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This looks really cool, but the author... is... replacing their laptop every year ? Like, I'm writing this on an 8 year old MBP that has survived as my round-the-house driver because it still does everything well. My daily driver is getting on a bit now (3yr) and my desktop only just got replaced after 5 years. Forget the cost, but the waste!
"the author" here is well known writer Cory Doctorow. No one here seems to be making this connection, but pluralistic.net is his blog.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Linus (the "tech tips" one) said something that sticks in my mind: "The only reason other companies can't do this - and Framework proved it - is because they don't care."
Well, the other reason is that customers don't care either. I certainly don't. The last desktop build I made 5 years ago hasn't had a single component changed in that entire time.
This looks really cool, but the author... is... replacing their laptop every year ? Like, I'm writing this on an 8 year old MBP that has survived as my round-the-house driver because it still does everything well. My daily driver is getting on a bit now (3yr) and my desktop only just got replaced after 5 years. Forget the cost, but the waste!
After the fourth or so time of doing this, and after getting higher-paying jobs, I ended up biting the bullet for a more expensive computer, and it lasted me five years, and I only replaced it because I wanted more RAM.
Point is, if you're lower-income, it's fairly easy to get stuck in the "one laptop a year" trend, because, while probably a better deal in the long term, it's really hard for lower-income to justify a multi-thousand dollar expense. I'm a proper tech bro now so buying a good computer isn't the worst thing in the world for me, but that wasn't always the case.
It feels like for years we were constantly told by these corporations "it's impossible to have slim, tiny laptops and make them customizable", and I guess at some level I believed that, and just accepted that laptops with upgradable components were a thing of the past. After seeing the framework, I'm more than a little annoyed that I fell for this. They proved you can have a slim, clean laptop that's somewhat modular…
I'm trying to hold out for an AMD cpu on the framework but I might not be able to wait much longer.
My other deal breaker is the fit & finish of Mac's touchpad. The qwan of it.
If frame.work + Ubuntu come within striking distance, I'd buy.
This looks really cool, but the author... is... replacing their laptop every year ? Like, I'm writing this on an 8 year old MBP that has survived as my round-the-house driver because it still does everything well. My daily driver is getting on a bit now (3yr) and my desktop only just got replaced after 5 years. Forget the cost, but the waste!
>> replacing their laptop every year? Not really that uncommon especially with a MacBook Pro where a new one is released...every year. How much sense it makes, that's another story.
If you buy a $2000 Mac and use it for as long as reasonably, it's going to depreciate by several hundred dollars (let's say, roughly $300) a year. At a certain point it's worth nearly zero, and you must buy a new laptop. After 6-7 years your total outlay is $2000.
Alternatively, every year or two you can sell the old one for a few hundred dollars less than the new model, and buy the new model. You always have a new laptop. And your total outlay is still only about $2000. Plus you are covered by free AppleCare every time you buy the new one.
Plenty of people do this with mobile phones and automobiles and other things as well.
Please note that I am not advocating it. I was still using my 2015 laptop until very recently. But economically it is not necessarily insane.
(Assuming you are selling the old laptops, that is. It's not clear to me that the author is doing that. He says he's donating/rehoming them. Not sure if that includes selling)
>That tool – a small screwdriver – is also sufficient to upgrade the CPU CPU isn't up-gradable without switching out the entire mainboard, which I'm fine with, once I get an AMD version that is :)
This looks really cool, but the author... is... replacing their laptop every year ? Like, I'm writing this on an 8 year old MBP that has survived as my round-the-house driver because it still does everything well. My daily driver is getting on a bit now (3yr) and my desktop only just got replaced after 5 years. Forget the cost, but the waste!
> That was my homework: go away and think of an immediate reason not to smoke. When I came back, I had my answer ready: “I spend two laptops per year on smokes. That money goes directly to the dirtiest companies on Earth, the literal inventors of the science-denial playbook that is responsible for our inaction on climate change. Those companies’ sole mission is to murder me and all my friends. I’m going to quit smoking and I’m going to buy a laptop this year and every year hereafter, and I’ll still be up one laptop per year.”
Thank you for the writeup, it seems like they have done a great job with The Framework. Does it come in that beige-looking color shown on the yellow background? I think I might want a beige laptop, something with the fine lines of The Framework and the raw aesthetic appeal of Lappy 486.