A laptop you can upgrade the parts of instead of buying a whole new laptop? Sounds pretty cool. Did I dream it up or is this a real thing?
Yes! Are they good? They look cool as fuck. Maybe one day when I'm rich I'll get one.
The only thing I know about them is that Linus of LTT invested heavily into them and he's a total shitbag. But they do look cool and I don't have any real reason to believe they'll be shit other than LTTs involvement
all but the screen is great. they're still behind on them albeit they just released a new improved one; still not up to bar for me though but ymmw.
Alright what’s the tea on Linus being a shitbag beyond just being a west coast techbro? I used to watch ltt quite a bit but it’s been years now
Haven't the slightest. I am in the used Thinkpad demographic.
Other people have talked about them but I have a 13 and love it. It's not perfect by a long stretch but it's very repairable, they've done well with their commitment to upgradability, and it's by far the best Linux support I've ever had, not that I have tons of experience with that
A friend told me about those maybe 4 years ago. We both dismissed them at the moment, I because of the lack of discrete graphics cards, they because it was still too pricey and not customizable enough. The price looks about the same but there's now an option for a discrete graphics card and a bunch of other things now so maybe both of our issues have been solved.
I have two (both sizes). They suck and they're magnificent:
Both are DIY editions. I love it. I lusted over some build your own laptop kit when I was young and these are basically that brought up to date. And that was in the days when you could get socketed mobile CPUs :D.
But back to the laptop.
Cons:
- the frames aren't as stiff due to the way they are attached on the 13 (just 4 or 5 screws) or the modular deck system on the 16 despite fixing the previous issue.
- Modular IO is wonderful but it could potentially not be enough in some use cases. Only 4 slots on the 13, and you lose one of the 6 on the 16 to an audio jack.
- The interchangeable screen bezels are ugly and too fun to play with. I've broken two already playing with them. And they have a cheap looking and feeling texture.
- Captive screws on the 13 aren't officially replaceable. When they strip (like one of mine
) the official solution is to BUY A NEW FUCKING CASE. As annoying as they can be to replace, stock replacements and use simple e clips on them or something goddamn. They're all the same size anyway mashallah. I gotta look into replacing them with non-captives. - The original 11th gen intel motherboard on the 13 (which I'm still on) came with an annoying bug where the RTC battery would only charge on AC. So when I left it off and unplugged for a few months it was seemingly bricked. Fortunately after a quick search I just had to reset the config memory ("clearing the cmos" as I've heard it).
- THEY'RE EXPENSIVE. Go price one out and compare it to an Acer.
- They give you tech bro street cred. I don't want tech bro street cred.
- No open source firmware yet even though it was a commitment they made to the community to support years ago. The support amounted to I think 2 laptops sent to a pair of coreboot devs, however unsigned firmware hadn't been enabled and which apparently allowed the to get bricked. Also they didn't even offer to pay to the coreboot devs.
Pros: -They have stuck to their promise so far and offered upgrade motherboards for 2 or 3 gens of intel and now added AMD and plan to go forward with them.
- Genuinely repairable
- Just really cool, mostly cause I'm a nerd. But it's not even just computer nerds who think it's cool. But speaking of being a nerd:
- Nerd street cred. Unlike tech bros, nerds are welcome to walk up to me (respectfully) and chat about my laptop.
- Pretty damn good Linux support. Show
- One of the best screens I've had on a laptop
- One of the best trackpads outside Apple
- Modular IO has proven useful. The connectors that get the most wear and tear can be replaced easily (looking at you 3.5mm)
- Optional and upgradable GPU on the 16
- DIY option was fun to build, there are video guides if you need them, and I could imagine it would take some intimidation out of upgrading it or replacing parts yourself in the future.
- Speakers are pretty okay
- If you like or need to be on up to date hardware but need a laptop, as long as they keep their upgradability promise this is better than other options if you can afford it.
·1 month agoWhy am i getting
in a comment describing a laptop?I think it's more the specific image you chose...
Yeah she's got the pretty and confident Tomgirl thing going on.
OMG, WHAT IS THE BRAND AND WHERE DO YOU GET THEM?!! LMAO!!
