their pricing means it is basically never worth buying and upgrading versus just buying a new laptop (seriously, run the numbers. You basically save 10 bucks over two generations of shopping at Best Buy).
Maybe so. But the big difference is, you can upgrade iteratively rather than taking the entire hit of a new device all at once. So I can buy all of the individual components of my next laptop a few hundred dollars at a time over the course of a couple of years, and use them as I get them. By the time I’ve ship-of-theseus’d the whole device, I may have spent the same amount of money on that new computer, but I paced it how I wanted it. Then I put all of the old components into an enclosure and now I can use it as a media center or whatever. Plus, if something breaks, I can fix it.
From the laptop perspective (because the desktop is totally all about that side panel life):
Memory: Ultrabooks are hell, no arguments there. But many brands have increasingly allowed at least one SODIMM to be swapped out and many still no longer solder the other one. And I’ll say, from personal experience, that buying and swapping out RAM in a relatively new-ish laptop often comes out closer to the price of just paying for the upgraded SKU to begin with. So there is the logic of “I’ll add another 16 GB in two years” but… yeah.
Storage: Again, same. Except that they tend to not even solder down the nvmes. There are some particularly asshole vendors but they are few and far between. And this totally is worth doing since they tend to be fairly standard nvme drives or the small SSD that I always forget the format of. Rather than RAM that is only used by laptops and NUCs and costs an arm and a leg…
Ports: Framework laptops just use USB C dongles for everything. They have a semi-proprietary format for those but it is still, fundamentally, a usb c dongle. And, from talking to a mutual on a discord who has one, it has the same fundamental problem that USB C dongles/hubs do when installing the more finicky OSes (hi Proxmox and OpnSense) where you can’t actually access the hub capabilities until AFTER the OS is installed (the more live CD based distros avoid this). So no difference in terms of upgrades and modularity outside of having fewer vendors to buy a dongle from if you care about form factor that much.
CPU: Only if you swap out the motherboard which is the vast majority of the price of the laptop anyway.
Keyboard, display, etc: These are less “upgrades” so much as replacements. Which are good arguments for repairability but also… go actually look at ifixit’s website and see how many laptops are repairable. It is mostly just apple who suck horrifically
And just because it always amuses me and never fails, let’s price out upgrading/replacing a framework (uplacing?). I’ll assume no parts failed to keep prices simple and “You can replace your keyboard every time it fails over a five year period” is not the flex people think it is. I’ll use the intel core ultra series 1 because that is in stock and not a preorder. We are dealing with last year’s model (I think. I haven’t followed Intel laptop processors too much) so there is inherently wiggle room there, but it is theoretically fair as it is last year’s model for both of them since I had to dig deep into the framework site to find an Intel since fuck Best Buy’s website if you are trying to compare AMDs (also fuck AMD for their naming insanity).
So we are already looking at the framework being about 120 USD more expensive without looking at any configurations or upgrades.
So let’s get into that hyperbolic time chamber and totally not have gay sex with the glistening man hunk known as Vegeta. Five years later, let’s consider an upgrade… to the same SKU.
On the Framework marketplace, another 125H mobo costs 399 USD right now.
Framework: 999+399=1398 for two generations of a laptop
Best Buy: 879+879=1758
For a total savings of 1758-1398 = 360 USD over 5 years of getting soaked by that galick gun
Which is nothing to balk at. But that assumes that your display and keyboard held up and didn’t need replacing, you liked all the default dongles Framework gave you (which is apparently just four USB C ports… to plug into the four USB C ports on the laptop), and, most importantly, that Framework didn’t change their form factor (I am not sure if they did for the 16 inch laptops to support the “modular” keyboards). Every spare dongle or repaired/upgraded part costs money. Versus being guaranteed a “pristine” new laptop… full of massive amounts of bloatware that you immediately format the shit out of to put Linux on that.
And, obvious grain of salt, the past few times I have done this exercise it was closer to 100 USD. Framework just happen to be dumping large amounts of old stock right now for their new models so the prices are better and the comparisons are more tedious.
