Something to expect: In a sea of laptops that are becoming less upgradeable or repairable each year, a small company called Framework is trying to open a new niche with a work laptop that offers many customization options and is partly made from recycled aluminum. and plastic. We hope that they will decide to make a gaming laptop in the future.
One of the main complaints about laptops introduced in recent years is that manufacturers often prioritize thin, light designs rather than upgradability and repair. Many PC laptops still have replaceable and / or upgradeable components, such as RAM and SSD storage, but in the case of MacBook owners, they are all soldered to the logic board, while other things like the battery and the touch bar are complicated even for repair professionals to deal with.
In the land of smartphones, consumers have to deal with a similar phenomenon, but there are some companies like Pine64 and Fairphone that resist the current with repairable, modular and even ecological designs. This week, a startup called Framework announced a laptop built on similar principles, with components that are easy for users to replace or upgrade as needed.
The new laptop comes with a 13.5-inch 3: 2 screen with a resolution of 2256 by 1504 pixels and more than 400 nits of brightness. Its components are housed within an aluminum chassis less than 16 mm thick, for a total weight of up to 2.9 lbs (1.3 kg). You can configure it with one of three 11th generation Intel Tiger Lake processors with integrated Xe graphics – i5-1135G7, i7-1165G7 or i7-1185G7 – and even a 6E Wi-Fi module for wireless connectivity.
The CPU is the only notable component that cannot be replaced, as it is designed as a BGA package that is soldered on the motherboard. However, the Framework team says it will release new motherboards in the future, when newer processors are released, so theoretically, this shouldn’t be much of a problem. And thanks to the lessons learned from the Alienware Area-51m R1, it is ultimately up to Intel to make things easier in that department.
You can pair the processor with up to two 32 GB DDR4-3200 RAM modules for a total of 64 GB and, for storage, you can configure up to a spacious 4 TB 22.2 NVMe M.2 SSD. The slot supports four-way PCIe 4.0 drives, so you can install any of the fastest SSDs on the market.
For connectivity, the Framework team came up with a cool solution for the USB-C transition – the four ports are built into the case to allow the installation of any ports necessary for your use case via removable modules. As they connect via USB-C, you can probably lend them to a friend or colleague who needs a USB-A, HDMI, microSD slot, DisplayPort and even a headphone jack. This system also allows you to choose which side these ports are on, which can be useful more often than you might think.
The screen is also replaceable, as well as the magnetically coupled frame that houses the 1080p webcam and the microphone with physical privacy switches for both. The keyboard offers a 1.5 mm key offset and you can choose a localized version if necessary. Powering all the components of the Framework laptop is a 55 Wh battery that can also be replaced by the user, since it is not glued to the case.
The Framework team plans to offer this laptop with Windows 10 or Linux, starting this summer. There is no pricing information yet, but we know it will also be offered as a “do-it-yourself” kit for those who want to assemble the laptop on their own. As for the many user-replaceable parts, they will be available on the Framework market, which will be open to third party vendors of components.