Love the mission here of the right-to-repair and DIY-ish of the laptop, but what's the cost comparison?

Framework Laptop 16
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Two comparisons here. I like Framework and their mission to create fixable right-to-repair hardware. It’s huge. I would hope that the hardware grows, is open sourced, and available outside their walled-garden one of these days. Making the move to Framework is good, but what am I leaving on the table here? What, exactly are those costs to consider with today’s field of gaming laptops?

First: how much does a similarly spec’ed laptop cost?

Asus TUF A16 laptop: 16in screen, 512GB HD, AMD Ryzen 7-7735HS CPU, Radeon RX7600S V8GB GPU. Currently on amazon for $860.

Feature Framework 16 Asus A16
GPU AMD Radeon RX 7700S AMD Radeon RX 7700S
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS
Starting Price with dGPU ~$1,898+ (DIY Edition) $860

Second: what kind of laptop can I get for the same price? I found this Lenovo Legion Pro 5 Gaming laptop for almost the exact same price amazon $2200.

Feature Framework 16 Lenovo Legion Pro 5
Price ~$2,208 (Configured with dGPU) $2,199 (Configured)
GPU AMD Radeon RX 7700S (8GB GDDR6) NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 (8GB GDDR7)
CPU AMD Ryzen 7 7840HS Intel Core Ultra 7 255HX
RAM 16GB (or more, user-configured) 32GB DDR5
Storage 512GB (or more, user-configured) 2TB PCIe SSD
Display 16 165Hz WQXGA (2560x1600) 16 165Hz WQXGA OLED (2560x1600)

Looks like we take about a 20-30% performance hit going with the Framework over most video games.

Benchmark comparison of the two GPUs UserBenchmark: AMD RX 7700S vs Nvidia RTX 5070

Benchmark comparison of the two CPUs Ultra 7 255HX vs Ryzen 7 7840HS [1-Benchmark Showdown]

So: I’m still undecided. That’s a pretty big delta we’re looking at with this stuff. But it’s important to know before taking the plunge into this ecosystem.

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FYI, you’ve actually got a desktop 5070 in the GPU comparison here. The laptop part is not the same. The CPU comparison just seems odd, and I’m not sure they have the right specs…

For benchmarks, you really need to look at laptop specific numbers because this hardware will be limited by power budgets and cooling capability, so every laptop will perform differently even with the same CPU/GPU.

For overall value questions, FW16 is due for a refresh that could make it a better proposition for new customers. I love my FW16, but people that just want a gaming laptop complain all the time. You need to consider if you value what actually differentiates FW from normal gaming laptops and also what you actually need out of a gaming laptop.

Like, I actually play a lot of games and have found that most things run okay on the 780M integrated graphics so I’ve only used the 7700S for GPU compute :sweat_smile: but some gamers only think a game is playable if it’s 120+fps all the time and I am not like that…

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I dont have a definitive answer for you, just some notes:
Regarding 1:
The RX7600S is comparable to a 2060 while the RX7700S is comparable to the 1080 Ti, which is ~30% performance difference. The CPU has a lower max Temperature and lower base clock, dont know how big that difference is tho.
Thus to me it seems to be not that easy to compare the Framework 16 to the Asus A16 :thinking:
But even if a laptop would cost just 100-200$ more, it’s still quite a big difference.

Regarding 2:
The 5070 Mobile has ~10% less performance than the RX7700S, at least according to techpowerup (The RX7700S is at the same level as the desktop 1080Ti, while the 1080Ti has 112% of the 5070). So actually the 5070 is worse than the 7700S, unless you need raytracing of course.
While the Core Ultra 7 255HX has more threads than the 7840HS, their frequency is way lower (2,4Ghz vs 3,8Ghz) and their power limit is way higher (55W vs 35W). I am no expert, but to me this means, that it
a) draws more power → shorter battery life
b) reaches higher temps earlier → cant boost that long → overall lower frequency
Of course, it has more RAM, storage and an OLED display.
If you follow my argumentation, the Lenovo Legion Pro 5 should actually perform worse than the Framework 16.

