Just saw a video on YouTube where someone built a cyberdeck using the framework mainboard and accessories. Had me really intrigued that you can buy into a laptop ecosystem that basically enables hacking, too.

When my current laptop from work runs it's course then I'll ask for one of these with a GPU. My current one I can change RAM and SSD. But later on I can't just get myself a GPU, DP connector, another USB-C instead of USB-A, LAN connector, memory card reader etc etc. I also think that if I already upgrade the RAM and SSD and then want to do the processor I shouldn't have to buy a whole new laptop. Options that allow you to bring your own RAM and M2 SSD are pretty few.

Since no one asked... What are your use cases? Do you need a discrete GPU? Something lite? Something with lots of ports?

If you can afford it easily and used 500 bucks as a random number sure no problem, but othewise I don't think it a Framework is a good idea.

Seems a little overpriced to me for a laptop when you can get a steam deck for 600 or a used thinkpad with very nice specs for 100-200$. This laptop has some neat features and if you have 1k to spend on a laptop I guess why go for it, but if you just want a device to do some basic computation work you can find more powerful laptops for much cheaper.

No.

For it to be a good investment it’s value would have to go up over time or drop at a slower rate than other comparable things.

A mac is a better investment (but still not “good”) not only because they tend to hold more value over time but the used market has higher volume so there’s less chance you need to price it low or wait a long time when you’re ready to sell.

If you’re worried about the value of being able to fix it, spend less than your $500 budget on a used t480 with the processor you want, upgrade the ram to 16, 32 or 64gb, install at least one ssd and be glad that there are literally millions of inexpensive spare parts on the market and will be for at least a decade.

What framework does uniquely offer is the ability to change your complement of ports. That’s either a useless novelty or a powerful tool depending entirely upon weather you consistently swap them out and can find all the ports you need as expansions or not.

Is it worth it to not be carrying around some dongle? I don’t know.

E: the processor to get on that t480 is one of the intels.