Those things are too rich for my blood, but it seems to me like the concept is a great idea, and it would be nice if something like that became cheaper and standardized across brands.
I’ve always been really annoyed by the fact that laptops with socketed CPUs disappeared a decade ago. And these days a ton of laptop manufacturers are very eager to solder the SSD and RAM as well. This occasionally goes as far as laptops with permanent, soldered single channel RAM, and that’s horrifying. These things are destined to be e-waste, ending up in landfills far sooner than typical for equivalent desktop components.
When you upgrade a desktop you have so many more options that will save you money over buying a totally new system. GPUs are essentially plug 'n play. You can often upgrade the CPU just as easily, though every once in a while you’ll need to replace the motherboard. Same goes for RAM. Everything else can almost always be reused: the case, the fans, the CPU cooler, the storage, the monitor, the mouse, and the keyboard. Even the PSU if you’re not getting a significantly more power hungry CPU or GPU. All of that can add up to a ton of money.
Socketed CPUs in laptops are probably never coming back due to how much space they tend to take up. And laptop GPUs will probably never be socketed in the first place for the same reason. But if you could buy a standardized chassis and simply swap out entire motherboards that come in a standardized laptop form factor, upgrading would be so much more cost efficient, as would laptop repair. Also, lets bring back easily removable and swappable laptop batteries while we’re at it.
Unfortunately, this all flies in the face of the inherent capitalist enshittification going on with consumer electronics, and I’m skeptical Framework will ever be anything more than a very expensive niche for enthusiasts who like to tinker with their devices. But I don’t see any technical reasons why something like this wouldn’t be possible and practical.
Keep in mind 2000s laptops were super thick and very annoying to disassemble.
Something like nvidia mxm for cpu and gpu would be pretty pog.
But yea the premium on Framework stuff right now compared to less repairable laptops is too high. Maybe with increased production they could get better like how Fairphone did.
Old Fairphones were super mid and costly. Now it’s got decent socs and Oled displays. Though you can still see some enshittificiation seeping through with removal of headphone jack to sell their own earbuds. Still, pretty alright.
Buy used components. What’s the point of this sort of build-your-own laptop with independently swappable parts if you don’t buy used parts once certain-afflicted people upgrade to Latest Thing? I feel as though that’s most of the benefit and a great aspect of desktop computers generally.
laptops when?
thicc laptops
I have a thicc Toshiba laptop from around 2010 that has easily removable panels to access the optical drive, hard drive, and RAM. One of the best laptops I owned.
Dropping optical drives killed things, though. Manufacturers immediately went into a race to make everything thinner, and that’s what we’re stuck with now.
The thickness of that Toshiba was fine. It’ll fit in my bag without a problem. Going thinner is just showing off, and repairability suffers.