When I invested in Framework Computers 5 years ago, I thought, man, I hope it
helps this more sustainable and repairable laptop company get off the
ground. But then I also thought, hey, wouldn't it be cool if I got to see all
their new goodies before anyone else? And yet, here you are just 4 days before
your biggest announcement ever. 4 days.
You're still seeing it before everyone else. >> I know. I know. I'm just mad you made me
wait so long, guys. I'm talking four new products. A Framework 13 Pro model that
uses LP Cam 2 memory for high speeds and
easy upgrades. A refreshed, not to mention cheaper version of the Framework
16 gaming laptop, a brand new expansion bay module that allows you to connect
any GPU to your laptop. And finally, a
brand new product that raised my eyebrows right off my forehead. What do
you have to say for yourself, mister? >> We're trying to fulfill our mission.
What were you trying to hide from me leaving this till the last minute? Am I
not your favorite investor anymore? >> You are in the top five.
>> That's just how many you have, isn't it? >> It's about five. >> Is it because the other ones have more
money? That's what it's about, isn't it? >> You want to take the checkbook at? We can we can bump you up the list.
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It's a keyboard. But before we talk about that, I want to
take a closer look at this. It looks
like a framework 13, smells like a framework 13, and it even
uh like a framework 13, but it feels
different. That's because the new Framework 13 Pro is now in a new Pro
chassis that, like the MacBook Pro, is made of CNC aluminum. It also has a 21%
bigger battery, 74 watt hours now, and
new speaker modules. But wait, there's
more. It also comes with a higher resolution 2.8K display, WHICH
IS FINALLY A TOUCHSCREEN.
OKAY, about time. What the took so long? >> That is actually an ask that came from
you. I remember 5 years ago you telling us we needed to have a touchcreen. Yeah,
>> it actually is that it took us this long to get to a stale where we could afford
to build a fully custom from scratch panel. So, this is actually the first
panel we built completely from a blank slate, which is actually a million plus
dollar investment to make. >> Wow. I mean, it looks great. What's the
peak brightness on this thing? >> This goes up to 700 net. We can actually
crank it up right here. No, no, it's already really bright. >> It is.
>> Dude, this is incredible. I'm honestly impressed. I did not know that this was
going to be a completely custom panel for you guys. Even the big boys. No
offense. You're >> you're a big Well, you're bigger than me. >> Even the bigger laptop manufacturers
will often avoid the cost of a fully custom panel because unless you're
operating at the scale of someone like an Apple. It's uh really hard to
guarantee that you're going to move the kind of volume to justify that initial
investment. >> Very bullish on this.
>> Absolutely. On the Pro >> and they should be because the final big
change to the Pro is the addition of an Intel Core Ultra Series 3 mainboard.
Now, you can still get the Ryzen AI300 series if you're into that sort of
thing, but the big difference with the Intel one is it comes with LP Cam 2
memory and upgrades to PCIe Gen 5
support for the SSD, which means outstanding battery life, exemplary GPU
performance thanks to Panther Lake, and high performance RAM with no compromise
on upgradeable memory. Of course, the
big question on people's minds is, can I take this Core Ultra 3 mainboard and put
it in my 5-year-old Framework 13 nonpro?
>> You actually can't. So, we >> What? >> That's right. >> I thought he was setting up this
question. So, you had to be like, "Where there's a downside?"
>> Now, we maintained complete backwards and forwards compatibility on the main
board. So, you can actually take an old mainboard and drop it into the Pro chassis or take the new Intel Core Ultra
Series 3 mainboard and put it into an original chassis. >> Elijah bamboozled me. He got the
briefing and the next line says, "Okay, well, that's still way more than any
other laptop manufacturer." That's nuts. >> It took a lot of great engineering work.
We pulled it off. >> Wow. Genuinely impressed, man. This feels
like another Framework 16 moment where I'm just like, "Yeah, no offense, but I
thought it'd be impossible. I never really believed in you, you know.
