I wanted to buy one, but they are veeery expensive, almost twice for a similarly specd laptop. Plus thet don’t offer OLED screens.
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 thinking of a framework for my next machine but I have been using laptops for decades. Still have a Linux one from 2014. None of them get spicy pillow. So… just luck of the draw?
Amazing. I did the same on my 2012 macbook air, and a friend’s Asus notebook. My 2019 Lenovo is still going strong, I expect to get 10y of lifetime out of it. Oh, and Lenovo spare parts are dime a dozen. I have rebuilt old Lenovos multiple times in my life, typically by buying a broken donor machine.
So exactly what is the business case for buying a Framework Notebook?
(Yes, they are really beautiful, cool and I’d WANT one. But there always was a better option to buy, for one reason - price: used Lenovo, portability: MacBook Air)
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.
This is the real issue IMO, framework mainly appeals to the environmental crowd and economical crowd. Problem is buying used corporate workstations is way better for both these markets + it doesnt even seem like the motherboard upgrades are much cheaper than just buying a new used laptop. Maybe with terrible ssd prices the calculus changes, but you still need to upgrade ram on a new board anyway. Hardware just doesn’t improve on the 2-4 year timescales to justify this anymore.
Unpopular opinion but the level of customisation on the site is a mistake. Keep it if you have to but offer 2 or 3 pre-configured options for folks who don’t know what they’re doing.
Also, the whole time I was browsing I was thinking ‘I could probably build something similar that would cost way less’.
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 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.
Isn’t Framework affiliated with neo nazis or some shit
Not that I’ve heard. I’d be curious where you heard it. You should probably come with a source of your going to make bold accusations like that.
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?
ARM is still extremely fragmented.
When there are ARM vendors selling SystemReady at SR levels for a similar price to x86, it will be at the point it could take over
RISC-V RVA22 is interesting, but not a lot of options yet, either
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.
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
It would be very wasteful to get rid of my current laptop to replace it with a Framework.
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.
Exactly
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.
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?
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.
Getting the framework driver’s was painful. I needed to download them over wifi, but wifi wasn’t working because it needed the driver. okay, download on another computer and install via USB, nope. USB drivers aren’t working either. I ended up spotting my hard drive into my desktop, downloading the drivers that way, and then moving it back to the framework laptop to install.
It may be, but that doesn’t resemble what they said. Presumably that is a less clickbaity headline.
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.
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
