I see a lot of anecdotal comments about users’ past or present Thinkpads on this sub so I’m curious how many FW13 buyers have come from a Thinkpad or have a Thinkpad as a second machine and how many have migrated from other brands.
I see the appeal of Framework for the old-school Thinkpad tinkerer. The FW13 will be the first non-Thinkpad I’ve owned since the old 570 back in the 1990s (although, granted, I’ve always been able to get EPP pricing on Thinkpads, which has influenced by purchases). My other laptop is a Gen4 Thinkpad P1, which is too big and power hungry to really be a good travel machine, but I will probably replace it with another powerful Thinkpad P-series laptop sometime in the next year for all the editing I do at home.
I have a bunch of other laptops; a 16" Asus gaming laptop; 14" Apple Macbook Pro; 14" LG laptop (my main laptop when I go mobile); and a Lenovo Thinkpad 480S.
At this point, I’m thinking of replacing my LG laptop with my 13" Framework laptop.
HP envy on its last legs
I was evaluating different specs for a Thinkpad T-14 when Framework started taking pre-orders, and that is the only other laptop I’d even consider now. I still miss the trackpoint & physical buttons, but I love my Framework and have no regrets about my decision.
I still hold out hope for a third-party Thinkpad lower clamshell for us trackpoint addicts.
My previous laptop was/is an Acer Nitro 5 from I think 2018? It has an AMD Ryzen 5 2500U, AMD Radeon RX 560X, 16GB of ram, a 256GB SSD, and a 2TB HDD. Still moving things between them. The old Acer’s plastic chassis is literally held together with duct tape at this point.
I’ve owned almost every laptop under the sun. Macbook Pro, Thinkpad, Dell XPS, Dell Precision, HP Envy, Razer, Clevo, etc…
I can’t wait for Framework to be more available so I can build a 16" tablet and use my split ergo keyboard with it. That being said, of all the laptops I’ve owned nothing has survived the amount of abuse my Thinkpads have. No they aren’t as repairable but they are built to last. Plus they keyboard is the only laptop keyboard I enjoy typing on.
yes, Thinkpads just seem so solid, even the more recent ones. The only thing I truly hate about them, build-wise, is that coating they use that’s a huge grease magnet. If the weather’s hot and/or you have sweaty hands a new Thinkpad will look like someone dumped a quart of motor oil over it within a few days! What’s more, the grease marks in well-handled areas can be impossible to fully get out eventually regardless of the cleaning products used. The older Thinkpads with the hard black plastic never suffered from this issue. I’m really looking forward to the bare aluminum of the FW13.
HP Dev One. A very solid laptop. Built like a tank, great keyboard. A workhorse. FW13 is to play with and experiment.
2011 MBP, before that a 10" inch EeePC. When I saw this it got me the same kind of excited as the Eee. Looking forward to it.
I’m coming from Thinkpads. I was running older models until the T495s dropped, but honestly that generation of Ryzen left a lot to be desired. I’ve been waiting for System76 to unveil their custom laptop for a while now, but I’ve grown impatient and want something to hold me over until then (unless I end up loving the Framework in which case I’ll probably just invest into upgrades.)
I’m really hopeful that the more recent Ryzen mobile chipsets are actually usable and not a constant throttling mess, my T495s was awful.
Right now I’m on T480 that I got because it was the last model they made with an external battery.
Same. Replaced everything for fun. Different keyboard, removed internal battery for a dummy one, dual cooler on my Intel only board.
Framework was the first laptop since then that hit my minimum threshold of maintenance.
It sits in a nice position of x20/30 series and x80 series with ease of maintenance.
It’s fantastic being able to swap a drive in my X220 in 2 minutes. At same time, I rarely need to do that…
Although I could always use the SSD adapter in Framework
Ah, reminds me of the Thinkpads of old – external batteries, ultrabay that could hold another battery or whatever else you need, swapping drives, wireless cards, etc. and finding that perfect keyboard from the best of the 2-3 manufacturers they used. I also remember hunting down the last T-series they made with a 4:3 screen (the T61)
Yeah, every generation got 1 thing better but 2 things worse.
X200 with T480 performance (or better) would be where I land Then turns out that’s basically a Framework :)
Framework is going to surpass them in hobbyist circles for sure. Being able to convert a laptop to a headless server once the battery is gone is too cool. Can’t wait to see what they or the community achieve.
I have a desktop computer that I’m replacing with the FW16. Does that count?
Yup. 100% counts.
I use Razer Blade 14’ 2017
In addition to my Framework I also have an HP victus gaming laptop that I bought as a family computer (I’m staying with a couple family members while finishing grad school).
I don’t have a 13 but preordered a 16, currently on a Dell G15 from a couple years ago, and a dell latitude supplied to me by my workplace
Batch 9 for FW13 7840u. Coming from an i7 Macbook Pro 2015 15 inch.
I like to be able to repair my laptop. My MBP is getting old, software updates seem to be making it worse to use. Random restarts. Screen is beginning to have backlight bleed. Not trying to change out the screen or change the battery for a 3rd time. Its time to retire it.
Looking forward to the AMD igpu.
Dell Inspirion 7577 w/ an i7-7700HQ and 1060 Max-Q, should be about 6+ years ago going from high school to college.