Framework Sold Out of 3 Batches of Laptop 16 in Less Than 3 Hours.

uthredii@programming.dev to Technology@lemmy.world – 887 points –

Image description: Image shows batches 1, 2 and 3 sold out for the Ryzen 7 7840HS which costs $1,399.

For now both DIY and prebuild edition (all configurations) are in batch 4 which ships in late Q4 2023.

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I’m guessing Linus’s investment is safe then :)

His investment is probably part of why these are such a hot commodity.

The media presence and advertising from LMG is worth a crazy amount. His followers are the exact target audience of this device and as long as he’s showing off what they’re up to I think they’ll continue to sell like this.

Spot on. I would have no idea Framework existed without LTT, and I likely would not have clicked into the article or comments on this thread, either.

Never heard of them before this but the name and sold out had me curious so I looked them up. If I was in the market for laptop this would for sure be my top choice. I greatly prefer my desktop and anything I can't do there I just do on my phone so everytime I get the itch for a laptop I regret buying it because it ends up just sitting.

And we as tech enthusiasts will also recommend them to others, for obvious reasons.

I currently own a macbook and i am scared of the day thered any issues with it

I'm really happy they're seeing good demand. Fully upgradable laptops have been a dream of mine for years and I've been thinking when it's time for me to replace mine, the Framework would be at the top of my list.

My only hesitation points when I first heard about the laptop was whether the company would survive long enough to make upgrades/accessories and whether the main board upgrades would actually work. The concept was, as you say, a dream.

Both of those concerns have faded away for me, my next laptop is pretty much 100% going to be a framework. Just need to stop spending money on dumb stuff so I can afford it...

Next time I need to replace my laptop I'll be getting a Framework if possible. I hate having old electronics go to waste and my devices are usually still in very good condition, just the internals can't keep up, so this sort of laptop was made for me. Plus I love tinkering with electronics and some of those modules look interesting!

Same here. I'm not ready to refresh yet, so I'm cheering on the current runs selling out so I'll get a chance later. Glad to hear they're having success with the 16 inch model.

Hell yeah Framework deserves all the goodness coming their way. I have an ASUS that's serving me well for now, but I think when I go to replace it next year, they're the ones I'm going to. Hopefully by then, they have AMD boards in the smaller sizes.

I believe Ryzen 7000 boards are already available for preorder in the 13 inch. Preorders are supposed to ship starting late 2023, so you should be all good by next year.

Oh hey that's great news. Thanks for the update. I hadn't seen any news about that recently, though admittedly I haven't been looking.

I'm glad to see the reception on this. Framework is doing a lot of good to help drive consumers toward more repairable options, and drive competitors to hopefully do the same in the long run. Hats off to them.

They really do produce great hardware, in my dev team we either use MacBooks or Framework Laptops depending on what everyone wants to use. Upgradability is great and everyone is really happy with their device so far.

can confirm. Work thinkpad broke a year ago and switched to a framework (had the exact same price for the same specced thinkpad, but was fully repeairable copared to thinkpads).

And just last week I received my personal 13gen intel framework.

Great hardware

Batches 4 and 5 are also sold out by now.

Meanwhile, batches 8 and 9 have been added to the list. Looks like they did not anticipate this kind of success.

I'm glad they're doing well, sadly Framework isn't available in my country, otherwise I'd consider them for my next laptop.

waits excitedly for Framework to ship in my region

It's fine, my current laptop has a couple of years life left in it. They'll open up orders by then right? Right?

To find the answer , stay tune we'll be right after this commercial break 📺.

( Later on, story was told that they never returned.. )

Great to see this news about a company focused on repairability and sustainability .

You can also buy MiniPCs from bee-link or others with same AMD or others powerful ones for cheap, if you don't absolutely need a laptop

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I want one so fucking badly, but I can't really justify the cost. But I could... Just... Get one anyway. Somebody help me.

Also, when will they be delivered? Not that quickly I suppose? Edit: I can't read apparently.

