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
Their argument is that only enthusiasts want these laptops, but an average customer doesn’t care about them.
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.
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.
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?
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.
I feel this way about spicy things. Everything “hot” is just hot to the average schmuck from the Midwest. Anything spicier than that gets dumbed down to become that (like taco bell Diablo sauce) or becomes hard to find.
I really enjoyed when that Buldak 2x spicy chicken raman “challenge” became a thing, because that’s some great tasting raman and more in line with the normal amount of spicy I like to eat. Now I’m back to having to just order it online again.
It may be, but that doesn’t resemble what they said. Presumably that is a less clickbaity headline.
That argument falls flat because Android rose to prominence on the backs of enthusiast recommendations.
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.
I don’t understand what you mean in your first point. There are clear pathways for companies and schools to buy in bulk on the framework website. Not saying that FW is successful in that way but it is there.
I agree on your second point but would tie it to marketing. Having your laptop on sale at Costco is a marketing strategy, which for better or for worse, FW doesn’t do right now (and probably doesn’t have the ability to do)
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 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.
XDA is pretty much slop these days.
I’m increasingly comfortable being in n the almost nobody category. You should be too, after all almost nobody uses Lemmy.
It’s nice here.
Makes me think how much I wanted to play mutliplayer games as a kid. I always played single because all my games were err, yknow.
Then I got to play MP little by little only to realize I hate everyone. Teammates in shooters are almost always idiots. People raid me in online RPG’s because I dare not log in at 7 AM daily. My friends are impatient as fuck playing open world games like Minecraft, it always ends in 2 weeks. Nobody can agree what game to play. They tell me how they argued and broke up with their so and so as I’m fighting for my life in the trenches of battlefield 1, like I give a damn.
Now I play by myself in that little “almost nobody” and I’m happier than I ever was in multiplayer…
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.
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
this can also work because they will at some point get sold down for lower prices so it’s not like people that can’t afford a new one can’t buy a second hand one. A SH framework will be better than any shitty other laptop in the long run.
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)
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.
I want one too
It do be like that
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.
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.
Please make a post in response to this one because you really got your stuff together on knowing facts
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)
Was the battery covered by warranty?
I wanted to buy one, but they are veeery expensive, almost twice for a similarly specd laptop. Plus thet don’t offer OLED screens.
bullshit, similar spec laptop AT WORST is ~100-150 USD more, if you are looking at 2x price, on similar spec, you are looking at a no name brad with the worst of the worst parts, that will 1000% fail in less than 6 months and will fall apart in less than a year.
I went to see to compare against a Thinkpad (E14).
Framework Laptop 13: $1140 for the Ultra 5 125H, 8GB, 256GB Lenovo E15: $1120 for the Ultra 5 225u 16GB, 256GB
Lenovo price is a “sale” on their site off the “list price” of $1340
Framework wins:
- The H series processor is superior to the U series, even if older model -More custo options in general - eg I can choose 16gb in 1 stick vs 2 sticks, or I can choose “none” (also for SSD) -I can choose No OS and save some money there
Framework loses: No Core 5 in stock. I don’t need a 7, that’s $2-300 I don’t need to spend
Framework Neutral: No 256SSD in stock. But I do have the option to get no SSD and just buy my own. Arguably a win for me but not ideal for some
I’m unclear if Laptop 13 is the correct comparison vs a Laptop 13 Pro. The E14 is a mid-tier pro model, not a top of the line, which is where I tend to chill with laptops since they’re not my dailies anyway).
Anyway, as someone shopping for a laptop, I see that prices are the same. Given this, Framework wins.
HOWEVER: If I was actually shopping for a laptop, I would buy a used older-model E14 on Ebay for say $400. I know it would last, they’re repairable, and for the cost I could buy spare parts now. Because this is a secondary (1/week) device for me, I wouldn’t spend $1100 on a laptop in general. Not when Thinkpads are ppossibly the next-most-repairable laptop out there.
Ultimate calculus - Framework isn’t for me. Yet.
Now, if I had the money for activism? Sure, let’s get more of these into the 2nd hand market, stop the waste. Or no second hand market at all, just upgrade like a Desktop.
At some point, I may have no need for a desktop. At that point, $1100 for a primary PC is a good price, esp if I can build on it. If I was a laptop user, me who like custo and upgradeability - Framework is a fair value, good price even.
Anyway, to the point of the comment chain above me, I would say it’s a 1:1 price. If you’re shopping in that spec range anyway. If you need lower spec than Core Ultra 5H, say Ultra/Ryzen 3U, Framework doesn’t target that audience - and neither do quality [major] OEMs (you might find a great sale somewhere of course). But basically a well-built mid-tier laptop just costs $1000-$1200 new these days (I’d have said $800-$1000 before the price hikes recently).
HOWEVER
your however is pointless. This is not a second hand market, you are comparing apples to cars. They are not the same. Your first points are somewhat ok.
