Expanding the Framework refurbished program

Framework Team Blog
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In October 2022, we launched the Framework refurbished program in the US and Canada as a sustainable and affordable way to join the Framework community. We received positive feedback from both the community and the media, excited by the opportunity to give a second life to excellent-quality refurbished products.

Since then, we’ve been collecting and preparing units, and we are now ready to expand our refurbished program into the EU, as well as scale our product offerings in the US and Canada!

We now offer three configurations of the Refurbished Framework Laptop DIY Edition (11th Gen Intel® Core™) in Germany, France, Ireland, Austria and the Netherlands. Each laptop is pre-packaged with an EU power adapter, 4 Expansion Cards (2 USB-C, 1 HDMI, 1 USB-A), and pre-installed WiFi. Memory, storage and OS are not included. You can bring your own or pick them up in the Framework Marketplace. All refurbished Framework products offered in the EU receive the same 2-year limited warranty that our new products do.

Additionally, we now offer three configurations of the Refurbished Framework Laptop DIY Edition (12th Gen Intel® Core™) in the US and Canada. Each laptop is pre-packaged with a US/Canada power adapter and pre-installed WiFi. Memory, storage, Expansion Cards and OS are not included. You can bring your own or pick them up in the Framework Marketplace. All refurbished Framework products offered in the US and Canada receive our standard 1 year limited warranty.

Refurbished laptops and modules typically start from the small number of returns we get from our 30-day return guarantee, and go through a rigorous cleaning and testing process. Read our Closing the loop blog post to learn more about our refurbishment methods.

Linux on the Framework Laptop

As you get your refurbished laptop set up, remember that you can either bring Windows 11 or your favorite Linux distro or BSD. We’ve been updating our Linux guides to cover the latest releases: Ubuntu 22.04.1 LTS, Mint 21.1, Fedora 37, and Manjaro 22.0.

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What’s with the price jump? It’s discounted yes, but more expensive than it should be. Given the launch price of the 11th gen is $750 and the launch price of 12th gen is $819, that’s a $70 premium for 12th gen. Launch price of 11th gen refurb is $600, yet the launch price here is $719. Less of a discount than the 11th gen was. Why?

Edit: I’ll also note that my view is that refurbs should be used to penetrate lower price tiers, as I’ve advocated for in previous posts. $600 is close enough to the $500 or less price tier that it can be advocated that the upgrades available with the FW are worth the 20% premium. $719 destroys that argument and eliminates penetration potential. If the price increase is just price discrimination then I understand that, if unhappily.

Edit 2: I’ve also just noticed the discount gets steeper if you move up in models. This seems to me to be the inverse of your pricing strategy thus far, where the i5 was the value pick, now the i7’s provide a much more compelling value, especially the 1280P.

Edit 3: The discounts between refurb models seem consistent actually, if confusing. Regular DIY between 11th gen and 12th gen had the i5 as the value pick regardless but the pricing structure for refurbs is inverted, with high-tier models having steeper discounts. The only explanation I can think of is that more 1280P than 1240P models were returned, so that a greater discount is required to get them out the door and that discount is subsidized but a reduced discount on the lower tier models

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How about the battery? Do they get a new one?

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Launch price of 11th gen refurb is $600, yet the launch price here is $719. Less of a discount than the 11th gen was. Why?

When the 11th gen refurb models launched the 12th gen refresh was already out for some time. Perhaps we’d see a bigger discount that is on par with the 11th gen refurb once the 13th gen refresh launches in Q2?

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Since these refurbs are sourced from returns, the battery health is essentially untouched. I imagine the battery is tested and if not meeting a minimum charge level, it is replaced.

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I thought about that and that might be it. It’s still curious the pricing strategy is inverted for refurbs.

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How often do refurbished orders ship and how long does it take from shipping to delivery? I assume it’s faster than orders for non-refurbished laptops since it’s probably shipping from the US rather than Taiwan.

I tried asking support about this over the weekend for 11th-gen refurbished laptops but they just regurgitated the information for non-refurbished laptops so I don’t think they understood my question.

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@ryanpetris 11th gen refurbs are sold out except for EU and the shipping is basically the same time frame-within a week. I’ve ordered a refurb in the past.

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Well, I ordered a 12th gen 1240p refurb within like 10 minutes of this announcement going up (I actually noticed it on the site before I saw the announcement), so I was hoping that they’d be in-stock with somewhat immediate shipping. We’ll see.

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@ryanpetris oh I meant that you would receive it within a week

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Well, I placed the order Wednesday and it’s now Friday morning and hasn’t shipped yet, so we’ll see. Maybe/hopefully it will ship today so a holiday day isn’t inserted in there too :grimacing:

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My order didn’t ship on Friday and I don’t expect it to over the weekend or on Monday due to President’s day, so I’ll have to hope for Tuesday.

