i spent nearly a quarter million dollars investing in framework a laptop company
with a mission to change the game by providing full user upgradability and
serviceability in the name of right to repair and environmentalism and i
promised them and you that my role as an investor in their company would be to
keep an eye on things even going so far as to publicly call them out and dump
them if they dared betray my trust no matter how much it ended up costing me
well guess what it's been a year and a lot has changed so how is framework
holding up has it been smooth sailing or are they on stormy seas
like a pirate looking for a segway to his sponsor
ridge ridge wallet has redefined the traditional wallet with its compact
frame and rfid blocking plates the bulge in your pants shouldn't be from your
wallet use offer code Linus to save 10 and get free worldwide shipping
australians huh let's start with the good since we last
covered them framework has populated their store with replacement parts for
pretty much every component of their laptop including
drop-in replacement motherboards with 12th gen Intel cpus
to see how easy this migration process is then i will be upgrading my framework
to a new motherboard but of course we aren't going to be tossing this
perfectly good 11th gen motherboard that would be a waste
we're going to use it to
to make a whole other mini pc
using components from frameworks marketplace
i'm going to start by pulling out my SSD wireless card
sewed in memory modules and i guess that's it i start pulling out
the board uh unplug the battery unplug the battery you say
no that doesn't really seem like a good idea boop
let's just start ripping it open right
i actually stopped using my framework laptop for a little while and the short
version of the story is that we were going to do a video where we spilled coke right across the keyboard of like
five different laptops including my daily driver and then went through
the process of repairing all of them to compare parts and service manual
availability and costs and then we didn't get around to it so my personal
machine this one has actually been sitting on the pending project shelf for
like three months and just because i'm invested in framework doesn't mean i
don't still love test driving other devices i've been playing around with the new ryzen 6000 version of the flow
x13 from ASUS and it is mostly pretty amazing
is that really all there was to it we've got the board out already
uh which one's which they can make it
repairable but they can't make it idiot proof it shouldn't surprise me because i've
already built one of these things but this is shockingly painless i think if you were experienced like if you were
upgrading a whole fleet of these things you could probably perform this operation in like
five minutes as with any startup framework has not been perfect according
to the community the most common issues with their 11th gen model where'd it go
here it is our battery drain during sleep failing
track pads and a weak hinge for the screen
now that last one can be easily addressed with frameworks hinge upgrade
that now ships with all new laptops and
hello ah there it is we also got one to upgrade my old
machine as for the track pads once again
those can easily be repaired by the user so you don't need to send your laptop
away and be completely computerless just to get a replacement trackpad however
while you can just fix it yourself isn't an excuse for bad quality
assurance because that wastes both time and money for framework and for you also
the more parts that fail the more e-waste gets created which is against
their goal framework acknowledges this on their blog though and says that they are
focused on ironing out the kinks by the way we have finally ironed out the kinks
on the LTT screwdriver make sure to sign up for an in-stock notification because
it's coming real soon as for the battery drain well
that one is a bit more complicated an ultra portable laptop isn't really ultra
portable if you need to have a charger with you all the time and other publications have seen similarly spec
and sized options from dell and acer getting anywhere from 50 to 100 more
battery life per charge the problem seems to be due to the expansion cards
and while framework has issued some beta BIOS updates hoping to remedy the issue
it remains not completely resolved as of filming
exacerbating the problem on Linux Intel doesn't have proper support for their
deepest s3 sleep state on the penguin flavored operating system putting an
ugly stain on framework's otherwise excellent support record with the open
source community an AMD variant might be a way around this but in spite of me
making introductions nearly a year ago i haven't received any update from either
side so consider this a public call out AMD and framework if you guys want to be
seen as companies that care about consumer choice you've got to walk the walk get your collective acts together
so that we can have ryzen in our frameworks please like seriously don't
you want to be part of this AMD compared to my early unit not only has
the hinge been upgraded but there's also a reinforced back panel so i'll be
upgrading mine as we go here
and this is really cool because even framework benefits from their own
modularity they don't actually have to re-engineer a whole laptop chassis to
improve their build quality they can just swap the parts that they send to
the assembly line and make these kinds of upgrades on the fly
do they really need a stronger back panel i guess there were other benefits
as well though i've never actually had the back panel part so this is kind of cool
i wonder how hard this is to do i am extremely frustrated that i do not
know where these screws came from this is really really bothering me a lot
here's a spot where one of these screws is there's some here
okay so it's definitely a framework screw but i have
absolutely no idea where it came from
