Late last year I purchased a 12th gen framework laptop and honestly it’s been pretty good. My biggest issues with it are really the hinge is not strong at all even with the upgraded one, the keyboard is trash, lack of trackpoint with buttons, and lack of IO. Don’t get me wrong I really like this device but I keep thinking I should switch back to my T480. Has anyone else switched back from a framework?
They’re cool concepts, but I don’t think they’re taking it for me over ThinkPad. They are still better to me and you stated some reasons why. I am attracted to a well-built laptop. It requires a good keyboard, sturdy display assembly hinge, decent I/O, etc. Their 4x TB4 board is cool, but it’s still 4. Even Macbook Pros got better at port selection than Framework IMO. Many of the higher-end ThinkPads destroy Framework on chassis material.
I am endlessly waiting for them to become ThinkPad 2 and they don’t seem to be going that route. Still waiting for them to implement your wants + I want it in a darker tone. Great machines if you can ignore the faults, just not for me (yet?)
I know there is a guy on the Thinkpad subreddit whose working on building a thinkpad keyboard into a framework which might help but i think if someone figures out how to put the fw motherboard into thinkpad chassis that might be the answer
The motherboard replacements are definitely one of the selling points of FW. ThinkPad can do that sometimes on a double-generation basis where you get the same chassis per two years and the second-year mainboard can replace the first-year, but that’s around the limit for them in my experience.