“Reviews of the original Framework Laptop 13 were a little skeptical; my colleague Monica repeatedly pointed out that an upgradable laptop’s value “hinges on future support.” But in 2022, her headline was “promises kept.” And this year, as Framework shipped its third set of CPU upgrades for the Framework 13 while simultaneously improving battery life, she called the 2023 revisions “a DIY dream come true.””
Framork’s prices are totally reasonable and competitive today. And then if you factor in the savings of not replacing perfectly good parts just because you want to upgrade the processor or replace the battery, you end up saving a lot of money.
Right to repair, minimizing e-waste, and servicability are not exclusive traits of “hardcore nerds”.
The number of average people who would be willing to upgrade anything on their computers is tiny. Again, I personally am all for these devices, but as I mentioned even on a desktop PC, where upgradability has been cheap and easy as hell since essentially the beginning, few regular folks do it. Tech people are going to think this company and it’s products are a slam dunk, but I think in the regular marketplace they will see a lot of people scratching their heads asking “now why would I want to do that?”.
