I’ve noticed that with every new chip update, Framwork has pre-built laptops manufactured with all of those new chipsets in them, and when chassis etc. upgrades are made, they are always paired with a new laptop that has all of those new features (think the stiffer hinges and lids being sold together for the 13).
So, my question is, would it ever make sense for them to offer some chipsets on the marketplace (for example, the lowest bracket is only sold as a mainboard but the medium and high tiers are still packaged in pre-built or DIY kits)? Or, maybe launch new hardware features like nicer speakers or something straight to the marketplace without bundling them with a refresh launch?
I suppose the closest thing to this has been some of the expansion card launches, like the Ethernet card, but it would be interesting if there were other features that might be launched early, or exclusively as separate parts.
What are your thoughts on all this?
Edit Aug 20 ,2026: Changed title “Product” to “Product Upgrade”
I think part of it is marketing to push for sales of the new parts and convert new people into Framework customers.
The FW13 Pro definitely pushed a lot of sales and will hopefully pay off the costs of developing the display plus future prototyping and development. If for example, the new display had been launched as a standalone item first then they may not have sold as many display units or the display would have to be more expensive.
For comparison DeepComputing offers RISC-V mainboards for FW13 as standalone products but they’re not priced for consumers. Consumers aren’t buying RISC-V so the production volume is low to match demand, the only market for them is as developer boards for pushing the field of RISC-V software.
Not entirely true. They have announced new one piece keyboard and new haptic trackpad for the FL16 without either being involved in a chip upgrade.
Realistically it is chip/memory upgrades that drive new features most of the time, and other new features tag along such as the 2.8k display or the new touch panel on the FL13. But they have arranged the hardware such that the relevant item can be retrofitted to earlier models. If you want the larger capacity battery from the 13 Pro sure you need to get a whole bottom chassis, but there will always be times where retrofitting an existing product has such a compromise.
Quite frankly I think FW have done a pretty stellar job with their upgrades and how they have made them fit previous versions of the product, think in terms of fitting the 13Pro CPU board to the original 11th gen FL13 without needing any other modifications (yeah, alright, you need to change the memory as well, but hey, you have fitted a much faster CPU, what do you expect …)
Yeah I pretty much had a similar opinion, in response to the new Framework 12 backlit keyboards being only available for preorder with a whole laptop. Whether this makes sense logistically, I’m not sure. But aside from logistics, it makes sense because one of Framework’s major selling point is modularity.
I heard about the new keyboards from Framework’s YouTube channel and I immediately went to the Framework market place to buy it for a dear friend, only to see that it was locked behind a preorder for an entire laptop. I wonder if others share this experience and are similarly disappointed?
I wonder if this is a logistic choice to ensure there are enough new parts ordered/ built to meet the demand for new customers. I would hope that a pre-ordered standalone part would also be delivered along the same timelines as a pre-ordered full laptop.
You both are correct. I should have been more clear with my wording. While the wireless keyboard is a new product, it is a new product line I should have said, “upgrade” or something along those lines.
Also, I didn’t know about the haptic keypad. That kind of upgrade without a whole new 16" laptop launch is more of what I was trying to get at with this post.
I don’t quite understand these trains of thought unless Framework is able to line up their production schedules such that every single new component all is developed and manufactured at the same time. Would selling, say the 2.8k display, separately to those who want the upgrade 3 months in advance of the 13 pro have taken away sales of the assembled 13 pros? If those screen modules launch at the same time as the whole new laptop, then those people who would have upgraded just the screen would still only buy the screen, just later.
I didn’t know this! That is not so cool. I hope that even if pre-orders are unavailable, that once the new 12"s launch, that the store will be stocked with keyboards that you can buy.
I agree that the backwards compatibility is quite impressive! I really like that about these products. I just wonder if there are opportunities for getting upgrades into the hands of current owners earlier instead of pushing them all out in bunches and alongside pre-builts. I worry that this bundle of upgrades approach might unintentionally coerce owners of older configurations to buy a whole new laptop when they would have been perfectly happy with just a nicer screen.
I’m confident I’ll be able to buy a backlit keyboard for my 12" once Framework is able to keep them in stock. They pretty much have to, right? A backlit 12" computer isn’t repairable if it’s impossible to buy the part.
i hope this is not overly too off topic, but i wish, there would be a more universal cpu socket in future, so the apu/cpu core structure would persist thru say 3 or 4 gens on a single socket. so mb designs will mature much more say over 20 years. and upgrade paths would be much more “visible” to end users. instead of 1 year 2 year lifecycles which is BS
It’s a bit off-topic, but that’s alright. I remember when I first got into computer building with AMD Phenom, that I had a direct upgrade path to their next generation. But I don’t know if there are any laptops anymore that could use sockets unless they designed and manufactured their own.
Related to this topic, if such sockets did exist for Framework laptops, it would then be nice if a new series of CPUs could be launched just as plug-in upgrades instead of having to replace the entire mainboard.
Never going to happen. The EC contains a ‘software blob’ for the CPU (it is not clear to me if the EC does the download to the CPU, or if the CPU does it itself), and configure it for the memory type and how the PCIe lanes are used. Now you want to plug in a CPU that needs a different configuration. AMD CPUs use a different ‘blob’ to Intel ones as well.
There is lots going on ‘under the sheets’ to configure everything according to the CPU, memory and peripherals.
There is a reason the BIOS is unique to each CPU board,