Framework, the modular repairable computer company, says budget laptops generally suck — and it plans to fix that this year. Today, it’s previewing a computer called the Framework Laptop 12 that’ll be its smallest laptop yet, its first with a touchscreen, its first with a 2-in-1 convertible hinge, and its first with a rubber-esque shock absorbing TPU outer edge to make it more suitable for kids and students, too.
“We build products to fix what we see as a broken industry, and few categories are as emblematic of the problems with consumer electronics as entry-level laptops,” writes Framework CEO Nirav Patel, continuing:
They tend to be janky, locked-down, disposable, underpowered, and frankly, boring machines. Shamefully, these are the products that PC brands market for use by students and young people around the world. Instead, we believe these are the people who most need thoughtfully designed, long-lasting computers.
Patel says the Framework Laptop 12 “is in many ways the product I started the company to create,” and that it will be “our easiest product ever to repair” — though it doesn’t say how, exactly, and it sadly didn’t have any internals visible at its event in San Francisco today for us to check out.
We did get to take one for a spin, though, and it feels well-built! Though I did keep making mistakes when I intended to hit its unusually small Shift key and wound up hitting the Slash key that Framework sticks next to it. The active stylus has both a USB-C charging port and a replaceable battery inside — just use a paper clip or SIM card tool to pop off the end first.
The laptop will come with a 13th Gen Intel Core i3 or i5 chip (circa 2023), a 1920×1200 screen at over 400 nits of brightness with both touch and stylus support, up to 48GB of RAM and up to 2TB of NVMe storage, and Wi-Fi 6E. It’s also got four of Framework’s Expansion Card slots, which is how Framework lets you pick your own ports.
Despite the claim that the Framework Laptop 12 is designed to fix entry-level laptops, Framework isn’t sharing any idea of pricing today, beyond that it will be “lower cost” compared to the Framework Laptop 13, which typically starts at around $750 for a DIY model with previous-gen chips or $1,100 for a prebuilt with the latest ones.
When I corner the CEO, though, Patel does hint to me that it won’t try too hard to match the competition. “We’re not going to be down in the bottom-end Chromebook rung,” he tells me.
But while Framework products often cost more than you’d pay for the same specs with Dell, HP, or Lenovo, it is the first and only company that has repeatedly delivered on the promise of modular upgrades, letting you easily swap out the entire motherboard and processor as a single module for a new one down the road. For example, Framework is also announcing a new AMD mainboard for its Framework Laptop 13 today, one that can breathe new life into any previous iteration of that laptop, even the original Intel version it released in 2021.
Framework says it’ll open preorders in April and ship in “mid-2025.”
Framework also announced the Framework Desktop today.
Update, February 25th: Added a few hands-on impressions and a quote from Patel; we’ll have a short video tomorrow.