Framework Laptop 13 Pro: Major Upgrades and Linux Front and Center

FWIW I've also replaced my chassis once, and never had this issue with either chassis.

Just echoing what others have said here: I'm typing this on an original F13 I think from batch 6 which has had many upgrades but not the bottom cover. I have never had an expansion card pop out accidentally. I can't imagine that happening considering how difficult they are to remove. I usually have to lay the laptop flat upside down and use my multitool while holding the button to push a card out.

My wife has an F12 and she has also never had one pop out accidentally. Unlike mine, hers has locking switches to keep them in place, but even with the switches open they're pretty hard to remove.

Is it possible there was an intermediate redesign at some point that made them too easy to remove before they landed on the latest design?

Edit: this should be what you want to know - https://youtu.be/GnOpIQJnYWU?t=536

That feels like a defect in your particular machine, not a design flaw. With my laptop, the cards are actually incredibly difficult to remove most of the time. I can't imagine one of them coming loose by accident.

Cost of the Framework 13 upgrade kit in 2031: £499

The point of the upgradability and openness of the design is that you only have to pay that cost once, instead of every time you buy a laptop. How much will it cost to upgrade a MacBook's RAM if you decide you need more after a year or two? £2099?

Apple only makes disposable devices now. They're a megacorp can negotiate massive discounts at every stage of the supply chain.

I've helped several people in the last few years set up new Macs, replacing ones that were only 1-2 years old, because they ran out of storage.

Additionally, the comparison doesn't even hold true when you need more than the base configs from Apple, given their ridiculous upgrade pricing. I'm writing this on a $6,000USD M3 MBP with 128gb/4tb. It would have been substantially cheaper to build out on a Framework.

Being able to drive the price down by re-using parts I already have is a pretty big selling point, IMO.

Also, I think Apple is benefitting from scale, since they're able to maintain the (usually too high) storage and memory prices they've had for years. At this moment in time, framework have the misfortune of being forced to pass inflated wholesale prices onto the consumer.

Make this comparison one calendar year ago and the F13 Pro could very easily beat the MBP on price spec-for-spec.

how does that even work?

I am willing to pay more for a product made by a company whose respect for its customers manifests itself in the design of the product.

I am willing to pay more for a product that has first-class support for non-commercial operating systems that aren’t trying to collect data and sell services.

Lately it’s become obvious to me that Linux is a better desktop experience than macOS or Windows. Liquid Glass ruined my Mac, and Windows is…well, I only ever ran it so I could play games.

Sure, Apple is cheaper, because they make more money selling you services than selling Macs and iPads combined. These are services that are advertised to you within basic settings panels of the operating system, including apps like News that cannot be uninstalled (even Microsoft allows you to uninstall apps like that!)

I don’t want to pay less for a Mac that feels slick during the warranty period but has no upgrade path and no reasonably priced way to repair even minor issues.

We're not the target audience for this thing, but I'm at least happy there's a way people can put their money where their mouth is.

Economy of scale... they cannot make (or sell) anywhere near as many as Apple does, so of course it's going to be more expensive. Just like that "Made in USA" grill brush that costs 75 dollars (but guess where the machines that make it come from).

Plus depending on what you’re upgrading it could very well save you money in the long run, as the parts you can replace or upgrade yourself in an MBpro are few and far between. The few things you can replace often cost an arm and a leg and require way more technical expertise than a framework demands.

Also, Mac lock in. Not something to lightly ignore. Framework will run basically anything except MacOS.

They do not have integrated memory, but by using LPCAMM2 they get better memory speeds than any laptops using the usual SODIMM memory modules.

It's nice to see Intel on the upswing again, more competition is always a good thing.

Benchmarks have to wait until the actual Intel chip is out.

You can usually name a laptop that has some feature better than a macbook, but the overall package is so strong in so many avenues. Sound quality, screen quality (even without leaning on fancy new tech like OLED), trackpad quality.

Would you rather they target the Dell Latitude (Coil Whine, crazy power-off issues caused by C-States, poor thermals) or Thinkpad T-series (USB-C port stops charging and requires motherboard replacement, thermal issues, weak speakers, also coil whine, unstable radio) or HP’s elitebook (randomly doesn’t wake from suspend, hinge cracking and keycaps falling off even with light wear).

The other SKU’s are a race to the bottom, despite being more expensive for the base-system (which I find ironic).

It’s a poor north star to take a degrading product line as inspiration.

The only thing that’s surprising is that you see 30-40% of the laptops at a Linux conference are macbooks given how poor to non-existent the Linux support is for the newer Apple silicon models.

But I think many people would like to run Linux on Apple hardware. That's what I do and I haven't found better hardware yet. You just have to be careful in choosing something that's well supported.

If I had to change laptops (I didn't choose mine and I'm just lucky that M1 Macs are well supported by Asahi) I would definitely take a Framework and hope that it's sufficiently Apple-like hardware wise.

Because Mac hardware is the best in the market. I’m not really sure how you’d argue otherwise. Build quality, components etc are the best, it makes sense you’d want to match that.

A lot of Linux folks would love to own a MacBook that runs Linux. But such a thing doesn’t exist (at least at a first party support level). Not wanting one because it does look like a MacBook doesn’t make a ton of sense.

I don't think the interest in the hardware is necessarily low among Linux users, it's just that MacBooks aren't built with Linux in mind at all, and you can't run Linux on it as easily as on something like a ThinkPad.

> cloned every detail of the product you are definitionally not interested in

I guess a lot of people actually are interested in Apple's hardware, and wish something like that existed, but running Linux. You can't extrapolate your own preferences to Framework's market.

I have the first gen Framework sitting in a drawer because of some issues and one of the nitpicks is the fact that it looks like a cheap knockoff of a decade old Macbook complete with the Temu apple logo on the front.

I'd rather they made something similar to a Thinkpad/Latitude. But then again, there seems to be a mass delusion that anything non-Apple is a graveyard of garbage regardless of the price. So they're catering to that market.

Maybe I've been extremely lucky in picking refurbed enterprise machines running Linux in the past decade that hasn't faced any of the issues people complain about.

I'm a huge long time Linux guy, it's been my ride or die since the mid '90s. But when the M1 came out I got one to replace my "couch" chromebook (which was EOL), partly because I was dead tired of trying to get Divinci Resolve working on Linux. I dedicated days trying to get it to work, with nearly 30 years of full time Linux SysAdmin experience under my belt.

I've run primarily Thinkpads before that MacBook. The Mac hardware has been top notch for me, the Thinkpad is superior in repairability and upgradability, but the Mac I haven't had to do any repairs on. I don't baby it, but I also don't abuse it. There are infuriating things about MacOS, for sure.

For the same reason I won't drive a Tesla, I won't buy a Framework. Nazibook 13 Pro is an apt description when its supporters want minorities removed from society and are using the violence of government to do so.