I’ve been curious about these framework laptops for a while now. They seem pretty rad, but I really only compute on desktop, have a work provided laptop that could never be this, and the only other computer I need in my life is a Mac for app development, which this can’t fulfill. If I ever need a non-Mac laptop for personal use, framework would be the thing though.

I really hope they are successful, I would get one too if I didnt need a new laptop.

Still have my trusty Lenovo X1 Carbon 5th Gen. Once this laptop dies or my system requiments change, I will get a Framework system.

If it's still around by then.

The problem is we all love this kind of user supported laptop, but we never buy it soon enough and in enough quantity for the independent company to stay viable. We all individually always have some reason why we don't buy as soon as they come out.

I hope I'm wrong, but this is what I've seen in the past with other laptops from independent companies.

It probably will. That's not their first try, it's like the 3rd iteration and they still support the original one.

I actually have no idea what Framework is.

Check it out! It's a great, modular, and repairable laptop with comparable prices for the specs in regards to mainstream laptops.

You can even upgrade the motherboard, which means as long as the company doesnt go under you can just infinitely reuse and upgrade it kinda like a tower PC.

and you keep the company from going under by buying their products so buy it next time if you need a new laptop and can afford it =) and make sure to upgrade whenever you need it =)

Check the frame.work website. User repairable and upgradeable. Neat part is removable swappable ports so you configure the sides of your laptop how you like it.

I have their 13" laptop and love it! The ability to open it up and repair stuff has been awesome like I replaced the speakers in mine. With the macbook I had prior I would have had to buy an entire new laptop just to upgrade my speakers.

Now they're up to Batch 6 (first Q1 batch!)

I was waiting for the options to be available. I guess it sold out fast. Now I would have to wait until early 2024. However, I need a laptop now. I guess I'll have to buy something else and upgrade to framework when that upgrade breaks.

I just looked at the framework site. My wifes laptop died recently and was looking at a new one.

Literally everything from the last year is out of stock new stock is pre-order only.

I think they may have some 11th gen models still.

I just bought the wife a Thinkpad T480 refurb instead for 400 bucks.

If I didn't have several laptops already I'd have picked one of these up.

I almost threw my hat in this ring but I must wait on people who use Linux to get ahold of it and review it. Proably an early 2024 buy date for me.

At least for framework 13, Linux support was great. I am guessing the same trend would continue. More details here. https://frame.work/linux

EDIT: my comment got eaten and I don’t want to type it again.

TLDR: I had the FW 11 gen and it was not good with Linux when it came to being a laptop. Sleep was fundamentally broken due to hardware issue.

I was not a huge fan of the Intel Framework, I used mine for a few weeks in January and had substantial issues with their recommended Ubuntu install. Aside from the battery life, I remember regular OS things were breaking pretty much daily. In the end I returned for a hardware issue (it stopped charging).

Hopefully an AMD core will help at least with battery life, but it seems like Linux users aren't a primary target. I'm not turned off them forever as I am still conceptually into it, but I'll wait a bit before trying again.

Same boat. Need those concrete reviews this time around.

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Great to see!

I bought my last laptop a couple months before they started shipping to Australia last year (dang it...), but Framework will be high on the list next time.

I do badly want to like these.. but I don't see the point.

Repairability wise mid range ThinkPad is nearly as good. Only major difference is I think Framework claims they will release schematics... and as someone who actually does component level repairs I've seen promises like this work I've or twice, but then they stop maintaining their data or pays get hard to get rendering the gesture null.

Upgrade wise... I switch machines every 4 to 6 years... at which point the chassis has a bit of wear and tear.

Spec wise I buy what I need and add a little headroom with the ThinkPad.

Spare parts are good for ThinkPad and Lenovo actually has component replacement guides that no one seems to mention or know about.

And when I do upgrade I appreciate having a complete spare machine.

I think it's also not unreasonable to assume my style of buying and upgrading is not uncommon.

This leaves the Framework very few hardware advantages and nil price advantages.

I still think they're a great idea, but I don't see any practical benefit over a sensible alternative.

Genuine question... Have I missed anything?

