this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u01AbiCn_Nw mental outlaw video:

hi everyone, i was planning on getting a new laptop cheaply for about 500ish but then i stumbled upon this near-totally modular laptop rhat starts out at above 1000 bucks. do you think the cheaper laptop in the long run is just a false economy and i should go for the framework or what? if you want to ask questions go ahead but im mainly concerned about the longterm financials (and how well it will keep up over time)

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[โ€“] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think you're missing the point of the framework. Let's say 6 years from now you want to upgrade to a more powerful CPU. Normally that means buying a whole new laptop. With the framework though you just buy a new board and keep all the other components. This saves money and lowers ewaste.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Is that realistic? Not a rhetorical question: I'm genuinely curious. I ask because the last time I tried to update a single (desktop) part, it was more cost-effective to replace the whole Pc and migrate the salvageable parts since the only thing I could have held onto would have been the ram, SSD, and PSU.

I suppose with a laptop you have the monitor to also consider, and admittedly I know nothing about laptop boards, but it just seems like 6 years is replacement time anyway, at least for a daily use computer.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When you replaced your whole PC what did you do with the replaced part?

[โ€“] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The last time I replaced my PC the hardware was ca 12 years old and barely working. It went to the recycling center except the harddisk.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Honestly, we don't know. Average laptop screens haven't had any major improvements since IPS, so I think the screens have longevity. RAM and processors are more focused on lower power nowadays. Framework has already shipped "drop-in" replacement boards, and their whole company is based around that idea.

If I had the money and i could afford to wait, I'd be willing to take a bet on Framework. I think the frame of the laptop will hold up as well as any other, but it's only been a few years so who actually knows.

Laptops from 6 years ago hold up well enough, except the batteries and main boards, if I could have replaced my old main board with a more modern processor and gpu I never would have had to upgrade.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

So far as your desktop, you can certainly upgrade your computer without it being more cost effective to do a whole new build. It really just depends on what you need. Mostly it comes down to the limitations of your motherboard.

Every so often they change the CPU socket required for new CPUs. So if you need a new CPU and you already have the best the socket on your mobo can do, then yeah you're maybe looking at a new build at that point anyway. But otherwise you can just get an upgraded CPU of that socket. Similarly, eventually your motherboard won't be able to support the latest version of RAM and if you need that you'll have to replace the motherboard. So on and so forth.

[โ€“] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Great in theory.

Keeping backwards compatible hardware is nearly impossible in reality. USB A 3.x is not the same hardware as USB A 2.X despite keeping form-factor backwards compatible.

Practical exercise: Find a board capable of swapping DDR4 RAM with DDR5 or vice versa.