Dave2d who’s been supportive of Framework preordered the Laptop 16.
He’s a bit concerned about the pricing and questions the upgradability of the Laptop 16 specifically.
Personally I understand his point, but I think the upgradability alone is probably not a good reason to buy the Laptop 16. It’s always been a package, which includes:
- repairability
- modularity
- support of the movement/mission
- the versatility of reusing parts for other use cases (e.g. the motherboard as thin-client)
- a laptop that actually does not have Linux as an afterthought
- the openness with the expansion card and (hopefully expansion bay) ecosystem
- and maybe even more?
It’s true that the laptop is expensive when you compare specs for specs but that was not the reason to buy it either. Do I wish it was cheaper? You bet. But like with all new startups, if it works out, if it scales, prices could come down. Long live Framework!
Imo part of the reason why the cost is high is that the device starts with the 8 core option by default. They didnt start the device with a base proce using the 7640HS (similar to how the Framework 13 starts with a 7460U)
On the 13, the first upgrade is a 320$ upgrade. I wouldnt be suprised if there would have been a lot of users who wouldn’t mind the r5 option to save at least 300$.
Yeah I think you summoned it up perfectly. Especially since for a lot of Games CPU isn’t that important. And people that do video editing might not need a GPU in a Laptop.