>> Okay, thank you. >> Well, no, it's not cuz I didn't think
you were capable. I just thought your goals were too lofty. >> We are ambitious. We're an ambitious
company if nothing else. >> This is off script, but I want to talk about the display a little bit more. You
guys opted for a matte touchcreen, which is an unusual choice.
>> This is unusual. So, we actually have a
pretty novel anti-glare polarizer here. So, we're indoors here, but if you
actually take this out into daylight, it is actually pretty good. Even pretty
high contrast in that world. Let's prove it. >> Are we going to go for a walk?
>> We've got the daylight, boys. Watch your head. Hey, I mean, watch your head. Eh,
>> now we're in Canada. I'm going straight into what is pretty much the most
challenging condition for a display. Oh, wow. That's right. It is really truly
anti-glare. That is the beauty of having the matte surface there.
>> Holy crap. That's pretty good. We turn it all the way down and you can actually
still see it a bit, which is pretty
crazy. Okay, don't take this the wrong way, but you know what it kind of
reminds me of is those um >> retrlective.
>> You can actually turn the backlight off entirely. You can see it's like mildly
retroreflective even just as a normal LCD. But of course, you can crank up the
brightness and have it work normally. >> Like I can't see my cursor for but
like I mean even at like moderate brightness, this is usable. Yep,
>> dude. I think my neck would burn before the screen would. Let's go back inside.
Another really cool thing that Framework is doing that many other laptop
companies are not is offering a build of the system with Ubuntu. They're actually
working directly with Canonicle to ensure that all the drivers and other
updates that you need for seamless operation are pre-installed. This is
remarkable because while lots of laptops support Linux, if you want something
official, there aren't nearly as many options, making this an amazing gateway
to a world without Microsoft, which I have to say that between our recent
Linux challenge and my more recent MacBook Neo challenge, I've actually
been enjoying quite a lot. I've also been enjoying the Mac battery life
experience. Please tell me it's competitive. Do we have one we can open?
>> Uh, we can open up this one. But yeah, so this is actually a new expansion card
latch from the Framework Laptop 12. So from that like two-hand version to this
really simple single-hand version. >> I mean me, I prefer the two-hand
experience, if you know what I'm saying. But uh the Framework 13 Pro is no less
of a man. >> Is that okay for this channel? We say things like that.
>> We say whatever we damn well please. By the way, a nice hoodie.
>> Oh yeah, twinning. >> I should change
into our sick new Damn it. Moto T. How
cool is this? And it's even kind of on theme today. Time for your open heart
surgery, Mr. Johnson. Hold on. Oh, but
what about the ribbon cable? >> It is right there. And you can plug it
>> while the computer is still running. Definitely recommended. >> Tell me how this bad boy performs.
>> We've got a higher capacity and higher efficiency. So, actually, there are use
cases where we're getting more than double the battery life of the last
generation Framework Laptop 13. So, for example, Netflix 4K streaming, which
often times many of us do, we go from about 8 hours on the last framework
laptop to about 20 hours on this generation.
The battery actually is physically bigger in two dimensions. So, you'll
need to bring along a new bottom cover and that new input cover to get the new
battery. Oh, let's talk about the new input cover. The final big change for
the 13 Pro is the new input cover, which will have a new haptic touchpad, and a
better typing experience due to its CNCed frame. With all these changes,
this thing could be a serious competitor to the MacBook Pro with its feel, style,
and performance, depending on one big thing, which I will find out after
showing off a cool new feature. There's a little spring pin that lifts this up
to make it easier to lift off the keyboard. Now, so nice. It's one banana,
Michael. What could it cost? $10. It is
a little step up from the framework laptop 13. We actually are keeping that
original chassis available to be our new entry-level product. Obviously, adding a
touchscreen haptic touchpad, larger battery, full CNC chassis does add some
cost. The memory and storage market is so volatile right now. They actually
don't want to put a number NVIDIA. But one thing that we can commit to is that
for anyone who is placing a pre-order for this product, whatever price they
see and place an order for is the price that they're going to pay for it. We're
not going to update prices on an order someone's already placed.