My verdict:
Yes, it is more expensive. Is it worse than comparably expensive laptops? It doesnt seem like that.
My primary reason for buying the framework 16 was: What do I do if the mainboard dies?
For every other laptop that means: Shell out nearly the whole cost of the laptop again (because it’s soldered) or just move on.
But for the framework 16 it means: Buy another mainboard, keep everything else, nice.

Edit:
Personally I dont like the benchmark websites all that much, because they often have kinda random comparisons or are lacking data…
The main difference in the score of technical.city seems to be … looking up website … uh … just the passmark score?!?
I wouldnt trust that. Instead I like to lookup the technical data here and compare the raw technical data.

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Just saying, UserBenchMark is trash and should never be used as a comparison point. No other comments, just spreading the word. I know it shows up on a google search and seems ubiquitous but it is far from objective. It’s banned on both Intel and AMD subreddits and numerous outlets have covered the flaws in the methodology.

Carry on with your day citizen

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Without knowing what you’re planning on using a new laptop on, it’s impossible to really say if the cost difference is worth it. Benchmarks are ok to compare raw power but they have a lot of limitations because they’re artificial tests. If you’re planning on mostly using it for games, you’re probably better off looking at how specific games perform on the systems, and even then, once you start including things like DLSS it’s not really an apples to apples comparison, because that’s using frame generation and other techniques to get better perceived performance, without actually running the game faster because it’s depending on artificial frame generation.

All that said, the benefits of the FW16 being modular come in once you take into account getting new mainboards with new CPUs, new expansion bays with new GPUs, and being able to replace parts piecemeal as they fail or as you find you need to upgrade the WiFi card or RAM or other components. Very few laptop manufacturers support their hardware for a long time and make their laptops easy to service (ask me how I know). Depending on the user, this could mean not just being unable to buy replacement parts except through dodgy third parties on eBay and the like, but having to hire someone else to service the laptop for you, or risk damaging it due to it not being designed to be opened and fixed. Suddenly the money you saved on buying a seemingly similar laptop is spent on fixing it and you’re not even guaranteed that it can be fixed, leading to spending money on buying a whole new laptop.

That’s not to say Framework is perfect; this is still very much a work in progress and you can find a lot of testimonies of people who have had a bad experience with the product. That frustration is valid, especially with folks who have had hardware issues which the support team gives them the runaround on, and I agree with the complaints about lack of news on drivers and BIOS updates, especially given we know there’s bugs in the BIOS and progress on fixes has been slow, and communications could be handled better (though how exactly I can’t say; my experience has been that even if you try to be transparent about problems and challenges you face in the process of delivering something, people often get angry that you’re not a magician who can snap their fingers to fix things). There’s also some valid skepticism about just how upgradeable the laptop is when they haven’t released any new mainboards or GPU modules yet. The reality is that there’s nothing FW could realistically upgrade to; all newer CPU models have less PCIe lanes so they’d either have some ports being non-functional or have a weaker iGPU, which isn’t a deal breaker for everyone but producing whole mainboards without being sure that it’s an attractive purchase for most customers isn’t a good business decision. On a completely personal level, I do not want nor need a new CPU nor GPU. I’m perfectly happy with the performance of my system and use it daily as my work machine. I can play games on it if I have free time, it compiles code very quickly, the modular ports make it so that if I have to travel I can adapt to different circumstances easily, and is way lighter than the previous laptops I used to use, making traveling much more pleasant. The only thing I’d like is an official carrying case for the expansion cards, but there are products available that can work just as well.

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Long time FWL13 and standalone mainboard as homelab pc owner /user / tinkerer here.

FW ecosystem costs a bit more to get into if you buy the prebuilt package deal from FW itself. You can definitely get a better value assembling DIY with third party sourced/used storage, RAM, Wi-Fi, power supply, etc. You can get a screaming deal assembling an entire machine of used parts very easily.

Once you’re into the ecosystem, it’s way cheaper to stay in it. Small upgrades are easy and as inexpensive as you want to take the time to shop for parts deals. Big upgrade is just a mainboard swap for far less than a fully new machine would cost. And the old mainboard is fully usable by itself…

Long story short, I have not found any other company that provides the same value on the 4+ year timeline as FWL13. I’m not sold on the 16, 12, nor desktop value proposition nearly as much though.

