This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
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
Exactly
I'm increasingly comfortable being in n the almost nobody category. You should be too, after all almost nobody uses Lemmy.
The article is clanker slop. It's mostly reiterative, a clear sign of clanker slop. Clankers are reiterative in their slop. A lot of clanker slop is reiterative.
That's an excellent point, and you're right to push back on this. Let me make an honest evaluation of the situation.
Not all reiterative spamlike garbage is clanker slop. Some of it is deliberately written to prioritize SEO over respecting the reader or producing anything of quality. Either way thanks for giving me the heads-up not to give them any of my time.
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.
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)
Yes, pretend it's something wrong with the right idea (a repairable /upgradable device) and not the fact that America took a giant, wet trump all over the entire economy and a combo meal at mcdonalds is $16 with a small, non-refillabke drink and everything else is exponentially fucked from there.
Give us a reasonable pre-trump PC market, with this being a slight premium above that, do projections to normalize cost of ownership over say 10 years and it would grow. But we live here, so no.
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
motherfuckers acting like those laptops aren't five hundred bajillion dollars
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.
I* want* to buy one. But:
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.
Honestly if the average person can’t buy it at Best Buy or Target, they won’t. Most people don’t know about this stuff.
Wherever a random coworker or family member asks me which of two laptops to buy, it’s always between a couple of prebuilt machine at a big box retailer.
I love the idea of Framework myself, but I can’t afford to buy one.
Too niche for the average buyer, too expensive for the rest of us.
I own one 🤷♂️ they’re expensive but I’d recommend em nonetheless
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 like the idea of owning one. Then I see the prices and I compare them with the prices of refurbished ThinkPads... (No, I don't need a new laptop)
They are expensive up front. I have one of the first 11th generation Intel ones. I bought a new CPU fan last year instead of getting a new laptop. One of my kids dropped it, and I'll need a new screen for it here soon.
Instead of buying 3 laptops, I bought 1 and repaired it. Super worth it.
Who would have thought a more expensive, more premium product would have a hard time finding customers during a time when people are struggling to pay bills and cant even afford the non-existent dollar menu at mcdonalds anymore.
This is rage bait
Framework is great, but it's just so insanely expensive.
I was buying a new laptop about 2 years ago. A framework one cost more than twice the price of a regular ultrabook with comparable (but better) specs.
Sure, you pay more for a Framework, and you can upgrade it later instead of buying a new laptop. Makes sense, but even then - a Framework one is more expensive than 2 laptops with similar specs. It only gets cheaper on the third upgrade. Which for me may be 10 years away.
Personally I'm not thrilled about investing in a laptop that will pay off in a decade. Who knows what laptops will be like by that time. Hell, it's not unconceivable that devices like Framework will be outlawed. Or that Framework goes out of business.
It might make sense for people who upgrade often, but I don't. Or for people who don't, but are wealthy enough to pay the premium anyway. If anything, I feel like having a Framework would make me want to upgrade more often, which would be a waste of money.
Or that Framework goes out of business.
Even if they do, they use mostly off-the-shelf components, and the designs for the stuff that isn't are open-sourced. You can still repair them even if Framework doesn't exist.
Just want to say, I bought a framework 13 and it's fantastic. Been running arch off of it for two years and it's been a workhorse.
It was expensive comparable to a similar specced PC at the time but I make enough to vote with my wallet so that's what I did. I think anyone who has the money but doesn't, simply because there's a better deal that's worse for the environment and the makers of the item, while holding a right to repair or anti-corporate mindset are hypocritical at best.
The world gets better if we make it that way, and I see buying a framework (if you have the extra money) as a small step in a better direction.
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.
My Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th Gen is quite repairable thank you very much, and it was like 400 bucks, and it comes with an i7, 16gb of ram, and a 256gb ssd. It's only marketing that has people convinced they will fall behind unless they have the latest and greatest.
I was considering a framework but realized i didn't need a laptop. lol
Would like one, though!
Can anyone educate me on this? What happens if the company goes bust? Can I still swap the CPU and GPU on it, or am I entirely relying on parts made by Framework?
Actually other companies are making framework compatible parts now. There are third party ports and third party mainboards available now.
Their design is open source, you can make your own if you want to. I've 3d printed parts for my frame.work using their published specs.
The company is absolutely not "going bust". In fact they often have trouble producing enough to keep up with demand. They're just not going to blow away Dell or HP anytime soon.
How much? With what money?
Come now, these products that cost 3x what they should don't get to claim it did not work out due to lack of demand. No one has pissing away money anymore and products made for some odd not rich but well off tech people is just not going to happen.
I've swapped the Main board and WiFi chip in a framework laptop. Swap the ports regularly. It can have a few quirks to get used to. It is wildly worthwhile to me now that Dell has decided nothing can be repaired anymore. Those who say they take care of their laptop likely do try and one should but it is survivorship bias imho. Accidents happen unintentionally that is why they are called accidents.
Spent over two decades repairing laptops... I'm unlikely to purchase anything but framework for years going forward. Now if we could just get the framework printer :P The upfront cost is high they are still a small manufacturer. The long term value is working out well for me.
I can't afford that kind of money on a laptop!
I'm a Linux nerd FFS... I've never owned a new laptop in my life!
TLDR: Fuck "AI"
I was in the market for a 14'' work laptop and I so DESPERATELY wanted to buy a Framework but I couldn't thanks to a combination of all the AI bullshit driving up memory prices, Framework still being on the Series 1 Intel Ultra chips, and their global availability not quite being there (this bit is understandable for a relatively new company). I ended up buying a base 14'' MacBook Pro M5 even though I wanted to stay on Linux simply because it was the only thing with good perf, crazy good battery, and good build quality that was priced semi-reasonably even though it's on the opposite end of the repairability spectrum.
Even now a comparable Framework (Intel Ultra X7 358H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) costs ~$150 more than what I paid for my Mac, assuming I can even get it shipped to where I am, and the regional pricing/taxes doesn't push the price higher. Kinda crazy because it's on the more reasonable side of things if memory serves. Dell XPS costs even more.
I hope this memory crisis gets sorted because I never thought I'd see the day that Apple became the budget option. Maybe I'll sell my Mac and get a Framework then because as much as I love using the Mac, I still hate being at Apple's mercy if anything breaks or if I need an upgrade.