Well, framework has one cool side-effect of their repair-friendly approach: their laptop mainboard can be used as an SBC. I've seen a few projects use it in this way, and I believe they even sell an official plastic case for it. It's a well-documented piece of computer hardware that is regularly refreshed and can be fitted easily into slim chassis.

Oh, and another cool thing is that their screens have magnetic bezels. ThinkPads are a PITA to fix if you just want to replace an LCD panel; framework makes it trivial to keep the upper chassis and only replace the part that's actually broken. That's the real pitch with Framework: replace anything easily and upgrade your computer for only the cost of the mainboard or socketable component. Some of their newer devices have a socketable PCIe expansion bay, which could be used for things like socketable GPU upgrades.

I just had a look at their motherboards, nearly AUD$1000 shipped for the cheapest available 12th gen board... board only.

Just bought a ThinkPad with 16gb dual channel and 1TB nvme for $60 less than this and it has an on-site warranty.

I love the idea but the pricing is insane.

Just pricing the minimum possible 16" machine came to AUD$2400 with no ram, no SSD, no OS, no numpad and no charger.

Add all this things, even self bought your looking at over $3k or even $4k if you want the GPU

I wish them luck... They're going to need it.

I just got a pre-order for one of the Framework 16's. The issue Framework has at the moment is scale. Lenovo has the size and customer base to produce an absolute insane number of laptops compared to Frameworks operation. So cost is going to be 30, 50 or even 100% more than the big boys like Asus, Lenovo or HP. They won't ever get that scale unless people believe in it and buy one.

However, there's one other thing which I justified my purchase with. I could buy a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Extreme with the i7-2700H, 32gb of ram and a RTX 3050ti for $AUD4,929. Or I could buy the Framework 16 with Ryzen 7840HS, 32GB ram, Radeon 7700s for $AUD3,916. Both of these processors and GPUs are similarly speced, in fact I believe the benchmarks had the Framework slightly ahead, but the framework comes out over $AUD1000 cheaper. Yes the Thinkpad X1 Extreme is their uber premium model, but just as you pay a premium for Lenovo's business grade hardware, you pay a premium for Frameworks repairability.

As a person who works in e-waste, probably off by magnitide when it comes to how much companies with leasing divisions (Dell/HP/Lenovo) produces over companies that dont (Pc part manufacturers like Asus/MSI/Gigabyte). Its obscene how much desktops/laptops go straight to resale/recycling.

Just popped that Lenovo into my small business cart and got $1000 under what you've mentioned (assumed you went with upgraded screen, the 60hz 300nits screen is a piece of crap and shouldn't exist in a machine of that calibre), but even at that price the framework does seem more attractive.

No doubt if you take money out of the equation it's a good option, but if you're on a budget you could hunt down a similar specced Lenovo Legion or something for a bit less.

I believe the price difference came from you being part of the Lenovo business store, I didn't use that the last time and just used the standard consumer store.

I just re-entered the specs on the consumer store for the X1 Extreme Gen 5 16" and got 5,214 Australian Dollars. Otherwise it might be if you aren't in Australia, did you get the local dollar amount and convert to AUD or did you use the Australian store directly?

Anyway, doesn't change the main point as you say that if you are bargain hunting, the Framework 16 isn't the way to go but it's still a good laptop from what we can see. I don't mind spending more for the framework since I believe in what it stands for. Plus who knows what might come with upgrades down the line.

Maybe Australia's offerings are different, but I see this board with an 11th gen i5 for USD $299. There's a ton in the $300-500 price range with several different configurations. That's really the interesting range for doing hobby projects.

I deliberately ignored 11th gen, is old enough that refurbished equivalents can be bought for the same price on eBay with a case, power supply, ram, storage, wifi and OS licence for the same money.

With the framework board you get none of that.

And as for it being an option for embedded use, there are far better options.

I know this all sounds negative... But I'm truly trying to like the idea. I can't see it catching and reaching the mass needed to become more sustainable at this point.

It's just going to remain a niche untill they die... Or maybe they can survive on the small numbers? (Which I think would be great by the way, I'm very proud choice, just not a fan of the price!)

Honestly, I'm impressed they're selling to Australia.