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It’s great for everything I need to use a laptop for and I have the piece of mind that I can replace any part if it breaks. Worth it for me.

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The bottom line is that you need to see buying the Framework 16 still as a bit of an adventure and plunging into a support of a company mission. If you simply compare core objective specs, then it will not be a good deal at the moment. The product also did not get a new mainboard or graphics card for YEARS. It’s pretty unexpected by many. Might happen in a couple of days. So Framework as a company is surely incredibly diligent and competent, I mean it, but they do work at the speed that they work at - because they are doing new and challenging things. Bottom line is, for some time to come, you will jump on a bit of an adventure if you buy it. It is a bit strange to write this as a customer that does not understand the degree of difficulty of developing such a product of course, but buying the Framework 16 should be seen as a mission support still. I am only saying this, however, as the price of this laptop has not changed for years.

PS: and just to add a bit of substance here, on the plus side, it has incredible build quality, amazing screen, very good battery life, works like a charm, has a powerful onboard graphics chip, is light, thin, has a business look, and of course repairable. So I think we are complaining at a very high level here. Personally, I am still very impressed, have to say it. So my personal advice would be honestly to go ahead. But yes, purely based on specs value, no, in 2025 it cannot be recommended.

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And just another thought, in case you are interested, you should also consider that the Framework 16 is one of the very rare notebooks right now that allows you to connect an OCuLink EGPU (per DIY solution, you can find it in the forum here). Yes, it requires some time to set it up, but if we are speaking value only, then it is one of the few laptops that can enable you to replace a literal Desktop in terms of performance by a DIY solution that costs you very little by comparison (Minisforum EGPU included). Unbeatable value. I think the new Thunderbolt 5 Razer Core costs 400 Euros alone ;). Of course, all this is a really subjective use case. But it is true, it can replace a desktop at less cost than other notebooks.

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The FW16 is not a good value. I have a FW13 and I find it also not a good value but I think it’s a better product than the FW16. I will probably be replacing it with a Thinkpad p1 Gen6/7/8 or a Legion Pro that I fixed recently. The 13” screen is just too small and without the GPU I cannot game at other peoples houses. If the FW16 was closer to the FW13 chassis without all the extra gimmicks and somewhat cheaper I maybe would have bought one. The new 2.8K screen is just ok on the FW13. The response times are not very good.

I do board repair on electronics including laptops so I do like right to repair but I can already get parts from Lenovo and Dell. I am able to source full schematics for Lenovo and other manufacturers. More schematics than I can get from Framework so far. Maybe in the future I will qualify and have to sign some kind of NDA but I don’t do a lot of public facing repairs.

Warranty options are not great either. 1 year standard no extendable warranty is pretty bad on expensive devices especially first generation ones. Especially for higher power laptops or new designs I really recommend extended warranty. It’s easy for things to get cooked in these small chassis. Mainboard defects seem common enough with the FW16 and definitely were definitely common enough on the early generation FW13. It should be 2 years minimum for mainboard defects.

Bios updates have also been a bit spotty in general even though they continually launch new products. They are a new company capturing market share. They aren’t competing in areas like speaker tuning even though the hardware is capable of it already. They have quite the fan following though as a company and I have seen several companies shift away from their core values/goals because they could make anything and sell it to their fans. I am hoping that Framework continues on the mission of right to repair. Should get easier as they grow and have more sales volume.

If you want a reliable machine that you can get parts for down the road I would recommend a popular ThinkPad model on sale at 50% off. The Lenovo Legion pro laptops are also built pretty well. Always buy at a deep discount and stay away from the non pro models if the chassis is made out of plastic. They seem to get brittle over time and crack.

We will see what this August 26th release is which may make the FW16 less worse value. A lot of good will is going towards this company. I want to see it succeed but the value proposition of some of it’s products is less than what I think is reasonable.