>> I hate that that qualifies as a good guy take these days.
>> It's an okay guy take. Yeah. >> Moving on. Our next new laptop is less
of a new laptop and more of a midcycle refresh of the Framework 16. Starting
with the input modules, there's new singlepiece haptic track ports and
keyboards. Now, if you remember from the original Framework 16, there were
options to configure the inputs in a variety of ways depending on your
preference. Well, this allows you to have a cleaner look. But the bigger
change is under the hood. A new Ryzen 5
version that should make this a great option for someone who wants a bigger
screen or a bigger trackpad or a dedicated GPU but doesn't want to pay
the topsp spec CPU tax. There's also a translucent bezel that perfectly matches
our carbon black translucent screwdriver. LTStore.com. And finally,
some cool developer projects. What am I looking at here? These are actually
input modules for framework laptop 16 that were made by developers in the
community. So this is a MIDI keyboard made by a guy named Pit Stopte. And this
is >> weird mother naming him that. >> Yeah. So this is a cool erggo keyboard
layout made by developer named Axel. So super awesome projects that drop right
into the 16 >> and a trackpad. This was actually our
design, our release. So this was a >> You should leave it to the developers in
the community. >> I know they do a better job than we do. So, we got a lot of asks, of course, for
that one piece touchpad row. So, we ended up actually releasing a 3D
printable design on GitHub last year and
then led that directly into this one
piece CNC aluminum design that we're actually going to be making for sale.
>> Right. But how many seasons will this one piece have?
>> So, what? >> Don't worry about it. >> I'm too old or too young for that
reference. I'm not sure which. Since we're on the subject of the framework
16, one of its biggest selling points is, of course, its upgradeable GPU
modules. But up until now, your upgrade options have been pretty limited. You've
got a small handful of GPUs or you've got uh well, nothing. But now there's
more. There's the Oculink expansion bay.
This will give you a single Oculink 8i
connection out the back of your laptop, which you could run into anything that
would take an Oculink 8i signal. Like say for example a fullsized freaking
desktop GPU which immediately raised
tons of questions for me like why Oculink instead of Thunderbolt 5.
Oculink gives you native PCIe out over that cable meaning you don't have
protocol overhead and we actually used 8i rather than the more common Oculink 4
interface which means we can actually get up to 128 Gbits per second of
birectional throughput. And that's a very valid reason. Actually, Tech
PowerUp wrote an article a couple of months ago talking about how Thunderbolt
5 was anywhere from 16 to 36%
worse for eGPU performance compared to Oculink. With that said, I do still
worry about some of Oculink's um missing
quality of life features like not being able to hot plug. Do you have a plan for
that? This is why we are positioning this as an Oculink dev kit because we
know that this is not a general consumer solution like something like Thunderbolt
where everything is hot plug. >> And I mean I guess that's what the other
six modular IO spots are for. >> Exactly.
>> My other question is what does this mean for folks who want to run more than one
PCIe card off of this slot? Because eight lanes is a lot.
>> Eight lanes is a lot, but that gets you 100 gigabit network cards. It gets you
full DGPUs. There's a lot of great use cases for eight lanes,
>> right? But what if I wanted like like two cards in like one of those bay
things? >> So, we actually have in this card
support for only Oculink 8i over a single interface. There is actually a
developer in the community who designed their own Oculink 8i board that supports
bifurcation into multiple uh interfaces.
>> Oh wow, that would be pretty cool. Uh,
on the subject of expansion bays, um, some of you might have noticed
>> they for Yeah. >> All right. Well, they have a new 10 gig Ethernet card for those who thought that
2 and 12 gig wasn't enough. >> We can play it as a joke. They brought so much stuff that we literally forgot
one of the products we're announcing. >> It's okay. It's better than forgetting something not on a plane.
