The modular components are very cool, and it’s great to see companies embracing repair and upgrade of technology. However I wonder who this product is aimed at? It seems like quite a niche market when most people interested in PC gaming would surely prefer to build their own PC. It seems like an odd middle ground between the portability of a Steam Deck for example, and the power of a desktop PC.
Framework has been and likely always will be for the crowd that values repairability and reusability over any price/performance ratio. Being able to shove any GPU you could want (that’s beem built for this) into that special slot is very neat, and pretty useful for the people who want to be able to upgrade their GPU separately from the rest of their system.
It’s like getting the LEGO bricks from PC building into a laptop form factor - you can choose your IO, RAM and SSD, even your CPU. And now your choice of dedicated GPU. For a specific person, that’s worth it.
If space is at a premium, or you routinely travel and wanna game, having a capable laptop that you can upgrade each individual part as needed becomes pretty darn tempting. If I had need for a laptop and had that routine travel thing, I’d honestly think about it myself. I could upgrade whatever part I want whenever I need to, and I can make old mainboards run home stuff or whatever. Turn an old one into a media player, or as a small PC for some other use.
I just love what framework is doing.
I’d really like my next gaming PC to be a framework laptop. I believe in the products, but I currently lack the funds to back it.
Also, my use case would be for VR where I may need the hardware to sit in an awkward location, but still requires high end components that traditional laptops may not be able to provide.
Currently using an 11th Gen Intel Framework 13 and I’m super excited to see reviews of this laptop and the new AMD mainboards for the 13. Love the self-repairability: I’ve already swapped out my keyboard, screen, and speakers.
I love the idea of the framework laptop, I plan on getting one of those AMD model ones someday soon-ish.
