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Framework proved repairable laptops can work, but almost nobody is willing to buy one
(www.xda-developers.com)
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2026
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Pick a lane there, XDA...
They even mention how the point is to buy the whole laptop once and then upgrade or repair it, instead of buying an entirely new laptop. Of course they're selling fewer laptops than anyone making mediocre netbooks
But that’s not that easily quantifiable so it’s bad /s
MBAs in a nutshell
Exactly
Their argument is that only enthusiasts want these laptops, but an average customer doesn't care about them.
And I don't see why that is a problem. If a company is doing good thing and sustaining itself, I don't see why they will need to be the next dell, hp, or lenovo. That feels like the toxicity of "endless growth" in the capitalistic view of the world.
Not to mention in most of the place I go to, these are the most popular laptops only behind macbooks. In many situations, they are even more popular than macbooks.
I have never seen a Framework in the wild, however I applaud their approach, but even when taking repair costs in consideration, Frameworks are more expensive than simply upgrading to a newer laptop and using the old laptop for some other purpose. I can't imagine with the rampocalypse that they easily survive, but I hope they do, I wish other manufacturers would make repair a higher priority.
My anecdotal experience - my Asus gaming laptop died about 6 months ago. with a lot of trouble shooting, I determined it was most likely the mobo. I decided to go with a framework, and was able to bring over my hard drive and ram, saving me like $400.
You also likely don't need to reinstall/resetup everything, which is absolutely painful.
Getting the framework driver's was painful. I needed to download them over wifi, but wifi wasn't working because it needed the driver. okay, download on another computer and install via USB, nope. USB drivers aren't working either. I ended up spotting my hard drive into my desktop, downloading the drivers that way, and then moving it back to the framework laptop to install.
If you have a desktop with internet connection, maybe a USB stick would suffice?
There is also USB tethering from a phone that could work.
I am not defending framework. They should try to do better (maybe windows is the bottleneck? not sure). Just offering solutions to people who might encounter this problem later.
They said the USB ports didn’t work as they didn’t have the drivers.
oh Sorry, bad at reading comprehensions :(
I've literally never had a computer need drivers to make basic USB work in the past probably 20 years. I had a bleeding edge ai 350 framework right even when it came out. Linux was a little flaky with my sound but everything else worked. Same in Windows. Maybe I needed Wi-Fi drivers, don't recall, but I know USB worked without any. I'm really curious how you needed USB drivers of all things genuinely. I mean you installed the OS presumably from a thumb drive so how would that not work in the same os after installing? Lol.
It may be a separate issue to drivers, because I have this other issue where after waking up from sleep, I have to either reboot or physically remove the USB port and plug it back in to make the USB work. I've disabled "allow windows to put this device to sleep" for every single USB titled thing in device manager, so I'm not sure what the issue is. I plan on installing a small linux partition at some point to play around and see if I like it.
If you really moved the hard drive from one laptop to another without reinstalling the OS, that's probably going to cause issues. It'll "work" seemingly but it's gonna be messy like this. You're going to spend more time hunting weird shit than you would just doing a reinstall imo.
I'd backup what you need to and start over or you're probably going to keep having strange issues.
I took the working hard drive, OS and all, from my previous laptop and slotted into the framework. No OS installation needed.
I would like to offer a slightly different perspective: I believe framework is uniquely positioned to survive the ram apocalypse (at least respect to their scale).
In the sense that, framework user can keep purchasing and upgrading components, like battery, screen, speaker, hinge, expansion card, without needing to worry about ram prices, and framework can profit from these component without needing to subsidize ram prices.
That being said, as a smaller company, they certainly don't have the same amount of bargaining power on ram as most big players, and the launch of LPCAM2 is a bit risky, since that pervents people from purchasing new ram/board/laptops given the current ram prices.
Does a new generation mobo/chip combination generally still support the older generation of RAM?
Nope, not on intel core ultra 3 unfortunately (unless you have LPCAMM2 lying around, which is unlikely), that is the risky part I mentioned in the end.
That's what I get for only reading 2/3 of your comment before responding.
They're absolutely not.
Being that you can and have been able to buy them without RAM or storage, I'd say they're better-positioned than anyone.
Why does everything need to cater to the average consumer? The average consumer is a fucking idiot, especially when it comes to technology. They don't need to sell to everyone, they just need to sell enough to keep their company running and their people paid.
I feel this way about spicy things. Everything "hot" is just hot to the average schmuck from the Midwest. Anything spicier than that gets dumbed down to become that (like taco bell Diablo sauce) or becomes hard to find.
I really enjoyed when that Buldak 2x spicy chicken raman "challenge" became a thing, because that's some great tasting raman and more in line with the normal amount of spicy I like to eat. Now I'm back to having to just order it online again.
You can order the sauce separately too. I love that Buldak spicy carbonara stuff.
I totally have some! But man, it's kind of pricey for what it is. Not saying I don't spend more on most of the hot sauces I buy, but still.
In my part of the world 2x is weak, the challenges were doing 3x 😂
I've never seen 3x, but I've gotten the 4x before. It wasn't much hotter than the 2x, really.
At some point, your tongue is numb anyway.
With laptop making, that’s a lot though. Economies of scale are a huge factor there.
Comes from the corporate mindset where only growth is good. Just existing as a company that's makes stuff for a small group of people is somehow 'incorrect' to these crazy people.
How many laptops are enterprise purchases as well? Those dont get fixed.
It may be, but that doesn't resemble what they said. Presumably that is a less clickbaity headline.
So few that if you order one now you only have to wait til October to get it.
Well, what is hundreds of thousands as a percentage of the overall market? Like if they sold hundreds of thousands of grains of rice, that's "almost nothing" compared to the rest of the rice that got sold
"Most of the market" includes the segments of commercial support contracts for office laptops which Framework doesn't even target. Then you have the next biggest which is "go to Costco/Walmary/bestbuy and get what is on sale. So Framework simply cannot be a majority brand without those.
Among the remaining segment, e.g., developers that get to shop around and buy whatever they want? Its fairly popular.
I don’t understand what you mean in your first point. There are clear pathways for companies and schools to buy in bulk on the framework website. Not saying that FW is successful in that way but it is there.
I agree on your second point but would tie it to marketing. Having your laptop on sale at Costco is a marketing strategy, which for better or for worse, FW doesn’t do right now (and probably doesn’t have the ability to do)
In no context is hundreds of thousands of people "almost nobody".
I mean, Dell is the #3 in laptop sales and sells roughly 30 million laptops per year. So yeah, Framework is roughly 0% of market share. I know this is a very tech enthusiast heavy website, but there are certain realities that people should face. It's like saying Nothing Phone is going to remotely compete with Apple. It's not a fair or valid comparison in the first place. I think a more fair comparison for Framework (beyond what they are hoping to achieve) would be with a small system builder like System 76, XMG or the likes.
XDA is pretty much slop these days.
I didn't know they existed, so that might be a factor too. Need some better advertising
Advertising is expensive as hell. Probably not a huge budget. The products kinda sell themselves in the right circles.