We are seeing a lot of excellent ideas that could be useful in the future but if too many people say they are not going to buy it now because it doesn’t have a certain feature today (the so-called deal-breaker), then Framework may not be here long enough to be able to provide that feature in the future.
Don’t forget that two years ago Framework was just an idea in the mind of Nirav and others. They have brought it forward in an incredible way in such a short time. Unlike the large well-known brands, they are not a jack of all trades - but they are a master of one. And if this all pans out as we want, we early adopters will be able to be proud of our part in achieving their success and contributing to a better world. For the moment we should be satisfied with what is available - and that includes the ability - and invitation - for those of us capable enough (and that is not me) to produce (and sell) other types of expansion cards.
Yes, if you cannot live without a trackpoint or absolutely have to have a 15.6" screen, then maybe this isn’t for you but to me a processor is a processor. Maybe AMD/Ryzen would be a bit faster, maybe a GPU would be nice and help the gamers or video editors among you but, if you are willing to compromise (and I have never found a laptop in the past that did not involve some element of compromise on my part), then we can play a part in making Framework successful enough to be able to expand its offering.
Shooting you down, not me. To get a product to market, a target had to be picked, and designed to. It mat not be the same target someone else would have picked.
Tesla did something similar, design and build the roadster, then the model S, etc. Now they seem to be profitable day to day.
After this design sells, Frame.work can expand on their offerings.
Best wishes to them! May the company grow!
I agree with your points. I love the idea of the Framework Laptop and reserved my DIY kit. It’s going to be an excellent system for doing most things. Now, I’m a gamer of sorts, so I have a regular desktop that’s built for that purpose. I plan to continue using the desktop as more of a dedicated gaming system and using my Framework to give me a little more mobility.
Does the Framework check all the boxes I would want in a laptop? Not entirely. As I said I am a gamer, but if you really think about it do I really need to be playing triple-A games on a laptop? Not really, but the Framework does a lot that I think would help me out in the long run. It’s thin, lightweight has an epic screen, is modular, and it’s upgradeable! Assuming the company grows, and I hope it does, who knows what potential upgrades could be on the table. The point being, that I won’t have to throw out a perfectly good laptop because it’s too slow, or because I broke something that on the surface seems simple to fix, but is more expensive than it’s worth. This enables me to be a little more environmentally conscious, and let’s face it… a serviceable laptop like this is just plain cool.
So I’m looking forward to it! Can’t wait to get my hands on it and see just what I can do.
I am glad that this came at exactly the right time for me, I was looking at getting the (rumoured) 2021 MacBook Air or something similar. But then this came out and I am so happy that I did not pull the trigger on buying a new laptop earlier this year.
Agree. If you set out to sell shoes, you don’t start offering socks right away. You get good at shoe sales. Likewise with Framework. Their target is the near-casual computer user who is technical - not the ultra geeks (necessarily), although some of us are, but the business user, the student, etc. That’s the tradeoff - trying to hit a bigger market, get as many sales as you can, then plough those profits into the next model of motherboard or chassis or full system or whatever. Once they have the income to sustain payroll and taking a vacation (it seems like a lot of sleepless nights went into this), then we can hope for more niche models.
Honestly, I look forward to that. I can see passing this first model on to my kid for school when the next awesome model comes out. I also assume that the big driver of revenue will be in the boards and accessories, otherwise, why buy a system that can be repaired at all? It’s a bit of a balance: those companies that have fully opted for non-repairable parts do so in order to push the next model and reap the gross margin associated with a full system. They aren’t interested in “earning a decent living” by selling parts and pieces. That’s a lot harder to do.
At any rate, I’m with you, @njf. I think this is an idea that deserves support and so far, the company representatives have demonstrated a rare willingness to engage directly with their customers and potential customers, which ALSO deserves support. When the pre-orders are over, I might even buy a second model just because (pending funding from the comptroller, of course ).
Absolutely! A startup has to start with one good product, and the buyers of that help fund development of the next unit (Roadster to Model S), and those buyers fund the next model (Model 3) and so on. Companies that come out of nowhere and try to offer 27 different products are way more likely to crash and burn. Unless they have unlimited backing from one of the world’s billionaires…
P.S. I bought in at the beginning of Model 3 sales, knowing I’d get a great car and that I’d be funding the next model.
if too many people say they are not going to buy it now because it doesn’t have a certain feature today (the so-called deal-breaker), then Framework may not be here long enough to be able to provide that feature in the future.