>> All right, let's uh, which brings us finally to the star of the show. Okay,
not the star of the show, but an odd choice, the framework keyboard. Can you
explain why you guys felt the need to make this of all things?
>> It actually started with the framework desktop. So, we designed the desktop to
be a really convenient living room PC, a
server for home lab setups, even stuff like sim rigs. And we found as we were
using this both internally and starting to seating out that there was just no
keyboard that fit that scenario that we actually liked. I was going to say there
are keyboards that fit that scenario and then you finished the sentence and I
agree. I don't want to call out anybody specific. Elijah, he's handing me one
that I've spent more time than I'd like with. What makes this one different?
>> This uses the same mechanical key structure and actually the same touchpad
architecture from the framework laptop 12. So, same great feel that we have
across our laptop lineup. And it's got an ultra power efficient new radio from
Nordic called the NRF54. So, battery life is awesome, too. All right. The
coolest part though, I think, is actually this. The little dongle garage
that they built for it so that I could permanently have the dongle installed in
my laptop. Not that I would normally use an outside keyboard with a laptop, but
actually I would want to use this for like my Logitech mouse receiver.
>> You could. It does fit in. >> Is it's a good fit? Okay, I'm going to try it cuz I actually have a new mouse
that I've been meaning to try. Okay, we haven't tested every dongle, so we're
going to find out if this specific one does fit, >> man. Putting them on the spot.
>> Okay, here we go. Yeah, of course I'm putting them on the spot. That's what I do. >> That is the pressure test.
>> He knew what this was. >> Okay, that looks big. Yeah, actually, I
don't know if that's going to Okay. I'm sure there's other Logitech products in
the world that have different sized. >> You know what? It's not that bad.
>> Better. Yeah, it's better than it coming out the side. >> Uh I don't know if it comes out anymore,
though. M. Okay. This is the only There's only two of these in the world.
So, >> well, I guess one of them's mine now cuz
I'm not giving you my dongle for my new mouse.
>> Oh, good. >> Do you want to make it a touch wider?
>> Uh, it's a perfect fit for our dongle. >> All right. So, so what you're telling me
is the tooling is already done. >> The tooling is actually not done
technically. >> Can you make it a little bigger? >> I'll bring that to our industrial
designer. I'll blame you for the the change. >> Okay. To be clear, cuz like this one,
>> that's a great fit. is a great fit, but the more you can accommodate the better.
You know, this seems like something that would be more of like a community project, but how cool would it be if
there was like you could kind of like have a slider to adjust the depth or
something like that, >> right? Thank you.
>> Bring that back to the team. >> On a desktop, it like doesn't matter.
But on a desktop, it also just doesn't matter if my dongle's sticking out the
front. So, this is really about the laptop. That's >> so you know, my suggestions are not that
stupid. >> Okay, we did do the touchcreen.
So, what you're telling me is in five years I can have a dongle garage that
has an adjustable deck. >> Exactly. That's right. >> Remember, you're not the favorite
investor. >> Top five. Top five. >> I know. It's because they have more
money. Coming back to the keyboard, the firmware is being fully open sourced for
people who want to play around and have fun with it. It can store four different profiles and it can use either the
dedicated dongle adapter or just plug the USB dongle directly into your system
or you can plug it in via USBC. Now,
question for you, Nurav. Framework is probably best known for its
repairability. How is a keyboard more
repable or upgradeable? The battery is
actually replaceable just like it is on all of our products. Beyond that, there
is actually not that much you can repair on something like this, but we did make
it as open as we could. So, of course, the firmware is open source. We're
releasing open source Surface CAD so you can 3D print your own accessories. And
we're actually releasing the guts of the system, this control board to be its own
dev board for people to make their own keyboards around. >> Oh, that's cool. If I spill a Coke in
like the touchpad, but my keyboard is fine. Can I buy a new trackpad from you?