My opinion:

  • Framework has a good track record and I would give them the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. (Concerning upgradeability)

  • laptops are getting more and more powerful and I like the idea of treating them similar to a desktop

  • as a ThinkPad user you probably know how popular especially old ThinkPads are, because of the ability to mod them

  • you might buy a new laptop every few years but the point above proves that there will be people interested in a second hand laptop, therefore reducing waste

  • there will always be a market for good quality and customer friendly products and the existence of framework is great for competition (for the end user)

  • they support the open source mentality, even tried to help to bring coreboot to their laptops. Even though that failed they're keeping an eye on openSIL

  • overall I'm more of Linux instead of Windows, FOSS instead of corporate closed software, Lemmy instead of reddit and framework/system76/.. instead of Lenovo/.. kind of person. I see it partly as a fight for "freedom" if you so will.

I think that swappable GPUs are the killer feature. A 7 year old CPU is fine, a 7 year old GPU not so much.

Seven years is a bit harsh, but upgrading the gpu once in 3-4 years would have saved you money and electronic waste.

7 year isnt that bad. I like to always say if you vare about how hardware ages as a gamer, match the consoles of the current generation.

So any decent 8c/16t cpu will likely age fine for the foreseeable generation. With gpus, ot was a matter of matching what the consoles have reserved for vram (10-14gb depending on how much ram the game reserves for itself and the OS). Its why 8 gb vram gpus are aging like milk with the current gen.

I'm still running a PC from 2012. It's seriously fine, I only started feeling it last year. Looking to upgrade next month.

"but then they stop maintaining their data or pays get hard to get rendering the gesture null."

"I'd like "Translations" for $100, Alex."

I’m guessing it’s supposed to be “parts get hard to get”, which is accurate. It doesn’t matter if you have the schematic that shows your SB00C793FGX64 rev3 needs replacing if the part isn’t manufactured anymore.

Not asking much... Just if they just would add a trackpoint, a decent mechanical keyboard (don't mind if this adds 0.5cm to the thickness) and offer a black chassis... I feel they would really be the new home of former IBM ThinkPad users which are more and more disappointed about Lenovos decisions to try to compete with Macs.

While I love my mech getting one included means a full redesign for the benefit of just a small subgroup.

That said, I did notice their keyboards run QMK firmware, was very impressed by that.

Black is must, I have to admit that shiny look is a put off for me.

Track point needs to happen too.

And my biggest compliant for my ThinkPad is the ctrl and FN keys being in shitty places.

I run a Thinkpad and my partner is an early adopter of the v1 Framework. She had quite a few early adopter issues on her leading me to believe the hardware polish isn't there 100% (eg hinges too weak they had to release an upgrade, this broke the display cable and led to BIOS issues, etc).

I mostly agree, the one place I think Thinkpad could use more maintainability is in mainboard compatibility. Framework promises (TBD) Mainboard compatibility across upgrades, we'll see if they deliver.

thanks. I remember looking at something like this years ago but it was really new and it did not list any parts which turned me off at the time as I want to know I can get parts later. I don't know if this is the same thing or just similar but going to think about getting one of these (when I can)

That is great! When the fuck can i buy one?

Been two years now since i first heard about Framework from the first LTT video on it (just checked at that video actualy came out in july 2021), and i was allready looking at replacing my laptop, so i thought Framework would be great to get.

Now two years have passed, and they still aren't available in my region. Couldn't realy delay the replacement any more, so now i have ended up getting a different laptop, meaning even i Framework became available here soon, i won't buy a new laptop for 5-6 years at least.

What is your region?

Northern Europe.

Last i checked (a couple of months back), they were finaly working on keyboard layouts for the area, but still no info on when te laptops would be available around here.

Have you considered a parcel forwarding service?

Sure you may need to shovel an extra 50, but might be worth it. They're on sale in Germany and France, for example.

I did, when I realised it would take a while and started looking elsewhere.

But since they officialy do not condone it, and have some language in their TOS and warranty, i didn't bother with it, since while anything they might do against it in regards to warranty wouldn't hold up in a legal sense, i didn't want to be the one to test that if it should happen.