If Framework needs people to buy its product whether or not it provides enough value for money for them, as if it was some sort of charity, it probably won’t be around in the future either.
Personally, I bought immediately even though it doesn’t have all the features I would like because I think there’s a good chance that I’ll be able to add those features in the future, since this is the whole point. For example, I’d really like a trackpoint. However, unlike with most laptops, just because I bought a laptop with no trackpoint today doesn’t mean I won’t have a trackpoint next year. You could easily bring a trackpoint keyboard kit to market. In fact, you wouldn’t even need to be Framework to do it. I eagerly anticipate all kinds of fancy, overpriced nerd shit being offered by third party suppliers.
Now, if Framework was having trouble selling out its first build generation because of objections from people who demanded AMD processors or GPUs, they could talk up the replaceability angle, hint that they’ve got a mobile-GPU-compatible replacement board in development, and so on. But the opposite is true. They can’t make them fast enough, which is why they won’t let me order a second one. Which doesn’t surprise me in the least. I knew (or at least, would have bet heavily) that Framework would be popular, which is why I got my pre-order in as soon as possible. I’m just sorry I don’t own a piece of it (I wonder it they would let me consult for some equity…)
10 eurocents’ worth: it looks to me that amd chips are more than just a bit faster than intel, and more than a bit cheaper, so double bonus, as potential sales point. That said, next gen intel might be faster than amd, and this race will never end. I would very much prefer amd, not only for that performance ‘edge’, but also, for their (perhaps outdated) image of an ‘underdog’ against Big Bad Intel, I imagine, for a new business like framework, it’s twice the risk to invest in two platforms, so Intel might have looked like a safer, sounder bet, plus I read (I think) they mentioned problem of (chip?) supply. Amd platform seems to gets people more… excited perhaps.
re. realistic, my impression, having read some posts in this forum is that people do expect too much, building on frustration from using mainstream machines, and when they see a new business that promises (?) to listen / engage with users, they unload their fairyland dreams, as they don’t take into account business viability. Interestingly, many disgruntled lenovo and apple users here
I just hope that the general idea of serviceable / upgradable laptop takes hold and (hopefully!) stems the trend of disposable hardware. Funny though, this only begins to matter with age, when I was younger, I was all for ‘disposable’, and to hell with the planet…
I’ll be honest- I was skeptical when I first heard about this on Louis Rossmann’s channel. It’s never a good thing to put blind faith into a company as opposed to a physical product. That said, Framework’s actual product really speaks for itself, because as soon as those reviews came in and confirmed it’s not just idealistic marketing hype, I was absolutely on-board. I’m willing to put aside my desires for more battery life or a Ryzen board (which will be very hard to keep in stock when they release) or even a dedicated GPU- hell I’m even fine with sticking with using Intel for the forseeable future simply because of the incredible Thunderbolt support it can have for eGPUs. Point being that I’m able to trade off some of my wants if I can have a laptop that can be repaired, upgraded, and survive like no other, even if Framework DOES go out of business. As grim as that sounds, the fact that I can still take apart this thing and configure/repair it how I like if Framework dies goes to show how much the product is truly worth, so I’m happy to be an early buyer and help make Framework sticking around in the long-term a little more likely.
My thoughts: I liked this laptop concept when I first saw it (also from Louis Rossmann @vaioware). I was a little skeptical of the expansion cards, a little skeptical of the screen (a few years back I would have swore I’d never get a screen larger than 1920xwhatever). Sure, a Ryzen system would have been neat, but I’m happier that the product got to market.
I will give the 11th gen mobile i7 it has an edge in one box: AVX-512F. I’ve been wanting to play with the new instruction set for a little while now, and I finally have a toy capable of it. To my knowledge AMD isn’t planning on supporting AVX-512 ever, a philosophy I kind of agree with (Intel too, apparently, as the 12-gen mobile i7 won’t have it either).
I got mine in the mail yesterday, haven’t had a chance to set it up. First impression is that its a solid device. I haven’t had a chance to set it up yet, but I like the oversized ESC key - heavily appreciated as a vim user.
