(I know it was discussed a few times, but I did not find any recent posts about it.)
I live in Sweden and I’m thinking about buying the Framework, but this region is not yet officially supported. What should I do?
Buy it through a 3rd party?
Travel to some other country (e.g. Netherlands and buy it there)? Does it make sense? Is it even possible? Would I have a warranty then? (so I can go to Netherlands again to fix it for example)
If I buy the laptop anyhow before an official launch in a region can I hope that I would be able to have warranty/service help when Framework support such region? (e.g. I buy it today in Germany somehow, transport it here, then after a month Framework starts official shipping to Sweden, can I take it to newly opened Swedish service center (as an example of warranty service)).
What do I actually lose if I buy it in non-official way? I assume the warranty? But is there anything else? What does it mean in practice? Considering the laptop should be easy to DIY repair?
What’s the waiting time for shipping in supported regions? Newly opened regions? If I preorder it now in US, how much does it take (approximately) to arrive? (a week? a month? a year?) Is it the same in the new regions? (I assume as soon as it opens in Sweden it might be especially slow due to the high demand)
Additional thoughts:
it’s really frustrating that there is no (have I missed one) a concrete roadmap. I sort of understand the point why Framework team don’t want to publish plans for new features (like AMD cpu’s or new hardware). As far as I understand the reason is osborne effect and similar stuff. So they don’t want to stuck with less popular stock and lose sales. But I don’t see any positives of keeping the country expansion plans private. Without any timelines people will just fallback to other brands of laptops. While making these plans public should not decrease the customer base at all. (please correct me if I’m wrong)
I don’t need a local keyboard. More than that I don’t want it. I’d be happy to have a US keyboard layout. Would it be possible to choose a different Layout buying from EU? (like to buy US keyboard in Sweden). If it’s not possible I’d rather order preferred keyboard spare part separately and do an upgrade.
No one can stop you from getting the laptop however you want, but Framework strongly discourages this, because unless the laptop is serviced in a country they sell to, they cannot legally offer service, to include warranty repairs, etc. (I feel like I’m going blue in the face repeating this. hahahaha.) This is NOT because Framework wants to be mean, it is because of your country’s laws and tax regulations.
Outside of this, talking about freight forwarding on the forum is prohibited as it encourages something that can leave you in a situation no one wants to see you in.
I would encourage that you search the forum. There is plenty of talk where people have talked at length about this very topic. The only difference is the country of origin.
However, all that said, please understand that we understand your enthusiasm for the product. We hope more countries open up soon, because that laptop is excellent. Just hang in there.
What do you mean? It’s been posted/requested nearly daily!
First off, here is the official statement:
Also see:
See my last reply to this question as well:
If you decide to still do it, be prepared to receive a device that either works but you have no warranty in case anything breaks or you received it broken but can’t ask for repair/refund because you’re trying to work around international laws.
Ps.)
I know waiting can be hard, but there really isn’t anything else we (you) can do at this point.
Yes it is extremely frustrating. My plan was to only buy framework laptops goind forward for my employees. But I cannot buy it from other countries due to tax, warranty etc. Now we waited 1 year for buying new laptops because I really wanted to support the repairability movement because its aligned with our sustainability brand and thinking. But without any roadmap and 1+ years in they should just state what they will launch or else I will have to buy other machines.
And why in EVERY thread about shipping to new country there is always ONLY the discussion and feedback of Framework moderators that they do not support freight forwarding?? Answer the main question instead???
Yes, amoun is correct. The offending post has been removed.
Please note that Framework does not support freight forwarding to unsupported countries as they do not have the authority to sell or ship their products to any countries/regions outside of their officially supported country/region list located here: What countries and regions do you ship to?. If individuals proceed by entering invalid/incorrect billing information, their order will be subject to cancelation/refund, and their payment method may be subject to blacklist. If the order does proceed, they are acknowledging that Framework is not responsible for anything that may happen as a result of not utilizing Framework’s direct shipping to a supported country/region, and that they are fully accountable for any additional costs incurred, or documentation required. Additional information can be found in the Framework Terms of Sale and the Framework Limited Warranty documentation.
For this reason, discussion of freight forwarding is prohibited on all Framework community platforms. If the topic continues to come up in this thread, it will be locked.
I wish they would tell us their plans, maybe they cant promise anything yet but still just give us some information at least. Is it years or months before its released?
their plans are and always have been to expand into as many regions as quickly as they can, using the countries that the most people register from on the marketplace as a guide to which ones to work on next. They don’t tell us anything else because these processes are complicated and are not always linear or easy to predict, so there aren’t solid timelines to share.
Should be easy to predict if its months away your years away tho. I wanna buy one trough my job but I cant wait forever since I need a new laptop asap.
I don’t think they want to officially commit to any dates, no matter how vague, because the time to set up a business in a new country takes time - and they don’t control that time. Setting up false expectations and having to manage it is a nightmare often seen in gaming industry.
