[Matthias1]

This is a good point. "Repairability" is a lot less important to me than lifetime. Right now, I have a MacBook with AppleCare. The author's criticism with AppleCare is that it can take a week for Apple to repair the computer. That's reasonable for me.

So the real test of the Framework computer is not in the first week. (Although the initial impression is very impressive!) The real test is whether I can, 3 years after buying the computer, replace the battery more easily than Apple could replace the battery in a Mac. Modular hardware is limited by the availability of the parts, and Framework doesn't have the brand to convince me that they'll be around for longer than I can get my computer serviced by Apple.

[emsy]

Do you mean the criticism is reasonable or 1 week repair time? Because the latter is absolutely not for anyone that uses their laptop as their primary working device. A week downtime is completely unacceptable.

[dijit]

I'm a bit conflicted about this, because on the one hand: yeah being unable to work for a week is obviously bad, but, devices are going to fail and it could sometimes be the difference between _you_ wasting a week debugging or not.

I like the idea of being able to fix my gear if I'm away on vacation or there's no apple store around. In fact, I'm overall a big fan of repairability because I'm a bit of a tinkerer.

But if it's a work machine? Then I'd rather have a replacement on standby- and Apples time capsule/time machine stuff works better than other backup/restore systems I've used.. replacing a machine is a 2hr process if you have something usable in stock.

Eitherway: I work in Europe, so these machines literally cost more than a monthly salary, it's cheaper for the company to have me sit on my hands for a week than to have a spare laptop for me.

[_ph_]

There are a lot of likely failures on a laptop/computer which shouldn't require any more than an hour of downtime, because they should be trivial to fix, but can take your Apple device out of business for weeks even. As much as love my Apple devices, this alone might drive me to the Framework laptop.

Things which should be fixable by the user/IT personal on site:

- the battery

- the fan

- the keyboard

- storage

Luckily I have discovered an independent certified service provider for Apple devices, which is as flexible as the Apple rules allows for repairs, but just my experiences of getting the fan of my Mac Mini fixed by Apple were horrible.

[jonathantf2]

If you were to buy a proper business computer like a ThinkPad or a Dell Vostro/XPS, you would have a next business day or sometimes even 4 hour on-site warranty where a technician would come to wherever you are in the world and fix the part for you right there.

1 week is an unacceptable wait for a business computer.

[eggy]

Agreed. I had a tech come to my hotel room in Hong Kong and fix my Alien (Dell) computer. He replaced the screen and keyboard under warranty in 2016. I had a Dell that I dropped off for same-day service. I have a Thinkpad T430u I bought back in 2012, and it is running great. Very solid. I run Kali Linux on it, and I do a lot of coding or writing on it. I love the keyboard, and I am one of those fans of the thumbnub! I have owned all sorts of computers from 1978, and this is by far my most rock solid one. The original battery is still in it, and it is not holding the charge it did, but hey, 9 years is a long life for a battery in these things. I am now using a MSI Stealth G65, and it is great, but let's see how it holds up. I've dropped it twice in two years, but it seems fine. I use it for my 3D work, CAD, and UE4 fun. I may buy The Framework to see how it goes, although like some others, I worry the parts will not be available two years down the road, and if they are, at a normal price. It's a chick-or-the-egg scenario: people need to buy them to create a market for this to happen.

[emsy]

>I'm a bit conflicted about this, because on the one hand: yeah being unable to work for a week is obviously bad, but, devices are going to fail and it could sometimes be the difference between _you_ wasting a week debugging or not.

These devices are sold as "Pro" presumably meaning Professional. Not being able to work for a week is not professional. There are companies that give you a repair time in hours, not days.

>it's cheaper for the company to have me sit on my hands for a week than to have a spare laptop for me.

I'm self-employed so a week downtime cost me a week's salary. But even so, I wouldn't want to sit on my hands for a week, because I consider that unprofessional.

[zorr]

Resources can be shared so even for a company with 10 employees it quickly becomes viable to have one spare laptop/Mac mini/whatever at hand just in case.

