Ask Paul: March 8, 2024 (Premium)

Happy Friday! This is my final Ask Paul from Mexico on this trip, and it's chock-full of excellent reader questions across a wide variety of topics. Let's dive in.
Self-service is the future of hardware
thewarragulman asks:

With more and more PC manufacturers such as Lenovo and HP partnering with iFixit to make their devices "repairable", would you ever consider reviewing a Framework laptop in the future, and if so do you think it would be something you'd consider using as a daily driver?

I think about this all the time.

In some ways, the relative success of Framework in the market parallels Terry Myerson's original plans for Windows on Arm: He didn't care if Qualcomm succeeded, the real goal was to finally convince Intel, after years of prodding, to embrace highly efficient mobile hardware and stop pushing only at the high-end of the market. That strategy didn't work, of course, but thanks to Apple moving to Arm and succeeding beyond anyone's wildest dreams, Intel finally got the message. And the Core Ultra chipset, with its Arm-like architecture, is the result. It only took a decade

Getting back on topic, Framework isn't ever going to overtake the big PC makers, of course. But its timing is perfect, coming as it is alongside the regulatory and legal pressure that is forcing these companies to reverse course on the sealed designs of the past and open up their devices not just to repairs by first- and third-parties, but to self-service repairs and upgrades. Framework today is an extreme version of that, but I added a sustainability section to my PC reviews specifically to highlight, when possible, which components in each PC can be easily replaced. And that's gotten better over time.

So, yes, I do think about reviewing or even using a Framework laptop, in particular a 16-inch version. But I'm also in a unique and weird position where I don't often buy truly new laptops because I review so many and there's always something new coming and going. I do buy laptops from time-to-time, but they are usually refurbished or previous-generation models that are deeply discounted (I favor HP, but I just saw that Lenovo is finally starting a refurbished store too), which I use for testing purposes. Anyway, I reached out to Framework but never heard back.

I really like the idea of Framework personally, as I grew up building my own PCs and always wanted a "custom built" laptop, but their prices are a bit too much at the moment especially for those of us not living in the US, so I would love to see other tier-1 OEMs sell barebones or standardized chassis laptops that we can upgrade and repair ourselves.

Yes. I don't know that we'll get to that point exactly, I feel like the Framework model is a little extreme for the top-tier PC makers, especially given that whatever profits they can make come from premium models only, and those rely on high-end designs that don't lend themselves to modular designs. And most customers aren't asking t...