On the whole, It certainly isn’t my “perfect” laptop, but I think it is nearer than what I have right now, and I want to see what their next iteration will look like.
So I both agree and disagree… it took me several weeks of changing my mind on and off to decide I am going to buy one to support it even if its not 100% my ideal. I needed to replace my 8th gen HP x360, and while I would have loved this to have a x360 style hinge and AMD it’s not a dealbreaker. There is hope in 3-4 years when I need to replace this some of that will be where I would like it to be.
That being said, it’s 80% there for me, so I am willing to see it as an investment vs the perfect fit for what I want and need today. Other people can make other choices but its up to them. The difference between framework vs other laptops is this possibility of some post-purchess modification and improvements. We don’t know what they will all be or if it will fix every missing thing we are looking for, but that’s better than pretty much any other OEM where what you get is 100% static and if your lucky you can get some memory or storage upgrade down the line.
What would make it perfect for me:
IR webcam for face unlock (possible)
AMD APU upgrade (possible in the 12 to 24 month timeline, likely 4th gen Zen?)
hinge modification for x360 style device (doubtful, but maybe they will sell the shells, and you can retrofit the guts and everything.
cosmetic tweaks here and there and other add-ons for the port modules (already pretty much confirmed, it’s just a matter of when)
Its super hard to release and launch electronics in how messed up the supply chain is, so it’s no surprise right now they are doing a limited option run at first. Likely they are doing Intel because their laptop solution isnt awful (vs the desktop options) and you can buy them with reasonable time frames without issue. Kind of surprised they aren’t having tons of issues with the USB-C power IC constraints. There are huge OEMs that cannot get those without 60 to 90 day lead times and for USB-C docks its even worse.
There are things I wish were different about the Framework laptop. I would have preferred a Ryzen 5600U. I wish it had a trackpoint. I wish it had separate page up/page down buttons next to the arrow keys instead of requiring me to hold the function keys. These are legitimate issues that made me wait until Batch 3 before ordering.
So why did I order anyway? Well, for starters, the closest laptop that has all of those features would be the Lenovo Thinkpad T-14… except there is no Ryzen 5000 version of that. I would have slightly preferred a 5600U to the 1165G7, but I greatly prefer the 1165G7 to the 4600U.
Moreover, unlike any other laptop on the market, there is at least the possibility that I will be able to change every single one of those issues in the future. If Framework is successful enough, maybe someone else will start making alternate keyboards (that is, if Framework itself doesn’t start offering them). If the company proves viable, maybe AMD will help design a Zen 4 motherboard & cooling solution. If I spend $800 two years from now upgrading the motherboard, keyboard, and memory, and maybe sell the old set for $200, it will still be more cost efficient than buying an entirely new laptop.
I personally find that the consumers market has become a bit foolish, to be polite: all this people demanding an AMD CPU, demanding a 15.6’’ because, well, influencers say so… Honestly! But, on the other hand, everybody has the right to ask, and Framework, the company, has the right of decide as they see fit; and if they decide that a 15.6’’ or 16’’ laptop is the right thing to do, they will do it.
Framework, the company, is already doing it right: one product, executed as well as they can and, possibly, improved over time. And it appears that they’re gaining enough momentum (both financially and in terms of users base) to carry on doing it for the foreseeable future. I believe that AMD-based motherboard will come from Framework, sometimes in the future; but I am also convinced that a third party will design a 15.6’’ / 16’’ shell to host Framework’s hardware and create a completely new laptop.
It’s actually incredibly annoying tbh. The sense of entitlement and arrogance in a lot of the threads for 15 inch laptops, AMD option, etc. makes this forum really boring and annoying. I really wish they would ban these threads.
who are in the position to really take advantage of the open nature of a hardware like framework, I mean a system that’s geared towards riparability and upgradability? The people who need it to be cheap.
I don’t mind having a computer that has a gig of ram, atom processor and bonked up sound that doesn’t work with pulseaudio I am assured that I can upgrade it when I get money in pocket, well that’s the thing.
I don’t want to force it, but my idea is there can be a genre of laptops that are made to be cheap but can be upgraded later.
Agreed, if I understand this correctly that is. I understand fans asking for something, but this “deal breaker” thing that goes around, I find painfully annoying. It somehow ticks me the wrong way, almost like it’s supposed to be a threat.
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