I would love to see a lower cost FW16 chassis only option put up for sale in either the marketplace or the outlet marketplace. Similar to how you can buy only the chassis for FW13. If you piece together a FW16 with just components, it ends up being a huge deal more expensive than just buying a DIY model. Again, similar to the FW13 but to a much higher degree.
The need/demand probably won’t hit until a new mainboard series is released, but even today, there can be value for those getting boards with mystery boxes or just frame damage on existing builds.
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you mean something like this? Framework
Not exactly. A full chassis option, not piecemeal. Framework | Framework Laptop 13 Chassis
I believe Framework offers that for the FW13 only because there has been multiple generations already and people upgraded their motherboard and are left with older motherboards that they want to reuse.
Maybe when there has been several iterations of the FW16, Framework will start offering that for the FW16 as well… it will take a few years before there are enough people asking for that.
And a battery and a vent plate and speakers and keyboard and input and finger print reader and edp cable and screen. Etc etc. There are so many that the small price hike of selling individual parts is super brutal if you happen to need a new chassis…
I just added everything to my cart. It would be $1,224 USD before taxes for a full ‘chassis’. So everything for a base build minus the mainboard/wifi (and no storage/ram, but I’m not factoring that into any of this)
Alternatively, it’s $1,399 is the starting price for the full complete system (basically add $175 to get the mainboard and wifi card all with warranty).
Obviously, the demand is low, but it would still be super cool for FW to offer this sooner than later.
I wonder whether the demand is so low that they might just offer it if you ask, without even worth updating the website, have a SKU, and package around it. Like, how low is too low to have a web store entry?
They only did that because the RISC-V board became available from Deepcomputing (not sure if that is the exact name). It would need a similar board to fit an FL16 to become available before they do a similar deal on an FL16 chassis.
Regardless of our random speculation on why they choose to do it with the 13… I’m proposing they do the same for the 16.