I’d like nothing more than official support to all European countries, but I understand it’s not quite that straight forward, especially when it comes to smaller markets like Sweden and the Nordics.
In the very wise words of Jeffrey Lebowski: The Dude abides
Austria is about same size as Sweden + the official language is almost identical to standard German, so support can be handled from same place in Germany, using same language.
In comparison Sweden is small - and the Nordic markets aren’t as homogeneous language-wise.
I bought a laptop from tuxedocomputers and got it sent to Lithuania (don’t buy those). There was no Lithuanian support and language wasn’t a problem to me.
I didn’t need support and I didn’t care whether the laptop that was sent from Germany had homogeneous language as my own.
They have support in German and English and none of these languages are homogeneous with Lithuanian.
I don’t consider your comment a valid argument. There are English-speakers who would buy the laptop in Sweden. I don’t talk about mainstream laptop buyers but only about those who already know about this laptop from way before.
But what is problem to you personally, isn’t the same as the problem for a company that operates and offers support to a market.
So now you shrunk the market even further and while doing it, also excluded the entire native speaking Swedish market. At this point it makes clear sense why they’d support Austria before supporting Sweden, doesn’t it?
Again, you’re talking about a very niche market. Why settle for that, when you can just deliver to the whole market.
I get that it sucks to wait for us enthusiastic niche users. But I’d rather have them roll their support out in a controlled manner than have it all burn down because of bad quality and press. They’re trying to do it the right way.
Exactly. Prevent enthusiasts to get things they want and test on unsuspecting users. Wait, what?
I think the only factor that actually matters is that if they’ll allow all enthusiasts to get the equipment then FW would be swarmed by open hardware that actually would be a competitor to them. Then FW would become irrelevant.
The only way to prevent this is to limit the availability of the hardware until the market is saturated by FW’s computers. This way the market wouldn’t be able to sustain the Open source components and FW would ensure monopoly for their parts even if they release the designs.
This is why IMO I’d prefer to sell to noobs first than to power users. Because this would saturate everything.
But this open-source deprecation and turn away from FW could also happen if FW management would start to downplay the customers and start to sleep on the laurels when they’ll succeed.
So they have to make sure that this doesn’t happen as the opportunity would be lost.
This product is a little different from track-tech that is actually first pushed to enthusiasts. It’s important to push to masses first.
Framework has said repeatedly that they will only launch in countries when they can offer the best experience for all the customers in that region. That means they want support and documentation in the local language, keyboards in all the locally used layouts, hardware delivery from a decently local warehouse, and most importantly legal allowance to sell in the country. All of those things are worked on concurrently, but all can be unexpectedly delayed. While I cannot confirm that Framework isn’t intentionally trying to create a monopoly, that really doesn’t seem like a goal based on… their entire ethos and the actions they’ve taken so far as a company? Either way, the only thing I can tell you is that Framework is not full of idiots, and they’ve made the decisions they have about rollouts. If you’d like to complain about those decisions, then sending a message directly to support is the best way to have your concerns heard by a staff member at the company. Here on the forum you’ll just be complaining to other users.
I must be missing something. How is not easily obtaining a Framework laptop through their store stopping anyone from producing open hardware to compete with Framework? Is the idea that people would be able to unlock Framework’s secrets to success if only they could get their hands on a laptop? Framework has published tons of useful information if anyone wants to create a similar laptop & follow their lead. Is it that people would reverse engineer the Framework laptop and create clones that would somehow seriously compete with Framework if only they had one? Reverse engineering takes a lot of time and effort. And Framework actually just supplies the schematics to repair shops. That’s an easier route. Get an LLC (which you’ll need anyway if you’re going to create a business to compete with them), create some basic online storefront purporting to repair Framework laptops & apply to get the schematics. If you really want to clone the exact PCB layout and need a board or even whole laptop, then they are available on the secondary market. You could also find someone willing to buy a new Framework for their own personal use but sell it to you in the very unlikely event they suddenly don’t need it anymore.
Seriously competing with Framework would take significant effort. Obtaining a Framework laptop even if you’re in a country they don’t officially ship to is just nothing by comparison. I just don’t see a swarm in waiting, ready to flood the market with open hardware to compete with Framework, if only it was point & click easy to get a Framework laptop for them.
I’m tired of the same reason of “country too small”, “country this”, “country that”. I tried to provide something different. Even if it isn’t backed by anything.
I’m tired of people saying “sweden is too small”, “this country is too small” and so on.
Then I destroyed the argument by saying that sweden is similar in human quantity to another supported country but they found one more rationalization of status quo.
This argument about language wasn’t the case in the past but now somehow it is. So it’s a bogus and unproductive discussion. It almost seems like propaganda from russia where you prove them wrong and they find one more reason to believe it. Like a hydra that keeps on giving.
Why not write anything or write that you have no clue and you won’t have any clue until you’ll see another blog post from official sources. It’s hard to not write.