do you want a part straight um that seems unnecessary doesn't it i'll
just remember these are all screen screws i will need my old camera module
then whoa what just happened
this ribbon cable stays there we go
like that sure
uh shoot how was this in here
oh i would strongly recommend paying
attention to how it was assembled i genuinely cannot figure out how to get
this ribbon cable in here hold on ah yes there we go
i can put the new hinges on this as well great okay i
guess part of that is going to be removing the old hinges
uh no no the display yeah the display cables here so that can come out also oh
darn it i cable managed in the wi-fi antennas and
they need to come off now be really careful with these super fragile little
connectors you can rip them off the board of the wi-fi module and
then good luck repairing that if we just kind of go like this
was this really so bad is the new one better
wow that that's pretty stiff this boy goes here
i didn't keep track of screws again
that seems right
oh crap i forgot about the wi-fi things
i would say that the back panel upgrade is a little finickier than the
motherboard upgrade for the benefit that i'm getting which is an increase in
stiffness and more recycled aluminum
remember how i said i definitely don't need a parts tray
where are all the screws
okay hold on hold on display cable here we go
right no wait what is this what the hell is this cable oh no which
ones are the screws for the display now whatever it is i need four of them
i hope that a third-party accessory ecosystem can develop further
dbrand shout out by the way does offer their protective skins and there are
generic carry cases that fit the framework pretty well
but what owners really want is more
variety in the modules there is a small
community of people creating custom designs thanks to frameworks open documentation but their official lineup
kinda lacking no full sd card reader no powered
amplifier not even a dual USB-C card and
worst of all no Ethernet port oh
actually they're making one wait oh do we have one oh shut up
wait what all is in here
sometimes it's good to be a backer an idea diary thanks framework
this was definitely good use of time this on the other hand
was good use of time oh wow
how is this going to work one moment please
you want me to use the orange bezel it really does look like a toy i'm sorry
framework i'm not into the orange bezel but i'm i'm sure someone is
that one's good that one's good ah yes my bezel's now on there's the new
hinge right right i should put the keyboard back on
how many extra screws do i have good god that's a lot
these are all from that so i'm sure it's fine they're not framework laptop might
have a percussive rattle
oh no what did i do the keyboard is not installed yet
that should fix that let's get this battery
connected for such a simple operation this has been very scattered
i'm sorry that goes in there
oh yes assembled
no longer recovery did i set a bit locker on this damn thing come on
so bitlocker is going to ask you for your key which is on your old motherboard so we need to set this up
right now this though is a perfect opportunity to talk
about what i'm going to be doing with my old framework motherboard
this right here is a 3d printed case for
the framework motherboard that they provide the schematics for there are
also community designed ones so that you can take
your old system and turn it into a slim
desktop i would say that threading a tiny little laptop screw into 3d printed
plastic ah not the best
i mean it's working to its credit like
motherboard is not coming out here we go um
yes how do you access the power switch
i don't know um chopstick give me that uh give me that HDMI i want that HDMI
okay hey Wi-Fi majigs
maybe i'll use this for the temporary setup for the lan center at
home we haven't got the pcs for the rack yet so i've just got some laptops and
stuff in there but i could totally see myself just using one of these for the
time being i'm gonna do a little tour of it as an exclusive behind the scenes for
Floatplane by the way it's not worth a full video but you can go see it over on Floatplane.com if you subscribe this is
a 2070 and i like this one because it's super compact this is actually the one
that i used to use for travel
oh maybe there's like a chassis intrusion
thing that you have to disable yeah this continues to not
wait did it need a BIOS update to support this mode
shoot i just spit on it damn it it looks like
i'm running an older version of the 11th gen motherboard firmware that doesn't
allow it to boot without a battery installed
so our devious plan is to
jankily connect the battery from the framework laptop here that is fully
assembled i mean at this point you know what it might actually be easier to just
pull the battery out of the chassis because it's like three screws
come on baby you can okay there's just a little bit of
lip there yeah oh there we go and then they have a chassis intrusion detection
thing here and then maybe the switch will work
look at that let's take things one step further and
maybe grab the built-in display cable
i am going to power it down what it's on oh gosh sorry there's so
much glare on the screen from that light i couldn't see that
so i needed to not hold down that thing then
that might have been it's uh all right the hinged that might have
been the hinge detection sure wait
wait shut up this is two and a half gig
no way yup
it's two and a half gig land okay do you have any idea where to get the firmware
or did you just not prepare for this video i had no idea that there would be
more firmware to get so i need to go get my bitlocker
recovery key before i update my BIOS and before i put my drive into the new
motherboard here we go starting our firmware update we rebooted
and we're back to the red lights flashing when i hold this thing it goes
green and blue over here which is interesting the problem is that it
