’s like saying Nothing Phone is going to remotely compete with Apple. It’s not a fair or valid comparison in the first place. I think a more fair comparison for Framework (beyond what they are hoping to achieve) would be with a small system builder like System 76, XMG or the likes.
This is not a reality anyone needs to “face”, it’s just an intentionally poor choice of words.
I* want* to buy one. But:
- I’m mid cycle with my last laptop; and
- who the hell can afford to buy RAM for a new system these days?!?!
Even if I could afford ram, that doesn’t even mean I can afford a framework laptop. I’ve looked at them every time I’ve thought about buying a laptop, but they’re just so damn expensive and I already have a perfectly good desktop.
let me guess: the devices live 2x as long but cost 3x as much?
It was like that with older models. Newer models make more sense economically.
Actually, excluding current craziness around ram/drives their prices were pretty comparable, at least to Dell when I checked last year.
I think they’re just too expensive. It might be worth it in the long run, but a lot of people can’t justify the up front cost.
This is it average consumer laptop shops filtering by price and then value for that price if they’re tech savvy at all lol
Framework targeted a niche out the gate if they expected mass adoption in their business plan they misunderstood the market they were competing in
If we remove the capitalistic pov it’s a different game but we live in the delulu we do
From a comparison I saw, you can buy two complete laptops with the same specs as one framework. Its hard to justify an upgradable laptop at that point.
Thanks to “look up” (value engineering) the I can buy the cheap one twice is more required than ever before lol! I can’t speak to frameworks build quality
I’m also a used to dunk on apple products guy then I bought a MacBook Pro and honestly insert windows laptop here experience is just worse in every way “out of the box” 😂
Stupid sleep state settings and updates on battery - looking at you Samsung Galaxy crap trying to catch itself on fire in my backpack with a near dead battery every time I tried to use it lolol
Nailed it. The cost doesn’t really make sense when you can have two functional laptops when you upgrade, so the prior one becomes a backup, a home lab server, etc. I know they have ways of making the prior pieces functional, but again at increased cost.
Never mind the fact I just plain almost never need to repair anything on my laptop because I take care not to damage it in the first place. The last laptop I had to repair anything on was one I bought in 2005, and it wasn’t even anything essential - just a pretty piece of the exterior that became unglued.
I was able to get a used one cheap for under 600€, used it for a while and now have upgraded the hinges, speakers, battery, keyboard and motherboard along with more RAM and a larger SSD. It’s the perfect PC builder’s laptop.
That’s the Vimes Boots economic theory right there
Exactly. Great idea, nice execution. But as much as I want one, I can’t justify the cost. It’d be fantastic if a modular setup became standard. Upgradeable laptops would be great for the environment.
Well, supporting DHH doesn’t really help their case either…
What’s wrong with dhh btw?
Far right? I mean I don’t know if that’s enough for me, but he’s not really making anything I would use anyways. But honestly business people should just keep politics to themselves
