I don’t usually spam out blog posts when the news hits about things, but I am making an exception here as I found this super exciting. Framework, for those of you who don’t know, is the computer company that makes repairable and truly upgradeable products.
Framework announced three new products. One of them is just an update to the Framework 13 mainboard which is cool in the sense that they are keeping up with their vision but not so cool otherwise. PTM 7950 as a thermal paste replacement is also fantastic news for longevity. But the products I want to focus on are the 12-inch laptop geared towards the standard laptop market and the desktop which looks like Fantastic Mac studio killer as well as Steam box/Home game center.
12 Inch laptop
Framework decided to make a laptop with durability first. Giving me very Thinkpad XX30 material vibes which for those who don’t know me is an amazing thing: “shock-absorbing TPU over rigid PC/ABS plastic with an inner metal structure.” Having proper Wifi (6) support, a decent screen, and normal CPU configurations with upgradeability. Framework also makes driver installations and long term driver support a priority unlike other manufactures where you need to buy the higher end lines (Latitudes, Precisions, Zbooks, Thinkpads) in order to get any real support. This seems like a no brainer for the average user and will probably become my most recommended laptop.
desktop
The desktop at first glance makes no sense. Why would I want a Framework desktops when desktop are inherently upgradeable (typically)? Until you look closer.
The first thing that struck me is that they are the first company to put the Ryzen AI Max+ 395 into a chassis that can take advantage of it (as opposed to the Asus Flow Z13). It’s an APU based design so you can allocate almost all the RAM to be used as GPU which is amazing for local AI and other specialized workloads. Very similar to the Apple unified memory structure this also provided. The fact that they sent this out to Linux devs already should mean optimized support for this specific hardware. The RAM not being able to go past 128 and not being CAMM modules is a bit of a letdown. Overall this is offering a similar package in all ways (not just raw perf) to a Apple studio, which is crazy popular at the moment for Local LLM workloads.
The other use case I think would be a HTPC / Gaming box, it’s tiny with optimized cooling and good specs. They stuffed a custom built cooler and over-provisioned power supply to keep this thing cool and quiet . I hope Steve at Gamers Nexus does some noise and thermal testing. Not preloading it with Bazzite or the like as an option does seem like a miss.
Yes you can build your own but if you don’t want to, Framework seems like a much better alternative to most prebuilts as you can see for yourself with these Gamers Nexus’s videos.
Would love to see how both of these products progress.
Would love to hear your thoughts.
This is day 7 of #100DaysToOffload