Edit: For example you can get a Thinkpad P1 Gen 7 with a 4070 and 165hz screen right now for $2200 CAD before tax. $500 cheaper than similar spec’d DYI Framework 16. It’s quite a bit smaller, better speakers, better webcam, uses lpcamm memory, you add a few extra years of warranty for $200, simpler but less gimmicky input deck, haptic trackpad, a bit larger battery and has 2x2280 nvme slots. I mean it’s at least equivalent in all specs and the chassis is 2 inches less deep. FW16 might beat it with a 240W but you can’t even order a FW16 without the 180W charger nor order it with a 240W charger from Framework. It is nice though that it can do 240W over PD. P1 is limited to 135w with some weird Lenovo special pd chargers.

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Trying to compare Framework notebook computers to other brands is not very useful since no other brand compares to Framework because no other brand offers the ability to inexpensively repair or to upgrade their computers.

Because it can be inexpensively and easily repaired and upgraded, a Framework computer can potentially last much longer than any other brand of notebook/laptop computer.

The moment you crack the screen, spill your drink on the keyboard, need to replace the battery or break the charging port on many notebook/laptop computers, the cost of the repairs edges high enough that the sensible alternative may be to buy a new computer.

When Windows 12 comes out and Microsoft decides your existing cpu or motherboard doesn’t meet their requirements for Windows 12 or when Apple decides your Mac has reached “End of Life” you have to buy a new computer. With a Framework, you buy a new motherboard with a cpu that runs Windows 12 instead of buying a whole new computer.

A Framework computer isn’t the cheapest computer you can buy, but it is the cheapest computer you can own.

If you compare the cost per year a Framework computer is the least expensive computer you can buy.

You can reduce the cost of a Framework computer by hundreds of dollars, if you buy the DIY models.

If you buy a DIY Framework you can save several hundred dollars over the price of the preassembled Framework. You can buy the SSD and RAM for considerably less than buying it from Framework.

If you’re planning to use Linux and have no use for Windows, you save $200 right there. Buy the DIY model, try using Linux and you might decide that you don’t need Windows after all.

Personally, I haven’t used Windows for twenty-nine years because I’ve been using Linux and been able to do everything I’ve wanted to do on my computers without Windows. I’ve had much less grief and hassle than I would have had using Windows and saved quite a bit of money as well. Neither Microsoft nor Apple has told me when I need to buy a new notebook or to install a new motherboard and cpu in my desktop computer. I’ve been the only one to make that decision. That alone would be enough to make me an enthusiastic Framework owner.

I used and recommended Thinkpads for twenty-nine years. They used to be relatively easy to repair and you could even do some modest upgrades. You could buy one with a small drive and install a larger one. But they have become harder to repair and when Framework started selling their computers, I sold my brand new Thinkpad to a friend and bought a Framework. Framework computers are the only notebook/laptop computers I recommend today.

People frequently complain about the size of the bezels around the screen of Framework computers. After giving some friends a chance to try my Framework 13 and after specifically asking them to be careful to not touch the screen, I later noticed several fingerprint smudges around the edges of the screen where they had touched the screen as they opened and closed it. If the Framework had smaller bezels, I could have taken complete fingerprints from the smudges they would have left on the screen. The Framework bezel makes it easier to replace the screen. It’s probably possible to design a “bezel-free” Framework but it would probably make the replacement of the screen more complicated and perhaps more difficult. So I find the size of the bezel is just fine with me. I also like the transparent and translucent bezels and many people who’ve looked at the computer like to see the components through the bezel.

Some people lease their cars and get a new car every two to four years. Some people buy a new computer and pay for a new copy of Windows every three to six years. Other people are quite content driving the same car for twenty-five years and using a bit of the money they save to buy a Framework computer every ten or fifteen years.

“There is hardly anything in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are this man’s lawful prey.”

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Interesting comparisons, thanks for having this discussion. I’m with the previous person replying, it just makes sense to me to have the option to update a PC with modern performance parts.

Like others have said, part of the cost difference can be recovered thanks to not needing a whole new laptop later down the line. Part of it is from ( on average) savings in time, effort, and money when you need to repair something or perform maintenance on it. And lastly, part of the cost is also supporting a new company through its early stages.