I have to say I’m a bit disappointed; I know it says “up to 5 business days” to ship (well, at least now it does; I don’t remember seeing that when I ordered) however given that the refurbished laptops are already in the US and presumably ready to ship, not needing to be palatalized like new ones coming from Taiwan, I was hoping that they would ship the same or next day. Oh well.

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Not trying to defend Framework here but we’re living in a time where we can build and ship a computer worldwide within 5 days (for me) after ordering so what difference does it make to wait a few more days?

I am not trying to be harsh, but patience is a virtue and we’re all pretty spoiled with how fast things can be that we forget just how incredible the world is we live in today.

Sit back, relax and be happy about your purchase. :slight_smile:

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In a world where Amazon has set the bar to receive anything and everything within 24 hours, 5 business days is forever. Plus, when I got my non-refurb order a month or so ago, I ordered it on a Thursday and had it shipped the next morning on Friday and delivered on Monday, which has further spoiled my expectations :slight_smile:

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Finally shipped last night (Wednesday) from NJ. It was also shipped using “FedEx Express Saver”, which I haven’t been able to find anywhere nor was I able to extract out of support. This is FedEx’s 2-3 day air shipping option.

A couple last things I want to say on this though:

Trying to get information from support is like pulling teeth; they’ll throw some vague excuse at you and hope that you go away. For instance I asked support if they would be able to give me a more specific shipping date other than “within 5 business days” and their response was:

We’ve noticed that the order is placed last Feb 15 which implies that the order is still under process.

Pressing further, the excuse was:

We apologize for the delay but we just want to make sure that all refurbished products are rigorously tested to confirm that functionality and performance meet the level of new products and are screened to confirm they have good cosmetic quality. They then go through an extensive testing and cleaning process at our service center in New Jersey, where any parts that don’t meet our specifications are replaced.

At which point I was confused; why would Framework announce availability of a product only to not have stock available to ship? Refurbished 11th-gen 1135G7 variants have been “out of stock” for a while, implying they haven’t received any to refurbish, which is what I would expect if there weren’t items immediately available to ship.

Pressing further on that subject, I received the following:

If items are not available we always mark them as “Out of stock” to show that is it not available for order.

Refurbished Framework Laptops DIY Edition (12th Gen Intel® Core™) are tested, inspected, and in stock before we announce the availability.

Given the above, and that I ordered within 15-20 minutes of the announcement, and the fact that (as far as I know) this wasn’t something that was going to be announced ahead of time, I should have gotten one of the first orders in for the refurb units, and if those refurb units were truly ready-to-ship, would have gone out the next day.

So I can only conclude that either: 1. there’s a breakdown in communication somewhere here, and items actually aren’t ready to ship when ordered; 2. Frameworks facility in NJ is backed up by a few days and needs more help; or 3. they’re just sitting on orders for a few days just because.

Whatever it is, something is broken here. If it’s just order volume that y’all can’t keep up with, maybe you should consider some kind of paid expedited processing option ala Newegg to gurantee items are shipped the same day if ordered by a certain time.

Something else I noticed is that Framework Support seems to start replying to tickets around 7pm eastern US, implying that they don’t have a US-based support team. After that I’m able to get relatively quick responses from them, but if I email them during the day I don’t get a response until after then.

My last complaint is the lack of shipping options; having an “Overnight” shipping option would have been great vs 2-3 day shipping.

Well anyway thanks for listening.

P.S. This isn’t meant to berate or disparage Framework in any way; I like what y’all are doing, I just think there’s a few things that can be done better and more efficiently here. To not criticize things that you dislike means that nothing will ever get fixed.

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Super cool! I’m glad to see 12th Gen reburbed models now available, especially since the 11th Gen refurbs with an i5 processor were currently (the day I checked) out of stock. Framework is making good on promises yet again, and it’s important to keep budget options available.

@GhostLegion I guess one reason for the price hike would be that wifi comes preinstalled on the 12th Gen models, on 11th Gen you have to buy it separately. That’s worth $20 plus time. But yes, it’s still a bit disproportionate.

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@ProperGander They later include WiFi for 11th gen as well actually. I don’t mind the price hike per se, what is weird is how inverted the pricing structure is. Despite each tier getting more expensive, the higher tiers provide better value, especially the 1280P model.

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The 11th Gen systems were discounted after the 12th Gen systems were introduced, to help clear out the old ones. As they are not the current product, it’s reasonable that refurbished 11th Gen systems would also be discounted more than the 12th Gen ones. Not that there are any 11th Gen systems left…

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@Shirley_Dulcey I focused on launch prices and relative discounts not absolute values.

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The Refurbished Framework Laptop DIY Edition (12th Gen Intel® Core™) is now available in Germany, France, Austria, Netherlands, and Ireland. There’s a limited quantity so grab one quickly if you’re interested! bit.ly/3JBxfqz

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