Lmk when they’re corebooted.
Otherwise I’ll stick with system76 or starlabs.
I don’t buy notebooks. Only used older Thinkpads, particularly for coreboot/libreboot support.
Overpriced.
The article is clanker slop. It’s mostly reiterative, a clear sign of clanker slop. Clankers are reiterative in their slop. A lot of clanker slop is reiterative.
That’s an excellent point, and you’re right to push back on this. Let me make an honest evaluation of the situation.
Not all reiterative spamlike garbage is clanker slop. Some of it is deliberately written to prioritize SEO over respecting the reader or producing anything of quality. Either way thanks for giving me the heads-up not to give them any of my time.
AKA some of it is meatslop
I haven’t needed to buy a laptop since the company existed. If I did they’d be a strong contender
TLDR: Fuck “AI”
I was in the market for a 14’’ work laptop and I so DESPERATELY wanted to buy a Framework but I couldn’t thanks to a combination of all the AI bullshit driving up memory prices, Framework still being on the Series 1 Intel Ultra chips, and their global availability not quite being there (this bit is understandable for a relatively new company). I ended up buying a base 14’’ MacBook Pro M5 even though I wanted to stay on Linux simply because it was the only thing with good perf, crazy good battery, and good build quality that was priced semi-reasonably even though it’s on the opposite end of the repairability spectrum.
Even now a comparable Framework (Intel Ultra X7 358H, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) costs ~$150 more than what I paid for my Mac, assuming I can even get it shipped to where I am, and the regional pricing/taxes doesn’t push the price higher. Kinda crazy because it’s on the more reasonable side of things if memory serves. Dell XPS costs even more.
I hope this memory crisis gets sorted because I never thought I’d see the day that Apple became the budget option. Maybe I’ll sell my Mac and get a Framework then because as much as I love using the Mac, I still hate being at Apple’s mercy if anything breaks or if I need an upgrade.
I hope this memory crisis gets sorted
https://dam.stanford.edu/memory-prices.html
Looks like pretty normal market fluctuation. Not a crisis.
Yeah market fluctuation regularly explains prices more than quintupling while supply vaporizes overnight. The fuck are you smoking?
Logarithmic scales are notorious for hiding spikes.
In late December of 2023 when there was a glut of RAM on the market, I purchased 24 64G ECC DDR5 sticks for $188 each. I split them between two production servers I was building for a cluster. In early 2025 I was setting a third and they had rose to $318 each.
I checked last night and found the price for new was $2,700 a stick.How is this a fluctuation?
Quite normal, yes. Especially the prices for DDR4 and DDR5, the most commonly used RAM types in consumer laptops/desktops
Methodology note. $/GB is the cheapest listed retail price in nominal USD — not contract, average, inflation-adjusted, or a confirmed sale price.
It’s likely worse than the graph shows because this isn’t average sale price.
I don’t know how old “abc” is, but it’s particularly painful for those of us who remember $100 going from getting us a 32Kb RAM pack, to 1Mb, to 64Mb, to 256Mb, to 1Gb, to 16Gb, and then just fucking stop for ten years, and now going back to no longer being able to even get us 16Gb any more. It’s like stuff stopped getting better a decade ago, and everything is being made worse by the greed of rich arseholes
I’ll think about it when they have an ARM option
Frankly shocked to see you say that. You either have a very specific job or are a particularly interesting weirdo. What would be your use case?
For Linux, there is not much difference between CPU architectures.
I’m a linux user myself, but can’t see ARM doing anything particularly well in a laptop in the near future, at least outside of the Apple cult. Even S76’s high power ARM desktop looks (to me) extremely limiting versus a comparable AMD machine.
There is a 3rd party ARM board for the Laptop 13.
Framework is great, but it’s just so insanely expensive.
I was buying a new laptop about 2 years ago. A framework one cost more than twice the price of a regular ultrabook with comparable (but better) specs.
Sure, you pay more for a Framework, and you can upgrade it later instead of buying a new laptop. Makes sense, but even then - a Framework one is more expensive than 2 laptops with similar specs. It only gets cheaper on the third upgrade. Which for me may be 10 years away.
Personally I’m not thrilled about investing in a laptop that will pay off in a decade. Who knows what laptops will be like by that time. Hell, it’s not unconceivable that devices like Framework will be outlawed. Or that Framework goes out of business.
It might make sense for people who upgrade often, but I don’t. Or for people who don’t, but are wealthy enough to pay the premium anyway. If anything, I feel like having a Framework would make me want to upgrade more often, which would be a waste of money.
Or that Framework goes out of business.
Even if they do, they use mostly off-the-shelf components, and the designs for the stuff that isn’t are open-sourced. You can still repair them even if Framework doesn’t exist.
Honestly if the average person can’t buy it at Best Buy or Target, they won’t. Most people don’t know about this stuff.
Wherever a random coworker or family member asks me which of two laptops to buy, it’s always between a couple of prebuilt machine at a big box retailer.
I love the idea of Framework myself, but I can’t afford to buy one.
Too niche for the average buyer, too expensive for the rest of us.
Not readily available in Australia, I associate it with Linus (not torvalds), they’re expensive, and god knows if Trump does weird export import stuff the moment it ships, and if it needs repair, nobody would be unsurprised if Trump made us pay to ship it back
Framework have been available in Australia for years. A few years back I ordered one and it shipped from Taiwan to regional South Australia in about a week. I was pissed off because they almost beat an order from PCcasegear. They are manufactured in and ship from Taiwan, not trumpistan.
It’s available. But, still ships from overseas last I checked.
US company though apparently, but didn’t realise they ship from Taiwan.
One thing that is interesting, is you can get a riscv board and an arm board. Would be good if they have an elite Broadcom board though
Framework’s whole thing is upgradable laptops. The increased cost is what you pay for the upgradable platform instead of buying a new laptop.
Repairability has already been proven multiple times by several OEMs like Lenovo.
Even if the repair process itself becomes tedious, the mark of a quality OEM is offering parts and schematics that allow repair shops to disgnose and fix broken machines.
Unlike Apple, which actively prohibits their vendors from selling any parts to anyone except Apple.
I can’t afford that kind of money on a laptop!
I’m a Linux nerd FFS… I’ve never owned a new laptop in my life!
It’s an attractive option, but it has a pretty hard competition from the 7th gen Thinkpad T14.
And many people want high quality repairable laptops.
Mediocre and repairable hardware for premium prices is not for everyone. Most people probably want the most performance for the least amount of money without any regards or respect for money or the environment.
It probably doesn’t help that they have been in some controversial drama either.
And let’s not forget that Linus Sebastian from Linus Tech Tips is an investor as well. I don’t want my money to go to that greedy turd who screwed over his own audience for money in pure greed, and when he became a rich turd he instantly became the very greedy person he used to hate on the WAN Show.
My Thinkpad X1 Carbon 6th Gen is quite repairable thank you very much, and it was like 400 bucks, and it comes with an i7, 16gb of ram, and a 256gb ssd. It’s only marketing that has people convinced they will fall behind unless they have the latest and greatest.
The Lenovo spare parts program is great. OEM replacement screen saved my X1C6th, as all aftermarket panels were bad quality TN