[dexterdog]

If you can't wait a week, go buy a new one and restore to it. When your repair comes back return it. Apple's return policy is 2 weeks and is actually 45 days when you ask nicely.

[NotPractical]

Another thing to consider is that, if everyone is reluctant to try the Framework laptop because they're not sure about long-term support, it will never receive said support. I'm willing to take the risk here, for the greater good! I don't even perceive the risk to be that high, to be honest.

[beckman466]

> if everyone is reluctant to try the Framework laptop because they're not sure about long-term support, it will never receive said support. I'm willing to take the risk here, for the greater good!

I dunno, this whole idea of 'trickle down innovation' that ends up coming at the expense of the working class is a very bad deal when you consider the amount of advanced technologies available today yet which have been enclosed/commoditized as 'intellectual property'.

Another example is Musk's scammy 'secret master plan' hustle that tells a feel good (yet misleading) story to the propertied class that they should 'buy a $170,000 Tesla to help make mass produced Tesla's possible for poor people'. Which is a rich story when you see that big oil companies, together with governments, suppressed viable electric car technologies for years ('Who Killed The Electric Car?' documentary). My point is that these are deep systemic issues that should be remedied at their root, instead of them being presented as something the non-propertied -class should plan and pay for, especially when you consider that we have actually already paid for it (remember we gave them those big juicy low-interest government loans).

At this point in time, buying a modular laptop like a Framework computer should have no risks involved with it.

We need to just grow many more open source standards. All that proprietary hardware and software does is remove valuable feedback loops and lessons from the commons. It criminalizes cooperation, interoperability, repairing and repurposing. Only the propertied class wins here.

All the above arguments only compound and multiply when you consider that most of the technology that exists today was developed with taxpayer backed government loans (Mazzucato: The Entrepreneurial State), meaning that, as she puts it, "we have ended up creating an ‘innovation system’ whereby the public sector socializes risks, while rewards are privatized".

[andersonvom]

Even if Framework goes out of business, most crucial parts that are likely to fail are standard (hard drive, memory, battery), so you'd still be able to replace them yourself. And even for the ones that aren't (like the modular ports), the schematics are available [1], so anyone would be able to make new ones.

[1]: https://github.com/FrameworkComputer/ExpansionCards

[yourapostasy]

> The author's criticism with AppleCare is that it can take a week for Apple to repair the computer. That's reasonable for me.

One of my biggest reasons for using Apple laptops was the now-defunct Joint Venture program. I enrolled all our company laptops under that program expressly for the loaner laptop during repairs and priority support. The ability for employees to walk into the nearest Apple Store to the current client account and walk out with a loaner the same day to restore from backups and return to the client the following day was a no-brainer business expense.

Now that program has no functional replacement for that benefit, switching to Framework looks extremely attractive, especially as more of our work finds ourselves in containers.

[baka367]

I'm currently working in China. My 2015 xps has been getting slow.

So I took it to a nearby dell garage for them to replace the 9550 motherboard with 9570 for roughly 300$ while keeping all of the other components unchanged.

I've honestly been shocked at the level of service.

Sadly, the 9500 has moved to a different chassis so further upgrades are impossible..

[NotPractical]

Does anyone know if Apple is even capable of replacing the battery, or if they replace the entire top case assembly, on 2016+ MacBook Pro models? Apparently the Air's battery is indeed replaceable (...by Apple) but I'm not sure the Pro's is, which is incredibly wasteful, if true.

[smoldesu]

> The real test is whether I can, 3 years after buying the computer, replace the battery more easily than Apple could replace the battery in a Mac

No, the real test is whether you, 3 years after buying the computer, can replace the battery more easily than you could replace it on the Mac. Applecare just covers the cost of a new laptop when your Mac breaks during warranty. "Repair" is a generous way of putting that.

[skeaker]

Repairability has an extreme impact on lifetime, so if you're concerned about the latter, you should care about the former just as much.