I agree with their conclusion.

I somewhat regret buying my framework laptop at this stage, because the answer to every fault is "buy a new component, from framework".

I'm not sure I blame them for this really, but there is no competitive market of parts (or really any market at all), which means that the reality is that you're just locking your money to them. They also often have stock issues, so woe betide you if your component fails at the wrong time.

It's very hard to predict costs here, but framework laptops do seem to fail more than other brands, and their laptops do tend to be more expensive. In comparison to MacBooks I've used over the years, which other than screen delaminating, have been faultless, at least.

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jszymborski 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I've had this sort of thing happen with a Dell XPS, and their response was "purchase a new laptop". While it would be great if we had stronger consumer protection, for both economic and environmental reasons I prefer the Framework approach.

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63 37 minutes ago | parent [-]

When you purchase a new laptop, you can choose a different manufacturer who may have a more durable product. When you have a framework, you're forced to buy the same component from the same company that made it poorly in the first place, if it's even in stock.

	▲	nomadygnt 2 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		When you buy a framework, you are not forced to buy the same component from framework. You are free to buy a new laptop like you would if your laptop from Dell failed.
	▲	organsnyder 4 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		You're always free to purchase a new laptop, though.

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

having 2 fw 13s this is my experience as well (and also friends who bought into FW); i was willing to give the 13 pro a try until they downgraded my order. I inevitably cancelled and went with a dell xps14 and its a fantastic laptop. I am unsure bout any future fw purchases. also my m1 macbook pro is made so well I've abused this to the cows come home and i feel like it still has another 3+ years to it..

everytime someone brings up the e-waste aspects of fw, i don't know if its that simple...because i've definitely already generated much more e-waste with my frameworks than any other laptop i've bought in the last decade

that being said, i do like the fw vision, but they might be trying to do TOO much that their quality is suffering for it

	▲	throwuxiytayq 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> because i've definitely already generated much more e-waste with my frameworks than any other laptop i've bought in the last decade How so? Most FW parts seem quite resellable, did you just throw them away after upgrading or something?

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anthonj 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

My conspiracy theory is that selling parts is pretty much their main business case.

A modular gpu using a new standard that is form-factor specific for only a specific model? Matte panel released a few months after the first 13.5 model was released with glossy panel as only option?

It sounds a bit fishy to me. But maybe I'm just a bit too cynical .

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jszymborski 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I mean, sure? Every other laptop company's main business is to sell laptops, so if you want those features or often time even a repair, you have to buy a whole new laptop. If you're Apple, you might need to buy a new laptop for a memory upgrade.

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SCdF 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> My conspiracy theory is that selling parts is pretty much their main business case.

I think this is absolutely what you sell to investors. For it to be attractive to consumers though (and thus attractive to investors, since people actually need to buy the thing), there has to be a balance. They haven't even managed to conjure up a market for third party expansion cards, which feels like the lowest of hanging fruit.

At the moment they are living on borrowed time and good will from the tech / hippie community who want to be more sustainable and customizable. I think they have likely lost me at this point. I don't know how close they are to losing everybody else.

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throwuxiytayq 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Manufacturer forces you to throw away previous device and buy a new one: it's a conspiracy to make money

Manufacturer lets you replace each part separately: it's a conspiracy to make money

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anthonj 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I see your point, but what i'm talking about is the company generating a strong incentive to people to buy upgrades or replacements.

This whole submission is about a user going extra length to recover a perfectly functioning main board (with price between 400 and 800 eur depending on model) after an official update went wrong and was suggested to buy a new one.

Mind that I am planning to buy one as well, so I don't have a bias against it. But those suspicious "features" pulled me away from the 16" model for example.

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throwuxiytayq 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> a perfectly functioning main board

If I understand correctly, the problem was that the board was the exact opposite of that. The post title uses the phrase “bricked”.

I agree that FWs handling was pretty bad, but then again, what exactly is the proposed ideal-but-realistic solution they should have offered here?

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anthonj 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

"Bricked" is a bad term for system without a proper software/firmware update path. A LOT could have been done here to improve "repairability" (with quotes, because this is a software issue on a perfectly fine mainboard).

A/B updates automatically recovering the bios is case of failed update, recovery from usb in case that somehow fails as well (InsydeH2O call it "crisis mode" I think). Lenovo support both. Dell too afaik. This is very much realistic to have, and I would expect it from a decent product. A computer without this feature is pretty much designed to fail more easily.

If for some very weird reason framework was unable to offer this, then at very least they could have placed a header on the board with flashing instructions on the website, instead of advising to buy new hardware.

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throwuxiytayq an hour ago | parent [-]

I mean, sure, I agree it would be ideal if BIOS updates literally couldn’t fail - I meant to ask what they could have done to resolve this situation now.

But yes, lack of an USB bios recovery path is a pretty terrible design fault, and I’m surprised that they haven’t improved this by now.

	▲	anthonj 35 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		ah, you mean after the accident. Well for starter I would acknowledge the issue (thing that according to the liked thread did not happen, maybe it did not affect enough customers?). Then they should either provide an official recovery guide instead of letting customers figure it out themself on the forum (I can see various pictures of people hooking clips to the flash chip and wondering want to flash exactly), or repair it pro-bono since it's a job that probably take ~10 mins for affected customer and it's an issue caused by a design flaw.

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vel0city 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Tons of motherboards for other computers have dual BIOS update processes so it can roll back to the old version if the upgrade is unsuccessful.

They could have also had the BIOS chip be socketable and sold it individually pre-programmed.

I agree not everyone does this, but its not like some incredibly out there idea.

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jakzurr 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Seriously?

ASUS CrashFree BIOS 3 utility. That's from a 10-year-old MB. Probably a few other examples.

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selectodude 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Every day I show up to work is a conspiracy between me and my mortgage lender to make money.