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> if someone isn't choosing by OS first.

What a surprising idea! I have always and only ever chosen by OS first. Are there really a significant number of people willing to buy a computer with no concern for the type of software it will be able to run?

This. People really underestimate or straight up ignore resale value of Apple products. Just because you can upgrade a Framework laptop it doesn't make it a better value over the long term.

> The Neo is an appliance. The Framework is a tool.

I get where you're coming from in principle, but I'm not sure to what audience this actually applies. If you just want a laptop that can run the software you use, both are adequate as tools. The Framework's greater flexibility only applies to making changes to the tool itself, which doesn't matter if you didn't need to change it to suit your purposes. (And I say that as someone who has built their own Linux & Windows PCs from parts since high school, because I know I'm not the target audience for a Neo)

It's like I consider my Dewalt power drill a very decent tool because it has exactly the modularity I need -- it even has interchangeable batteries -- and it wouldn't even occur to me to call it an outright appliance even if another power drill offered more customization for some niche use case. The Neo is an adequate tool for many people even if other tools do offer more customization or maintainability.

This would be a much stronger argument against using an iPad for productivity, because many people simply cannot run the software they need, or only at a significant expense to productivity and quality of life. I use iOS devices only as communication and media terminals, and even then I would struggle to call them appliances, they're still tools for their particular tasks.

I think Framework would disagree that their target market consists solely of people ideologically opposed to owning Apple hardware.

> has a pretty poor display

Framework 13 has a very good display while 12 has a crappy display.

If I was buying a new laptop the Framework 12 seems like a really nice portable form factor but the crappy screen of the 12 would hold me back.

> Uncles don’t let relatives buy less than 16gb ram. That has been my standard since ~2010 and our 2013 mbp is still running fine because I insisted on it.

Just last weekend I bought 8gb ram thinkpad t14 for an elderly relative. 240 EUR.

It replaces his thinkpad x220 where the fan and ssd slowly dies.

I doubt it becomes an issue, and if it does then I can upgrade it later.

MacBooks don't need as much ram - I have an m1 air with 8gb of ram and it's perfectly serviceable, I can even run IntelliJ on it...

The repair ability is why I went with a Framework. My last two laptops had keyboards that lasted until a few months after the warranty. Rest of the laptop works, but I can't find replacement keyboards at a reasonable price. So a framework, and I bought a spare keyboard upfront on the off chance they go bankrupt.

I think what makes the perspective in the article interesting is that buying individual components a la carte isn't a good value in today's market. Sure you can upgrade the RAM and SSD in the Framework, but 16 GB of laptop DDR5 is $200 and a 1 TB 2230 SSD is another $200. The question becomes, is it worth it to spend 40% more for a laptop with 40% less performance (as well as worse build quality, a worse screen, worse speakers, worse battery life, and running hotter) so you can have the potential to spend half the price of the laptop to upgrade it in the future?

I love building and upgrading stuff as well as paying (much) more for tools that will last. But this is a laptop not a socket set, paying (a lot) more for worse performance up front makes absolutely no sense. Seems like the argument should be the Framework 12 just shouldn’t exist.

> he is missing the fact that one of the features of the Framework 12 is the modularity of the components

He does explicitly make that point.

> The biggest win is the modular ports.

I had a MacBook Air 11" back in the day. 2nd or 3rd generation, I can't remember. The one that didn't stutter on YouTube. Amazing machine! I had always wished the screen was slightly bigger though. The insanely large bezel was a waste of space.

You can put 48GB in a Framework 12 which makes it slightly more usable.

Intel's iGPU has gotten better over the years, but an external is always going to have vastly more capability than an internal one.

That being said, for retro gaming or even playing games from the mid 2010's, the iGPU in a modern intel chip should do well enough.

MacBooks are only expensive when you need performance upgrades, the base models are really not that bad for what you get.

But if you want to add a little more to your spec sheet, you might as well go somewhere else.

I tried using refurb'd Thinkpads as my travel machine for a long time - they're very brittle hard to fix laptops - kinda like Macbooks.

The Framework on the other hand is so easy to work on and get parts for - I know this isn't probably a main selling point for most users, but if you need this, Framework is like the only game in town.

I think this model works for the 13 and 16, because you're already buying a good laptop that you can keep longer by upgrading. The 12's base specs and more than that the experience is pretty bad. The screen and speakers are terrible.

The 13 also targets people buying it for themselves and who value ownership. The 12 targets the education market and how many 14 year olds are sensitive to ownership, repairability and e-waste? If they are they would probably get something better second hand. You'd have to have a parent that is sensitive to this issue and is also willing to force down this bad laptop onto their children instead of whatever they prefer.

I love Framework, and the bet to try to win over the education market was worth making but the execution is so poor that I don't think it works out.

The MacBook Neo will happily last you the 4 years of highschool and maybe your bachelor.

That might be true to some extent but what about the current product? It's nice to tell yourself that you can upgrade it in the future but the best of what the product is today isn't a great value, will the future upgrade make it better? Should we purchase a product today on what it might be tomorrow?

I think Jeff is correct when he says, "for an overall worse experience, are you willing to pay 20-40% more?". That's a tough sell. I think the only reason for me to take the Framework 12 over the Neo would be because I want to advocate for a world where upgradability and repairability are common things.

> The Neo is a wonderful machine but if you want to upgrade it you're out of luck, the damn thing is sealed shut. By comparison the Framework lets you upgrade individual components over time to keep your system up to date

The Framework 12 in the story costs $799, a $300 premium over the $499 MacBook Neo.

So you're paying an extra $300 up front for the option of spending more to upgrade it in the future, and getting a slower computer during that time.

That's a 60% premium to have the ability to upgrade a slower laptop.

Alternatively, they could sell the MacBook Neo for $200 in a couple years and buy a next-gen MacBook Neo and they'd still come out ahead.

Some people value upgradeability to an extreme, but I can't see a justification for spending a 60% premium to buy a worse product just to be able to maybe upgrade it in a few years. This is a starter laptop.

The neo isn't upgradeable, but it also isn't sealed shut. It's actually one of Apple's most repairable devices. If I were in the market for this class of device, I personally would still go with Framework for a variety of reasons, but I still think it's important to give apple praise for the pro-consumer choices they made (and probably could have gotten away without) in the Neo.

> If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!

$799 versus $499 is a 60% premium.

The best case numbers are buying used RAM and SSD for the Framework like Jeff did in the article ($749 total, if you can find the RAM at those prices) and comparing against the non-EDU MacBook Neo at $599. That's still a 25% premium.

> If you're not willing to pay a 20% premium for upgradability/fixability, then you don't _really_ want it. And that's fine!

This is a completely sensible take, but many on this forum believe upgradability/fixability should be mandated by law in spite of posts like this where consumers choose against this option in spite of what the repairability activists say. It's likely that the EU will in fact pass some laws to mandate this because of this vocal minority and because it's popular to stand up to Big Tech.

To be honest, I am currently living with major Schadenfreude regarding ram costs.

For literally years, SV companies have had a "ship fast, fuck the users" mentality when it comes to resource usage, as if software is written more often than it's run.

Finally having some constrained supply of memory will force people to actually build software that can be reasonably used on 5 year old hardware (which would otherwise be perfectly servicable).

Slack from 2015 doesn't meaningfully add anything over Slack from 2025 yet I need 3x the RAM to run it.

Teams is worse somehow.

Let's hope software gets enough less bloated to make that workable.