Hobbyist here, and while my issues have been fixed, I had a pretty bad experience. I had the 12th-gen Intel model I bought in 2022, and moderate amounts of load would trigger thermal protection and throttle all CPU cores to 400MHz. The throttling could last for seconds, or several tens of minutes, or even require me to power down the laptop for a while and come back to it later. (This was even though temperatures would always drop out of the danger zone in under a second.)

After nearly two years (two years!) of back and forth with support, including a mainboard replacement that didn't fix the problem, they finally upgraded me to the 13th-gen Intel mainboard, and the problems immediately went away.

Right now I'm struggling with a keyboard issue; a few of the keys intermittently don't register presses. I have a new keyboard that I ordered that I hope will fix the problem, and need to install, just haven't gotten to it. (I'm not sure if this is a result of a defect, or of one of my cats walking on the keyboard and possibly damaging it, so I'm not ready to blame Framework for this one.)

Aside from that, I haven't had driver issues, random crashes, or any problems with the USB ports. But I assume you're talking about Windows; I use Linux, so that's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

> My gut feeling is that something that can't be replaced easily in the Frameworks will die and it'll just end up being cheaper to replace the whole laptop.

The mainboard is of course the most expensive part, but it's still gong to be cheaper to replace it than the entire laptop. I don't believe there are any available replacement parts to the laptop that cost more than the full cost of the laptop.

The replaceable parts definitely add value as someone who's had one for 4 years now or something like that. It's probably got more new parts than old, some for performance improvements, others for damage because I'm not especially gentle.

I don't really think it's tremendous value if you're purely talking about laptop per dollar. I probably could've bought two similarly performant laptops for the amount I've spent on the Framework over the years, maybe two and a half. But it is incredible peace of mind to know that the same machine I already have will keep working even if some part of it breaks, I don't have to worry about reinstalling or losing anything or losing the stickers I have on the thing or whatever else. The old mainboard I upgraded from is now a home server with a nice 3D printed case. There's way less e-waste, one thing going wrong doesn't make the whole device a brick. And there is just a genuinely enjoyable novelty to how easy it is to take apart.

It's a hobbyist device through and through. It's for people who like using desktop Linux, because they feel empowered by being able to fix their problems, with the occasional side effect that sometimes they'll have to.

Thing is, the major part the motherboard will cost you the price of a competitive laptop.

I want to love framework, but their prices just don’t justify the switch for most people.

The first run of Frameworks had a weak hinge on the monitor, which isn't an uncommon problem with other brands of laptop. With Framework, you can easily replace the hinge, but that's unlikely with most other brands, and you'll need to pay to replace the entire monitor.

Another example, I didn't need an HDMI port anymore, and wanted an extra USB-C instead. Just a few bucks to swap with Framework, but impossible with other laptops.

I did have an issue with one of my USB ports on the Framework however. It was solved by removing the module and updating the bios firmware. Can't say I've ever had that happen with another laptop. I agree they're probably not ready for business use yet, where cost is the primary measurement.

It seems that the swappable modules would also make it easy for someone to install e.g. a keylogger, though.

You can lock the modules with a button and also screw them in from the inside.

Not saying it's perfect but it's a far cry from just swapping a module.

If they are close enough to do that without me noticing I already have a ton of problems to fix instead of worrying about my Framework's module security.

You could simply be in a coffee shop or library.

I have one as a developer laptop running Linux. It works fine, battery life is bad. (On AMD 7640U Framework 13).

I currently couldn't recommend them to anyone except users (developers?) who want to run Linux specifically. Otherwise a Macbook is going to be a much better computer at a better value, or just get any boring Windows laptop provider.

Pros compared to Macbook: - Runs Linux - amd64 makes some legacy software work easier - Easy and commodity prices to get 96gb of RAM and 2tb SSD.

Macbook pros: - Massively better battery life - Snappier/faster in general usage - Much more polished than Linux

I evaluated Thinkpads as well but trying to find one with the right configuration that wasn't too expensive or worse than the Framework was pretty hard.