No activism here, obviously you dont grasp how cheaper this gets long term even compared to second hand laptops. I have the 13. I will give you few examples now - talking in general here, not a specific laptop but a good majority.
My SSD dies I change it, yours is soldered (ESPECIALLY ON MAC) you BUY a new laptop.
My Ram dies or i want to upgrade it, I change it, yours is soldered (many have it now like asus, acer etc. for no reason, no LLM usability or speed chase) you BUY a new laptop at best sell off this one at a loss and buy a new one.
I break my display or display frame, I change the display EASILY or the display frame with a simple snap - YOU BUY A NEW LAPTOP your old is salvaged for few parts and is useless as 99.9% of people cant change their laptop monitor as its hard and in some cases deliberately made impossible to do.
My needs change, i need to change from HDMI to Display port or USB C port for display out etc. (real case for me) I simply buy 2 new ports for 40 usd, you buy a new laptop at best sell this one off at a huge loss.
I drop my laptop and my chassis break, I buy a new chassis, you buy a new laptop and trow this one in the bin with few salvaged parts.
this one is specific to linux users … i buy the laptop, EVERYTHING works out of the box, you thinker and there is a 50/50 chance few of the parts are not optimized or they outright dont have drivers for linux.
Now here is the kicker … I use my laptop for 5 years, I dont wnat to spend 2k on a laptop, I simply by a new mobo and upgrade only that, and you know what ? I can re-use my old mobo in a case as a PC, homelab, server, media station OR sell it on a big re-sale market and re-coup some of my money, thus the purchase of my new mobo gets cheaper.
Ow my old laptop is too old now and the camera quality is bad, the speakers are weak the fingerprint is slow, the touchapd is old ? good news … there are 3 generations of reversions, my hinges are weak ? again, new revisions your battery is old ? ha … good nows again, there are 3 types of batteries that you can buy NOT from china re-branded second had batteries for your laptop that under the hood are re-used old ones charging you as new ones, but a new one, bigger, better, faster you ? you buy 2x batteries from china, spend 400 usd because there are none sold officially anywhere because your manufacturer moved long time ago to newer models and then after you lost those money as you got scammed you buy a new laptop.
I can go on much more btw … but this got too long :) I think you get the picture :) There is no activism here my friend, its smart purchasing and investment in NOT spending shit ton of money and owning what i use. You do not own your computer. I bet your lenovo, if something breaks, try your luck with the lenovo warranty … see what happens (speaking from experience there).
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.
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
The Ampere CPUs are nice. They have lots of cores running at a high clock speed, lots of PCIe lanes and socketed ECC RAM.
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.
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.
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.
Thank you, I’m sold
Here’s the third party mainboard that’s available today. Nice thing is they don’t have to design a whole laptop to experiment with a new architecture, cause they can just build off Frame.Work’s… framework.
https://deepcomputing.io/product/dc-roma-risc-v-mainboard-iii/This crowdfunded solution has new expansion cards (like a double type-c) and also a laptop dock that uses expansion cards so you can customize your own dock.
https://dockframe.com/A little over a year ago, Prusa partnered with them to make a framework 3d printing contest. The winner was an open source project to use a frame.work mainboard to build a SteamDeck clone.
https://www.printables.com/contest/449-framework-computer-mainboard-caseUuuh, the dock is nice. Never knew someone build a docking station for framework components. Thanks for the link
I’m a little concerned about the lack of updates. I’m not sure about what their planned timeline is.
Yeah the crowdfunding is supposed to start “soon™”, but no mention of what that means. Let’s see, maybe they’ll open source the schematics if it doesn’t work out
Did a little more digging, and they’re actually really active on the frame.work forums. Their last post was only a week ago.
Progress looks very promising.
My wallet did not need to find out about that dock but I have been considering one…
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.
It was a hypothetical. If their product becomes unusable without them, I wouldn’t have considered their products particularly repairable. But I got my answer above, and I’m happy. Will consider a framework when my Thinkpad says goodnight.
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
I know a lawyer who just ordered one.
He’s got disposable income, he wants a decent windows based laptop for his work, he liked the repairability angle.
This isn’t for just tech enthusiasts.
He’s got disposable income
A key difference, especially of late.
The idea of buying a Framework, just to put Windows on it, rubs me the wrong way haha
It’s a step.
Step 1: new hardware (Framework), familiar OS (Windows)
Step 2: familiar hardware (Framework), new OS (Linux)
Step 3: “I use Arch Linux, btw.”
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.
Yeah, you can certainly get cheaper laptops, but if you’re looking for similar build quality, it’s not that much more
I would also say, for me, the peace of mind with how easy it is to fix is worth it. I used to stress over my wife or nephew or someone wanting to do something on my laptop, but now if they poke the screen with their finger I just think I can fix it in 5 minutes if they mess it up
I own one 🤷♂️ they’re expensive but I’d recommend em nonetheless
