So I pre-ordered the DIY AMD edition and really looking forward to it arriving somewhen in Q4, but there is one thing that really bothers me: I don’t need a Ryzen 7, but I also want the bigger battery.
Contacting the support about it resulted in the suggestion to just order it separately. But I don’t need two batteries! This also does not fit with the whole sustainability idea…
So I’m wondering what’s the reasoning for not allowing it to be chosen at least in a DIY edition?
yeah, i thought exactly the same. It would be better to choose, which battery you want.
I wondered the same, but that’s for logistical reasons, you’ll see an article here:
It was confirmed by Framework employees on the forum as well but can’t find the topic anymore. In short, they have to make choices, because even for the DIY edition, the battery is built in at the factory, and they’re too small a company to offer all options.
Wow there was even an article about it… So basically it boils down to it being more sustainable and cheaper (well, for the company) to let someone buy an additional battery and let the other one essentially turn to e-waste, than split the configurator into more SKUs.
Maybe the support should consider answering queries about this topic as transparently.
Thanks @Alex.A for clearing it up. Still not sure if I want to get a bigger battery though.
It’s the customer’s choice if they wish to do that, turn it in into e-waste.
Before the bigger battery was introduced, everyone got 55Wh. Now that’s last year’s battery, and it’s become wholly unacceptable, to the point that I’ve seen several people comment that they are being forced to create e-waste. No, it’s a choice. If reducing e-waste was not just lip-service to them, it shouldn’t even be a question.
Framework has talked about working on a case to turn older batteries into USB-C powerbanks. When they get time to finish that (they do have a few other things to work on), people can upgrade their battery, so they can feel like they have the latest & greatest. For some, the powerbank might go mostly unused, but they can still feel like they didn’t they didn’t create more e-waste. At least at the moment they ripped out last year’s battery.
I think you misunderstood me. The smaller battery isn’t “unacceptable” nor is the problem it being the “last year’s battery”.
This is my first order of a framework laptop, ever.
“Not getting the choice to get the battery I want with the CPU I want without a clear reason as to why” was the problem.
This has now been cleared up.
It’s less e-waste even if the customers decide to turn it into one, so their reasoning makes sense to me now. I just wish they communicated that openly when I contacted the support. At least the CEO took their time to reply, so we all got to know the reasoning that way.
As for me, I’m sticking with my pre-order. If they ever decide to let us do something useful with the battery I might consider upgrading.
I was speaking more in general, about comments I’ve seen from several different people, talking as if Framework was forcing them to create e-waste.
This is both because the 61Wh battery is more expensive, and because our cell supplier has a substantial amount of material prepared for 55Wh. We could either pay to purchase and scrap that material, which would be totally against our mission, or find a productive outlet for it, which we did through the Base SKU.
So there is at least a chance, that the 61Wh battery will be the standard configuration in future, when the already bought material for the 55wh battery is used up. But he also wrote, that the 61W battery is more expenisv (i gues more, than only the more Wh you get). So it could be also a different case.