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by endominus 53 days ago
Cost of the Macbook Pro 14 in 2031: another £1999

Cost of the Framework 13 upgrade kit in 2031: £499

The point of the upgradability and openness of the design is that you only have to pay that cost once, instead of every time you buy a laptop. How much will it cost to upgrade a MacBook's RAM if you decide you need more after a year or two? £2099?

3 comments

Well you can sell your old MacBook. And they hold their value pretty well. So I don’t know if framework would actually come out ahead financially.
I just did a quick check: a 2022 Macbook pro M1 with 1tb and 16gb ram goes for 1119 euros on eBay. A new M5 mbp with the same ram and disk is 1899 euros, so 709 difference. And you get a whole new machine not just a cpu upgrade.
Yeah, they hold up their value amazingly well. People keep mentioning biodegradability of Framework, but in Macbook world it's basically a non-issue if your old machine is still usable.

On the other hand, if something fails out of the warranty, this is where you win with Framework.

What’s the advantage of buying a used MacBook if, since they hold their value well, it won’t be much cheaper than a new one?
Because they are indeed still cheaper? I'm not sure what you're getting at with your question. You can look up values for older Macs if you just don't want to believe it …
Why wouldn’t I want to “believe it”? Isn’t that the premise my entire question is based on? I’m not sure what you’re getting at with your misdirection.
They also hold their performance well so for some people it’s worth saving a few hundred bucks plus sales tax by buying a used one.
Its like a Tesla, their values only go up. Stop asking questions, this is a legitimate investment.
An investment lol
Yup. Primary reason I just pulled the trigger for framework.

They've proven that they'll keep upgradability going over a few generations which means I'll be buying all my updates from them.

Repair cost is worth noting too. If your keyboard breaks:

Macbook Pro - You pay for a new topcase assembly

Framework Pro - You pay a new keyboard

Macbook Pro M2 topcase with a battery here in Poland is 80 USD. Pro M3/M4 is 110 USD.

Framework 13 keyboard is 60 USD. There really isn't that much difference, and you're getting a free, used battery.