Batch 14 here, now I know how it feels to be happy and sad, simultaneously! :~D
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I am in batch 5 and I hope I can receive the framework after my birthday in February 
It will probably replace my desktop for gaming depending on the graphics performance, and I will for sure use it for programming and office stuff as I need a second screen there. Currently, my second screen is a 15" 4:3 from 2008, so probably the laptop will use less energy than that one.
If graphics performance is good enough, it will also replace the in-home streaming solution to the tv I currently have, which is a bit laggy since I need to use my power cables for LAN.
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Batch 2 here, thankful that my mid 2014 mbp has lasted this long and excited to see the 16 ship !
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Iām in Batch 11. My two systems are a 13-year-old gaming PC with an i5-3570K that routinely has weird cosmic ray-esque errors and a laptop that runs at 90 degrees for 10 minutes every startup because Acer decided fans were for plebs.
Please come soon. Iām dying over here.
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That seems like a pretty stout rig, even today. FW16 will have a lot to live up to.
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oof yeah youāre way overdue for an upgrade. As a matter of fact, give me this rig so I can dispose of it accordingly.
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Batch 16 here. My current laptop can barely do basic programs, and it struggles with that, let alone more difficult programs. Only thing replaceable is the storage, so Iām kinda stuffed unless Iām at my desktop, until this arrives. I know itāll be a while, but sounds like itāll be worth it~
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The rig is definitely still capable, but Iāve been moving around a lot more on work trips and such. Itās far more convenient to just haul around a framework laptop wherever I might need a computer.
Iām a world champ overcautious cheapskate, but splurging $2K+ for a mean 16 future-proof config was shockingly easy . . assisted by the progressive pain of clinging to my 2019 FLEX-14IML (I know right) on its 2nd dead battery. Sooo over buying an entirely new laptop every few years.
Eagerly looking forward to no longer losing my train of thought waiting for the system to do things 
I just hope I survive the nail-biting wait till Q2 so I can enjoy it 
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Flex 15 on itās third broken screen and second motherboard 
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If youāre interested in saving money, it sounds like reparability may be a key feature for you when buying a laptop. Have you heard of Framework?
Just practicing my schpeel.
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Ukkk ā¦ seemed like a great deal at the time. I always pay tomorrow for tryna pinch pennies today. Took forever for that to finally sink in.
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Given Dell has moved more and more over to all soldered RAM on their laptops rather than CAMM, a standard which they designed, as well as Asus with their ROG Zephyrus G14 & G16, which instead of adding two RAM slots instead of one, also moved over to completely soldered RAM, well, Iām glad Framework exists, because theyāre the only laptop manufacturer that has everything what I want in a laptop:
- Fully upgradable RAM (two sticks with no soldered RAM).
- Good Linux support, even if just for one or two distros.
- Good battery life (at least 6 hours of light use).
- A screen that is 16:10 or 3:2 (preferably with a 120 hz or higher refresh rate and higher than 1920x1200/1280).
- An option for an ANSI keyboard rather than QWERTY ISO (a dealbreaking issue with Tuxedo laptops).
- If it has a dGPU, it has a MUX switch.
And these were nice to haves, but I did preferably want them:
- Official Linux support, again, even if for only one or two distros.
- Very good battery life (at least 8 hours of light use).
- A screen that is not only 16:10 or 3:2, but also has a 120 hz or higher refresh rate and higher than 1920x1200/1280 resolution.
- A dGPU, preferably not from Nvidia (because Nvidia drivers are proprietary and still can be hit or miss on Wayland, even with Optimus on).
- A fingerprint sensor that works in Linux with fprintd.
- At least with one USB4 port.
- Has USB-C PD support for USB-C charging.
- Has a camera privacy shutter or e-shutter switch.
There are a few things that Framework doesnāt have this time, but I was willing to overlook because everything other laptop wasnāt even close:
- Use of an Intel Wi-Fi 6E or 7 Wi-Fi card (it coming with a MediaTek 7922 6E card by default is not a big deal because I can change it myself to an Intel one for around $20).
- Has two or more SSDs slots that support dual-sided M.2 2280 drives (this one hurts, but again, Framework did try, but they ran out of space, and a single 8 TB M.2 2280 SSD should be enough, even though I would have to partition the drive carefully when I install both my preferred Linux distro and Fedora because Fedora is officially supported and Arch isnāt).
- Has a full-sized SD card reader (to be fair, Framework is working on one, but itās not even close to ready yet).
I canāt wait for my batch 1 order to arrive! I hope Framework continues to succeed!
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From the reports Iāve seen it seems that while a lot of people are having issues with the RZ616 WiFi card, for many users it works flawlessly. In fact based on what Iāve seen (from tech reviewers and reports on the Framework Discord) it seems that it usually outperforms the Intel cards. However there is a sizable number of people who it never works properly for.
