Framework as in the laptop company, just for clarity. https://frame.work/. For those unaware, the idea is that these are laptops built with a high degree of modularity so that you can replace far more than a single stick of SODIMM with the goal of even upgrading your CPU and mainboard a few years down the line.

Also, Framework is partially owned by Linus Sebastien (Linus Tech Tips) so their marketing is “off the chain” as it were.

Over the past few years I have tried to convince myself to get one a few times. But… the pricing never made sense. As a quick exercise:

But I still like the fundamental concept (of the marketing…) of upgradable laptops.

But then I finally watched the Tested teardown video with Norm (the heart and soul of Tested and has been since the Whiskey days) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drxOpMsr6sM and… the general takeaways were that there is a LOT of cool tech involved in the modularity but that the vast majority of people would never mess around with it after assembling their laptop for the first time. Also, Adam Savage has stickers.

Combine that with all of their modular ports being 20 dollar USB-C dongles with single ports and… this feels a lot more like the kind of bullshit Apple does than anything else. Why use the USB C dongle/hub that works with all your other devices when you can buy a 20 dollar HDMI port instead?

Same with stuff like the (honestly insanely cool) modular keyboard layout. Basically, the keyboard, touchpad, etc are all panels that can be popped off and swapped around. So if you want stupid LEDs, you can have them. If you want an offset keyboard, you can do it. If you want a 10key numpad, you can do that too. It is a genuinely awesome idea but… it is a lot of engineering for something that people will use maybe twice in their ownership of the laptop (once to configure, one to replace when they spill their drink). Same with things like being able to swap out the back module to have a GPU when you want it. You do that once.

Which… makes it feel like people are paying a premium for easier assembly at a factory.

And as for the upgradable hardware? Storage and ram are on point and they should be praised. But you are basically buying whole new modules for the CPU/mobo and the GPU and so forth. Which… is kind of necessary because it is so rare to find an actual mobile sized GPU in a consumer available format. But it continues to just feel like you are buying proprietary parts from a company (Framework want other companies to make parts but I have not looked through the terms and licensing).

But also? A friend pointed out: How many sticks of DDR3 ram do you still have? Because I know that I have a big bin of computer parts “just in case” that I will never use but also can’t be bothered to throw away because maybe I will. And that is what these modular parts become. You COULD recycle your old mainboad+cpu… or you can keep it in case you want to do a project that you never will and that would be perfectly fine with a raspberry pi or a cheap nuc anyway.

Contrast that with wiping your laptop and giving it to a nephew or dropping it off in an e-waste bin (and many stores offer incentives to do that).

All of which combines to… this feels a lot like the kind of “poison pill” compliance that Apple is doing on the right to repair side. They make a big deal about how they allow people to repair their shit now (that various governments threatened action…). But they tightly control the parts and rent out the hardware AND price it to strongly discourage hobbyists to the point that it mostly feels like they are just squeezing out the third party shops even more.

I’m torn because I do think the stated ethos is awesome. I… also have had no issues replacing my storage or upgrading my ram in my last few laptops but I tend to not get “flagship” models so there is that. But it is increasingly feeling like Framework is just building up IP to sell to manufacturers while having a net negative on the amount of e-waste in the laptop space.

  • wjrii
    3•11 months ago

    I think it’s a nice enough idea, and I hope it sets a reasonable baseline for what enthusiast and workstation laptops will be as the entabletification of the mainstream computing device continues, but right now it’s sort of a solution waiting for its problem. Economically, it doesn’t make much sense for one person to buy one. In an actuarial sense, it’s almost certainly better to buy something you like that’s less modular, and replace it if it breaks or stops being useful for your intended tasks. Of course if no one who wishes them well buys their computers, they won’t last long enough to be relevant.

    Strictly speaking, just standardizing and providing the physical specifications ends up making their dongles more like headers on a desktop motherboard, potentially a commodity piece that anyone could replicate. Their other modular components seem to have a similar idea. It all seems elegant enough, and ready to “backscale” into a distributed niche industry if the big companies stop making powerful proprietary machines at the scale that keeps them cheap. As it stands, they sort of ARE de facto proprietary, but I guess the idea is that there will be enough enthusiasts, hardware hackers, and evangelists paying a sizeable, but not crippling, premium to keep them afloat and gain the mindshare to become a new standard (and hopefully halo brand) when people need to build laptops like they build towers now.