Again, conceptually I like Framework. And, for as much as I mock them, I actually do like the form factor for their dongles a lot. Give me a computer with a shit ton of USB C ports but also let me leep it usable at work without needing to carry around my sketchy anker dongle/dock. And I don’t really fault them too much for not letting you actually swap CPUs since that was basically something only the sickest of sickos did until the AM4 socket lasted like 40 years somehow.
But their key strength is marketing and that has only gotten stronger since they got the full power of linus media group behind them because that company needs to protect their shareholders’ investment.
And, like I said before, I do worry that this just encourages people to hoard parts. Like… anyone who has built a desktop or two has that big plastic bin full of old ram and mobos and even graphics cards that they might use someday but never will (PSU is totally worth saving though).
Maybe so. But the big difference is, you can upgrade iteratively rather than taking the entire hit of a new device all at once. So I can buy all of the individual components of my next laptop a few hundred dollars at a time over the course of a couple of years, and use them as I get them. By the time I’ve ship-of-theseus’d the whole device, I may have spent the same amount of money on that new computer, but I paced it how I wanted it. Then I put all of the old components into an enclosure and now I can use it as a media center or whatever. Plus, if something breaks, I can fix it.
What exactly can you upgrade iteratively?
From the laptop perspective (because the desktop is totally all about that side panel life):
And just because it always amuses me and never fails, let’s price out upgrading/replacing a framework (uplacing?). I’ll assume no parts failed to keep prices simple and “You can replace your keyboard every time it fails over a five year period” is not the flex people think it is. I’ll use the intel core ultra series 1 because that is in stock and not a preorder. We are dealing with last year’s model (I think. I haven’t followed Intel laptop processors too much) so there is inherently wiggle room there, but it is theoretically fair as it is last year’s model for both of them since I had to dig deep into the framework site to find an Intel since fuck Best Buy’s website if you are trying to compare AMDs (also fuck AMD for their naming insanity).
So we are already looking at the framework being about 120 USD more expensive without looking at any configurations or upgrades.
So let’s get into that hyperbolic time chamber and totally not have gay sex with the glistening man hunk known as Vegeta. Five years later, let’s consider an upgrade… to the same SKU.
On the Framework marketplace, another 125H mobo costs 399 USD right now.
999 + 399 = 1398for two generations of a laptop879 + 879 = 17581758-1398 = 360USD over 5 years of getting soaked by that galick gunWhich is nothing to balk at. But that assumes that your display and keyboard held up and didn’t need replacing, you liked all the default dongles Framework gave you (which is apparently just four USB C ports… to plug into the four USB C ports on the laptop), and, most importantly, that Framework didn’t change their form factor (I am not sure if they did for the 16 inch laptops to support the “modular” keyboards). Every spare dongle or repaired/upgraded part costs money. Versus being guaranteed a “pristine” new laptop… full of massive amounts of bloatware that you immediately format the shit out of to put Linux on that.
And, obvious grain of salt, the past few times I have done this exercise it was closer to 100 USD. Framework just happen to be dumping large amounts of old stock right now for their new models so the prices are better and the comparisons are more tedious.
Again, conceptually I like Framework. And, for as much as I mock them, I actually do like the form factor for their dongles a lot. Give me a computer with a shit ton of USB C ports but also let me leep it usable at work without needing to carry around my sketchy anker dongle/dock. And I don’t really fault them too much for not letting you actually swap CPUs since that was basically something only the sickest of sickos did until the AM4 socket lasted like 40 years somehow.
But their key strength is marketing and that has only gotten stronger since they got the full power of linus media group behind them because that company needs to protect their shareholders’ investment.
And, like I said before, I do worry that this just encourages people to hoard parts. Like… anyone who has built a desktop or two has that big plastic bin full of old ram and mobos and even graphics cards that they might use someday but never will (PSU is totally worth saving though).