Frame Laptop Kit

[Donald]

What do you think about the Frame Laptop Kit?

My first PC was a kit and I learned a lot and upgraded parts for awhile. But at some point too much had changed. And I wanted a laptop.

Between being able to repair it myself and upgrade it seem interesting. Unless upgrading costs more than a new laptop.

https://frame.work/

 

[simple_gifts]

Guy @ work just ordered one. He and I value serviceability over a lot of other things

I have no interest in upgrading after I purchase a computer; i just get what i need + a bit more; fixing? Well that's important.

 

[skyactiv]

Can you put Windows 11 on it?

 

[Dave9]

Laptop, I never upgrade besides doubling the memory (always want it to come with an empty slot so not wasting the factory memory to double it) so seems like just more expense to me to get this kind of kit.

Desktop, I always upgrade, wouldn't get a proprietary OEM form factor, but ironically enough have reused lots of the more standard OEM cases to do complete rebuilds into for myself, or others who wanted a new build on the cheap. I had a buddy who worked at a mom 'n pop computer shop so was getting the cases dirt cheap if not free, though in recent years with older cases, there's extra expense of swapping in USB3 front ports where the USB2 were.

 

[Skippy722]

Laptop, I never upgrade besides doubling the memory (always want it to come with an empty slot so not wasting the factory memory to double it) so seems like just more expense to me to get this kind of kit.

Desktop, I always upgrade, wouldn't get a proprietary OEM form factor, but ironically enough have reused lots of the more standard OEM cases to do complete rebuilds into for myself, or others who wanted a new build on the cheap. I had a buddy who worked at a mom 'n pop computer shop so was getting the cases dirt cheap if not free, though in recent years with older cases, there's extra expense of swapping in USB3 front ports where the USB2 were.

Framework is more focused on repairability over upgrades, but being so easy to take apart makes it easy to upgrade as well if that’s something you wanted to do. Other than the motherboards, if you select the DIY option you can supply your own RAM, storage, wifi card, and operating system. For instance, they’re asking $160 for 32Gb DDR4 3200, a pair of G.Skill sticks is $105 on Newegg.

I’m heavily considering one, but my 2017 MacBook Pro is still great. I really like the taller screens, 16:9 is just a little too narrow IMO. The way they do the ports is ingenious… pick what you want where you want it.

 

[Dave9]

^ I've repaired laptops before, don't see the repair angle. You still have to get a mainboard that fits the chassis either way (isn't like a desktop mainboard where if it's ATX you have hundreds of choices from thousands of sellers) so they are just more openly marketing the replacement parts?

Maybe their platform is easier to get open or they provide instructions, it can depend on the OEM model how difficult it is to disassemble but generally that is to reduce cost or make them smaller and these seem like virtues to me. There has never been an OEM laptop I couldn't open, though I will grant that it is annoying on models that don't have bottom hatches for everything, to have to pull the whole mainboard out, takes an extra 15 minutes but how often does one need to do this, mayybe once per laptop if ever?

Operating system, I'm not fond of typical OEM bloat but most of that is easily enough uninstalled and with the OEM system, windows comes practically free, adds very little to the total cost unlike purchasing a license separately... even if you consider Win10/11 "free" upgrade, it is so only if you own a transferrable license that if legit, cost someone more than OEMs pay per license.

Part of my reluctance to even consider it is I don't need high compute power on the go. Even mid-low end these days is plenty powerful enough to do the things I'd use a laptop for, yet no laptop screen is large enough to suit me for extended use so if I were a college kid in a dorm, I'd pick a smaller laptop and suppliment with a 4K monitor, so main criteria is video capable of HDMI2 or DP1.2.

To cut to the point, I'm just not their target customer, am already familiar with how to deal with OEM laptops and would be spending about half what they want for my next replacement.