Sure, but if you factor in the possibility of never having to do a full system upgrade again, and instead just upgrading individual parts (including the chassis) as needed, the long term cost of ownership would be way lower if you commit to framework

Everything I've read about Frameworks quality control makes the above very doubtful.

If you watch the sales on other laptops you can easily get similar specs for half of what framework is charging. I have a 5070TI laptop I purchased for around 1200$ after a rebate.

Not only does the Framework 16 only offer the significantly weaker 5070 addon, it ends up totalling to about 2500$.

Maybe in 5 or 6 years Framework will sort out its QC and offer better GPUs, but it's not for me today.

> If you watch the sales on other laptops you can easily get similar specs for half of what framework is charging. I have a 5070TI laptop I purchased for around 1200$ after a rebate.

Just to be clear: You are comparing today's Framework regular prices to a laptop you bought months or years ago, on sale?

I'm comparing the Framework 16's price with its addon to what was competing in the market around December 2025.

Almost every Windows laptop is perpetually on sale after the first few months.

If we want to crank it up a notch,

MSI Raider 16 Max HX (2026): 16" QHD+ 240Hz OLED, Intel Ultra 9 290HX Plus, RTX 5080, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD $2299.99 https://slickdeals.net/f/19458276-msi-raider-16-max-hx-2026-...

A 5080 laptop with 16 GB of VRAM Vs about 3000$ for the Framework with a 5070 and 8 GB of VRAM.

It's already the case. I plan to upgrade my old 13 with some parts from the pro next year. I won't have to pay a full machine for a new screen, battery or touchpad.

At the price of the RAM (I never fill my 32GB, why would I buy any?), not buying a new machine basically pays for the first laptop premium.

Next upgrade, I'll be saving money.

And giving money to an ecosystem I like, creating a stronger competitor with those values.

Love it.

Time value of money comes to mind for this, though

On 100k yeah, on 1k no.

I don't think that is actually true - upgrading by selling your old laptop and buying a new one is still going to be cheaper than Framework's upgrades. I wish it wasn't but it is.

Not necessarily true, and not necessarily even a option sometimes.

In my case for example, the ThinkPad Z13 was the best laptop for me at the time. My main criteria generally is a top-tier AMD APU, first-class Linux support, machined aluminium body, 12-14" display. Only the ThinkPad Z13 met my criteria at the time, but there wasn't any in stock in my country. So my only option was to import it, and it was pretty expensive with all the import duties. A Framework would've been cheaper, but they didn't ship to my country and they also didn't have an aluminum chassis.

It was worth it though, I'm still using the ThinkPad and it's hands-down one of the best laptop+Linux experiences I've ever had.

It's now time for an upgrade. Unfortunately, Lenovo killed the Z13 line with no equivalent replacement, and everything else on the market currently has some or the other limitation (for me) - the most common limitation being lack of official Linux support.

Thankfully, Framework finally started shipping to my country this year, and their laptops also finally meet all my requirements (the previous models were all lacking the machined aluminum chassis). This also means that I may have found my "final" laptop at last, assuming Framework continues to deliver on their promise. Never again do I have to go hunting around for a Linux-first machined-aluminium top-tier 13" AMD laptop. And the best part is, I can just swap out the mainboard the next time I want to upgrade - which I guarantee will be way cheaper than buying a laptop that meets all my requirements, assuming it even exists.

But if you're not like me and you're fine with any random el cheapo Windows laptop, then yeah Framework is probably not for you.

Apples to oranges. NO other OEM makes a modular laptop yet.

You can swap the screen on some ThinkPads.

I hope framework lives up to its promise, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

> I hope framework lives up to its promise, but I don't see that happening any time soon.

That's already happened? I started with an 11th gen Intel tigerlake laptop with DDR4 memory and a glossy screen. I upgraded to the AMD 7040 with DDR5 memory when I destroyed my Intel board with a soldering iron, skipping the Intel 12th gen iteration in between and the AMD AI 300 generation after the 7040.

I upgraded my screen from the glossy to the matte screen, I skipped the 120hz rounded corner screen, and now I'm likely upgrading to the new screen released for the FW13 pro. I upgraded my wifi card to a card supporting wifi 7 and my SSD to a 2TB SSD.

I upgraded my hinges from the original 3.5kg to the 4.0kg hinges. I upgraded my top cover from the original to the CNC version.

So far all of these upgrades have been completely interchangeable. I could have done any combination of those upgrades (with the exception that the ram had to be upgraded at the same time as the motherboard because the ram slots are on the motherboard).

At this point, the only original parts remaining in my laptop are the battery, the bezel, and the metal clip that goes over the wifi card antenna connectors. My laptop is literally the ship of theseus, something that has not been possible in laptops before framework.

Based on these announcements, most of the new framework 13 pro upgrades are also completely interchangeable, the one exception being the bigger battery and the bottom cover need to be upgraded together but I could upgrade the input cover without upgrading the bottom cover and battery if I wanted.

Personally, I'm planning on taking my existing AMD 7040 board and dropping it into a completely new framework 13 pro chassis because I've already invested in 96GB of ram for this board. Since I'm going to get the whole pro chassis, I'll sadly have to replace my original 55Wh battery, but they can pry my bezel and metal wifi antenna clip from my cold dead hands!

This looks like you enjoy the process.

For me I aggressively follow laptop deals. For the last gen you can get competing laptops for the price of the main board alone.

Of course, I hope I'm wrong.

Buying used ThinkPads on eBay and installing Linux is closer to sustainability than buying into a new ecosystem of expensive and hard to find parts.

Or we could say “Thinkpads should be more modular, repairable, and upgradable.” Some of us want to support that approach.

My thinkpad doesn't even have upgradable RAM. And it's from 2017, not even a new trend. I think that's bare minimum for considering a laptop to be modular or even upgradeable.

What promise are they not living up to?

You can absolutely take newer parts and put them in older models currently. You can find people in comment threads about framework on HN about doing it already. A day or two ago I saw a guy talking about swapping out his touchpad

At this point RAM prices dwarf everything else in a system, at least for me