Comment by throwaway2037
1 day ago
This is a brutal (but polite -- classic US Midwestern Geerling 'kill them with kindness'!) side-by-side comparison. My heart goes out to the Framework Computer team. Any team trying to compete in this product space against the surprise from Mac Neo must feel crushed. That said, I am still very optimistic for Framework Computer. It seems like nerds are going wild for them.
I didn't watch the video but isn't the main selling point of the Framework line (from their website) "Designed for easy customization, upgrades, and repairs."
I would imagine the Mac Neo is a sealed unit that you use as-is until it's e-waste.
It's actually not bad. The rhetoric has had an effect over the years.
https://www.ifixit.com/News/116152/macbook-neo-is-the-most-r...
It's actually not bad? "The most repairable MacBook in years" means practically nothing. And for someone who might be comparing with a Framework, it's probably an insult.
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It's still a 6 on the scale, and parts pairing, third party restrictions are still in place.
For reference, the latest Thinkpad T series is 10/10, so a better build is clearly possible.
It is actually bad. Not as bad as previous models, but still bad.
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EU regulations have had an effect.
You will be able to drop an old Neo off at an Apple store and they'll recycle it. Same as with most of their other products.
You won't be able to upgrade it, but it is at least moderately repairable.
Framework is and will always be a statement device. Like modern 4x4 suvs that only haul groceries and may never see dirt roads, the upgradability of a laptop is something few will ever exercise. Most people are buying the idea.
Maybe. My wife is non tech and after dropping her XPS and breaking the screen she was real interested in something that can have a replacement display installed in about half an hour. She wishes her F13 were a little slimmer like her XPS, but she gets a lot of peace of mind knowing that repairs something that "even" she could do.
I'd also say that Linux support basically from day 1 is their hidden killer feature. Literally zero fuss. That's mattering to a lot more people these days even if they don't daily drive Linux, it's a good plan B in case Windows manages to get even worse.
Most people who want a user-replaceable screen just buy a Thinkpad. I've replaced the screen on all two of the thinkpads i've owned over the last 16 years. I still have my X series from 2010; it still works, only an ant crawled between two layers of the screen and died near the center and after 7 years it was time for an upgrade. It also ran (still runs) linux just fine due to that one guy at RedHat (who very recently retired) who maintained so many of the drivers for the world. I never needed anything more complicated than a philips head screwdriver to replace the screen, ram, keyboard, hard disk, or battery. And you can get parts for a thinkpad in most countries you're likely to visit.
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my partner is a non-tech woodworker and fucking brutal on hardware, so she was addicted to Chromebooks. they cost nearly nothing, they came in weird small form factors, and they had a knack for lasting forever.
she had a day job that required her to use an older Mac and it was a relative pain in her ass that put her off Macs at home. I had a pile of retired laptops and kept trying to find one that would sway her off google.
she expressed interest in drawing functions so I started with a Lenovo Yoga. Windows wasn't an issue as soon as she figured out that she could sign into Chrome and just stay in it like a chromebook. but it was too big, too heavy, too glossy, and crashed too often. she also ended up cracking the screen in 2 months, and while the display was replaceable, the stylus digitizer part never worked again, which eliminated the one compelling feature.
next one we tried was an M1 MBA, which had all the things she hated about her work laptop. she also destroyed one of its USBC ports after 3 days, despite getting a protective cover for it, and it never consistently charged again after that. got donated in the end.
during this time I decided to upgrade my FW13 mainboard and instead picked up another full DIY kit to get the updated hinge, screen, and bottom chassis. The old Ryzen mainboard got the SSD and 2 x 8GB RAM pulled from the Yoga, and I offered it to her as an interim until she found something she liked.
she was mixed on it, but it stood up to her. what sold her on it was that when she dropped it on a concrete floor and bent the bottom chassis near the expansion ports, I just bought her a new bottom chassis and linked her to the replacement video. She had it swapped out in an hour and a half, her first solo computer repair.
so now her top two laptops of all time are:
- that shitty 10" Acer chromebook, still, because it was 10" and matte and about $60
- the FW13, which she's since added about 2 pounds of stickers to and also upgraded the hinge and battery on herself
most people are buying the idea, yeah. we have to, in order to show other people what the idea means in practice
I keep my laptops a very long time.
Every single one of them has seen repairs like screen replacement and hinge improvement. Every single one has had upgrades to storage, RAM, and CPU -- and at least one battery replacement. Ye olde Thinkpad is presently one hairy-looking BIOS flash away from a wifi upgrade.
I usually buy these machines inexpensively on the used market. And I'd love to buy an inexpensive Framework. Except... The supply/demand ratio seems to be in favor of the seller, as they seem to hold their value surprisingly well compared to many other machines.
Anyway, I don't want one for style points. I want one so I can keep it even longer than the Thinkpads and Dells of yore.
You're probably right for most people. But in laptops I've owned, I've done stuff like upgrade storage, upgrade/add RAM, swap out the WiFi module for one that has better OS driver support, replace batteries.
How would one know though by just looking at the device? I have chassis that came with Intel 11th gen, but the brainboxery, keyboard, battery, touchpad -- all have been swapped over time.
It may be less valuable now because of RAM/SSD prices, but I was able to benefit from my framework's modularity on Day 1 by saving hundreds of dollars by buying those components a la carte Instead of paying the heavily marked up prices some vendors charge for upgrades.
Bought the Framework 13 in March 2022 with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD for about $1000. Later, I upgraded RAM and SSD to 32GB/2TB (for about $180), which made it a breeze to run multiple VMs and Docker containers in parallel. Meanwhile, the Macbook M1 Pro I got from work half a year earlier cost more than $2500 for 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD and crashes when I dare to open Docker or the Android Simulator and keep a browser open for too long. I really like the M1, but it is unusable for my current workloads, and there is no way to adapt it.
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