Indeed I have placed a pre order today and noticed that disclaimer as well.

I bought a framework laptop for my significant other last year and it's amazing. It feels super solid like a Macbook but is easy to open and change out parts. Nothing has broken but adding some ram was probably the most pleasant experience I have had working on a laptop. Plus, the main PCB can run without the rest of the laptop so perhaps a great home automation server or TV computer if we upgrade.

My next machine is definitely going to be one of these. Way cheaper than Apple if you want more than 8G of RAM and a decent amount of disk space.

Not by as much as I thought it would be honestly. About 20%.

When I configured it, a 13" mac pro with 16GB ram and 1TB SSD is $1600 from apple, the 13" framework with 16GB ram and 1TB SSD is $1065. That comes out to a 60% difference for the most basic configuration I would consider.

I’ll have to double check. I did the latest MacBook Air and the latest gen Intel and AMD for the Framework. Upped the CPU and battery on the Framework to keep it competitive with the Mac’s battery life and it came out to $1450.

I also kept them to 16GB RAM and 1TB storage.

Fixed typos. And now I want a 1TB battery.

Does Framework do anything regarding FOSS drivers or firmware?

I have personally used fedora and nixos on a gen 1 framework 13 and it works great.

Does Framework do anything regarding FOSS drivers or firmware?

Regarding your question they say this:

We deliberately selected components and modules that didn’t require new kernel driver development and have been providing distro maintainers with pre-release hardware to test to improve compatibility. We’re also working on enabling firmware updates through LVFS to complete the Linux experience.

source: https://frame.work/gb/en/linux

It's good to know it uses drivers already there. Sadly being part of the kernal somehow doesn't guarantee the driver are not proprietary binary blobs.

No way to join this nice ship without a trackpoint... 😒

I really like the idea but two things stop me.. one is cost. They're considerably more expensive than laptops elsewhere. The seconf is the unproven long term uogtwdeability. In 5 years time when I'm looking to upgrade will framewotk be selling parts that let me do that? A new CPU board and I'm sorted.. Ot is it a whole new laptop. I suspect the latter.

I'm sorry, but I fuckin lost it at "uogtwdeability"

At 'o' I was thinking "oh their right hand is shifted". Then at 't' I'm wondering if they use their right hand for 'r' but now they are shifted the other way. Finally it finishes at 'w' and now they are shifted the other way again and up a row. My conclusion is that they hover their hands above keyboard without touching and just smash down in the general direction of the keys.

The obvious answer is phone keyboard but that's not as fun.

When I'm not paying attention sometimes one hand will get shifted and I'll write it a whole sentence with half of the letters offset.

If they are indeed using a phone keyboard, I can only assume the autocorrect was so confused it simply gave up. Either that or they have it turned off.

  1. Have you looked at other laptops elsewhere? They are a very comparable price. This is the going rate for a laptop of that spec.
  2. Unproven upgradability? They are quite literally the ONLY laptop manufacturer to have provided ANY upgradability in the last 5 years. Why are you concerned about them letting you upgrade in 5 years when no one else lets you upgrade even next year?

The base £1700 price (and that's with no ports or hard drive! So more like 2k) is about £800 from HP.

You're paying for upgradeability. If you can't upgrade, you're wasting the money.

But it does have ports and storage? It specifically defaults to 6 USB-C expansion slots which can be switched to USB-A for no price increase or for a minimal price increase any other port.

It also comes with a 512GB SSD. The only thing it doesn't come with is the dedicated GPU which is an extra £400.

Is this one of those gadgets that drives companies to pollute more by creating useless periferics

It is a fully upgradable and repairable laptop. Framework also offers an enclosure to use old boards as mini desktop PCs, or as a home server, or whatever. Nothing goes to waste.

Yeah I would think if anything this is more sustainable because you can just easily swap the parts that need upgrading instead of having to scrap the whole laptop.

that's the weirdest, most backwards and worst take I have seen about framework, ever. Congratulations, I don't think anyone will ever going to top this amount of dribble