I think the author is the target customer for Framework. A customer looking for a ship of Theseus laptop that the seller stands by.
I’ve looked at framework as a potential next laptop but it’s expensive, some of parts are expensive, and the other parts I’m not sure I’ve ever had issues with in past laptops. I think I’m better off buying multiple used thinkpads over the course of my life, or even a used MBP (refurbished m4 MBP goes for ~$1.3K from Apple, base configuration w/ 16GB ram for framework 13 is ~1.2K), than a Framework; the thinkpads would be cheaper and more eco friendly with good build quality. I’m not looking for a ship of Theseus laptop, I’m just looking for something that works a long time, is good enough, and I want to keep my lifetime expenditure on hardware on the lower side. I look at my laptop cost as upfront cost divided by number of years I expect to use it for and I have a spreadsheet with past laptops (and phones) tracking historical usage and costs to better inform my next purchase. Framework looks attractive but the costs don’t seem to align with my goal.
I’m own a FW13 and I have bought ~4 for employees.
I doubt I will order more. We’ve had small and large issues.
My Linux machine will drain the battery completely if you don’t perform a full shutdown, and even then the quiescent drain is too high and I can expect it to be dead in a week.
The dream of repairability is great, but the reality just isn’t there.
That said, I was able to replace a damaged screen with no effort at all. A far cry from the MS Surface I had previously, but any vendor could sell a screen or keyboard without the “full modularity” that FW pushes.
Counterpoint… the battery is superglued to the chassis and to replace for my model was STEP 53, and that was to scrape the old battery off and glue the new one in, then 53 steps backwards to re-assemble.
Almost two years ago I bought an opened but never used ThinkPad T14s from eBay very cheaply. It's not too specced but it does the job and it will easily last me 2-3 more years at which point I just buy another one. I see what Framework is doing, and they probably need the support of customers to get the scale of Lenovo/Dell to lower the cost of production.
I’ve looked at framework as a potential next laptop but it’s expensive, some of parts are expensive, and the other parts I’m not sure I’ve ever had issues with in past laptops. I think I’m better off buying multiple used thinkpads over the course of my life, or even a used MBP (refurbished m4 MBP goes for ~$1.3K from Apple, base configuration w/ 16GB ram for framework 13 is ~1.2K), than a Framework; the thinkpads would be cheaper and more eco friendly with good build quality. I’m not looking for a ship of Theseus laptop, I’m just looking for something that works a long time, is good enough, and I want to keep my lifetime expenditure on hardware on the lower side. I look at my laptop cost as upfront cost divided by number of years I expect to use it for and I have a spreadsheet with past laptops (and phones) tracking historical usage and costs to better inform my next purchase. Framework looks attractive but the costs don’t seem to align with my goal.