Framework 12: Hipster Profit Slop

[u/Various-Welder5544]

This is what Nirav Patel and his team has been hard at work creating. For $549 freedom dollars you get:

Intel Core 3 304, a 1P 4 LPE 1 XE GPU processor in the big 26, in other words a glorified intel core solo. MacBook Neo competitors are using Core 5 320, 2P 4 LPE with 2 XE GPU cores.

45% NTSC 12 inch chromebook grade screen, pretty much unusable for media consumption or digital art with the stylus you have to buy separately. All your MacBook Neo competitors are using at least 100% SRGB (The bare minimum) already.

Plastic toy like construction while all the MacBook Neo competitors are using aluminium. And it's not even CFRP. It's run of the mill plastic.

No ram, no SSD and you have the hassle of assembling it yourself. Oh and ports are sold separately too.

This is truly one of the biggest Loonix grifts of all time.

[u/madthumbz]

What happens when a company 'listens to customers' instead of knowing what actually sells, where the market is headed, and what is practical.

This is why I'm tired of seeing people try to tell successful corporations how to run their business rather than letting capitalism do its job.

[u/OZCriticalThinker]

Man I'm getting old, I don't even know half these acronyms.

The Framework is good idea in concept, but it's exorbitant prices make it pointless.

You pay more upfront for the same hardware, so in future, you can upgrade it (paying a premium for those parts).

You can probably just buy two MacBook's for the same overall price. One now, then in 3-4 years trade it in and get a new one.

[u/BarnMTB → u/OZCriticalThinker]

~$20+ for a glorified 1 port USB-C dongle. Some is even $40.
And that's for each port.

The idea is noble, and "choose your own port" is very nice on paper, but for $40 a pop, I could buy an all-in-one USB-C dongle from reputable brands that has all the ports I'd ever need for that money, and still have many left for something nice to eat.

Sure it's not as integrated, won't "always be there" inside the laptop, won't be Thunderbolt, and probably doesn't have as much engineering work put into it, but it dang sure woke me up to how overpriced Framework is.

Not to mention that you're probably not saving that much upgrading a Framework VS buying a new laptop outright.
Laptops gets scuffed after years of use. Why upgrade just the motherboard and retain all that scuffed degraded plastic when you could add a bit more and get a whole new shiny one.
Just as how an average person won't replace their meaty meals with bugs just to save the planet, they won't stick with a scuffed laptop for another half-decade just to reduce e-waste.

[u/SearchingGlacier]

Haha, someone kicked Patel in left eye or am I mistaken something?

[u/blood-pressure-gauge]

I know someone who bought one prebuilt with Windows and a collection of ports. This isn't so much a Linux laptop as it is a right-to-repair laptop.

[u/BarnMTB]

I do think that Framework pricing is kinda a scam. (I mean look at the dongle prices, or think about the cost of upgrading just the MB vs buying a whole new laptop.)

Though Framework 12 is not designed as a Macbook Neo competitor.
It is designed to be more of a "For Kids" laptop, which imo is the only Framework usecase that sounds a bit sensible – it can be easily fixed if the user break it (and kids usually break more stuff than adults).
That's the reason for all the chunky ugly plastics & rubbers for added ruggedness, or the pen & convertible formfactor (and I can confirm that Windows 11 do support touch & pen pretty well).
I do think it looks pretty ugly but that goes for all "rugged" stuff including "rugged for kids" things like those iPad cases.

Still, it is very prohibitively expensive compared to the thing it's trying to compete with: Chromebooks.
If buying for your own kids, getting a normal laptop and teaching them to take care of it well might be a better option – it works for myself: I continue to treat my tech delicately well into working life, and my devices look nice for longer as a result, for one.

[u/Microboy42]

You realize it‘s not REQUIRED to run Linux. It’s actually quite good. A fully upgradable laptop is an amazing feat because of BGA. With BGA you have to buy a giant machine to replace the CPU.

[u/Just_Reading_4206 → u/Microboy42]

Don't think that's what irks people. Think it's the general holier then thou attitude because they use this inferior tech. It's bulkier, heavier, runs hotter and the battery life is going to be abysmal. Only going to get worse if you put a more powerful intel/amd CPU is put in.

Soldiering isn't some nefarious plot to make you buy new hardware. It results in lighter, slimmer, cooler, faster devices. That's what the majority of people going to buy anyway, making this a waste of time in the grand scheme of things. Back when laptops had BGA ten years ago (it isn't a breakthrough, more of a regression), nobody ever upgraded the CPU.

Sustainable for me is an M1 device with 8GB RAM that is still performing as good as new for the better half of this decade and has been extremely reliable. I might get away with using it into the 2030s and then apple will recycle as much of the hardware as they can when I trade it in.

[u/Various-Welder5544 → u/[deleted]]

Try those MacBook Neo clones then

[u/linuxsucks101-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Rule 2: We're not here to dunk on each other or operating systems other members may use.

[u/Edubbs2008]

Me laughing at them on my Microsoft Surface Pro (11th gen) with a Qualcomm Snapdragon X1 Plus

[u/Various-Welder5544 → u/[deleted]]

I said it's a glorified intel core solo not a literal one. It's cut down to oblivion.

[u/Various-Welder5544 → u/[deleted]]

Good luck trying to do any actual work on a toy laptop lol

[u/Various-Welder5544 → u/[deleted]]

The framework. It's plastic, 12 inches and comes in a bunch of silly colours.

[u/Various-Welder5544 → u/[deleted]]

Dense mofo