I'm a fan of repairable devices. And I passionately hate Apple for their Anti-Consumer strategies like proprietary SSD connectors, lid closing sensors and all this nonsense.
However while planning to buy a framework I realized that some oft Apples decisions have techical reasons...
Lpcamm2 is great, but not fast enough for unified memory and eats up more battery.
Easy repairability is awesome, but has an impact not only look and feel, but also sound design and durability (dust, etc.). Thinkpads solved this quite well, though.
Moreover requiring certified replacements can also prevent scam and can be seen as anti theft.
However, I'm not saying Apple is great, but at least not all their decisions are only to make more money. I personally am and keep being a Linux man, so never buying an Apple device again until they make a new iPod Nano ;-)
I think this is a weak argument.
The vast majority of popular PC laptops sold have soldered RAM and socketed SSDs and that situation is a huge improvement over what Apple delivers. Most people just want to be able to upgrade storage or at least configure storage at pricing that’s somewhat close to market value.
And then you’ve got a whole other segment of PCs that use dedicated graphics and therefore don’t even need soldered RAM at all. You don’t need super fast RAM bandwidth unless you are using high-end integrated graphics. In that respect, there are a lot of thin and light gaming laptops that give you socketed RAM and that is very obviously consumer friendly.
If Framework offered a soldered RAM board it would still be a vast improvement over Apple’s offering. You could say, hey, I want the fast integrated graphics, I’ll choose the soldered RAM version. Or, I will take mid-range integrated graphics and keep my socketed RAM board.
You’d still benefit from their cross-compatibility of boards, support for standalone board usage (I.e., upgrade your board in your laptop and use the old one as a server or desktop computer). You’d still have modular SSD storage and WiFi chips which you don’t even have to buy a Framework to get. Hell, many MacBook competitors have dual SSD slots and there’s no discernible downside to it. Mac SSDs aren’t faster than top end PCI-E gen 4/5 hardware.
Citation needed for impact on look and feel and sound design/durability. My framework has zero deck flex, it’s an aluminum chassis just like a MacBook, and yeah the speakers suck but that’s just because Framework doesn’t own the world’s most successful audio company. As you alluded to, Lenovo makes some repairable systems that have top tier laptop speakers.
Plenty of computers with great MacBook-level fit and finish let you access the SSD at bare minimum. E.g., the latest generation Dell XPS.
Theft prevention and replacement hardware scams is on the bottom of my list. Isn’t this obviously just a convenient excuse to squeeze third party repair shops? One of the easiest ways to prevent repair shop scams would be to make the computer so easy to repair that I don’t need a repair shop.
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