>> You at the moment cannot. If we start to see that happen a lot in the community,
that's something that we would look at. >> Acceptable. >> Everyone start spilling your drinks.
Well, I wouldn't actually tell people to do that on purpose, but uh let's move
around to the front and I'll ask them the real hard-hitting questions. As
exciting as a keyboard is, the two categories that probably come up the
most from people are printer and TV.
>> TV. Yes, those are the top two. >> And what can you tell the community
about those categories? >> We ran out of space on this table, so
that's all the products we could build for this year. >> That is Wow. when he gets tired of
running Framework. I'm pretty sure he's going into politics. Would you guys have
any interest in exploring those categories because they seem like ones
where Framework's core values of
repairability and upgradability would be a huge enhancement. I mean, TV
manufacturers bring us a new TV every year that has more ads and less
repairability than the one before with no way to meaningfully reuse any
components of it. That seems right up Framework's alley. And then printers. I
mean, printers, right? You're
right. So, even even the keyboard actually starts from consumer
frustration. Like, we were frustrated. We looked down in the community. We know
people are frustrated by the only keyboard that's available in this
segment. And so, when we think about what products we want to build next, it
actually really does start from consumer frustration. But then we have to filter
it through, can we build that product? Do we have the supplier connections? Do
we have the R&D expertise and actually maybe most importantly the money? Do we
have the funding to be able to turn on the new category? >> I knew that was why he came here today.
>> Okay. I'm sorry to have to ask you,
but >> in happen to have any spare change that
you could share. >> No, but I do have something pretty
exciting on our side that you might like. >> Oh, let's hear it. >> Yeah. I'm going to go get it. I'll be
right back. >> I have no I have no idea what he's
getting. I hope it's a giant pile of cash.
>> He probably went all the way. >> He is gone. >> He went all the way to the other building. So
>> maybe he went to the bank. >> He went to the airport.
>> Oh, he's flying. >> He's flying to sell the jet to fund the
printer. >> Call it inspired by Framework's design
ethos. >> Or maybe call it we were already aligned
in the first place. We're finally ready to start talking about a product that's
very exciting and coming soon at LT Store. And it's going to be
>> This looks cool. >> Our new battery bank. My original goal
was to have it so that you could completely resell it. C E L L.
>> Yeah. >> Once the batteries reached their end of life. There was no battery manufacturer
on Earth who was willing to accept the liability of a design like that. But
we've reached what we think is going to be a good middle ground, and that is
what we're calling battery mags. M. >> So, these are going to allow you once
you reach the end of life for yourselves to keep the control board, keep the
chassis, and just swamp throw in a new
battery pack. But wait, there's more. The best part is, you know, again, very
framework inspired upgradeable firmware. That's good. And reconfigurability. So
that in the event that let's say sodium
ion were to make its way into the 18650 form factor in the future, which has
benefits like being um a little more ecologically friendly, uh more stable
and better at lower temperatures, you'd be able to swap in a new battery
magazine or order it configured with that in the first place and take advantage of those better
characteristics. Or if there are future chemistries, we'd love to be able to
support them. >> This is awesome. The coolest part is
this mechanical interface, which is still kind of under development, but the
goal here is to be able to equip it with different hats.
>> So, what you could do is you could build like a USBA breakout hat or an LED
flashlight hat, an expansion card hat, >> expansion card hat, benchtop power
supply hat, whatever it is you want to build, you'd be able to clip it on and
then use the two USBCs that are there by default and adapt them to whatever you
need. Uh, disassembly is with one screw. Very cool.
>> Hopefully someday soon. And now that I've shown it to him, they can't do a
battery bank before we do. >> Great. Thank you for that.
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If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the original investment video,
which really outlines what I found so inspiring about Framework's mission and
their design ethos and what made me want to put some money in and have some skin
in the game and be a part of their success. And it's uh
>> again, don't take this the wrong way, but it's worked out like way better than I could have possibly expected. Yeah.
Yeah.