The cheapest desktop in GBP is 2035 for 128gb ram. Given 1gbp = 1.33usd today and you can get gmk mini pc for 1799usd = 1355gbp with literally the same specs. U must be seriously crazy thinking anyone in the UK or EU will overpay like that. Read again, if you are buing from UK the price difference is 680 usd! You have got to be nuts. And yeah, there are 0 tariffs on china in Europe. Think this through please.
You are more than welcome to purchase gmk mini pc if you believe itās a better fit for your needs 
Also, since this is your first message and your tone is a bit concerning, please take a look at our community guidelines : Community Guidelines
Constructive criticism and feedback are always welcome, but please make sure that you are following the community guidelines
Thank you for your input and welcome to the community.
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Sure. Sorry for that. What i meant was please consider current gbp and eur exchange rates and adjust your pricing. It is what it is. Your product is far from price competitive outside of US. Alternatively allow folks outside US to pay in USD. That would be fair. Itās just honest advice. I did cancel my preorder some days ago to be blunt and switched to GMK offer as I canāt find your current pricing reasonable. Best regards!
There is a fair question here. The Desktop MB 395 with 128GB ram is US$1699, is that correct? A straight currency conversion equates that to A$ 2,647.78 but the price in the framework site for Australia is A$3519 i.e. about A$ 870 more.
Am I missing something?
The US$ prices are given without tax (VAT), prices for EU (and probably Australia, too) are given including tax. This would at least account for some of the difference.
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Good point. Out VAT (called GST) is 10% so about A$250.00
After GST we are still paying a A$600 premium over the US price. Any other ideas? Shipping perhaps or local reps?
Regulatory compliance costs.
US also has only 1-year mandatory ālimited warrantyā while in many other countries warranty requirements are higher, and some of the difference can be because of that.
Main products from Frameworkās store normally come with free shipping. It might be that shipping to Australia costs more, due to it being less popular or whatever.
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Yeah, nothing is really āfreeāā¦itās a matter of baked into the pricingā¦or not.
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Oh, and to add (just to spell it out)ā¦warranty is not free either, regardless of it being 1 or 2, or 5 yearsā¦itās also baked into the pricing. Itās a pre-paid insurance premium if you will, one that you donāt get to choose to purchase or not. Itās forced upon you by each of your countryās policy.
You think in-warranty coverage is good? Youāre all paying for it, into a pool.
The [absolute] primary focus of any for-profit company is not the mission on paper, itās to keep the company in business.
Just think about the potential wide spectrum of halfwits out there breaking their laptop (not specifically Framework Laptop)ā¦eating into the warranty pool. With Framework, itās trying to market it as repairableā¦thatās advertising to that wide spectrum of usersā¦who, some will have a higher tendency to brick / break things along the way. You really have to be careful of who you want to promote Framework Laptop toā¦a Framework Laptop buyer who break things more often than not is not a friend in the warranty pool.
The mid-tier mainboard (just the board) pricing (CAD) has been climbing. Iām guess itās partly due to Framework seeing more repairs / parts replacement as time went onā¦as the user base widens, so has the repair risk (the less handy ones):
1165G7 $909
1260P $909
1360P $949
7840u $949
Ultra 7 155H $949
AI 7 350 $999
But general laptop pricing in the wild has been pretty steady/stable, I would say.
Likeā¦(forget how much you hate Apple for 30 seconds)ā¦$1249 CAD (edu pricing) can get you a complete Macbook Air (before tax). Just think of the compute you get for the dollar. ā¦that off the chart single core performance.
With thatā¦it brings us to the Framework Desktopā¦The one product category that you have no lid, no hinge, no portability / backpack use case, no display panel, no RAM module, no speaker, no keyboard, no trackpad, fingerprint readerā¦ Soooooo much less repair / warranty risk.
Repairability is so expensiveā¦that Framework needs a less repairable product revenue stream to balance out the rest of the product portfolio (maybe?).
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1 Year Framework Limited Warranty for the Desktop in Australia. Thatās poor by comparision to other brands who normally offer longer - three years is becoming common with extended timeframe options available for purchase by most
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Trust meā¦I knowā¦Iāve been asking for longer warranty options here since 2021.
