It seems that, despite many, many, many mentions of ThinkPads within as well as outside of the Framework community, there had been zero acknowledgements from the team about even the mere existence of them at all. Such a deliberate omission is a rather curious strategy for a product that is already positioned to be non-mainstream in the first place.
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Even without doing that, for many in the end, framework will be their next laptop. Some even consider it the spiritual successor of the ThinkPad(or from what I have read on r/thinkpad)
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The Framework team never mentions any competitors for any reason.
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True thinkpad users, like me are, most likely to be the early adopters. Now what do you propose to reach faster to thinkpad users renewing?
The second target, I guess are Mac book users which are custom to spend 1000€ for a sturdy laptop that last 10 years.
They are harder to reach because in the mac ecosystem, now if like many workers all they need is a chrome browser. They could jump in.
Maybe Macs will be more attracted to chrome book version…
That’s the apple marketing method
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Framework never promised that their product would be a “Thinkpad replacement” and likely have no interest right now in pivoting their business plan solely because there is talk of Thinkpads in the community. I don’t have any insider knowledge, but I would guess that the reason they’re not capitalizing on that demographic is that they have no interest at this time in catering to it.
I read it more as they want to take the high road and not be adversarial.
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I was kidding, the apple method only makes sense if you’re as big as apple
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If you’re going to bark, make sure you can bite. If you’re going to point a gun at someone, be ready to shoot.
Better say nothing than have a target on your back.
The demographic will choose with or without any mention from Framework if the solution is right.
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I’ve mentioned before that my first laptop was a ThinkPad T61. As folks have noted, we don’t call out specific competitors (except sometimes Apple because at $2.25T they can afford the criticism). However, we do note that much of the reason we started with notebooks is that they have taken a precipitous decline in repairability and upgradeability compared to a few generations ago.
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I have had a variety of notebooks over the years, and have also noticed the decline in repairability and upgradeability with each new version. I’m very happy to see the direction that Framework has taken, and gladly support it with my purchase of the DIY i7-1260p system. After loading the Fedora 36 XFCE OS onto it I have been very happy with the overall operation of the system. The 12th gen processor is a huge improvement over the 8th gen that is in my old Dell XPS 13.
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The defining feature of the ThinkPad is the TrackPoint. As soon as Framework implements its own trackpoint and expands its form factor selection, the ThinkPad might as well be obsolete.
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Irony is my next laptop after the Framework will probably be a Thinkpad.
That is unless they design a more robust version. Not all of us are weak and feeble.
The drive for thin and light is not the best path IMO. We got there, it doesn’t work that great.
With the Thinkpad quality and customability going down every new generation, this would be the perfect replacement, but no trackpoint makes it a no go sadly.
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