I like the fact that I know all of us won’t be throwing away perfectly good screens, cases, keyboard and trackpads in 10 years when these specs can’t run anything anymore. We’ll just buy a motherboard and ram, maybe some storage too, and we’ll be good to keep using the laptop.

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The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

The theory here, is that your TCO is lower. The upfront cost is larger, but you’re buying a lot of it once. When your cheap ASUS laptop breaks apart (my experience is that their build quality is terrible on the cheaper end) or simply becomes irrelevant over time you need to replace the entire thing. On the framework, maybe you just replace the GPU module because your CPU, RAM, keyboard etc are still good enough.

The second theory at work here, which applies to lots of things (eg fast fashion, plastics) is the harder one to swallow, so feel free to disregard it. Yes, being sustainable costs more. You need to learn to consume less. We can’t consume ourselves out of the problem we consumed ourselves into. I bought a framework laptop (only once my existing laptop was on death’s door), because I’m hoping it’s the last laptop I will buy[1]. I have a laptop from 2006 whose screen still looks fine, but it’s e-waste because of the other components. Yes you can “recycle”, but if you ever dig into what recycling means in reality it quickly becomes apparent why “reduce” and “reuse” sit before it in the waste hierarchy.

[1] this may not pan out, but it’s the intention

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The cost difference on the FW16 is different though. They could have made a FW13 chassis much larger to accept a mainboard with a dgpu. No complex mid plate and customizable input modules. No modular gpu expansion bay. I would just buy a new mainboard with gpu when I want an upgrade. Pros are that the chassis size would be competitive and the cost would be much lower due to way less manufacturing complexity.

The Framework 16 with dgpu installed is 36% more volume than a Thinkpad p1 gen 7. It’s almost 2 inches deeper and 35% heavier as well. I traveled for work with a Macbook pro 16 and it was already large enough. The framework is approaching the Alienware Area 51 16” model in size. It’s only a bit less thick. Check out a visual size comparison here.

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About making the 16 without the modular GPU, in my experience on gaming laptops the GPU is usually obsolete some years before the rest. Likewise, GPU is often the thing that fails, taking the whole main board with it. So making the GPU modular is really good.

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It’s a nice idea but it doesn’t mean it’s practical price wise nor size wise. To me it has entered luxury belief product territory. I can buy a whole new mainboard or a whole second laptop with the pricing of a FW16.

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I’m not doing the 7700s → 5070 RTX upgrade, but I probably will do the GPU upgrade one or two generations after this one, probably without upgrading other components, unless something especially tempting comes along. Odds are very high that’ll save me money (vs. two comparable laptops with comparable choices of components), and I’ll like the experience better.

The Framework 16 compares better on cost if you upgrade RAM and storage and gaming is secondary, worse if you compare a bottom-of-the-barrel gaming machine to it. (especially if you got a deal on one with a > 100W GPU)

We’re a couple years away from an apples-to-apples used machine/components comparison on price IMO, for the 16, but I think it will look decent once we get there. (Buying an old, used FW13 right now is great, because you get dated-but-good parts, with flexibility – moreso if you can dodge prior-generation Intel issues.)

I agree that it’s “too big”, to the point where my “main” laptop is a Framework 13 even though the 16 is more where my head’s at… but I can’t begrudge Framework their design. If I could only have one computer and it had to be a laptop, it would be the Framework 16. I’m thrilled it’s an option.

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Thanks everyone for the engagement. Besides all you guys, the coincidental release of this newer GPU, and other upgrades to FW16, I plopped down my preorder last night. Looking forward to joining the community!

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I hope you enjoy your FW16! Out of curiosity what specs did you get?

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These points are valid, but it still depends on the degree of high-end hardware that Framework releases. Mind you, a Razer Blade may end up more sustainable and cheaper over time because it has a RTX 5090 with 24GB of VRAM and therefore can be used much, much longer.

So the concept of sustainability that Framework employs is unfortunately still limited. Sustainability through upgradeability is only one part. Sustainability can also occur through longevity of use case ;). So yes, a 5090 Razer Blade can be more sustainable than a Framework 16, just because it will run, and run, and run, while the Framework 16 hardware may be obsolete in a couple of years.