The new San Francisco-based startup framework was launched with the goal of fixing an “incredibly broken” computing industry, as the CEO said. To combat it, Framework laptops are an ecosystem of parts that come together in a computer that can constantly evolve.
Framework founder and one of Oculus’ original employees, Nirav Patel, said The Verge that he wanted to solve the major problems of the computing industry with his new company.
“As a consumer electronics company, its business model effectively depends on producing constant tons of hardware and placing it in channels, on the market and in the hands of consumers, and then dropping it and letting it exist outside,” Patel says. “This encourages waste and inefficiency and, ultimately, environmental damage.”
To address this, Patel and his team created the Framework: an ecosystem more than an individual product that is capable of having multiple parts exchanged and updated over time to allow for customization, easier repair and, of course, allows the device improve with changes in technology.
The basic framework comes with a 13.5-inch screen with 2256 × 1504 resolution, a 60 frames-per-second Full-HD webcam, a 55Wh battery and a 2.87-pound aluminum chassis. It is powered by 11th generation Intel processors, up to 64 GB of DDR4 memory and 4 TB (or more) Gen4 NVMe SSD Gen4 storage.
All of these parts, from battery to memory and storage, can be exchanged and exchanged over time, which is not particularly uncommon for desktop computers, but is becoming more rare (or never existed before) on laptops. But the Framework goes even further, offering the ability to exchange even external parts such as doors, the keyboard or even the screen and bezels (which are held in place by magnets).
The company will also offer a do-it-yourself kit with parts you select when purchasing, which allows customers to build their own laptops at home and install Windows 10 Home, 10 Pro or Linux. Of course, all of these parts can be replaced and updated at any time.
The Framework will support these exchangeable parts through its own market, which will be launched and which will serve as a center for buying and selling parts. This market will serve as a centralized point for consumers, but it will be open to third-party sellers and resellers. The Framework expects those who may break a component or just want to replace it with another to know that it is easy to find what they are looking for in the Framework market, instead of having to scour the Internet for the best options.
The concept looks great, but as The Verge points out: it has been done before and failed. Intel tried modular computers and failed, the Compute Card Ghost Canyon NUC was unable to keep up with the new parts and Alienware’s Area-51m also never received the parts prepared for the future that was promised. The success of the Framework will depend only on its ability to deliver on the promise of parts for which customers really want to upgrade, and relying on third-party manufacturers to do so early on is unlikely to be enough.
Patel believes that companies that have failed in this concept in the past have done so because they have not dedicated themselves to it and, as this is Framework’s business strategy, its result will be different.
Framework will begin receiving pre-orders this spring and expects shipping to begin in the summer. For now, no price has been announced, but Patel says The Verge expect it to be “comparable to other well-rated notebooks”.
(via The Verge)