Framework is a company creating PC notebooks that are designed to be upgraded and repaired over time, and they’ve refreshed their products, as Andrew Cunningham reports:
For the second year in a row, Framework has announced new upgrades for its modular, repairable Framework Laptop that can be installed directly in older versions of the Framework Laptop. There are two motherboards: one with a predictable upgrade from 12th-generation Intel Core CPUs to 13th-generation chips and one that brings AMD’s Ryzen laptop processors to the Framework Laptop for the first time.
Framework has also formally renamed its first laptop design; the 13-inch model picks up the “Framework Laptop 13” retronym to distinguish it from the new Framework 16 gaming laptop.
You read that correctly; new motherboards can be installed into existing notebooks. There’s even an enclosure available for purchase to turn the old board into a desktop machine.
The Framework 13’s swappable ports made it easy to change out the I/O in case of damage, or to better reflect the user’s needs. The new 16 takes it even farther, as Cunningham writes in a second article:
The other noteworthy thing about the Framework Laptop 16 is its “Expansion Bay System,” which will primarily be used for dedicated GPUs. These GPU modules use eight lanes of PCIe bandwidth (the PCIe version will depend on the motherboard you have installed since the GPU’s PCIe lanes are usually built into the CPU) and can be plugged in and unplugged without modifying anything else about the laptop. Framework’s photos show an Expansion Bay jutting out of the back of the system—not having to fit the GPU within the body of the laptop itself will add size and weight, but it also means that more powerful GPU modules can make room for larger fans and heatsinks, and it’s up to the user to decide on the best combination of performance and size/weight.
These notebooks aren’t the best looking on the planet, nor do they sell in huge numbers. But they seem very, very cool — and important —e to this MacBook Pro user.