ā¦especially for a brand thatās selling the idea of ānotā āleasing on the way to the landfillsā.
Scaleā¦it all comes down to scaleā¦ Framework is a small player in the grand scheme of things on the global stage. Would be interesting to see their stats on return / repair / parts replacement / DOAā¦etc.
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- GST + 10%
- Check out shipping prices with insurance
- FX rate (try an AUD to USD purchase in PayPal to get a better estimate. Looking at mid-market rates doesnāt show what you pay for the conversion, only the middle between buy and sell rates). Also, most shops charge for currency conversionā¦check ANZ if you want to know what screwed looks like. (often an ADDED % on top)
- Warranty. The stated warranty can say itās only 1 year, but Australian consumer laws still protect you for around 3 years on a PC of AU$3,500+ if itās a manufacturing defect. They either have to offer a local repair (which they cannot do), or supply a replacement. Since they are selling direct instead of via eBay or something like a gray import, theyāll have to comply with AU consumer protection law, which trumps anything they put in a warranty doc. (hopefully it wonāt suck so we wonāt need to learn about these details).
- Finally, itās the good 'ole Aussie tax. Weāre a relatively small market, thatās out of the way and most people donāt care whether we buy their stuff or not.
p.s. ~AU$7,000 for an RTX5090 (in stock) or ~AU$22,000 for a fully decked out Mac Studio makes the Framework a relative bargain for what it is.
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We have to consider of course VAT which is excluded in the US from the price label.
If I take the 395 64GB mainboard. It is 1299 USD and 1509 EUR in eg Austria. At the current exchange rate of 0.88 EUR per USD and at a VAT of 20%. The US price in EUR would be equivalent of 1379.50 EUR. That means there is another ~9% premium on the European price. Maybe there are regulatory reasons for that but 9% for warranty differences?
Anyhow, this isnāt anything limited to Framework but appears to be common in the entire tech sector, even though production is in Asia anyway and shipping costs to Europe are hardly much higher than to the US.
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@nugatar I was also looking at the GMKtec Evo-X2 because of its price point. But then I started to look around for reviews which - of course - arenāt available at this point in time. Anyhow, I learned a lot about the degree of love GMKtec gives to after sales support which quickly made me turn away from the idea of buying from them. Maybe thatās an individual point of view, but I value reliability and predicability over saving a few bucks.
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At the moment, depending on the price, HPās Z2 Mini G1a might be the only real option if you value timely BIOS updates, drivers, on-site support, extended warranty. A matter of how much of a premium one is willing to pay
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The cheapest UK desktop at Ā£2,035 for 128GB RAM is wildly overpricedācompared to the GMK mini PC at $1,799 (~Ā£1,355), thatās a Ā£680/$880 difference for the same specs. There are no China tariffs in the EU, so expecting buyers here to pay that markup is just unrealistic.
Thanks bro. This is what i was trying to convey a few days ago. This offer is seriously unacceptable outside of US and Iām hoping Framework is capable of doing the maths and adjust the price to current reality, usd currency rates etc. and make this product at all price wise competitive. If not, oh well, good luck.
Not speaking about the price at all, but I donāt see the GMK leveraging the same thermal solution and I wouldnāt be surprised if it couldnāt perform in the same way.
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I mean you canāt just compare them looking at the spec sheet and price.
Do we have any real tests on that GMKtec one that shows what kind of power it can pull and how the cooling works?
I would be really, really surprised if that box can perform the same as the desktop. Then its just a matter of if the expected difference in raw power is worth the price.
Thatās where I think some of these questions arise; from the āriskā of buying an exciting prospect and equally unknown configuration. Obviously, until the Desktop and other Max 395+ products are in the public domain expressions of this risk will continue
GMKās product ships towards the end of this month. Hopefully the performance work @Destroya is working on will be out by then, too. Thatāll help.
Re the specifics; I can see differential in US v AUD pricing is made up of āextra valueā Iāll get such as those items @Jim_Massey and others have posted. Itās worth accounting for warranty, customer and community service, ongoing driver development, and third party community participation in product enhancement