I’m a 20 year vet in the world of IT. Built numerous desktop PCs in the past and always enjoyed the design aspect of routing wires, and water cooling tubes around as a work of art. My background is data networks, data center design, operations primarily around Windows Server, Cisco networks, data security and now architecture.
I am currently working as a Infrastructure Architect for a large organization and one of my areas of ownership is end user device roadmaps. Typically we buy from the big three vendors for devices (Apple, Lenovo, Dell, HP, etc) and usually these devices are recycled after 3 years (recycle typically means collection, destruction of data, and either resold to staff, or donated to charities). Worst part of this is knowing hardware has a much longer shelf life than 3 years, but corporate policy states 3 years, and senior leaders love their new shiny toys and expect them to be the latest and greatest, regardless how old their current devices are.
Stumbled upon FrameWork laptops and admit very intriguing and wonder about the Enterprise application. Right now don’t see it being viable, due to the high cost of ~$1500 for a laptop, when vendors the big three tend to offer heavy discounted prices when purchasing large volume orders. But who knows, those vendors have the economy of scale with their strangehold on suppliers.
As we are all trying to reduce our digital waste, FrameWork is ahead of the pack for sure. I’ve always disliked buying the fully enclosed laptops where nothing is replaceable (cough cough Apple, Razer, Lenovo, Dell, HP to name a few). If a part it is replaceable, vendors expect you to ship the unit to them at a cost, and they replace it for you at another cost, which then they offer you a newer model with a discount, while telling you replacement parts is much more expensive than brand new (what a business model).
Recently had that issue with a laptop battery. Vendor told me to ship the laptop to their depot in Phoenix, they would diagnose the problem for me, then bill me parts and labour after. I knew the exact problem was the battery, ordered a replacement from a 3rd party site and replaced it myself, wish I could do the same with the memory, but those are fully soldered on board (lame).
Love to see the success of FrameWork in the coming months and years. Will heavily consider these devices for future upgrades for myself and others.
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before I pull the trigger, as are several of my friends who I introduced to Framework.
) micro switch and solder it myself. I found the process very challenging, to dissemble, to desolder and solder the new one:
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