I agree. A lot of folks in the comments are expressing that this is antithetical to the right of repair & being fully repairable. As far as I'm concerned, I can swap out my LCD, mainboard, and other components with literally no issue. This was Dell's original value prop, and it took repairability from weeks down to a call to the local Dell repair folks.
I hope one day the schematics can be published, but at the moment? I figure let Framework establish themselves as a killer business in the space of laptop configurability/repairability/component swapping before pulling out the pitchforks for not releasing the silicon and metal mining agreements that become for their boards.
Nearly all laptops manufactured after 2010 have storage, memory, WiFi and IO (or some combo of those) soldered to the motherboard. Not the case for framework
I have six different laptops within an arms length of me made in the last 7 years, almost all different brands (Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP) and every single one of them has replaceable storage, memory, and wifi. None of them requires anything more than a screwdriver to swap all of those components.
Perhaps the highest end, lightest, thinnest laptops have these components soldered on, but it is certainly not the case for most middle-of-the-road laptops.
You left out IO but oh well - ifixit has had 5 laptops that have recieved a 10/10 for repairability since 2010 and only 2 were released this decade (one was Framework).
I don't think you can upgrade the CPU for a single laptop on this list, let alone many of the other components and certainly not for hardware that came out after the original laptop release. Framework has that upgradability, that repairability etc.
I've never actually had occasion to replace the IO bits on my laptops, with the exception of a screen on an Acer that I replaced in about 2012. Also required nothing but a screwdriver.
Agree that you can't upgrade the CPU or other components on them. Agree that Framework allows this and is excellent. My only intention was to refute this patently false claim:
> Nearly all laptops manufactured after 2010 have storage, memory, WiFi and IO soldered to the motherboard.
If you could then they likely would have been quite a bit more expensive and thicker... That's the problem with all this stuff the form factors and other trade offs regarding cost have relentlessly pushed us in this direction.
Only ultrabooks, ultra portables and tablets. And even then storage is often swappable since M.2 entered the market.
Microsoft and Apple like to solder everything, but they're only a small part of the overall laptop market. WiFi, storage and memory are swappable way more often than not if you'd try.
>Maybe you are conflicted since easy repairs mean you no longer have a job
I own an IT company among other things, bread and butter is servers & networking. 99% of laptops that people buy aren't the ultra portables with the soldered everything, they are the bulky $600 Laptops. Even in the ultra portables, screens and motherboards are replaceable, it's a toss up with storage and ram.
The comment I replied to specifically said motherboards and LCDs, which I still maintain 99% of laptops fit that.
I think you're missing the point or are just uninformed.
The parent comment said nearly all laptops have, 'storage, memory, WiFi and IO (or some combo of those) soldered to the motherboard' to which you replied that they are completely incorrect. What about that is completely incorrect? I replied seeing I had never seen swappable IO for starters.
Apple alone accounts for >8% laptop marketshare (higher in 1st world countries) and is one prime example of everything soldered to the motherboard.
Thats all without even mentioning the difficulty of repairs on most machines these days. Finally when it comes to upgradability you can't upgrade the motherboards/cpus on 99% of laptops, certainly not to hardware that came out after the laptop shipped, you can on the framework (now selling 12th gen intel cpus).
> What makes Framework's design different or superior to Apple in this regard?
1) You can change your IO as standards change or as your workflow changes
2) The point of failure for IO is at the point where the cable plugs in and creates stress, this point of stress is now separate from the mainboard - like in a desktop you have 20 pin USB ports on the motherboard that you wire your case up to - yeah that port could fail but it is far less likely to
3) If the mainboard IO fails you don't also have to replace your storage, wifi, ram etc
Is that really different from dongles? Since you can't buy them from third parties (yet), it sounds like they're just selling you your ports. Even Apple doesn't do that anymore.
Stress is also negligible, or TB ports are not fragile. We have a few thousand MacBook Pros and almost no mainboard replacements are due to port damage. This doesn't make Apple better, just noting.
Fair enough, but we've had no cases of TB controller failure that weren't covered under warranty. Framework's warranty as-is is insufficient for enterprise or commercial adoption. Swappable RAM, wifi, storage, etc are not unique to Framework (and Framework is more limited in internal ports than many older devices).
>I had never seen swappable IO for starters.
Cool as they may be these are just dongles that integrate into the chassis, the exact same can be accomplished with a dock or dongle. Additionally IMO most consumers could count on 1 hand how many times they have used external IO, a person might use a flash drive once in a blue moon, but everything is in the cloud now.
>Finally when it comes to upgradability you can't upgrade the motherboards/cpus on 99% of laptops, certainly not to hardware that came out after the laptop shipped, you can on the framework (now selling 12th gen intel cpus).
While this is true and awesome, I would like to see if they are able to continue this when the upgrade is more of a major shift, for example to compete with the M1 we could see a shift to integrated HBM, and WiFi in Intel and AMD CPUs.
I hope one day the schematics can be published, but at the moment? I figure let Framework establish themselves as a killer business in the space of laptop configurability/repairability/component swapping before pulling out the pitchforks for not releasing the silicon and metal mining agreements that become for their boards.