@A_A I have the same concerns as you.
I jumped on the train back in September when reviews started popping up on Youtube.
At first I was quite skeptical since most DYI laptop were/are… not like this one let’s just say.
I was bummed that it was only available in North America but I’m used to it and I planned to get one anyway for Christmas since my laptop was (still is) literally broken.
It fell down while is was setting up a rack and the screw hold that kept together the bezel and the back of the screen broke off.
I kept using it (since the company I worked for had a BYOD philosophy) and then the hinge snapped in half, so now I have to open it carefully not to break my screen in half (or the bezel).
Was it a Framework™ I could have easily repaired it, I even searched for parts but found only the hinge. So I could have replaced the hinge and patched it up with some tape/screw (not the best but functional).
By Christmas I was waiting on the announcement from Framework to open shop in Europe.
Which they did, but only in the northern part.
So either I can wait or as you say, buy a temporary laptop and make the switch later.
My main problems are:
- I could buy from a supported European country and then ship it but I have this same guy problem;
- I would reeeeeally love to have an Ethernet port*;
- I’d prefer an AMD CPU since it’s really energy efficient but I understand the problem with the thunderbolt ports;
- I cannot buy the keyboard I need since EU Marketplace is still unavailable (I have to use Windows for work but it does not support the keyboard layout that could solve the problem like Linux).
I know the company is doing good so I think it will stay on the market for some time, the series A was quite substantial and with the release of the Marketplace maybe they can rank up the net income.
I like the company and their plans and general ideas but I still have my problems to look for first.
So for now I think I’ll stick with my HAL-9000 and wait and see in order to avoid buying a product that I’ll post on Ebay later.
*The whole point of the expansion cards is “dongle-free workflow”, the majority of people interested in a device like this are going to be tinkerers/IT guys but you don’t publish an Ethernet card… it just feel strange.
I know a lot of the community and framework engineers are working on it but it seems impossible to make it fit and I don’t know why it wasn’t thought before… which is just my uninformed opinion and to honest a dongle is really not the end of the world