specifically says hey don't like power off your computer or anything because
i'm flashing the firmware so i have no idea how long to leave this thing like
this how many blinks though
oh boy this is a big list the code will blink white then 12 blinks that are red
or green than orange this is not what we've been seeing
i mean it can't have taken that long to update the firmware so i'm going for it
before we go for anything let me read and it's off oh
zone it fired up without me holding down the thing this time which might indicate
that we have the new firmware on it sure well i don't know oh oh whoa hey okay
okay it's doing the update all right good success
i still don't know how the crap you're supposed to power it on are you really supposed to just like take off the cover
and freaking like press this button is that circle thing the power button like
does it have a little rod sticking out of it nope nope not even a little
oh wait it totally does
nice david this is freaking awesome and because
it's a framework and they've got all their modules things that you might not
have needed when you were using it as a mobile device like say a full-size
displayport connection can be added once you're using it as a desktop
now that we've got everything resolved with the old board then we can go ahead
and get the new one fired up i wouldn't actually recommend this for a
thin and light notebook not because the performance isn't great but because it
doesn't exactly sip power but i just want to get the thing fired up and i
haven't gotten around to transferring the other SSD back over here yet closes
up like that held in place by magnets this is actually
legitimately super cool yes the main board upgrade was pretty
expensive it was over a thousand dollars but it's also a 1280p core i7 that's a
freaking expensive CPU and of course it has all of the other components on it as
well if i were to buy a full-on brand new laptop with that level of hardware
i'd be spending a lot more than that
and i wouldn't have been able to repurpose my old laptop like this
obviously i could sell it but this is
way more flexible i'm able to just buy
only the things i need to bring my machine up to date and reuse everything
that i already have touchpad keyboard screen webcam
my modules subject of modules i'm actually going to
swap out this HDMI module for a displayport module right now
oh wait no that's not actually what i want to do i'm dumb what i want to do is
plug displayport into this hey hey look at that obviously not many
people have these external Thunderbolt GPU enclosures but i said way back when
they came out over the long term yeah they're expensive but they might not actually be
a completely stupid investment this is cool is this not cool pretty
it's pretty damn cool we got a little sidetracked having fun
with the desktop build but let's put the product aside and talk about what framework has done to improve their
efforts around environmentalism and right to repair
first up they've launched an option to pay a hundred dollars to make your order
carbon neutral through donations to carbon sequestration efforts
i'm not entirely convinced that buying carbon credits is a true path towards
the greener future but they also continue to find ways to
introduce more post-consumer materials in the construction of their laptops
their new backplate for example is made of 75 recycled aluminum while also being
stronger compared to 50 from the old one that's the kind of
effort that you only make if you actually care so thanks guys there's
still room to do better so why don't we call this
progress as for right to repair well it's one
thing to offer replacement components but it's quite another to allow end
users and independent repair shops to repair the components themselves
friend of the channel and right to repair advocate lewis rossman has spoken
at length about the importance of making schematics available and thanks to his
advocacy and others schematics are available to repair shops fully
available which no company has ever done for lewis's repair shop most companies
avoid providing schematics to maintain an influence over their products by
making deeper repairs too difficult to be economically viable this behavior is
present across all major pc manufacturers and getting those chip
giants to change would take a massive legislative action that is well beyond
frameworks capabilities at this point in time so i guess we'll call this one a
work in progress as well what is the future of the company
well in february they secured 18 million in series a funding led by a company
called spark capital and framework is using the funds for development of
upcoming product categories and the long roadmap of new modules and geographic
expansion for the framework laptop so given that i don't know anything other
than what that says there i would say i guess we'll see what's next all i know
for now is that i'm still happy with what framework's doing and i'm pretty
happy with my upgrade here we started with a pedestrian quad-core CPU and
upgraded all the way to a 14 core in the
same chassis i don't think that's ever happened in a mobile device like this
unlike apple who believe it or not intentionally even though they changed
almost nothing about the main board design or the chassis prevents
motherboard swaps between their nearly identical m1 and m2 laptop shelves
framework on the other hand allowed me to spend hundreds of dollars less than
what a brand new top spec machine would have cost with all of their newer more
robust components and i still have these
leftovers at the end that i can turn into a 3d printed mini pc running an
11th gen CPU it's a pretty sick little
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thanks for watching if you want to learn more about why i invested in framework
check out that video because a lot of your questions will be answered there
rather than here this is just about the product you already had your hand down yep