THEY'RE EXPENSIVE. Go price one out and compare it to an Acer
Holy fucking shit, I don't even need to compare it to see.
Yeah it's more than a bit much. Personally there's a lot of merit in just getting a rebadged clevo or similar. System76 has been using clevo platforms to pretty decent results and they put in the work to make them run perfectly with Pop! OS.
If I spec it out with basic cpu, 2.8k display, 8g ram, 500g disk, a few modules, it costs I think around my brothers gaming PC, that thing came with an RTX 2000. As cool as they are, and while I have been thinking about getting a 13 laptop, I don't need a new laptop that much, and its too expensive even if I did.
Edit: I guess things have also just gotten more expensive though.
several laptop brands are relatively easy to upgrade things like ram and storage. lenovo, dell, and system76 come to mind. i've got an old dell i've been keeping long past its shelf life with some judicious replacement parts and upgrades. i haven't used the frame work laptops, but those are intended to be more or less completely modular.
What's up with ThinkPad? I hear people talk about those too.
Those were the bees knees a decade ago but not any more. They used to be extremely durable, upgradable and cheap to find used because businesses would buy them in bulk. There was a whole scene around maintaining them. But now they're just another laptop with a certain aesthetic. Still a good laptop but not the same.
Those were the bees knees a decade ago but not any more.
good to know, that's probably the last time i touched one
How do MSI's fare in terms of upgradability? I might throw some more ram and a bigger SSD in one of these days.
MSI
i'm not terribly familiar but anything with dimm slots for ram and pcie slots for ssd like at least some of their models are probably going to be pretty easy to swap out for new ones
I have one and it’s pretty great, more expensive than a used thinkpad, but cheaper than most other new laptops with similar specs. The 3:2 screen on the 13” is the killer feature for me. I couldn’t go back to a 16:9 laptop at this point. Also not needing to pay the windows tax on the diy version is cool.
... So what is it?!!! Send a link or give us a name ya goof!
Yea lol sorry I dunno why I forgot to add a link. Also if you're using or planning on ever using linux I would highly recommend the new 2.8k display, it'll be a nice 2x scaling factor which is quite handy is you run any older x11 programs (games, some proprietary software, etc).
I might get a framework when the used thinkpads dry up. I have 4 atm so i don't think I'm running out any time soon
I can't imagine its economical. laptops aren't modular to cut down on size. At most, you can probably upgrade ram/harddrive. But replacing things like mobo, cpu, psu, gpu; not gonna happen. Just get a desktop!
I did a bit of research for a friend in the market and this one had an extra m2 hdd slot and ram up to 32gigs. If you're looking for cpu and gpx
Modular used to be more common, but nowadays while you can still find "socket-based cpus" and "upgradeable mxm graphics" you've gotta search those terms on a Clevo-based reseller like Sagernotebooks or eurocom. or maybe xmg
Edit: fixed link
the niche of a framework laptop is that you can replace and upgrade every part.
Where the Framework's current niche is to make a more or less standard, yet repair-and-upgrade-friendly laptop people can get the hang of right away, the MNT Reform is, at this time, for nerdy tinkerers: its aim is for all of its hardware and software to be non-proprietary. MNT's potential is way more exciting, but it has a longer road to maturity, with more pitfalls.
I stumbled upon this by watching Sigrid's 9front videos, pretty cool little laptop :)
Laptops were much more modular back in the day and you could replace most parts (even the screen). Since capitalism breeds innovation, laptops became plastic bricks with planned obsolescence that couldn't be repaired easily. Apple computers were so much more customizable but now they are just metal bricks.
Frameworks are really expensive, you could try buying used models or their older gen ones and then slowly upgrade from there. Old thinkpads (like decades old by now) allowed you to swap thing a lot of things but their age is showing. The most you'll get outside of that is being able to replace the RAM/SSD/battery.
Framework is neat because you can buy the components from them, but S76 and Thinkpad are good because they're easy to take apart and you can usually just slap off the shelf components on them as long as the main board still works.
Some older Thinkpads even have socketed CPUs.
A laptop that I can throw, huh... Hmmmm
