Ep.193 - MacBook Pro Killer: Framework Laptop 13 Pro

**Emanuel-C** (0:05)
Hello, everyone in Podcast Land. Welcome to this week's episode. Today, we're talking about the Framework Pro 13
It's provocative, gets the people going.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:16)
We talk about the Samsung Z Fold 8 line of devices. Finally, the Z Fold line gets a little bit interesting.

**Emanuel-C** (0:23)
And we're talking about OnePlus leaving North America and Europe. So long, OnePlus.
Welcome to We Need to Talk About Tech.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:34)
Where we talk about the past, present and future of technology.

**Emanuel-C** (0:48)
On to topic number one. We're going to start with the Framework Pro 13
Now, why should you care about this device?
For years, it's been an on-going thought in the tech world that no one could really match the premium feel and all-day battery life of MacBooks. It was just an accepted fact. If you wanted something that was seamless, solid, ridiculously well-built machine that just worked, you bought a MacBook. Everything else felt like some sort of compromise. From the Dell XPS line or the Asus Zenbooks, there's always some sort of compromise compared to MacBooks. But in 2021, the Framework Laptop 13 came along. And although it didn't match the premium build quality of Apple, it had a secret weapon that made it a much, much smarter buy in the long run. Now, fast forward five years, and Framework has developed what their CEO, Niraf Patel, is calling the MacBook Pro for Linux users. And this just might be the product to finally dethrone Apple. If you don't know what the Framework Laptop is, it's a modular laptop. You can choose what ports you have on the side. You can swap them in and out and move them around as you see fit. Also, everything is repairable. You can open it up and take apart the laptop with just a screwdriver, which they include in the package and for you. And there are even QR codes inside the device, which give you guides on how to replace each part. Also everything is upgradable. So let's just say you have a Framework Laptop 13, which came out back in 2021 You can swap out the motherboard with one of the new ones they've come out with since then. You can swap out and upgrade the battery too with a new and improved battery they've come out with. Not to mention the storage and memory upgrades that are usually just available or usually just an option on desktop PCs. Now, what's new with this device, this Pro Framework 13?
It has a new CNC aluminum or a new CNC'd aluminum chassis. Their expansion ports are now available with Thunderbolt 4 for the first time, and they come in different colors straight from Framework. The screen also is finally a touchscreen. I think since 2021, people have been asking for a touchscreen laptop from Framework. It's a 28K 13.5-inch screen, their same 3 by 2 aspect ratio, which lends itself more to productivity.
It has a 2880 by 1920 resolution, a variable refresh rate from 30 to 120 hertz. It's 100% of sRGB and has a matte anti-glare surface. The battery is also bigger and better. I believe it's a 74-watt-hour battery and they have newer chips for this model, the Ryzen 3000 series and Intel Core Ultra 3 series chips. Now, along with the upgraded screen and upgraded battery and chips, it has an upgraded price in a way. Now, when they first announced it, I think we talked about this back on Podcast 191 When they first announced it, I believe it started at $1,500 USD, but since then, it's gone up to $1,600 USD. The higher-end models went from 2,100 to 2,900 USD. Now, this is a big step for framework. I think the biggest thing is the build quality, and the touch screen.
It doesn't have necessarily the best benchmark performance when you compare it to a MacBook. A lot of things that it has, Marques Brownlee, MKBHD, he kept on saying it was 80% to 90% of what a MacBook can do, which is a pretty large percentage of what it can do. But the framework's secret weapon, what makes it infinitely better than what a MacBook is or could be, is the fact that it's repairable by you and upgradable by you. If your MacBook, if something breaks on your MacBook, you can't easily open it up, find out what's wrong, source the part, replace it yourself. You have to bring it to a genius bar and pay $1,000 for them to replace your mousepad.
With the framework, if anything breaks from one of the ports on the side stops working, from your trackpad, to if you need to replace your screen, you could get the part from Framework, upgrade it yourself, and they will give you a guide on their website on how to fix it yourself. So, I think the biggest downfall, this is kind of just not even their fault, this is just how the tech industry is right now, is the price of it. It is very expensive, it is a very pricey or costly device, but along with the secret weapon that they have, this is upgradable. You could buy the bare minimum version of this, and hopefully within a year, maybe two years, let's say, if prices of components goes down, RAM prices go down, storage prices go down, you could buy upgrades for this and upgrade it yourself. If you buy a MacBook or if you buy a laptop from anyone else for that matter, whatever you buy today, it's going to be the same a year from now. It's going to be the same two years from now. When prices of components eventually come down, you will not be able to upgrade your laptop. But with Framework, at some point in the future, you will be able to upgrade it all by yourself without having, I mean, just the fact that you can upgrade it, not to mention just by yourself, but you can upgrade it. And in a year, two years, when they come out with a new motherboard, with faster CPU-GPU combos on them, you could buy that and put it in this Framework 13 Pro, which I know for a long time we've been talking about Framework. We've been fans of Framework. So I'm excited that they are coming into this more, I guess, premium landscape.