> I think ultimately what frustrates me is that people don’t consider the ability to repair or upgrade your machine part of a “premium” experience, but that’s is just something I have to accept. I think it is unfortunate that our consumerist culture places so little value on it though.

Buying one of the original Frameworks and a Macbook Air at roughly the same time made me realize how little I actually care about upgradeability and repairability. This feeling took me by surprise. Modern Macbooks are just so much better in terms of feel it's like comparing tech from a different decade.

(it also turns out that having a defect that the manufacturer doesn't make right can cause a person to feel a few different things, but gratitude for the product's repairability isn't at the top of the list)

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osigurdson 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Agree. I want rock solid Linux compatibility with mac like hardware quality / battery life and a Thinkpad like toughness and keyboard. I don't really need it to be upgradable as long as it lasts 8 years.

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trinsic2 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

IMHO I dont think people are considering what you lose when you cant upgrade, You get locked in to a device artificially created life cycle that's dictated by the manufacturer.

I understand where you are coming from, I guess it just makes me sad to see more and more people moving away from tech that is less in their control. And i consider upgradability and modularity and important aspect of that.

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Philadelphia 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

We never had anything different, though. Computers always became so obsolete after a while that there was no longer any point in trying to upgrade them. I think I got eight years out of my 1997 Power Mac G3, including a CPU upgrade to a G4, RAM upgrades, hard disk upgrades, a video card, and USB expansion, but then the new machines coming out were just so much better that throwing money into more upgrades was just tossing it into a black hole.

	▲	WackyFighter 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Maybe in the late 90s and early 2000s. These days hardware from over a decade ago works fine. I am typing this comment on a 2011 Dell E6410. Install Debian / Arch Linux and the machine is surprisingly capable. Just running HTOP I am using 2.5G of ram (out of 8GB) and the CPU is at 2%. TBH, I have a Ryzen 5950X based tower and while it is faster than my previous desktop which was a i7 4970K (or whatever it is), the previous machine would be fine tbh. I am not even sure why I upgraded tbh.
	▲	trinsic2 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I guess its a byproduct of a faster moving curve with improved technology. 20 years ago you didn't need to replace the entire platform for at least 10 years.

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jimmaswell 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My partner with a Macbook works on AI and has told me how great Apple silicon is, and their Macbook would run so many things so well.. except they don't have enough RAM and there's no way to upgrade it..

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osigurdson 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Is it artificial though, really? You buy whatever is available now and it eventually becomes obsolete and you have to buy a new one. Maybe there is some kind of multi vendor collusion going on but it doesn't seem that likely.

Where I think repairability really makes sense is in things that don't materially improve and should last 30 years (e.g. appliances).

	▲	trinsic2 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I'm pretty sure part of the reason of integrating everything on the board has some nefarious reasons, at least on Laptop's. Louis Rossman talked about a design flaw in Apple Macbooks where if the SSD fails, in my cases, your system will fail to power up because the mainboard is designed to fail when the SSD fails.(If I am interpreting that correctly)[0]. Remember this flaw is in the Macbooks where the SSD's are soldiered into the board. IMHO there are ways to design integrated hardware in such a way where failures minimize damage and I think many companies decide its not in there best interest to design hardware to prevent that. IMHO this is done in bad faith. [0}: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qbrLiGY4Cg

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esseph 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

This is exactly what I want.

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jimmaswell 6 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some people around me prolesytize these modern Macbooks endlessly but I don't quite get it. I've tried them but I still love my Framework 16 to bits and I'd take it any day of the week. The Macbooks are great machines, and one thing I can say in their favor is the battery life is phenomenal, but I prefer my Framework's aesthetics and feel - it feels more like I'm holding something I've worked on and made my own vs just bought, I prefer the shiny metal over the dull gray of the Macbooks, the keyboard and trackpad are just as good (and I love the rgb pad I have in place of a numpad), and taking it apart/replacing modules just feels so cool. I've also saved those friends various times by lending an expansion card, usually usb-A.

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IshKebab 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah I agree. You can get two base MacBook Airs for the price of that laptop. A base MacBook Air is a very very capable machine.