I encourage you to give it a try before changing it.
This wouldnāt be compatible with having a dGPU, however Framework has stated that they are working on an expansion bay module to allow two 2280 drives in the expansion bay (allowing for a total of three 2280 plus a 2230). Also 2230 drives seem to be getting pretty decent with there being a couple high performance 2 TB models out.
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Iām a world champ overcautious cheapskate, but splurging $2K+ for a mean 16 future-proof config was shockingly easy
Ditto! Extra surprising because the economics donāt necessarily pencil out for me.
For the past 15-ish years, Iāve been able to buy a mid-range laptop on super sale in the $500-$600 range (thank you, Slickdeals) that serves me just fine. Theyāve never been high-performance rigs, but Iāve found a couple of previous generation Dells and MSI machines with decent processors and discrete graphics cards that do just fine for my remote work, light gaming, and photo editing. Iāve always gotten at least four years out of each machine, and five has been average. That breaks down to somewhere north of $100 per year.
To achieve the same return on a $2,000+ Framework 16, Iāll have to get nearly 20 years of life out of my starting configuration. That seemsā¦ optimistic.
But it turns out the repairability, upgradeability, and the knowledge that I can eliminate some needless waste every 4-6 years is worth something. Happy to support a company thatās making a huge difference on those fronts, even if it threatens the cheapskate who lives in my brain.
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Iām in a similar but different boat. Iāve historically been a person to get the latest and greatest in computer hardware, because itās something that Iām passionate about and highly interested in (along with being able to financially accommodate it). However, in preparation for the Framework I picked up a used Thinkpad T470 for about $100 to use in the interim while I worked on selling my Razer Blade 15ā¦ and Iāve come to realize that even on the old thinkpad Iām only actually using a fraction of itās processing potential (itās mostly used for writing my novel). So Iāve come to find that my use case likely doesnāt need any of the performance gains Iād see from the Framework, but philosophically I strongly support what theyāre doing and so thatās where the value lies for me.
Similarly, I currently run the Pixel Fold as my phone but my next phone will likely be an edition of the Fairphone so long as I can source it to the US.
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Sure youāve been able to manage, but whatās the build quality on those? No clue what youāre actually getting, might be good business laptops with good build quality thatās last generation or something thatās been good. But my experience with pricing around that much, even if itās ālast generationā from consumer (letās call it $900-1000 original price) is still kinda iffy build quality.
FW16 is definitely a premium build quality, and also over time will effectively let you keep that build quality.
And actually, assuming you donāt go crazy, you probably can get ~15-20 years out of the base frame/chassis/etc, maybe 1-2 keyboard/trackpad replacement hopefully, and maybe 1 screen replacement if it the backlight starts fading too much. And my guess is you probably wonāt want/need more than 1 mainboard refresh, cause hardware is so damn powerful these days.
Obviously thatās all pretty speculative, but I could see over long term, having great build quality and minimal replacement/upgrade you ending up with give or take only a bit more $/yr, but with better build quality and better experience using it. Which does count for quite a bit.
If only I could hear in a decade what youāre current estimate of $/yr & experience is over what youāve been buying in the past. Probably wonāt happen, but ya never know, the Internet can be a weird place.
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Ah, basically the same for me, but switch the ANSI for an ISO keyboard.
The blank keyboard immediately got to me, itās just sooo clean.
Another extremely awesome nice to have for me is the RP2040 in the keyboard allowing for QMK based configuration, using vial. Iām using Colemak CAW (props if you know what that means), with a second layer on my capslock key called Extend. Imagine vim like movement, but supported everywhere because itās based on arrow keys, pos1/end, page up/down and the common mods alt, shift, win, ctrl.
With all of that configured, itāll be funny to see people try and use that thing. Security by obscurity something something (Iāll encrypt things, donāt worry).
My current laptop doesnāt have n-key-rollover, which seriously sucks. One of my worst bindings for switching workspaces while dragging the window with me involves 5 keys at the same time (no I promise that binding is intuitive to me xD). The laptop keyboard locks after just two of them are pressed, leaving meā¦ with more explicit bindings like alt 5 to move the window to the 5th workspace. (Iām using Hyprland, itāll be great on the laptop at 165Hz :D)
I hope the touchpad is decent. Maybe theyāll release an optional upgrade together with sensel at some point. Iāve tried the haptic feedback of a friends MacBook and I really like it. The touchpad of the Zephyrus G14 is almost as good, but the haptic feedback on the MacBook got me.
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Arch might not be āofficiallyā supported, but supposedly it works really well on framework, because the rolling nature of arch means it generally has support for all the newest and weirdest configs, and so it just works amazingly well on framework, so I plan on attempting it being what I use on the framework 16 and worst case scenario a system reset and fresh install of a different distro never killed anyone as far as I am aware.
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My Flex 5 says it all in the name
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