[dijit]

You can go and buy a framework laptop.

In fact, now is the best time in the last 20 years for either: fully integrated SoC’s inside laptops (with all the pros and cons of better battery life, lower heat, smaller size - but irrepairability) and almost entirely modular laptops.

I understand that most people want socketed CPU’s in machines, but speaking genuinely storage used to be upgraded more than ram, and ram more than a CPU; CPU’s limit how much ram we can have so having soldered RAM isn’t that big of a deal in reality to most people.

I feel like a heathen saying it, because emotionally I don’t want it to be true, but it’s definitely the truth.

[ezst]

> You can go and buy a framework laptop.

> In fact, now is the best time in the last 20 years for either

> having soldered RAM isn’t that big of a deal in reality to most people.

Precisely. This whole sub-thread is a response to sacralising Apple for their M chips, pretending there is no compelling alternative, and subsequently giving Apple a free pass for consumer-hostile/commercially-dubious practices.

At any point in time, Apple has the lead, there's no argument there, but if you can afford to wait 12/18 months, you get about the same performance in a repairable/extensible package. That makes Apple's performance less stellar, especially when the same people laud those devices' life expectancy (my daily-driver ThinkPad is specced from early 2017, in 2025 it wouldn't care having bought it "old" in 2018).

I get it, this is an affluent forum, people like the latest and greatest, and a lot of Apple's marketing strategy is about validation and status, that's not terribly rational and healthy, though.

[bdavbdav]

You can - and you’ll readily find (as is expected and forgivable from a low run, low R&D budget machine) the build quality is abysmal next to the Mac. The case is flexy, the battery lasts a fraction of the time, the trackpad is nowhere near as good, the processors are anemic or badly thermally managed by comparison.

[dijit]

And if you have something like the MNT Reform laptop[0] (which is even more to the extreme end of repairability) that those things you mention are even worse.

So, there's the rub, and it should be clear: repairability is coming with a trade-off.. Sleekness, performance, battery life.

We as consumers would rather have ultra portable, high performance laptops that feel rigid in our hands over bulky devices that could be useful for 1.5x as long (or survive more wear potentially).

Framework is banking on people who are aware of this tradeoff and want to buy a device going the opposite direction; which is GREAT!.

For example all smartphones are going larger and there's no choice for someone like me to get a small phone these days: I am forced. You're not! Someone is allowing you to make the tradeoff, and instead of understanding that these are actual trade-offs, you'd rather complain that they exist at all.

[0]: https://shop.mntre.com/products/mnt-reform